Oh my. Gosh!

I don’t think I’ve ever gushed and giggled as much as I did reading How To Love Your Neighbor! I didn’t even know this was the second book in a series!

I loved every second of this mushy adorable book and I couldn’t get enough!

More more more please!!

How cute is too cute?
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How to Love Your Neighbor by Sophie Sullivan is a cute romance that starts out with some amazing tension and then slams the door in your face once that tension breaks. I actually don’t mind a closed door romance, and this one has fun banter, contests, and design elements to keep the pace going….until it doesn’t.
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There is a good section in the last half of the book that was a little TOO CUTE for me. This happens a lot to me and it’s why I appreciate a slow burn. Once those characters get together and are the cutest everyday all day, I get bored. Overall I still enjoyed this book, but I either could have had the tension drawn out longer, or cut some of the cuteness montage that suddenly slowed down the pace for me. This is the second in a series and worth it to check out the first book if you love couples being all mushy and crazy in love. I’ll let you know when I get to that.
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This book was advertised as a pseudo enemies-to-lovers, however, the characters spend very little time as enemies and are more bickering friends. Something about the characters fell flat for me. I had a hard time concentrating on this book and was constantly putting it down for something else. There was nothing particularly wrong with it but it just didn’t hold my interest. It was a cute romance but it felt removed slightly from the characters. Almost any time there was a serious moment, the characters would actually think that they needed to decide between going deeper with the conversation or going with comedy, most times they went with comedy. There was also no real conflict in the book besides their minor clashing in the beginning. I got interested towards the end because a roadblock showed up, but it was dealt with very quickly and with almost no fuss. For me, this was a 2.5/5.

I received a digital copy of this book free from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

When I first read the book description of ‘How To Love Your Neighbor’, I was immediately interested in reading it. Not only did I love the cover, but I also loved the sound of the main character Grace. And I was excited to start reading.

In ‘How To Love Your Neighbor’ we meet Grace Travis. Grace is working several jobs to make sure her dreams come through. Being a interior designer, fixing up the perfect house and making herself a home. Grace definitely has big plans. And the plans seem to be working. But unfortunately when Grace moves into her new home, she meets her new neighbor Noah Jansen. And he wants very different things for Grace’s home.

To be completely honest, it took me a while to really get into this story. I found the beginning rather slow, and I really had to push myself to keep going. Luckily the story kept getting better the further I got. The conversations between Grace and Noah where fun to read, and I enjoyed getting to know them better.

There where several moments in this book than made me grin and laugh out loud. For example the moment Grace and Noah meet. Although the romance didn’t work that much for me, the humor definitely made it better. What’s wrong with the romance? Well, I just couldn’t really feel the chemistry between Grace and Noah. They supposedly had a lot of chemistry, at least that is what the author tells us, but I just couldn’t feel it.

Overall this book was a fun read, but not really for me. I enjoyed it in the end, but it was just a bit to slow for me.

How to Love Your Neighbor by Sophie Sullivan
Contemporary romantic comedy. Grumpy - Sunshine troupe.
Grace has inherited her grandparents home and is finally ready to actually move in and start updating and renovating. If only Noah, the gorgeous next door neighbor, would stop offering to buy it from her. To Grace, it’s more than just a house. It’s a connection to her history and also a symbol she’s ready move forward to loving and enjoying life. It’s a home.

A cute enemies to lovers romcom. I enjoyed the banter and contests between the two. Clever but also good that neither held a grudge and leaned toward good humor.
I knew the mother was going to be a problem from the very beginning. It was inevitable.
The seniors are funny. Stereotypical, but humorous.
The love story was adorable and I liked the inclusion of her friends and his brothers.
Stories with humor and romance are my favorite.

🎧 I alternated between an ebook copy and an audiobook. The audiobook was narrated by Chloe Dolandis who did a wonderful job on the performance, keeping it mostly lite and cheerful, while also clearly expressing the grumpy Noah and gruff Morty. While I enjoyed both versions, the audiobook gave me happiness.
I listened to the audiobook at 1.5 to match my local area standard as well as reading speed to follow along with the print version.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley and Macmillan audio.

Sophie Sullivan’s How to Love Your Neighbor is the sequel to Ten Rules for Faking It (check out my review here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIwTcJOLiDB). That book was the story of Chris and Everly, and this new one focuses on Chris’s brother Noah Jansen who is trying to make a clean break from the toxicity of his father and his company. As part of his fresh start, Noah has bought a house that he loves . . . though it’s missing a pool. His plan? To buy the property next door, raze the house, and put in the pool. The only problem is that his neighbor doesn’t want to sell.

That neighbor is Grace Travis. She’s trying for a new beginning, too. Grace is almost done with design school, she’s almost made a break from her neglectful and manipulative mother, and she’s got a brand-new home that she inherited from the grandparents she never knew. This home, of course, is the one that Noah wants to buy.

This is a fun, sweet romance. It begins as enemies to lovers, though the “enemies” part doesn’t last long. Instead, Noah and Grace pretty quickly realize that they should be friends. Noah brings on Grace to help design his house, and as they start to know each other, they realize how much they have in common and the type of support they can offer each other.

While this one didn’t quite have the depth of Ten Rules for Faking It, I absolutely enjoyed watching Noah and Grace’s relationship develop, and I recommend How to Love Your Neighbor—and whatever Sullivan writes next—to romance fans.

#HowToLoveYourNeighbor:⁣
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I loved Ten Rules for Faking It last year. Then, Sophie Sullivan starts this off with a Merin Morris lyric. I snuggled in and was ready to just fall in love, again.⁣
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Grace Travis was the sweetest MC. She was strong, caring, compassionate, and hilarious. I got her. When she sang “come and knock on my door” in the same breath that I did because of “Three’s Company” just really helped me adore her. ⁣
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Honestly, I was not a fan of Noah. He was such a… douche. (Sorry not sorry) he did redeem himself later on, but I may have cheered against him a time.. or six. I wanted better for our girl Grace, and the enemies to lovers to stay enemies. But once we got to really understand his interior a bit more, I cheered for them. ⁣
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I did think about 70% in, we were wrapping it up. I didn’t realize we still had 30% left! I was happy that we did get to see more of Grace & Noah’s dynamic with their toxic parents. I felt that played a huge role in who they are, and man do I want to shake their parents. ⁣⁣
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Thank you so much @smpromance the gifted copy! How to Love Your Neighbor is out January 18th!

It was ok not great. I thought Noah and Grace didn't have any chemistry at all. Grace was really attracted to Noah, but he came across as so clueless so many times and continuously hurt her feelings. Noah was trying to re-invent himself after leaving NY and under his father's thumb, but his brothers, friends and family all thought he was shallow and about the money and what else could be obtained and it started to bother him. Grace has been on her own since leaving home at 18 from her mother who never loved or cared for Grace and kept trying to use her. Both Noah and Grace had great support system with his brothers Chris and Wes and others and she had Morty, Tilly and Rosie.

How to Love Your Neighbor is my favorite trope - enemies to lovers. Grace and Noah find themselves soon living next door to each other, when ALL he wants is to buy her home to expand his property. His plan is to create a compound with lavish luxuries with a view of the sea. Both are stubborn and competitive in their plans of what they want for their houses, until a unbelievable opportunity forces them to work together constructing a chemistry neither can deny.

Together, Grace and Noah build a blueprint for themselves on managing toxic family members, forgiveness and the meaning of home. The elements of interior design speckled throughout the story were fun too. And for fans of Sullivan's first book 10 Rules for Faking It, guess what Chris is Noah's brother. This novel can be read as a stand alone.

Road trip to Mi Casa please! Thank you St. Martin's Press for the advance reader copy.

This book covers convince me to read this book. I'm going to read it and let you know what's up.
Grace is all about hard work. She worked so hard in school while being employed as well. She is so close to her dreams that she finally has time to fix her little fix-up house. But nothing goes to plan when her grumpy neighbor moves next door. Noah is more than ready to make a big career move. He needs some cooperation from his sunny neighbor.
You know what they say: grumpy sunshine romance trope is the best romance story to read. I do say that I love reading a grumpy and sunshine romance trope, but it has to be done right. Unfortunately, I did not find this book in the particular grumpy and sunshine romance trope. Grace and Noah are more aligned with the forced proximity romance trope than the grumpy sunshine romance trope.
How to Love Your Neighbor is a cute romance story to read. It's not a whoa book through. It may be for others, just not for me.

How to Love Your Neighbor by Sophie Sullivan was a delightfully fun and creative romance between Grace and Noah. I lost myself in their romance. It started as an enemies-to-lovers and quickly transformed into a workplace romance. I love watching HGTV, so I appreciated the details about home remodeling since Grace is an interior design student. This is a closed-door romance with multiple POVs. This could be standalone, but I enjoyed the moments with Chris and Everly from Ten Rules for Faking It making appearances in this book. This romance gave me all the right feels!

Thank you, St. Martin's Griffin and Macmillan Audio, for my gifted copies to review honestly.

***ARC received from St Martins Griffin and NetGalley in exchange for honest review, opinions are all my own. Thank you!***

First, let me be honest contemporary romance books are not the romance books I tend to reach for first. I have absolutely nothing against them, I’ve read a few that I truly enjoy and wouldn’t mind reading again but when it comes to romance, its not my first choice. Just to preface that this is more me not the book but ultimately there was something about How to Love Your Neighbor that just didn’t fully click with me. I think that had to do with the fact that I just wasn’t that invested in the main romance and its hard to be invested in a romance when you don’t like the male lead. Try as I might, I just didn’t find myself liking Noah.

The book is told between the points of view of the two leads, Grace and Noah. I found Grace’s sections to be more concise and enjoyed reading them more because I liked Grace more. Grace is about to graduate college, finally decides its time to take ownership of the house that was given to her by grandparents she never knew. Shes does a lot of stuff on her own, part having little money and part having been independent for years I think I liked Grace’s chapters more because of how she interacts with her friends. Morty is that wise old sage who doesn’t appear to want to show too much affection toward Grace but you know he loves her like a granddaughter. Their interactions are sweet, that found family grandfather/granddaughter relationship that they both seemed to have been missing from their life. Grace doesn’t really have much of a character arc and the conflict that she does have with her mother we see so little so when it does reach its climax there isn’t much reason to cheer for her reactions. There is a similar issue in Noah’s chapters, feeling like the book was setting something but that never panned out.

I really tried to give Noah the benefit of the doubt, having chapters from his point of view should have helped but I just never could get over some of the things he said. Noah is used to throwing around his money to get what he wants, it also doesn’t help that his very sexy as Grace and book often like to remind you of. Yet Noah is condescending to Grace from the beginning and dismissive of her abilities, seeming to doubt that she is capable of taking care of her own house and will eventually see the error of her ways and give him exactly what he wants. While Noah does have some character development at the end he is still wanting to fall back on using his money to solve all his problem. I mentioned that I liked Grace’s chapters more because they felt more concise because Noah’s chapters felt like they were setting up a story line with the basketball kids that then got completely forgotten. The book could have taken that entire section out and lost nothing, it might have actually helped. There is also a subplot with his father which I guess was supposed to try to mimic the subplot for Grace and her mom but it has no impact on anything and like the basketball plot could have been cut.

The writing is fine, at times I felt a little lost as to where the scenes were taking place particularly when they switched up between houses yet there were descriptions at points I could picture the whole room coming alive. The dialogue swings between fun banter and tender moments to cringe worth dialogue that sounds like older people trying to use hip cool language to fit in with the teens and only sound dated and ridiculous. Any time Noah said kick-ass I winced but that was offset by the sweet moments between Grace and Morty that made me smile.

The book is an easy weekend read that I know people will enjoy.

“How to Love Your Neighbor” by Sophie Sullivan
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Release Date: 1/18/22

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC! While I thought it was good I didn’t love it. The concept was fun as I love a good fixer upper story. I just didn’t connect with the characters like I wanted. It was slow and flat in some parts. The enemies to lovers trope wasn’t strong enough, so I don’t know if I would even consider it enemies to lovers.

Grace is about to Graduate design school and she has found the perfect project. Her grandparents left her their home that needs some love. It’s a designers dream to have a new canvas, but her grumpy neighbor is begging to buy her lot from the moment the moving company pulls in. His already extravagant home isn’t enough, but he wants to put in a pool where her home is. In no certain circumstances is she giving in. She grew up with nothing. Her estranged mother had them living in a cramped trailer and never could keep a job to give Grace the things she needs. She never met her grandparents because her mother wouldn’t allow it. She finally has some family connection and she isn’t going to let the gorgeous neighbor take that away.
Noah Jensen moves thousands of miles away from his overbearing father and wants to expand their property management business on the west coast. The first step is getting publicity. His agent offers him the deal of a lifetime. A fixer upper spread in a hot magazine, but he has to find the perfect designer that fits the magazines vibe.

Grace and Noah are oil and water. He wants to buy her house and she is not selling. She is just getting her life in order, and he wants to mess it up. Noah is trying to get his life back on track and has bought a house. He needs the property next door to make it all come together. But that woman next door will not sell to him. Noah keeps messing up and he keeps apologizing to Grace. She is really starting to like him. They have more in common than they first thought. Noah is trying to get out from under his father's thumb. His father keeps messing with his life and he has had enough. Noah's brothers and sisters are the best, but their father is horrible. Grace was raised by a hard woman who thinks that the world owes her everything. Now that Grace's grandparents, that she never got to meet, has left her their house, her mother comes along and wants it or money. She has threatened to ruin all that Grace has achieved if she doesn't get what she wants. What will she do? What will Noah do?

A very cute rom-com with likeable characters. As it turns out, this is book #2 in a series. I don't think it's necessary to have read book #1 to enjoy book #2, although I suppose it would give more background into Noah's family. That being said, I guessed about this being the second book when brother #1 introduces his girlfriend to our Grace. It was like, "Ohhhhh, I bet their story was book #1."

Anyway, I liked Grace and most of the time, Noah. I've read a lot of rom-coms recently, so many of them seem to fall into mostly-predictable tropes. Nevertheless, I liked this story and would recommend it for those who enjoy rom-com stories.

I am happy to have the opportunity to read "How to Love Your Neighbor"-- I thought this was a really cute book with the sunshine/grump dynamic. The main character, Grace, had to overcome a lot of challenges and it was endearing to see her innovative approaches. The romance was a bit too closed-door for me (I would have like a bit more spice), but a fun read overall.

This was a cute romcom that had the enemies to lovers and guy next door thing going on. This was my first book by Sophie Sullivan. It was a fun story that was definitely slow burn/closed door in the romance department.

I enjoyed the interactions between Grace and Noah and how much they came to care about each other. Noah usually sucked at showing it. They both have parental issues that have messed them up and they share that disastrous part of their lives. They come from different sides of the railroad tracks and I'm not sure if that helped or hindered the story. It did contribute with Noah's ineptness at trying to win Grace's heart and apologizing for all the screwups he made with her (which were endless).

The down side to this book was that it didn't always hold my attention 100%. Of course, that could have been my fault and not the author's.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the gifted copy. All thoughts are my own.

At this point, I've read a lot of contemporary romance novels. And I know I'm not alone in that. They're very trendy right now and serve as an excellent escape/distraction from the real world hellfire we're currently living through (fingers crossed that 2022 is slightly less annoying).

That being said, I did not find that this book was a worthwhile escape or distraction. In fact, I seriously considered giving it 1 star. Thankfully, I seem to be in the minority on that. Most people seem to be getting more out of it than I did.

The situation is that Grace has inherited a beach house from her estranged grandparents. This house is next door to Noah, who is interested in expanding his own property. While they have this very cliché sort of meet-cute moment, their relationship quickly becomes contentious as Noah unsuccessfully attempts to buy Grace's house. There's some good enemies-to-lovers potential here, but the chemistry never actually takes off. The writing felt so stiff. I had almost no connection to the characters. I wasn't invested in them or their story or their romance whatsoever. In fact, getting through this was almost painful.

The reason I bumped this from one star to two is because of Noah's side story with a local youth organization. As someone who worked in an after-school program for about eight years, I enjoyed seeing that represented, even if there was almost nothing else I liked about this story.

This was a fun enemies to lovers storyline. I enjoyed the house fixer-upper plot as well. I would have enjoyed more to both pieces of the story though. The enemies didn't feel played up as much as it could have been, and I would have loved more details about the house. however, this was a light, and easy-to-read story that readers are going to enjoy!

This was a cute, closed-door rom-com, but nothing really happened. Cute neighbors fall in love, marketed as enemies to lovers, but felt more like insta-love. Hallmark movie meets HGTV - cute, just not enough substance for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.