This is a breezy romantic comedy featuring forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers, and a destination wedding on Catalina Island. Since Declan was Margo's nemesis from high school, I suppose this is also a second chance romance.
The premise is intriguing, and the brief glimpses of the podcast content helped flesh out some of the characters' motivations. I did not care for Margo's cynical, selfish attitude for the first half of the book, although she becomes more interesting in the second half. The pacing is strong and Margo and Declan's relationship progresses over a two-week period, which makes the pages turn quickly. I say this quite often, but to me, a failure to communicate is not an effective plot device, and I feel that's what happened here.
Overall, fans of lighthearted beach reads featuring a destination wedding and a behind-the-scenes look at the life of an influencer will enjoy this debut.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the complimentary copy. All opinions shared here are my own.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for my eArc, thank you to PRHAudio for my complimentary audio book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts was an enjoyable second chance/enemies to lovers romance.
While I enjoyed most of the book, miscommunication and third act break up play a huge part in the story, and those are my least favorite tropes. The story was predictable, but i enjoyed the mini vacation to Catalina Island.

I thought the narrator, Karissa Vacker did a wonderful job with all the voices. She sounds like an up and coming Julia Whelan!

Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts was such a fun, flirty, and cute summer romance!

This story follows Margo, a podcaster and influencer, on a two-week island getaway to help her BFF Jo get married. Margo is struggling with all of the changes happening in her life and career now that Jo is off the market. Their podcast is about dating rules for hooking up and not getting attached, so how do they remain relevant? Margo concocts a plan to break her own rules during their vacation, all for their podcast. Enter Declan Walsh - BFF and Best Man to the groom, and Margo's highschool nemesis. Margo is convinced she can create some incredible podcast content, but the more time she spends with Declan, the more she realizes how her dating rules were only standing in her way.

I absolutely LOVED this book! I just wish I was sitting on a warm beach while reading it! It was an easy read with funny, relatable, and well-developed characters, but not too many characters that it was hard to keep up with.

I could immediately feel the chemistry and tension between Margo and Declan and I enjoyed their banter and flirting. There was just the right amount of spice and drama, and I quite enjoyed how things wrapped up for them, it was well done!

I also enjoyed following along as Margo came to terms with her changing relationship with Jo. This change to their relationship is so relevant, and I really empathized with Margo's struggle feeling a bit left behind and alone in her quest to save their podcast. However, she could have handled the wedding day a bit better!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts was a cute rom-com in a vacation setting. It was an easy read and kept me definitely kept me interested, though I wouldn't say it was extremely unique from any other book in the rom-com genre that I've read.

I enjoyed watching Margo grow throughout the story, liked her more alternative vibe (green hair and a tragus piercing rather than the typical look most girls have in these kind of stories), and I thought she seemed like a cool girl to hang out with despite the rules for dating she'd made for herself. It was also nice to have a leading guy not be tall, dark and handsome but instead red-headed, ginger and handsome. (Red-heads get slept on! I know plenty of awesome red-heads!)

I don't feel like I saw this in any other reviews, but I didn't really like Jo. She didn't seem like a great friend to me. It may have been what the author was going for, in that case, she did great writing that, but maybe that was just how I perceived her.

It kind gave a How to Lose a Guy in 10 days feeling because of the podcast that Jo and Go did, which shares the title with the book.

I also enjoyed that any pop culture references that were included in the book were current (for now anyways, I guess in a few years they won't be), but it felt like they belonged and weren't just thrown in to throw them in. As well as the podcast element and the added texts. I usually enjoy when texts are added. It just gives it a little ✨more✨, ya know?

It did have a little spice, so if that's something you want to avoid, I'd say there were 3 1/2 peppers. Also some talk of drug use.

Overall, it was an easy read and if you like rom-coms, you'll probably like this one.

And hey, Margo, get a new best friend.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kristyn Miller and St. Martin's press for letting me read this in exchange for my honest opinion.

Cute rom-com set on a fun island. I genuinely like the characters, and rooted for them. Predictable "3rd act breakup" but still an enjoyable read!

This was a fun vacation romance between a cinnamon roll high school secret admirer and a cynical anti-relationship podcaster/influencer. Lots of How to lose a guy in 10 days vibes and I was totally there for the ginger hero!! Pure entertainment with a good amount of emotional depth and a great friendship too. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

This book started off strong. The premise was fairly interesting- podcasters who solely talk about how to avoid relationships end up in relationships. The reason behind Margot’s fear of commitment was overdone (parents split up so she was afraid of being hurt). Margot was likeable enough, although it was pretty gross when she got mad at Declan for not wanting to sleep with her after they kiss in the elevator. Later, she acknowledges he has nothing to apologize for in that situation, but doesn’t realize that she owes him an apology. The multiple mentions of smart watches is strange. The author/main character acts like they’re rare, when they’re fairly common. It just took me out of the story a bit. I found the entire conflict with her initially having shady plans for the podcast a bit unclear.
Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I’d consider this a pretty average rom-com.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me access to this eARC for my honest opinion!

This was a cute and sweet romcom debut! I grew up in the same area of Southern California as the author, and I loved all the references to places and things that were familiar to me. I’ve also spent a bit of time on Catalina Island, and I loved that this was set in that beautiful place.

There was one unclosed loop at the end… something happened that precipitated the ending conflict, and the culprit remained unclear at the end of the book. It made me wonder whether it was left open for a possible sequel. I hope so, as I really liked the friend group and would like to read about more of them finding love.

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am sooo happy I read this book! Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts was the perfect read for me this weekend. Kristyn J. Miller, I am here for your books!!!

Loved the plot, loved the characters, and loved how much it made me not want to interact with social media.

When I started reading, I enjoyed the premise of the podcast, Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts that Jo and Go (Margo) and experienced great success and podcast fame from the show. I liked seeing the impact on their lives and I also was intrigued by the way Margo rationalized her decision-making process when it came to men. However, I also really didn't like her as a character for a lot of the book. She felt whiny and millennial first-world, woe Is me. So when she hatches a plan to get things back on track with the podcast, I almost stopped reading. I didn't like how she was using other emotionally to benefit her podcasting career.

I am glad I stuck with it, because Miller gets into the nasty muck of a mess Margo makes. This book didn't stray away from showing a characters "ugly" side, which I appreciated. I often find in books the character's big flaw isn't really all the bad and more a matter of opinion. However, in this novel, Margo does some really crappy things and is forced to confront them. It has a few tropes that aren't my favorite, but I found them to work in this book, because the author gives the time to allow more to unfold instead of rushing to tie up loose ends at the end.

A huge thank you to St. Martin's Press fror granting me access to this title and to PRH Audio for granting me access to the audiobook. I enjoyed bouncing back and forth between the two!

This book is a light romcom that makes for an easy beach read, with a grumpy sunshine love story set at the height of summer that centers around two characters with contrasting views on love and relationships. The romance between Margo and Declan was refreshing in its ebb and flow, in that it felt well-paced and its progression wasn't overly predictable or linear. At times I felt a bit irritated with how selfish Margo's character is, and her internal voice did feel a bit repetitive (especially with her comments about Declan's appearance), but I did enjoy seeing how she gradually evolved throughout the story into someone I would root for. Despite finding it difficult sometimes to connect with Margo, I felt the connection between her and Declan was genuine and their dynamic was pretty complimentary (and the hint of spice was also a nice touch).

Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts is a podcast run by two best friends, Jo and Margo. While they've had a good run, Jo is breaking the rules, She fell in love and is getting married. She is the planner and organizer. Margo is the one that speaks first and then just keeps going. So the question is, "How do you end this final season of the podcast?" In between all that, the wedding is taking place on Catalina Island. Margo feels like she is going home. The problem is the best man is Declan Nash, high school nemesis. While Margo and Declan are mending fences, they are developing feelings for each other. When you're a popular podcaster, there are always people ready to tear you down. When someone with sticky fingers takes her phone, content made its way to social media. How do you make amends? By breaking one of the seven rules.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for making this title available for review.

The premise of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts hooked me with the dating podcast in crisis when Jo breaks the single girl rules she and Margo established their brand with by getting married, causing a crisis of where to go next for our MC Margo. This book had a lot to like, such as the lush descriptions of Catalina Island and an honest grappling with the pros and cons of influencer life and how to eventually move on. That said, the first half of this book felt more focused on Margo’s test of her friendship with Jo/all-around quarter life crisis with the romance being secondary. Thankfully, Declan won both me and Margo over in the second half and I bought their love story once it kicked in.

Usually I don’t mind single POV romance if it makes sense for the story, but I think in this case I would’ve wanted more of Declan pining after Margo and secretly being a total romantic to balance out the cynicism of Margo working through her trust issues. However, this is all just personal preference ultimately and I can’t wait for what Kristyn J. Miller does next!

⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5

you know how they say when boys tease you in high school, it means they have a crush on you?

that’s Declan Walsh’s story when it comes to Margot Anderson. He was her nemesis in high school after an unfortunate incident with shaving cream….. and mayonnaise.

after they are unexpectedly thrown together during their best friends wedding, Margot finds out that maybe he’s not so much of a nemesis after all and maybe, he’s worth breaking some rules for.

Margot, lovingly known as Go on her podcast with her best friend, Jo run Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts, where they live by these 7 rules when it comes to dating.

After jo goes and breaks well…. All seven of those rules… Go realizes that they have to do something dramatic to save the podcast. She comes up with an elaborate plan to break the rules over two weeks to tell their listeners why the rules work… *incomes Declan*

the plan backfires on her when she realizes that she actually has feelings for him, but it backfires all over again when her phone lands in the hands of someone without the best intentions.

Thank you Netgalley + Kristyn Miller for an early copy of Seven Rules! I really enjoyed this read + can’t wait for it to be out in the world!

3.5 ⭐️

“Just because someone’s life choices didn’t look like your choices, that didn’t mean they were the wrong choices. They were just different.”

Margo has sworn off commitment and along with her best friend, Jo, run a podcast about hooking up without catching feelings. When Jo decides to get married and take up a sponsor’s offer for an all-expenses-paid wedding trip to Catalina Island, their listeners are confused. Once there, Margo is reunited with Declan, and cooks up an idea for the podcast. But the more time she spends with him, the more she questions her rules.

This was kind of a bummer. The premise is cute, but I could tell how this was going to go right from the beginning, so I wasn’t as engaged in the story. And we know that these books get to the HEA, but it’s the journey that makes them compelling. For me, the journey here didn’t pull me in. There was so much potential in the premise, but the execution left something to be desired.

Margo is interesting and has some trauma that has put her off commitment. We never really dive too deep into that, and it feels more surface-level. Another issue I had was that Margo isn’t really likable until further in the book. She’s so focused on the podcast and being resentful to Jo that she comes off as annoying. And it’s hard to root for someone like that. It takes her too long to be happy for her best friends, but it sometimes seems disingenuous because she's still angry about the podcast even towards the end.

Declan is sweet and I liked the way his character was developed. It’s not hard to tell that he’s always liked Margo. There’s this underlying tension that is portrayed well. But the culmination of everything that happens feels frustrating and the resolution, for me, was not satisfying. There is a distinctly stalker moment from Margo that, for someone who has built her life around aversion to commitment, seems so out of character. It was hard for me to be believe she just suddenly changed that much.

I’m sure there are people out there who would love this book, but it fell flat for me.

Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts by Kristyn Miller is a light-hearted rom-com with two fairly likable characters and a simple enemies-to-lovers story-line; interspersed with social media and pop culture using snippets of a podcast and text messages to convey this. Most of the romance takes place over the span of two weeks, which makes the relationship progress very quickly.

Based on the blurb and cover I was excited to read this story, but I struggled with the story. Declan and Margo could be decent characters, though Margo isn't likable till almost halfway into the story. The secondary characters were not relatable, nor did they add much depth or add to the storyline. The story does give a look at how influencers and content creators are treated by the general public. I struggled a bit with the story as it was somewhat forgetful and left me wanting a little bit more by the end.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

This book for me started out really strong and I was feeling some definite ‘How to loose a guy in 10 days’ vibes from it (which is always an excellent vibe). However even though this book isn’t that long and really only spans a few weeks of time it seemed to drag on a lot more than it needed to.

Margo wasn’t the most likable romance protagonist I’ve ever read and Declan never felt like a whole person to me. Because of this I really struggled to connect with the characters, which is so important in a romance. Declan’s personality felt like unbuttered toast, to me he lacked substance and I never understood why Margo fell for him that quickly. And we all know why Margo wasn’t winning any humanitarian awards.

The same thing occurred with the secondary characters as with the main ones. Everyone fell flat. I need to know why Jo is such good friends with Margo, because that bond between them never really impressed me. I wanted to get to know the rest of the bridal party but they were given rather basic stereotypes and moved off screen as soon as they were no longer convenient to the plot. Honestly, most of them didn’t impact the story at all and it would be the same without them, which isn’t how characters should feel.

This is a great beach read for people looking for a lighthearted low stakes romance that can make them dream about going on vacation. It achieves those aspects in aces and spades, I just needed more from the characters in order to feel like I was truly invested in their story.

I read "Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts" by Kristyn J. Miller on NetGalley. This book is about 2 women, Go & Jo, who have a podcast about dating rules. Well, Jo has gone and fallen in love and is married with a location wedding paid for by one of their podcast sponsors. Margo (Go) is needing to make some life choices and wanting some change. And then she meets Declan. I really enjoyed this book! I read it in a few days and it is definitely one of those feel good reads!

This was a debut!? Well done Kristyn Miller! As soon as this ARC came through, I dove right into reading this enemies-to-lovers, beach-front-wedding romance.

Margo Anderson runs a viral podcast with her best friend Jo where they offer rules on how to hook-up without feelings - basically, how to be the heartbreaker and not the heartbreakee. Jo throws a wrench in their “single and not looking” ethos by getting engaged and accepting a corporate sponsorship for a wedding on Catalina Island. Jo’s fiancee happens to be someone they went to high school with, and is also best friends with Declan Walsh aka Jo’s high school nemesis. As they reunite for the week on an island, taking on Maid of Honour and Best Man duties, the two start to fall - despite Margo trying everything in her power to resist.

I adored this book so much. It was well-written, and both Margo and Declan were robust characters. I related to Margo so much - she had some deep-rooted insecurities and tried to overcome perceived rejection and being seen as gullible by closing herself off, trying to control the one thing she could: her relationships. Declan was such a great book boyfriend - communicative about his boundaries, in-touch with himself, clearly grew up (realizing being the class clown doesn’t always translate to having true friends), and a true cinnamon roll of a human being (but a literal NASA engineer). He was a dream to read!

Social media was really creatively integrated into this - we got to see some of the podcast transcripts and got to see Margo/Jo’s relationship with their influencer status in a more truthful light (the good and the bad). It gave me a similar feeling I had to “The Unhoneymooners” and is a perfect beach read - and made me want to visit Catalina Island, like, yesterday. Can't wait to read more from Kristyn!

This was a quick, fun read. I liked the podcast premise, and the enemies-to-lovers trope.

There's a backstory between the two MCs (Margo and Declan), and a messy social connection that places them squarely and inescapably in each other's orbits. The fallout of that makes Margo question everything the *thinks* she believes about relationships, and whether one man is worth her breaking all her rules.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes contemporary rom-coms.

This book was sweet! I’ve never read a book about a podcaster! And I love a story about a girl who is averse to relationships, because she is always proven wrong and I love every second of it.

I liked Margo a lot! She was going through a lot of change and she was really unsure what was next for her. With her co-podcaster and best friend getting married and their podcast of how to stay out of relationships now effectively useless…what was she to do next? Of course she decided to spend the two weeks breaking all the rules they’ve spent years talking about, living without the rules. And OF COURSE she does exactly that but not in the way she thought she would!

It was a slow burn in the sense it took until 50% for Margo and Declan to act on their feelings, but the tension was there for a while before. Their banter was amazing! And once they decided they were going for it it was quick! They were so easily able to slip into being a couple and doing such sweet things together. I loved them together so much. Declan was SO SWEET. They were able to balance each other out really well I thought!

I apparently love when the couple has never been together, but knew each other when they were younger, and they were seemingly enemies but one was SO IN LOVE with the other and now they’re getting their second chance. It was so good. SO GOOD.

I felt like there was something missing. And I don’t really know how to explain it? I was thinking there would have been more of conflict between Jo and Margo? And there was but it didn’t seem to last long? Which normally would be fine, but I felt like they needed more conflict?

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!