The Code for Love and Heartbreak is an adorable coming of age YA romance. This book took a bit for me to get into, the characters were childish and the motivations were unclear to me, but the story had such a fulfilling ending that I can't not recommend this. If you love awkward characters, you're going to devour this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of The Code for Love and Heartbreak. This was a well-done story and I'm thankful for the opportunity.

DNF at 35%. I did enjoy the beginning but around 20% I found myself very bored, the story was just lacking. The characters were okay, I didn't find Emma overly likeable. I do think there could've been potential with the potential love triangle however I found Emma very young and immature. Her lack of experience made her present as boring and childish. It just wasn't compelling enough for me. Writing wasn't bad, but too many unnecessary details. I wanted more from this book. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free preview in exchange for an honest review.

When I first read the synopsis for The Code for Love and Heartbreak I was instantly hooked. It sounded like an adorable Contemporary Romance and the fact that the main characters were coders was such a fun new spin that it made me excited to jump right in!

Unfortunately, the characters and the pacing of the story fell a little flat for me. We follow the main character Emma, as she navigates her last year of high school. Emma is co-president of the coding club with her sisters boyfriend's brother, George. They have been friends for a while and seem to have an easy going chemistry... but when Emma proposes the creation of an app that matches people in their school for the Regional coding competition, George is one of the first to speak up against her idea.

That rift between them continues throughout the story as her app is inevitably created (it's in the synopsis) and we watch the results unfurl.

Emma is portrayed as a smart girl with her sights set on being Valedictorian of their class and attending Stanford... but to read about her was unenjoyable for me. I will acknowledge that I truthfully don't know anything about Jane Austen's - Emma, so maybe this character is much like Austen's... but this Emma reads as an unbelievably selfish person with an unrealistic inability to read any kind of social cues. As someone who suffers and (suffered in my high school days) from social anxiety it just felt too far.

I wished that the romance was picked up sooner than it was and I was looking for more in depth (and just more in general) character growth and deeper interaction that wasn't superficial between the characters.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Code for Love and Heartbreak is an Emma retelling, so of course, as with anything Austen, I was both excited and enjoyed the excited, while also a bit apprehensive, especially as Emma is my least favorite Austen story, and most reinterpretations haven’t changed that for me.

However, upon reading, I found the book owed more to common contemporary rom-com tropes than the classic tale, with some of the connections feeling tangential at best, in a way some of the modern reinterpretations I’ve read aren’t. Perhaps other stories like P&P are easier to interpret in a distinct way, or I just feel like the “dating app” premise has been done in much more enjoyable books.

Emma as a heroine isn’t horrible, but I do feel making her an awkward tech geek is an odd choice for a character who is known in many incarnations for being a snob. There was an attempt to show she doesn’t understand others’ feelings, but unlike in books that lean more heavily into autism rep with a similar concept, such as the ownvoices The Kiss Quotient, I felt it didn’t work.

And for a book about finding your match, I felt no chemistry between anyone, even longtime friends Emma and George. All the tension of their interactions that is so memorable from the original is stripped away; and while I didn’t expect Cantor to compete with that, I at least wanted to see that they, or any of the other pairings worked, and weren’t just being forced together because they were supposed to be.

So, this book generally lacks the magic I expected. However, I do also admit that my issues are entirely subjective. If this book interests you at all, give it a try for yourself to see if it works for you.

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s the most important thing to make you fall in love.”

— overall thoughts: 3.5 —

this was literally so sweet and overall a wholesome read. there was more that i wished could have happened plot wise but it was nice being in the company of characters in the story even though i had a hard time connecting with them on an emotional level.

the app that they produced was actually the most interesting aspect to me especially since it was lgbtq+ friendly and a well executed part of the plot that i loved. which was important to me since the idea of being able to calculate feelings and emotions was what intrigued the most when i first found out about this book. the way that aspect was explored made it automatically a must read to me. it also just makes me wonder what it would be like if it were more in the sci-fi genre.

i havent read Emma by jane austen and i do plan on reading it so i didn't want to search up what the similarities and differences are between the two as this is a retelling. previous readers said that they wished that this wasn't a retelling because of they automatically kept comparing it so perhaps just take that into account.

the characters are quirky and this is another example of contemporary with a female character that does not get on my nerves, which i highly appreciated.

aside from the romance it had friendship elements that i might have enjoyed a little better than the romantic relationship. i also just no longer have the same tolerance for miscommunication problems in ya romance contemporary as i did before when i found it a lot more relatable. it does follows the typical formula of most contemporary romances where they start off not wanting a relationship then they get together then there’s some sort of misunderstanding between them but they still end up getting together in the end. this was what made the outcome predictable for me.

this review was a little more negative than i intended it to be but it was actually still enjoyable and a more unique compared to most contemporary plots. i would still definitely recommend it if you are looking for a light, sweet, and a refresher kind of read.

Emma is in her senior year of high school and she adores maths. She says it is reliable and perfect and people aren't.

When her sister Izzy goes off to university in California, she doesn't know how she will move on as she misses her a lot.

School has its own challenges for Emma and before she knows it she is working with George on a project. But its not just any project, a dating app they design to study the dating habits of their classmates.

The book is typical YA: dating, school and I think it is a more intelligent version of Clueless. There are dances and school events and I did get into the atmosphere. There is good attention to detail especially with the characters' feelings, clothing (particularly at the dance) and life experiences.

Hannah seemed fun and George is brainy but sweet and attentive.

Yes, Emma and George have a dating app, but will they fall too hard for each other?

I chose this for the high school/ romance/ trope and not for maths as I was terrible at it and know next to nothing about programming.

I did think Emma, George and friends ate too much pizza though but enjoyed the novel and writing style. It was realistic and had a good pace.

I have not read Emma by Jane Austen and some say this is a retelling. I cannot comment but will compare it when I get a copy of Emma.

Overall, Jillian Cantor has created a compelling YA novel. Thanks to Jillian Cantor and Inkyard Press for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

4 stars

A fairly middle of the road YA contemp retelling of Jane Austen's Emma, neither mangling the story nor adding any particularly exciting spin. This version of the story's narrator orbited a bit of that Temperance Brennan-esque autism spectrum/socially awkward line, but her character was overall cohesive and this change did add some in-book context to certain aspects of the plot. The romance with George was cute, and her friendship with Jane and relationship with sister Izzy were both nicely evolved. However, I did feel that this adaptation lacked some of the zing of both the original and other adaptations - I was carried along for the ride but didn't feel much investment in the plot/characters, and moments of tension or resolution didn't quite land for me. Decent appeal for general YA romance readers, but I'm not sure I would recommend for fans looking for updated versions of Austen's stories.

Cute modern YA take on Austen’s Emma. The novel centers around high schooler, Emma, who is co-president of her high school’s coding club. With Emma leading, the club creates a dating app that helps her classmates find their perfect match. High school drama ensues and emotions are high. Great novel if you’re looking for a quick light read!

<em>"You could always code yourself a boyfriend."</em>

I love retellings and in the past I've read a wide variety of them. Usually, when Jane Austen's name comes up, you're looking at a <em>Pride and Prejudice </em>retelling. In the case of Jillian Cantor's <em>The Code for Love and Heartbreak</em> is a modern look at Austen's <em>Emma</em>, the story in which a young matchmaker gets herself in way over her head and proves, in the end, that she really doesn't know all that much about how love works anyway. If you know how <em>Emma</em> goes, you can basically guess pretty much everything about Cantor's novel.

<b>A Hot Take</b>

Okay, so Emma Woodhouse is a socially awkward programmer who has sort of used her elder sister as a safe base over the years. Now, with Izzy going away to college, Emma will have to navigate Senior year of high school on her own. When the idea to use her love of numbers--after all, numbers make sense and people don't--to calculate one's statistically perfect match, Emma sees it as the perfect project for her coding club. But as with any high school rom-com, some drama is about to unfold.

Now, as a fan of the 1995 <em>Emma</em> retelling <em>Clueless</em>, I was pretty excited for an even more modernized version of the story. And, by all accounts, Cantor gives us exactly what we'd expect from a novel like this. Yet, I found myself thoroughly disappointed in it all. In a way, I think it really came down to chemistry. As I said before, if you know <em>Emma</em> you pretty much know this story. And from what I can tell, this really hurt the book as a whole.

<b>Cannon Characters</b>

Yeah, they're basically all here. With the exception of a few odd name changes, everyone is set up to be who they are right off the bat. And, with the exception of Hannah (Harriet) and Robert, most of the stories end the same way. I found it incredibly odd that Cantor disliked the name Frank so much that she kept it but had the character go by the nickname "Sam." Regardless, the characters all match up and so do their arcs.

The problem with this, though, is that none of the characters really have the chemistry they are meant to. It's possible that this is an issue with the writing itself, but it's also partially due to the fact that we spend the majority of our time inside Emma's head and she doesn't see anything going on. Thus, as readers, we are cast out from being able to experience all these important moments with the other characters.

<b>The Couple That Should Have Been</b>

Honestly, I don't really buy most of the pairings that Cantor gives us. For one, there's a serious lack of connection shown between almost all of them. And the connections that we are shown point to an entirely different relationship. This would have been fine, I think, had I felt this way about the minor characters' relationships. I don't really expect to understand on an intimate level how those characters grow to care for each other.

But when it's the <em>main</em> character and her love interest that feels the <em>most</em> unbelievable? That's a problem.

I didn't care about Robert's relationship, or Harriet's, or any of the other side characters. I didn't even care about Sam. And where I think Cantor went horribly wrong with her novel is that Emma and Jane had more chemistry than literally <em>anyone</em> else in the entire book. They spent the most time together, had the best conversations, and just really clicked. Emma's actual love interest hardly got any significant face time in comparison. And the book hurts for this.

So, not only did Cantor miss a <em>brilliant</em> opportunity for a well-written Sapphic novel, but her main pairing was just incredibly lackluster as a result. In my opinion, Emma should have ended up with Jane. The story would have been infinitely better for it.

<b>Speaking of Emma</b>

Am I the only one who thinks Emma was absolutely awful for a good portion of the novel? I found her rather difficult to connect with largely due to the fact that she regularly let her anger get the better of her. On more occasions than was necessary, Emma often assumed how others around her were feeling, despite regularly admitting to not understanding people in general. She would get so stuck in her own paranoid thoughts and sabotage a plethora of opportunities.

There were so many instances in which Emma was just <em>irritating</em>.

<b>Surface Level</b>

I leave this book feeling as though Cantor really struggled to include any <em>real</em> depth in her novel. Everything is kind of glossed over and rushed through. Emma never really grows, important connections aren't properly built, and serious topics are often brushed off. The entire story felt shallow, missing moments for insightful growth. I just feel very underwhelmed by the book as a whole.

I won't say that it's <em>terrible</em> because it's not. But this book is very surface level in terms of development and insight. If you're looking for that, you won't find it here. At the end of the day, this is literally just a lackluster retelling of <em>Emma</em>.

<em>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</em>

This review will be live on the Reader Fox blog on October 6, 2020.

Ahwwwww, a cute nerdy girl who is socially awkward and trying to get through her senior year without her big (extravagant) sister. Emma doesn't understand people, she only understands numbers. Because those are reliable and you can depend on them. As the president of the Coding Club, she wants to do a big project to win in the state championship. So, she comes up with the idea of a matchmaking app to pair up boys and girls for senior prom. Although her best friend and co-president George is against the idea, she convinces the other members of their club to go for it.
At first, their app seems to be a succes: more and more couples are the result of their app. But what happens when couples are starting to break up? And when people hook up with others, which aren't supposed to be a match? Emma's code is flawless, so how could this be?
But maybe, just maybe, the code for love can't be programmed??? Sweet, cute and funny. Absolutely lovely. Five out of five stars from me and a special thank you to Netgalley for providing the arc.

I love modern takes on classics, especially if they put a new spin on a familiar story. The Code for Love and Heartbreak was such a fun retelling of Emma. While there wasn't a lot of tension driving the plot, I enjoyed most of the characters and their relationships with each other, and wanted to see how the ending played out. Overall, this was a light-hearted and charming interpretation.

There are always Emma’s in your life. Quiet and content. But when Emma and her co-president of the coding club are tasked with leading a project to create a dating app at their high school content is not going to work anymore. As George and Emma put their brains into the app she realizes there is more there then friendship....but does the app they created validate that? Logically it would have to as they have both have enough brains for some top tiered schools in the country. Follow Emma’s journey from content to commanding in the cutest love story you will read this fall!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This modern reimagined version of Jane Austen’s Emma drew my attention for several reasons: 1) cute cover, 2) cool premise, and 3) reputation of author. It’s not my usual genre, but I requested because I thought it would be fun to branch out with this read.

The strengths of this book: some cool modern situations, some consistencies with Emma, easy/light reading.

Weaknesses: Unlikeable characters, cliche “I like math and I’m not like other girls” cringe from the MC. I like numbers because they’re LOGIC cringe. So overdone.

Romance was foreseeable if you know about Emma storyline. That was fine and well done. I like the mishaps and how they were made more modern to fit the story.

2.5 / 3 stars for liked but didn’t love

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read and review Jillian Cantor's new novel, The Code for Love and Heartbreak set to release on October 6th!

This book has been advertised as a modern re-telling of Jane Austen's Emma, which I have never read and know nothing about. But if it's similar to what this book presented, then well, sign me up!

This book was actually adorable and I loved every second of it! Even if our main character, you guessed it, Emma, was a little ignorant for 75% of the book.Emma and George were really enjoyable characters. I also enjoyed their group of friends from Coding Club and thought they all had great personalities, and played an important part, even as side characters, in the development and plot of the novel. Emma's sister Izzy was a little obnoxious though and was probably the only character I really didn't care for.

It was fun seeing Emma grow as a person in this book and learning about how their app worked (I can't code to save my life). I just wish she would open her eyes to her feelings a little sooner and stop being so oblivious and focused on science. It got annoying after a while, especially since she kept repeating that numbers don't lie and are the only thing you can rely on. We get it Emma, you're a nerd who loves science and doesn't want to believe in emotion.

I found the main character, Emma Woodhouse, to be supremely unlikeable. Not because she is actively rude or antagonist toward anyone, she's just inconsiderate to the point of selfishness and it made me not really want to send time with her. I understand that this is a sort aloofness id a must when doing an Emma retelling or reimagining, but we just did not connect. While the characters were a disappointment, if I enjoyed the romance, I fell like I still could have liked the story overall - but unfortunately for me, the romance was a miss too. The Code for Love and Heartbreak had potential, but it didn't live up to my expectations.

I think retelling can be tricky, especially a retelling of one of my favorite books Emma by Jane Austen.

Jillian Cantor did not disapoint!

I love love love this book. It's a wonderful and refreshing take on the classic, much like Clueless was for some of us (ahem) older folks. ;)

Emma is in coding club and comes up with the idea to code a dating app. Even though her co-president George (Knightly) doesn't like the idea. I love how smart Emma is, how she is good at math and has a strong personality. Sure she might take things a step too far, but at the same time she is very passionate about the app and how math and she may be able to help her classmates.

Of course you're going to George, because it's George Knightly! I like how George is not swayed by Emma's stubborness. Their friendship is really easy and while it's obvious that there might be more (ahem) it's fun to see the realization Emma has once she gets on the same page.

And Jane! I'm not going to lie but Jane was the real standout to me. In the original Emma, Jane is a secondary character, mostly spoken about and not necessarily in the action. She is a foil, mostly to bring out the flaws of Frank Churchill. She is seen as almost perfect, shy and accomplished and everyone talks about Jane Jane Jane. I love it that we get a real Jane Fairfax in this book. She doesn't get along with Emma at first and has her own ideas. I love how their friendship really grows into something real and how she becomes more detailed.

Hannah is cool and all, but my friendship money is on Jane and Emma. I think they're the real friends who will stand the test of time (aka college).

I also really liked the coding element. My husband is a coder so I understood some of the things they were talking about which was super helpful to me for believability.

And while this is a delightful retelling of one of my favorite books, I want to be clear that you don't have to have read <em>Emma</em> to enjoy this! It's easy to read with drama and heart all on its own. And if you have read <em>Emma</em>, or seen the films such as Emma or Clueless, you will still enjoy this updated twist on the classic.

I HEART EMMA AND GEORGE!

This book focuses on Emma’s senior year and what she’s looking forward to most, which is winning the team coding competition at the state level. To do that she comes up with a sort of love match app that calculates compatibility based on data, formulas, and code. She has to work hard to convince her team that it’s a winner. That an equation and some code is all it takes to find someone a love match. Along the way she uses the app to set people up, and she finds that maybe love isn’t actually quantifiable.

This book was so cute and light. I actually didnt know who the girl would end up with, which was very refreshing! If you're looking for a light, cute read, this is it!

What if math could help you better quantify your love?

As a project for their coding club, the young protagonists in our novel decide to try and write the code for love as a way to win the annual coding competition. Our young heroine Emma is much more interested in the math and technology of this project than she is in romance. After her sister leaves for college (2,764 miles away), Emma takes an offhanded comment and turns it into a coding project. Inspired by Jane Austen's Emma, our Emma soon finds out that matching people together is a lot messier than the perfect elegance of an equation.

As someone who met their spouse (and the love of their life) on a dating website, with an app, this is a concept I am intimately familiar with. I found this novel to be absolutely charming. Lighthearted, but also with an unexpected gravitas; it was wonderful to see Emma start to better understand who she is and what she desires. To see how her exploration of love leads her not only to romance, but also to new friendships and a better understanding of herself and what makes her happy. The voice of the narrator was easy to like, and I appreciated how easy this was to read. I liked getting to know Emma, liked hearing her thoughts and reading through the plot as she figured things out. And while I don't necessarily think that any of the plot elements are surprising (especially not to anyone familiar with the source inspiration), again, the story was just told with so much heart. Plus, who doesn't love a happy ending? 3.5/5 stars (rounded up for the sake of the review).

The Code for Love and Heartbreak is a sweet retelling of Emma set in contemporary New Jersey with Emma cast as a high school senior with abandonment issues who hates being social and who is losing her big sister Izzy to UCLA. She loves coding and math and numbers because they don’t like or behave unpredictably. She does not have high hopes for her senior year, even though she is co-president of Coding Club.

Since this is a Jane Austen adaptation, I feel obligated to mention that all of the characters have basically their names from the book except for Harriet, who becomes Hannah, and Frank Churchill, whose name hasn’t changed but who goes by Sam. They are brought together by Coding Club, where they working on a coding competition. For their competition, Emma convinces the group to write a dating/matching app, though the more socially savvy folks she knows have their doubts.

Once she starts matching people up, the math doesn’t work out the way she thinks it ought to, but she pushes on, even though the things people say made them fall in love all seem to be quantifiable. When some older guys take advantage of her app to try to scam on underclass girls, recalling the unfortunate scene with Mr. Elton in the original, Emma thinks it’s time to throw in the towel, only the competition application has been submitted so she’s stuck. Fortunately, she has other club members to rely on, like her co-president, George Knightley.

Things with George are on a tremendously slow burn, even though it’s clear to the reader that she’s going to fall for him, and that he’s got some kind of feelings for her. His drawn out relationship with someone else that Emma’s app matched him with adds more tension than Austen did, I feel, because it gives everyone more reason to think that there is a true attachment between those two characters, rather than wishful (or fearful) thinking. The character he was in this relationship with gets kind of a non-ending, but she was never as interesting as Austen’s version of her anyway.

One of the things I liked a great deal were that Emma’s dream of going to Stanford is constantly met with adults and other authority figures warning her that the odds are really against her getting in. And then she doesn’t get in. I’m so glad she didn’t. It seems much more realistic to me that someone with her resume would not be selected, plus entirely too many YA books have students getting into Ivy League schools.

More than that, though it was really great that in this telling Emma and Jane find things in common with one another and become friends rather than remaining aloof and envious rivals throughout the book. I really liked that they were never pitted against each other for a man’s affection or social status/approval.

As a general note, there was some casual LGBT representation (Robert Martin, rather than being a farmer, was gay) but not in any main characters, and there were no people of color from what I can tell. Even so, this was a sweet book that honestly felt more like an update of Clueless than Jane Austen, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

The Code for Love and Heartbreak is a new YA contemporary romance and Emma retelling with a friends to lovers trope. I personally have never read Emma before (hides in shame) but I adored this book and devoured it in one sitting. I wonder if I would have loved it even more if I had read the classic it is a retelling of.

Emma is not good when it comes to boys, feelings or people in general. Her obliviousness at how those around her are feeling at times made me uncomfortable for her. This at times made her come off cold and mean but since we are reading this through her POV we know that not actually the case. She has plenty of feelings she just doesn't know how to express them. I think one of the reason I really liked her character was that she was so flawed but not in a way that made me dislike her. Bonus she loves mushroom olive pizza and that's a fantastic pizza combo, I'll fight anyone who says otherwise lol

Next up character wise we have George who is pretty much her only and best friend and the opposite of her when it comes to people. They are both total nerds and proud, but he's much better at interacting with their classmates. George was absolutely precious and I couldn't help but sigh every time he tried to show Emma how he felt and OMG his big declaration at the end made my nerd loving heart exploded !

The main plot of the story is Emma and the Coding Club writing and perfecting the code for a matchmaking app for their high school. At first, I thought this might not be enough to carry the story along but it definitely was. Emma's person growth was at times awkward but entertaining. Plus with all the other members of the Code Club, who in my opinion stood as strong characters themselves, I was invested in how their individual character arcs were going to turn out.

Overall, I loved every moment of The Code for Love and Heartbreak and look forward to reading more books by Jillian Cantor in the future. When I went to write my review I was set on 4⭐ but now that I've written it and thought about how much I enjoyed this one, so I'm moving it up to 5 ⭐💣