This was so cute! A wonderful romance, filled with witty banter, delightful characters, and just enough steaminess. A must read for romance lovers!

This was a warm and funny, sweet read. The characters in this book you can definitely relate to. We all have been there.. The choices to make in life are for those who take a chance.
This made me feel warm and fuzzy all over and was truly a great read. Highly recommend to curl up with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate.

A sweet, no-steam love story rooted in the fun premise that there is a lot to learn from the protagonists of Millennial's favorite classic movies.

I liked the idea of the book, but it just didn’t work. I’m just saying…if a friend of mine was still stuck on someone who broke up with them a year after it happened, and then they want to change themselves to win that person back when no one even liked her?!?!? I would make them go to counseling, lol. But like I said, I liked the idea of the story, but if some things were tweaked, even a little bit, it could be better.


Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this ARC to review. ~I was given this book and made no commitments to leave my opinions, favorable or otherwise. ~

THE ROM-COM AGENDA is a touching romance about a romeo in need of a makeover, second chance at love, Sparks begin to ignite for Eli and lovely Leah in this sweet romance that gives the reader all the feels.
Although it comes off as predictable, the characters are well written and engage the reader. This book is perfect for romantics and rom com enthusiasts!

This book was a cute read! I will say, the slow burn was reallyyyy slow. It felt realistic, but it did feel like it should have picked up a bit faster. I loved all of the different rom com movie references and even a Gilmore Girls reference or two! I really liked the friendships and bonds that Leah built with the other characters. I wish there was an epilogue to see where the main characters ended up.

✨ friends to lovers
✨ small town romance
3⭐️
0/🌶
Release: January 2023

Thank you @netgalley and @smpromance for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Leah is working multiple jobs around her dead-in-the-winter small town so that she can get out when she witnessed the breakup of Eli and his beloved. Months later, Eli is determined to win back Victoria by working through a list of movies with men showing how to win a woman’s heart. Leah and Eli keep running into each other as he’s working through his makeover and then she starts trying to help coach him. Unfortunately, she falls for him even though he’s clearly still head-over-heels for Victoria.

This was sweet and wasn’t overly descriptive in the lovin’ department which I appreciated.

Leah seemed to flip flop from being a strong woman to a little mouse peeping from under her covers. And with her knowledge of Patrick’s personality, why didn’t she say in the very beginning “no I’m not helping you, bye.” He was going to kick her out anyways so she didn’t have anything to gain by helping him or lose by not helping. As soon as he actually came into town, I would have been like ✌🏻

Gray was too over the top for me and just seemed like the author’s way of squeezing in the liberal checklist of “hot words”. Maybe in NY people just spout nonsense like that, but in the real world, we’re just living life trying to survive and treat others the way we want to be treated.

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I think this has all the makings of being an amazing book, but it just didn’t land for me. There were aspects that I really loved (the fun side characters, the FMC, friends to lovers), however, it was unbalanced? The pacing was extremely off and it felt that the slow burn was ridiculously slow. While I loved the side characters, there was altogether too many.

I think the characters felt much younger than they are said to be. The writing made them seem juvenile unfortunately.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC for my honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley, Jayne Denker, and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I was super excited about this book, because I thought the premise was such a fun idea! Taking our lead male and doing a total makeover based on all our favorite rom-com heros? What could be better? However, the execution just wasn’t here for me in this story. First, Eli is doing this makeover to impress a girl who broke up with him. But this relationship lasted barely 4 months and Eli is hung up on it over a year later. His entire friend group can’t stand this girl, and instead of using tough love and telling Eli to get over it and that he should find someone who loves him the way he is, they go along with completing changing everything about him to help him try to win back this girl who 1) doesn’t even like Eli 2) the entire friend group doesn’t seem to like and 3) they all say multiple times they don’t want him to be with her. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Leah is our female lead who falls into the friend groups shenanigans and sees Eli for how wonderful he is. She also has some serious personal emotional past she needs time to work through from her time in foster care and her time spent taking care of her foster mother that I don’t think she really processes. I don’t like that Eli doesn’t realize he has feelings for Leah until Victoria tells him that she is in love with someone else, because it really makes his feelings for Leah seem second place and cheap. Instead of realizing on his own that Victoria isn’t the one for him because she didn’t treat him right/didn’t like him for who he was like Leah did. There were moments in the book I did enjoy, and the makeover scenes were quite funny. The rom-com references were super on point and any scene with Eli and his nieces were heart-warming! At the end of the day, this book just wasn’t for me.

It took me a little over the 25% mark to really get into this story, but I'm glad I stuck it out.
We start with Leah, whose background really interested me from the start. Her experience with foster care was unique to read about and I feel like it was written about in a realistic way. Her experience with grief struck me on a personal level and I really felt for her when she would talk out loud to Cathy, her deceased foster mother that she admittedly didn't have the perfect relationship with.
Eli was a character that I wasn't sold on at first. He initially kind of gave me the ick, but I think that's the point. His character growth is slow, but it's worth it. I did like that to his core, Eli is a romantic and you really feel that when reading his POV.
I really didn't understand why he was still into Victoria even after kissing and feeling his connection with Leah.
There are a lot of characters that play key roles in this story, and I found that overwhelming for the first half of this book. I do kind of wish we got more of some of them, but I suspect this being the start of a series and I look forward it if that's the case.
I really loved the found-family element in this story.
I also kind of wish we got more of a resolution for Leah's unresolved trauma. I would have liked to see her navigate therapy.
Ultimately this was a cute, easy read.

2.5 Stars! Eh. Didn’t love this but didn’t hate it either. Can be read as a standalone. The main characters, Leah and Eli, got on my last nerve. I didn’t really like Leah or Eli. They both came off as overly needy and clueless. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get into this book. I kept wondering if Leah keeps in touch with her foster sisters and how Leah could fall for a guy who seemed so hooked on being with someone else. The man had fallen apart after the breakup and was willing to change himself for Victoria and she didn’t even seem that great. The book has a slow beginning and the ending seemed pretty abrupt and a bit unfinished. What happens with Patrick? An epilogue would have been great. Anyway, I nearly stopped reading but I hate to leave a book unfinished so I skimmed through a lot since a lot of the book is drawn out. Still, it was an interesting and entertaining premise.
*I received this at no charge & I voluntarily left this review.*

Such a sweet story! Absolutely loved the voice and story here.
MMC gets his heart broken when he goes out on a limb to propose to his summer girlfriend, but he vows to try to get her back when she returns from sabbatical. FMC is grieving the loss of her mom and is trying to save up to leave town. She gets dragged into his "win her back" plan, and hilarity ensues.
As a lover of Rom-Coms (movie and book), this hit the sweet spot. I laughed out loud, and felt the arc of the story to be believable, and the depth of characters was great.

Leah came back to Willow Cove to be with her foster mother who was dying of cancer. While out one night, Leah overhears Eli’s girlfriend, Victoria dumping him. Eli is miserable and determined to win her back when she returns from Paris. Leah is in town just until she can get enough money, so she works at many places. While working at a clothing store, Eli comes in with his sisters who are determined to clean him up if he wants to be good enough for Victoria. The cleaning up involves hair, beard, and clothes, as well as many movies to show him how to romance a woman. Leah finds herself doing a lot for Eli and Eli begins to depend on her. Great book and lots of humor as everyone tries to make Eli something he is not. I thought this book did a good job of shedding light on foster care and how alone a foster child could feel. It is hard to form relationships when you have not had many yourself. I loved how Eli’s family made Leah an important part of their family. Great book!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Net Galley for the free copy of the ebook so that I could give an honest review.

Leah has spent the last year taking care of her foster mother before she passed away. As she prepares to leave town, she meets Eli, who had his proposal refused by his girlfriend. As his family and friends loop him into a makeover scheme and convince him to watch a list of Rom-Coms to win her back, Leah finds herself getting pulled in to help.

This book is totally adorable and was such a cute and cozy read. I did feel a bit like the pacing was a bit slow, but after a non-stop read this is a nice pallet cleanser. I love the pop culture references to some of my favorite movies.

The perfect romance book to remind everyone you are perfect as you are and you don't need to change who you are to find your true love.

Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The characters in this book are so easy to relate to, and I am here for the whole "One who got away" trope and theme of the book amidst all the obstacles life throws.

It almost feels as if it's a YA novel and it's cute and refreshing.

Read this if you want the cliché rom-com book.. Not only does it allude to classic rom-com movies from the 80's, but it is a closed door romance.

Eli is hung up over this girl and his friends decide to give him a makeover to win her back. During the makeover, Eli meets Leah, and she quickly joins the plan. With romance movies, practice dates, and lots of snow, Leah is falls for Eli. But, will Eli fall in love with her?

I appreciated the cast of characters and there were times that I feel like they did outshine Leah and Eli. I feel like there are more stories to be told with that group of friends, and that sounds promising.

Pacing was bumpy. While it is easy to read, you find yourself getting whiplash a bit with Eli. I wish it was more of a slow burn of him due to their proximity. His character did seem a bit flat.

Adding the 80's and 90's rom-com's was awesome and I loved that aspect. And I loved the town that they all lived in, too.

Definitely a fun romance and I read it in one sitting.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin, and NetGalley for this eARC for review. These opinions are my own.

The Rom-Com Agenda is charming love letter to all things rom-com. Leah is a former foster child and she's used to being on her own. Eli lost the girl of his dreams and is determined to win her back. Leah and some friends decides to give him a rom-com make over to get his girl back. Leah ends up being Eli's guide to help him get his girl back but she starts to fall for him. I thought it was a little slow but once the story picked up I enjoyed it. It's a little cheesy but that's what we love about rom com.

Unfortunately, I only got about 5% into this before deciding I wasn't going to finish it. I don't think I got far enough into the book to say if it was the writing or the story that turned me off of this one, but there was a definite lack of desire or motivation to continue. I'm sure the right audience for this book is out there, it just isn't me.

Do you ever read a book and you equally want to devour it and not want it to end? That’s this one. It’s not quite what I expected and everything I love about a slow burn. Yes to this!