
Member Reviews

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me this extended preview - It just made me more excited to read the full novel. Amazing stuff.

I received an extended preview of this book (the first 4 chapters). This book hooked me from the very beginning. It’s so easy to fall in love with the main female character. The male character is very intriguing from the short introduction that I received. I can’t wait to see how their relationship develops. A must read on my list.

This was the extended preview for this book. I can’t wait to read the full version, especially after so many great reviews!

This is a light & fluffy romance that emphasizes women's strength, together and individually. I loved that aspect of this book, along with the adorable romance of course! I read this super quickly (flew through it in one day), so I'd definitely recommend it for beach days or lounging by the pool. It's quick, witty, charming and all the good stuff you'd want out of a poolside novel, but without the cliche. The character development and representation in this book is top notch, and I would love to read more from this author.

I got to read the extended preview for this book and now I am HOOKED!!! I can’t wait to read the full book, and I absolutely love Samiah. She is strong and smart and so amazing and I love how she deals with her two timing (three timing?) boyfriend. However, the video that results is a bit much....

The Boyfriend Project is a fun, upbeat, modern read about Samiah, who finds out she and two other women have been "catfished" by a guy they met through an online dating app. The three women, though, hit it off, and become good friends who make this pact that they are each going to focus on themselves and their goals and swear off men for at least 6 months. This is of course when Daniel shows up as the new guy at Samiah's work, all tall, dark, smart and handsome. They have major chemistry, but both have their reasons for keeping each other at arm's length.
I really enjoyed this book, if not for the romance (which was good), for the friendships between these three women who connected over the bizarrest of circumstances. It was so much fun to read the scenes with these three together. Then there was Daniel. I really liked his back story and his sort of secret life. It was something new that I haven't read before. Very cool.
Overall, it was a fun, light-hearted, and non-angsty read, great for summer-time by the beach.

(I also received the full ARC; this is my review of that)
After an intense book club read (if anyone would like to discuss Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning, I have almost too many thoughts to organize coherently), it was time to downshift into something fluffy and fun.
My waiting ARC of The Boyfriend Project, by Farrah Rochon, was the perfect choice. Beautiful, competent people meet and are wildly attracted to each other, pursue a relationship despite obstacles, overcome pitfalls, and kiss on a lovely fade to black.
The best parts about this book are around Samiah and her awesomeness. She kicks butt and takes name, owns it at work, has goals and meets them. At the beginning of the book she's involved in a viral video with a couple of strangers who quickly become the friends she's been missing as she focused on her work. This new friendship is delightful and charming and I can't wait for the inevitable books about Taylor and London that I certainly hope are coming.
The workplace stuff is also great--watching Samiah navigate idea-stealers and potential promotions is competence at its finest, but watching this company be full of competent, happy people who are treated well by their managers and enjoy their work. I've had a job like that and it was brilliant, and this very much captures that feeling of excitement and teamwork that goes along with that. It's very much a story about a fantasy workplace.
Daniel is also very hot and delightful, and their mutual attraction is full of delightful flirting banter and longing looks.
The reasons Samiah had for not wanting to get serious (because isn't a romance mostly about why they can't just fall for each other smoothly) are pretty thin, but she's a person who's all about control, so it made sense for her character, if not strictly necessary.
Daniel's reasons to resist their attraction are clearer; he's taken his new job as part of a government investigation, and he's here to get the information he needs and get out. Falling for one of his new coworkers was not part of the plan, and the lies he has to tell to sustain his cover story make him uncomfortable, even as he is being his sincere self in falling in love.
This book has an admirable sense of the difference between privacy and lying, because Samiah is a pretty private person, and doesn't expect all Daniel's details. It could be much worse. But the fact is that there are a lot of lies throughout the book, and then at the end, when the reckoning comes, while the apologies are believable, there is maybe not quite enough groveling for me. I feel like some of the angles of his deception that bothered me were not the ones that bothered Samiah, nor the ones Daniel was apologizing for. I wanted a little more nuance in his apology.
BUT: he remains charming and hot and brilliant and nerdy, and a book where the capitalists are not all evil and the "police" presence is after white collar crimes was just the light touch I needed right now. I definitely recommend this one; if you like the cover, this book will definitely deliver.

Thanks to netgalley for letting me read this book.
It started off really well, Samiah realizes through Twitter that she is dating the same guy as 2 other ladies. Which, I loved. The best part was when these 3 ladies became really good friends. It showed something that you don’t see a lot in nooks, when you move to a new city it’s not that easy to make friends. Which is something that happened to me. So I totally related to these ladies.
Samiah then meets a guy named Daniel, at her work. Which is a trope that I don’t enjoy at all. Work relationships, are not what I enjoy reading about. even though Daniel technically doesn’t work at trendsetters.
I loved the friendship between Smaiah and the ladies, but felt that the relationship between her and Daniel was lacking something. I wish we got them going on dates, him meeting her sister etc.
When Samiah just forgave Daniel, I didn’t enjoy that part. I wanted her to hold out a little longer.
My favorite part was reading about a woman kicking ass in the tech world. You don’t see that a lot and now I want to read all the tech books.
I would recommend, it was an easy read and very enjoyable.

I was so grateful for the opportunity to reach a preview of this book! I am not a huge romcom reader, but the preview convinced me to give the book a shot! Farrah Rochon is a new-to-me author so the ability to see if her writing style works for me is wonderful. I went out to grab the audiobook immediately. Thank you!

Rochon did a great job depicting female friendships in adult hood, balancing the things you want out of life and romance relationships in this forced proximity romance. The story starts out with Samiah finding out that she's being played by her 'boyfriend' and she swears off relationships to focus on her dream of creating her own app. But of course, a hot new man shows up at work and throws that plan out the window. I absolutely loved Daniel. He was kind, driven and I loved how he didn't make Samiah feel like her experiences were less than in any way as she dealt with the challenges of being a black woman in the tech world. He encouraged her and fought for her. I also loved the female relationships Samiah built with the two other women who were dating her ex. They came friends in a less than ideal situation but they didn't let that define them. They were truly there for each other and didn't shame Samiah when she revealed to them that she liked her new coworker. I also enjoyed the added element of Daniel being undercover and him trying to discover the culprit of the money laundering. It added a layer of intrigue that pushed me to the end wanting to know how it would all turn out. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone, whether they were into romances or not.

What I Loved: I have consistently found that contemporary romances are great palette cleansers when I am finding it difficult to focus on any one book — which feels all too common right now. I loved how light, quick and predictable this story was. It was just so comforting and I loved seeing the female freindship and capable heroine at the center of the story. As someone who knows very little about tech I was intrigued by that aspect of the novel as well as the work Daniel was doing. It added an element of suspense to the story that I was not expecting.
What I Didn’t Love: I think my only complaint about the story was that some of the dialogue felt a little forced or contrived and sometimes it pulled me out of the story. However, it’s a minor thing and I still gave this fun rom-com 4.5 stars. It was just so fun and light.

Cute and timely--perfect for young adult collections, integrating technology with true to life situations and characters.

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: I really don't like insta-love stories. By the same token, I also really dislike stories where the love interests meet and are immediately and irrevocably obsessed with each other, but won't act on their mutual attraction/obsession because they got burned by a significant other in the past/are married to their jobs/are emotionally crippled by some devastating childhood trauma/have a fatal illness/are secretly vampires that want suck each other's blood/believe being together would put the other in danger/[insert other contrived, cliche, over-used, easily-surmountable obstacle/trope]. I avoid these types of stories at all costs with a thorough vetting of possible TBRs, weeding out anything that comes close to resembling love/obsession at first sight. But every now and then, one slips through the cracks. This was that one.
It's not that this story was bad; it just wasn't my bag. I need my romances/rom-coms to have tension and heat, complete with snappy dialogue and a slow burn. Bonus points for missed connections/chances, shitty circumstances beyond their control, unrequited love, and happily never afters. No pain, no gain. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment. But, unfortunately for me, it's so rare for an insta-love/love-at-first-sight story to have these things, so I simply don't read them because they just don't do it for me. That said, I know I'm in the minority on this, and while this book just wasn't for me, I think it'll be a big hit for fans of Abby Jimenez and the like.

I loved this humorous story that featured 3 strong women of color who realized the importance of friendship elven though they are brought together under negative circumstances. It’s a good story and I recommend it.

Definitely excited to continue reading this one! I've come to find that my favorite romances have a good balance between the man and the friend(s) and this book seems like it's going to be exactly what I like. After finding out Samiah's boyfriend has been cheating on her with two other women, they all become best friends while simultaneously dealing with their story going viral. Throw in an office romance, and you have the makings for a perfect book.
Farrah Rochon has a descriptive way of writing that I really enjoy as it makes it easy to see the story play out in front of you like a movie. Also, who doesn't love representation??? Just a successful black woman living her life. Can't wait to order this book.

This preview did exactly what it was supposed to, and I no sooner finished it then immediately went to get a copy of the complete novel. I'm intrigued by what amounts to a friendship meet cute, and already feel committed to reading a series with a book for each of the three friends (fingers crossed.)

I'm not sure why Farrah Rochon decided to send an excerpt to this book because now the Boyfriend Project is all I'll be dreaming of. She just left me hanging!
The book is amazing! I hated that it was so short and I sincerely look forward to seeing the book itself.
You've got a good storyline,a relatable story, cool girlfriends, the work enemy. A new hot guy to daydream about... You've got everything. The characters are already interesting and the book is not even finished!
You have just got to read the book, Andi really can't wait to see the complete version. Please don't keep us hanging!

Wow. Okay. Now I really need to read this entire book. This was an incredibly long preview and all it did was make me beg for the full story. I will definitely be picking this up. I love the representation, the modern feel and references to things we know and also the start of the relationship. I think this story has a lot of fun potential and it was definitely entertaining so far!

Thanks Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read the extended previous of "The Boyfriend Project." Based on what I've read so far, I look forward to reading the book entirely. I love a little romance and friendships along the way.

What a fun, multilayered book! It is a story about friendship among women. It's a romance. It is a thoroughly modern story about strong women rising above the constraints society tries to box them in due to race and gender. And there's a bit of mystery too! Samiah, Taylor and London are fantastic characters and I am looking forward to all their stories. Daniel was also very likable and added another interesting layer with the mystery component. This book has so many good elements and they all build up a great, relatable, story.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.