A fun concept and full of tropes I usually love, but something about the writing never quite got off the ground for me. This will likely appeal to fans of Alisha Rai and Christina Lauren, as well as fans of Menon's YA, but it could have used a little extra spark.

I loved this book! It was a quick read and the chemistry between Annika and Hudson was just off the charts. I just love the enemies to lovers trope and this one was no exception. I wish it had taken Annika less time to be trusting, but I understand where she was coming from. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

Make Up Break Up is an enemy-to-lovers trop romance novel, which is one of my favorites. The sexual tension was hot hot hot! I loved it! There were a few flaws I found in this novel, but that is true of any book. Overall, a cute love story and great quarantine read.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

This book is a winner! The premise is interesting and fun, and the characters made sense together. I loved the “competing apps” idea! This was a fun romance and I highly recommend it. 5 stars.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was just what I needed. Cute, heartwarming, relatable and so fun!

I adored the back and fourth between Annika and Hudson, and their chemistry was alluring and made you want to rush through the pages and see them together and happy. The start-up backdrop provided the perfect setting for this hate-to-love romance, the rooftop networking parties and the lead up to the big pitch had me constantly nervous and excited to see what would happen next. However, I actually wish we'd seen a bit more of the techy side of the start-up process, its so interesting to see how an app is actually made.

I really loved June-bug and Ziggy and I hope we get a short story/ spinoff with them as every time they were on the page I was intrigued to know more about their whirlwind romance too, highly adorable! I think the friendship between June and Annika was very real, they were there to uplift each other but also seeing Annika sometimes feel bitter that June was getting everything she had wanted in love was actually something that hit hard. Annika was so happy for June but as the same time wishing she could have that ease in love; it added such a realistic angle to their dynamic. I adored them and I'm all here for this women in tech movement and all the girl power.

Annika and her dad were definitely the source of gut-punches in this book. Familial relationships are complex and messy and beautiful. Seeing Annika's dad accepting his daughter's dreams and also understanding why he was so reluctant to accept it speaks a lot about how immigrant parents just want their children not to face the same struggles they did. Coming from an Indian-British background and understand that side of things made me love the father-daughter scenes a lot.

And finally the man of the hour, Hudson Craft i.e backstabbing evil idea stealing (but not really) hot (annoyingly so) love interest of Miss Annika Dev. I have to say, I really enjoyed seeing the build up to this romance. Seeing Hudson's actual feelings and vulnerable side come through and understanding what happened in Vegas come to light, although I already had an inkling, I still liked seeing it unravel on the page. My favourite scene was definitely the fountain scene and the one at Hudson's party, it was so swoony and Sandhya/Lily wrote the tension perfectly.

(Slight spoilers for this paragraph) Although the ending took a turn I wasn't expecting with Anni's dad (cries), I kind of wished we saw Annika and Hudson face off in that final pitch or even do a joint venture where they could've combined their companies, like a more humane break-up. I wish we could've gotten an epilogue of what Anni and Hudson were up to (I hope on some cool business trip somewhere with Ziggy and June).

Overall, this is worth reading and I cannot wait to see what more Lily does in the adult romance world! She writes like magic and her bringing own voices into this genre so seamlessly and realistically makes me so happy as an Indian reader. I hope we see more of this.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for making this arc available to read, it was an honour to be able to read this early and I hope everyone adores it as much as I did!

Annika and her friend June have been working on developing the app “Make Up”, which works as a therapist for couples, helps them to better communicate, and reconcile their differences.

Annika’s summer hook up Hudson, has moved next door to her office. He is working on the app “Break Up”, which makes a break up easy.

Annika is an independent, focused, career driven woman working her best to make a place in the male dominated world. Her friendship with June made my heart sing. I jumped in Annika’s team but shifted to Hudson as she seemed childish and intent on misunderstanding him. I struggled to see why she hates him as he is not the one breaking people apart, he is just facilitating to make it easy. The whole idea of the “Break Up” app is lost on me as I thought why do people use this rather than using their phones. I found it hard to believe the popularity of it. On top of it using this idea to drive wedge between them seemed forced.

This started off as enemies to lovers, but veered off the track as the theme is embraced by Annika only. Hudson never considered her as his enemy. The sabotage techniques are lackluster. The romance is hung between YA and adult as the characters lacked depth. I’ve connected with Annika at the beginning for her passion. I wish it would have been better if more focus was on romance rather than app developments.

I enjoyed some parts of it such as friendships, girl power, I loved the story of Annika’s parents, and giving freedom to children to become what they wanted despite it’s different from what parents hoped.

Overall, it was an okay read. I really enjoyed the writing but the plot didn’t work for me.

Thank you, Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me a chance to read this in exchange for an honest review!

Three stars to this book for being a fizzy, easy read. I picked this book because I've enjoyed the YA by the same author, but the more I think about this book, the less I enjoy it. Like many contemporary romances, there is far more focus on the career arc than I care to read in a romance. The couple does not in fact spend much time together.

First of all, the rivals-to-lovers angle didn't work well for me, because I didn't really buy that the businesses were rivals. They were offering very different services. Aside from that, I could not find myself rooting for this couple. Annika seems like a shallow thinker and a bad boss. Honestly, typical tech type from my experience. The idea that she couldn't conceive of why some breakups are good was weird to me, and the machine learning angle to relationship help sounded awful to me (how many stories do we read about how AIs programmed by humans end up with the same problems as humans? Racism, sexism, etc.) And we never read about how it would really work, unlike the time we saw the breakup app at work and could see what it was about. Hudson Craft as another typical tech bro was just not appealing to me. And we just got SO MUCH of the tech stuff and not in a compelling way.

Speaking of unappealing, the sex in this book!!!! For one, I don't think the sex was written with enough consent and attention to safety for my tastes. And for the other, I think this book wins in having the absolute unsexiest sex act I've come across in a romance.

A very heartfelt book I love the interaction between the character I also love the world bill by the author it made me laugh out loud a lot of times which normally doesn’t happen in books definitely can’t wait for this book to be released I will be buying a copy for my mom

This was a really fun book with surprising depth. I've never read the author's YA novels, but I can absolutely see how her relatable and easy writing style can cross over between YA and adult rom-com. Annika was a great main characters, strong, fierce, yet vulnerable and while there were moments I wasn't sure about Hudson beyond his physical attractiveness, he ultimately won me over too. A great supporting cast of characters and a nice balance of subplots makes this book a winner for me.

Loved the book! Very attractive enemies-to-lovers trope with Annika vs Hudson. Annika is looking to launch her Make up app—a Google transl for lovers and Hudson is successful with his Breakup app—where a Terminator can be hired to end your relationships. And Lily Menon has added in those extra bits of entrepreneur troubles, coding troubles (best part? the right hand coder is Annika's best friend and a girl; no guy saviours here).

I wish I could say this was something special but for me, it just...wasn't. Make Up Break Up fell into every trap an adult romance could fall into -- the constant (and holy hell do I mean constant) miscommunication, the coming into every situation armed with only your assumptions, the painfully obvious ending that made me want to shout at the characters to just GET ON WITH IT PLEASE the lackluster side characters, a painfully abrupt ending (when will romance authors realize that we want to read about their characters actually being together??? I can't stand when books end the moment the main couple gets together), the ""banter"" that just made me cringe with secondhand embarrassment. Honestly, this is not at all what I was expecting from Sandhya Menon's foray into adult romance. It lacked her usual charm and style for what ended up being just incredibly bland. Even the premise is boring and overdone -- if I never read another "rival dating app CEOs" romance again I'll be living a better life.

I wanted to love this so much as I loved her other books, but I just didn’t. I actually skipped past this book, but when my sister suggested I read the book, I decided to give it a try; I was not impressed. This story really should have been a short story; way too much time was spent on why she just couldn’t get over her “hatred” for him. And you had to smelly that there was something fishy when it was never mentioned how they ended things. Two stars because if I shortened the story, I would have enjoyed it much more.

I was really excited to read this as I love her YA books but unfortunately this wasn't for me. I ended up dnfing it.

I wanted to love this, because enemies to lovers is the best trope, but...I didn't. It was fully over the top and unbelievable. Some sweet moments sprinkled in but overall this one fell flat for me.

really wanted to love this. Hate to love is my favorite trope. And I loved this authors YA books. However this story had so much potential it fell flat for me. I really wanted to see more of the MC and the love interest. Didn't seem like there was enough of that. Too much time was spent on the Annika rehashing why she couldn't be with Hudson and how much she hated him and how she thought he hated her when it was blatantly obvious he cared about her. The only parts I enjoyed were the banter between the two like I said earlier wasn't as much as I liked. Annika also seemed really dense to me because of the assumptions she kept making about Hudson that left one wondering where she even got that assumption from. I've been going back and forth trying to decide if I should rate this 2 or 3 stars. Because I did enjoy the banter even if it was far and few between I rounded up to 3 stars. If I could give half stars it'd be 2.5.

Sparks fly and light up the sky for warring, competing tech app owners. Their app philosophies may be vastly different but their hearts long to be united.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was such a good one! If you love romance, AND if you love enemies to lovers tropes this is the book for you. While reading this I was getting vibes from The New Guy and The Hating Game. My two favorite tropes are enemies to lovers and office romances, and while these two weren't directly working together they worked for rival companies (within the same building) it still gave me all the feels I was looking for in a good office romance read! This is a quick-paced read and really enjoyable throughout the book.

This story is about two people, Annika and Hudson, who had a summer fling and now are stuck dealing with each other even though they work for rival app companies. However, once they start to get to know each other Annika wonders if she had her thoughts about the type of person Hudson is completely wrong.


Thank you, NetGalley and St Martin's Press for sending me this book for my honest review!

At times outlandish, but inevitably forgettable romance. Will be perfect for Lily Menon's growing audience.

Two app developers hookup at a conference in Vegas. Then they begin to run into each other everywhere. Annika (our protagonist) is a YOUNG 24-year-old. She is a successful businesswoman with the mentality of a teenager. While this isn’t too far-fetched considering the tech world (I grew up in Silicon Valley) at times I felt her behavior was less relatable and more unbelievable. Then there were situations where the characters were forced to be in a car together, even though they’re all adults with cars and regularly afford Lyfts.

Once I let go of criticizing how over-the-top and unbelievable some of the plot-points were, I had fun. The redeeming trait in this book was that the two love interests had a lot of chemistry.

This is a good transition book for Lily Menon’s readers who grew up with her YA romance books. It might not be a hit for old ladies like me.

I wanted to like this book more. I usually enjoy the trope of enemies to lovers. Here we had lovers to enemies to lovers. However, the whole premise of this story is that the heroine, Annika, is struggling to get her tech business off the ground. She is working with her best friend to create an app that will use virtual intelligence to create a language for couples to heal their relationships. Oh, and it will recognize your characteristics and predict your long-time future as a couple. Yeah, sure. I just can’t imagine any app that would recognize one’s verbal tendencies and come up with language to help you make up problems with your partner.

Her rival is Hudson Craft who has made millions in just a year with an app by which people can hire a “Terminator” who will deliver a kiss-off to a romantic partner and tell that person that you just don’t want to be romantically involved with that person anymore. Think of it as Uber for ending relationships. How odious. Would that really make it big?

Annika despises Hudson even though he’s good-looking and seems nice. But she hates his app and resents his success. She even blames him for stealing her idea. She’s rather obnoxious. But I couldn’t buy either one’s app idea so the whole premise of the book was rather shaky and so I just didn’t buy the story.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

4.5 stars

I loved Make Up - Break Up! Annika & Hudson were just so fun to read about. It’s pretty clear from the beginning that these two are dealing with pent up sexual tension from a week spent together in Vegas. In which both walked away with misconstrued intentions. Normally for me when characters in a book can solve their obvious issues so easily I get annoyed. But the playful back and forth made this book what it is!

This is just an all around good read. There’s humor, romance and angst, a perfect combination. The writing is wonderful and I can’t wait to read another book by Lily Menon! Hopefully it’s Ziggy and June’s book. Hint hint