A sweet strangers to friends to lovers story. Leah has had a hard life including losing her father at a young age and then being placed into foster care after her mother could no longer care for her. Leah returned to the closest thing to a home she’s ever had to care for her sick foster mom. After her death, Leah must figure out where she’ll go now. Little does she know, she will gain a group of friends who become more like family. She also falls hard for a guy who’s still pining after someone else. This book will leave you smiling and also rooting for love to prevail.

Rom Coms are my favorite book and video genre, so when I saw the title of this book I needed to read it. I found myself struggling to get through this one, I thought there were too many side characters, although I enjoyed most of them. I also just didn’t love the mai pan characters .

Thank you NetGalley and st Martin for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Overall: 83/100
Characters: 85/100
Plot: 82/100

This book was so cute and soft and warm
It’s a perfect book for a cozy snow day

And it reminds me of very sincerely yours by Kerry Winfrey. It felt like a hallmark movie in the best ways.
Sure Eli was a bit target focused and for the wrong reasons but it wasn’t exhausting to me like it could have been.
But other than that the characters were very mature and there was not an infuriating miscommunication causing a break up and they talked through their problems
This book had a huge found family aspect that I absolutely loved.


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Honestly I think I would have been more annoyed at Eli’s obsession with Victoria if it wasn’t extremely relatable to me. Like being more in love with a concept than the person and projecting those feelings on to the convenient target. Like Leah hit the nail on the head there and it was pretty quick after the wool got pulled off that he realized that and got over Victoria. So it hits that sweet spot of messed up. Like messed up enough to cause some nice conflict but not enough that he was in the stupid range.
And Leah’s traumas make sense and I loved how it was clear that one Eli wasn’t the only one to help her feel like she belonged there and they emphasize the community and friends did that. And it wasn’t like a magic wand waved and she was healed from her childhood trauma. Like it’s an understandable level of precaution and that still lingers even at the end.

The Rom-Com Agenda
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Eli and Leah’s story was fine. I found both of them to be a bit annoying and ridiculous. Leah needs to go to therapy due to her past which includes deceased parents and the recent death of her foster mother. A chance meeting in Willow Cove, leads to Eli and Leah meeting. Eli is hung up on his ex, Victoria. So his family/friends have started a campaign to change Eli and fix him up to be somebody that Victoria would want to be with. Leah agrees to help and they fall in love. The best part of this book were all the 80s and 90s references including one of my all time favorite movies, Pretty in Pink.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Pick this book up January 10, 2023

Both main characters sound a little too juvenile for their age, so it wa really hard to take this seriously. Had to dnf sadly.

3 Stars

"What's... what's the movie where the guy is so stupid and so blind he doesn't see the best thing that's ever happened to him is the woman who's been right in front of him the whole time?"

Eli Masterson gets his heart squashed over a broken engagement. To cheer him up and give him dating pointers, his family and friends give him a complete makeover: hair, clothes, and you guess it rom com movies to try to win back the woman that broke his heart. Grand gestures, anyone? Being in foster care, Leah Keegan always grew up alone. After the death of her foster mother, Leah vowed to save all she could and never return. Pinching pennies, she gets a job cleaning houses and stumbles upon Eli's house and becomes his rom com movie guide... and much more.

Deeply rooted in pop culture, this book is a nostalgia read for the '80s and '90s babies with quotes from Gilmore Girls, Say Anything, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and even James Bond. There are no sex scenes and only two kissing scenes. Eli and Leah are cute together but I read books for steamy scenes and this didn't do it... I mostly stayed for reliving pop culture moments of my childhood.

Thanks to Netgalley and it's publisher for a free copy of this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god I thought I was going to rate this book so much lower but the last third of the book was INCREDIBLE. I love this.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love love a good slow burn romance. I love the characters and their stories. They held a very interesting story that kept me intrigued throughout the book. The plot was solid and the story line kept me hooked. It was a cute read!

This book has a lot of very cheesy parts to it, I often felt like I was reading the script of a 90s sitcom. I imagine the point was to sort of mirror the rom-coms that Eli watches throughout the book. Some of the dialogue was a bit too cheesy for me.

Eli gives me big Ross Gellar vibes, he’s a bit whine-y and impractical about this “relationship” with Victoria. I enjoyed watching him come out of that and become his own person by the end of the book.

Leah is a strong character who uses her experiences to become the best version of herself. She is kind and more than patient with Eli.

If you’re a fan of 90’s rom-coms than this is definitely the book for you!

This was so sweet and fluffy and easy to read. I loved how transparent the characters were with each other (even if some were blind to it), and how it was about more than just a romantic relationship.

The references to movies throughout the decades were so fun, as well as the explanations for them from the different characters that recommended them. It was cute and breezy, and had a nice neat ending that tied up all the loose ends in a cute little bow.

Perfectly adorable romantic comedy sure to make to smile! You start to cheer for Leah and Eli from the moment you meet them. With witty dialogue, clever development of the community they live in, and GILMORE GIRLS REFERENCES - what is not to love?!

The Rom-Com Agenda is a sweet and charming slow burn love story that will make you want to snuggle up and binge-watch all the romcoms that the main characters watch together. Tropes include: friends to lovers, chosen family, loner finds their people. Lots of excellent character growth and tons of 90's cultural references for the millennials.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. However, I had issues all the way through it. Mostly bc Eli is so dumb. At least he eventually figures it out.

The writing is great, the story flows really naturally and all the side characters had me invested early on. The message of not having to change anything about yourself for the right person is so important. I loved it.

I’m normally not a huge fan of friends to lovers but this one just seemed so wholesome that I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m very glad I did.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

I loved every second of The Rom-Com Agenda. I think the characters had interesting stories and were likeable, which is always the first test, and the small-town setting was charming. There's a little bit of a found family trope, which I love of course, and the character development for Leah was very well done. I also thought there was a really good balance of romance, comedy, and gravity.

If you're wondering what this book is about (no spoilers beyond the first couple of chapters), Eli is still hooked on his ex-girlfriend who broke up with him before leaving for sabbatical in Italy five months ago. His sister and friends agree to give him a rom-com makeover to make him a match for his more sophisticated ex so he can win her back. As they start going to stores and salons around the small town, they run repeatedly into Leah, who spent part of her teenage years in Willow Cove when she was in the foster system and who had returned to town to take care of her foster mom who had recently died of cancer. Leah becomes friends with the group, and of course she and Eli start to have feelings for each other, even though Leah has been planning to leave town and Eli is still hung up on his ex.

Overall, I liked this because it had a solid blend of predictable-happy-romance with a story you don't feel like you've read in forty other books. It was really cute, so definitely plan to pick this one up when it comes out in January!

This will they/won’t they romcom is perfect for the 90s babe millennial. (Here for the “Gilmore girls” + John Cusack references.🙋🏻‍♀️) Leah’s story will resonate with anyone that has felt like an outsider + come to rely on chosen family for unconditional love + support. The book provides a fun, must-watch movie list perfect for cold days snuggling with your loved ones - whether romantic or otherwise - perfect for its January release! Snuggle up with something warm + take notes!

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was fun and funny. I loved the Gilmore Girls reference. It was a little cliche at times but that’s to be expected based on the title. It’s a feel good, closed door, slow burn romance. I loved the secondary characters. While it is a quirk and light read it also touches on a couple of heavy topics. I would recommend this book if you love a good friends to lovers rom com.

This was a sweet book with small town drama and heart. I felt like it was an early 2000s WB show in book form and I loved it.

The storyline is bittersweet but has a lot of fun, quirky moments mixed with a slow burn love story and a happily ever after worthy of the many rom coms referenced throughout the book. (LOVED that)

This one does handle some bigger topics such as death of a loved one, abandonment, foster care, mental health, & cancer but the author handled all of this issues very well and with respect.

Worth the read!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of The RomCom Agenda.

This story centering around finding your chosen family and trusting your gut was really sweet. I loved how romcoms tied in. I thought the MMC could have gotten a clue earlier and I found some of the foster care story line to drag a bit, only because it was redundant.

The friends and family bugged me in the beginning because their meddling was over the top but their dialogue and character development was great. I thought this book was witty and the banter was well written and had me laughing out loud at times.

2.5 stars rounded to 3.

I was so excited to read this book because the synopsis sounded so very fun. Unfortunately I didn't finish. Today was the 5th day I tried to read this and I was only at 40%. I'm such a fast reader that a book a day is not unheard of for me so 40% after 5 days is crazy.

I felt The Rom-Com Agenda was very slow and while I liked the idea that Eli's family wanted to help him, the scenarios in the book were far too overdone. I mean, yelling across a bar while he's on a pretend date? There was just instance after instance like that and each time I found myself rolling my eyes. The "slow burn" of it all was too slow for me. I am not a proponent of the "insta-love" stories, but there's slow burn and there's s-l-o-w burn.

On the plus side, I LOVED all the references to all the rom-com and classic movies! There were so many that I remember watching and enjoying.

I honestly feel like The Rom-Com Agenda could be a fun, flirty, quick read, but it would need more editing with someone who could help the author find ways to speed the story up a bit. I feel terrible that I am leaving a review like this because this book was right up my alley in theory.

If you enjoy rom-coms and slow burns, you might very well love this book. I'd say you should give it a shot and see if it's a fit for you.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for an ARC at my request. All thoughts are my own.

The Rom-Com Agenda was a cute, light fluff read.

The storyline that Denker crafted was a cute storyline and steered clear from some overused common tropes while still making the book full of cute cliches. I think the writing was a bit basic but was overall well-done. I was invested in the relationship between Leah and Eli from their friendship to their relationship. The whole ex-girlfriend aspect I think was dragged on a little too long and Eli's sudden change of heart came across a little abruptly. I did enjoy the side characters and wish they had been developed a little more than they were. I would have liked to see Leah have more interactions with them without Eli around.

Overall, just a nice, quick read that was a good filler in-between other books.