I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I’m not going to repeat the premise of the story, but after a slow start we get to see the characters insecurities, their love for helping people, a fun and quirky side to both of them and being brave to face the haters in their lives.

Grace and Noah had some moments where they lost me during the story. But the HGTV magazine vibes, the friends, the bit of added drama and the renovations filled this book and made it a great read.

This was such an enjoyable read! Equal parts warm and entertaining. I found it easy to connect to the characters. The banter and chemistry was great.

I instantly fell in love with the characters in Sophie Sullivan’s How to Love Your Neighbor. This novel was filled with witty banter, sexaul chemistry and home made success stories from all sides. Grace’s dreams are finally coming true. She’s worked multiple odd jobs, put herself through interior design school and has inherited her grandparents cottage on the California coast. She could care less that it is dated and in need of a million repairs, she knows how to get it done. Her excitement is only slightly dampened when her neighbor turns out to be Noah. Noah’s super successful, he comes from a wealthy family and has left the East Coast to pave his own way to success on the West Coast. All he needs to make his own home dreams come true is to buy Grace’s property. I loved Noah and Grace’s personalities and felt their frustrations and tensions through the dialogue created by Sullivan. There are many paths and definitions of success and How to Love Your Neighbor explores what happens when two very different paths collide. How to Love Your Neighbor is the fun, enemy to lovers rom-com you need this cold winter.

A sincere thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A lovely, heart warming, and entertaining book!! It was super cute and classic Sunshine Meets Grump romance trope. There are multiple relationships that are explored in this book besides the main and that definitely kept the book interesting throughout!

Overall: HGTV vibes a plenty with compelling characters all-around and a romance you can’t help, but want to see the ending of.

Pros:
HGTV vibes. I love the home renovation plot-line.
Character Writing. Sophie Sullivan excels in making compelling characters that you want to root for, even in an enemies-to-lovers situation.
Romance. I am so glad this one is on my pros for this book. I couldn’t look away from what was happening between them.

Cons:
Pacing. I think the pacing was a little off in some sections, perhaps in order to demonstrate the enemies-to-lovers situation.

As an almost graduated interior design student, Grace is thrilled when she inherits a house that she intends to make her home. However, the first thing she is faced with while moving into her home is her neighbor, Noah, who immediately (and repeatedly) offers to buy her house so that he can expand his property. Though she and Noah get off on the wrong foot, they find themselves continually pulled together.

This was cute and there was a lot to like in it! I think the character growth was well done and the side characters were also delightful! The whole story was sweet.

Ultimately my main "issue" with the book was that neither Noah or Grace were particularly likeable to me in the beginning. I recognize that is a me problem however! Both characters definitely grew and improved but just not enough to fully redeem them in my mind. I also though that both of them oscillated between being nice and being mean to each other so much in the beginning that I got whiplash. I also thought the conflict with Grace's mom was pretty quickly resolved and didn't really create much tension. Also, I haven't read an adult romance that didn't have "spicy" scenes for quite some time, so if that's something you look for in an adult romance, I would advise you to look elsewhere.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars, rounded to 4

When I saw that How to Love Your Neighbor was enemies to lovers with home renovations mixed in, my HGTV-loving heart was so excited! But, I was disappointed when I learned this is connected to Sophie Sullivan’s first novel (Ten Rules for Faking It) because I really try to read books in order. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I feel like I would have felt more of a connection with some of the characters since they appeared in the first book too.

The first half of this book had some pacing problems - it felt like a slog to get through all of the setup to finally get to the point that I was invested in the characters.

Grace Travis is an interior design student who is working her tail off to make ends meet and set herself up for success after graduation. She inherits a beach bungalow from her grandparents who she never met and wants to make the house a home in order to feel some kind of connection to them. But her neighbor is obsessed with buying the house from her to expand his property, making her dig in her heels and work harder to make the space hers. She’s funny, charming and has big plans/ideas for her life, but she also struggles to make sure her life looks nothing like her mother’s, trying to avoid that trauma and do things on her own.

Noah Jansen is a real estate tycoon - buying, flipping and selling properties to make major profits, landing him on all kinds of business lists and making him a public figure. He’s handsome, charismatic, driven to be the best, new to the West Coast and he’s looking to make a name for himself outside of his father’s empire in New York City. Noah purchased a house to renovate and turn into his slice of paradise, but finds himself hiring people to make his vision come to life instead of doing any of the work himself. Grace, his stubborn neighbor, shows him that being invested in his properties can change so many things for him.

Some of the enemies to lovers stage of Grace and Noah’s relationship at the beginning felt forced, like I was getting a bit of whiplash trying to keep up with all of it. But, once they got out of their own way, I enjoyed them together. They had fun together, clearly had a lot of overlapping interests, shared some of their family drama and brought out some really great parts of each other that weren’t highlighted before. The one thing I didn’t enjoy? The black moment in their relationship. I could see it coming a mile away and knew it was going to be hard to read and it definitely was. After all the back and forth between these two, I felt like that was a little unnecessary since they’d already gotten through so many struggles along the way.

I really enjoyed the descriptions of all their home renovations and it just made me wish there were pictures to go along with it - I love me a good home renovation! Overall, I liked this book and it likely won’t be my last by Sophie Sullivan.

When the book opens, Grace is dog walking on the beach and trips in front of a handsome surfer who she just must put out of her mind. Observant readers assume he will re-appear as trouble in the very near future, and sure enough, he does. HOW TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR is the classic competitors to lovers tale, in this case surrounding real estate and design. Our neighbors/competitors/romantic partners create more than enough interest for the tale to move along quickly. The book is equal parts entertaining, funny and cute. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I love me a good home reno romance book and How to Love Your Neighbor has a lot of that! It almost felt as if Grace and Noah could’ve been on an actual reality show that I would definitely watch, about finding love will renovating their individual houses.

I love Grace! She is everything the name implies despite a less than ideal childhood. Although at first she comes off as maybe too serious, we see her funny and playful side come out as she gets to know Noah, making her all the more lovable. It took me a little longer to warm up to Noah- he came off at first as a spoiled rich boy who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted no matter who he hurt, but he definitely makes up for it at the end. I enjoyed the banter between these two as well as their group of friends and there were so many funny parts!

Although this is a bit of a slower moving book, it was still a sweet and cute story and the author has a heartwarming way of writing, if that makes sense. This is a closed door romance that starts with Noah and Grace as neighbors to sort of enemies to friends to lovers that is light on the angst and has a really great HEA!

This one is for all the HGTV lovers! Grace and Noah and new neighbors who get off on the wrong foot... and find they may have more in common then they expected. This one kept me interested throughout, I loved the design aspect and the main character's friends. I could've used a little bit more spice! Everything wrapped up well in the end, which I always appreciate.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martins Press for the chance to read an advanced copy of How to love your neighbor by Sophie Sullivan. I loved reading How to love your neighbor; it was funny and romantic, and the chemistry between Grace and Noah, was fantastic. I loved them betting against each other, and also the whole Trading places idea Grace came up with Noah and friends. I didnt realize there was a book before this one with Noah's brother, but it can be read as a stand alone.

This looks to be the year of the romance release.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for a copy of the novel.

How to Love Your Neighbor offers up a fun premise about two people trying to get what they want and learn about themselves along the way. Grace and Noah had some sweet interactions and situations, but overall, I wasn’t connected to either of them. There’s a lack of chemistry between the two and the story dragged a bit. I wish there was something else to anchor the story with good side characters.

I just liked this one.

It was a super slow burn & very low steam. The relationship between Grace and Noah build incrementally and has a few bumps along the way. I liked seeing how they interacted and changed their perceptions of how relationships can be. I also liked how they actually communicated and acknowledged the importance of it for a healthy relationship.

There was a lot of this book that felt a little slow and repetitive for me. And some things just never got resolved (the community center!).

This was fun and enjoyable, but just not my favorite.

Another branch out from my normal genres of reading.
This rom-com started out a bit slow, but once the story line started moving, I enjoyed spending a bit of time reading about Grace and Noah and their budding relationship. There were several spots that were quite hokey, but I glossed over those. 😏
If you enjoy romance and comedies, this one is for you!
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in advance in exchange for a free and unbiased review.

Feuding neighbors turned lovers with an HG-TV twist. This book was cute but missing some features that I look for in a book. The banter was conversational but not witty, the chemistry was very subtle and lacks spice and the plot was a slow where I found myself rushing to the end. I was also hoping for more setting development around the inherited house. I think this would be a nice read for some, but not for me.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance reader of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

A cute and lighthearted romance. I didn't feel overly connected to the characters or their story but it was a fun read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“…that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where you’re standing, but who’s standing next to you.“

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for a chance to read and review Sophie Sullivan’s upcoming release in exchange for an honest review.

This book was super cute and super cheesy. I loved the mixture of romance and interior design. I enjoyed the description of the rooms that Grace was putting together and could easily, and vividly, picture them in my head! I also very much enjoyed all of the side characters in this story, especially Morty.

The story also did well with handling family conflict and how both characters were trying to make their life their own after the destruction their parent(s) made. It was a nice side plot.

I do think the chemistry was great but also, at the same time, not so great. I know with romances like this once, it’s common to see insta-love. This is more of an enemies-to-lovers I’d say but definitely has a lot of insta-love aspects that I’m not a fan of. But that doesn’t make the story bad! It was nice seeing Noah change, for the better, throughout the book through his relationship with Grace.

Overall, a cute and fluffy rom-com that is great to read during these dark times our world is facing.

“…happiness isn’t about where you live or what you achieve. A home isn’t walls, a roof, a floor. It’s a feeling; it comes with being seen and accepted for who you are. It’s finding the person who makes you feel alive no matter where you are or what you accomplish. The person who makes you feel like you could have nothing and still have everything. It’s unconditional love.”

My first book of 2022!, and it couldn’t be better!

Overall, this book to me was. 3.75 but we can round it to 4!! Grace just moved to her new house that was left to her by her grandparents, and not even a little it later, she meets her hot next door neighbor (who she has actually met earlier that day after a slight incident hehe 🙈) who wants to buy her house! Noah, grumpy hot surfer neighbor, who just move to CA to settle and expand on his house but is having a bit of trouble because his neighbor is one stubborn person and he is beside himself cause he has never met anyone like her !!!!!!!!

grumpy meets stubborn sunshine in this cute home renovation story! I love Noah so much, you can really see his character growth 💞 Grace is great but I felt like i I didn’t connect with her as much as I would have liked. We do have some similarities in the sense of her insecurities and vulnerabilities but she never really grew on me as a person :( I really enjoy their interactions, their bantering, them together as a whole makes me want to find my own Noah 🥰💞 the side characters tho!!!!!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!! THEY ALL HAVE MY HEART, and I just learned that her first book is about Everly and Chris and you can bet I’m going to read their story@!!

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review~

How to Love your Neighbor was a sweet closed door romance with some laugh out loud funny scenes.

This was an Enemies-to-lovers meets home improvement show in a light romantic comedy. Sophie is an interior design student whose new Sexy, grumpy neighbor is trying to buy her house.

Kudos to the author for reviving a Trading Spaces moment. I will always be here for a Trading Spaces reference!

This book culminates in a grand gesture HEA ending. Light, sweet, and funny!

3.5 rounded up

Ready to jump back into the lives of the Jansen brothers! In this second installment of the series we follow Noah, a real-estate developer and flipper who has recently moved to California to make it on his own after years of living and working under his father's thumb, and Grace, an interior design student who has worked hard to make it on her own away from her mother, and recently inherited a beach house from her grandparents...next-door to Noah.

Read this book if you like:
- Enemies to lovers trope
- Steamy tension with closed-door romance
- HGTV-like home renovations
- Witty banter
- Memorable secondary characters
- Grumpy older characters who have strong opinions, but are secretly sweet cinnamon rolls who are very protective of our main character

Another fun read from Sophie Sullivan! I love the enemies to lovers trope, especially when the characters have a real reason to be "enemies". In this case Noah wants to buy Grace's house and is frustrated when she won't sell, and Grace is frustrated that he won't take her no for an answer. I'm also a huge HGTV fan and love watching all the home renovation shows and, as it turns out, I apparently also like to read about it in my romance books! With Grace being an interior designer and Noah usually being on the back-end of buying and selling properties, that was such a fun addition to the story!

Some of the levity was broken, however, as we learn more of their back story and how both of them were subjected to the manipulations and emotional abuse from their parents. Both Grace and Noah are still learning how to deal with their own trauma, as well as how to be in a relationship.

While there was some fun witty banter and numerous bets between our characters, I could have done without the ever-present "that's what she said jokes". It felt a little too much like middle-school humor and was even stranger considering this a closed-door romance. But, that could also just be my own personal opinion, and may not be something that would necessarily bother someone else!