Looking into this book I loved everything about it - the cover, the title, the description. It was a rom-com and I wanted to mix it up after reading a few thrillers and autobiographies.

Unfortunately this fell short. I was a little upset with the "negative nancy" vibe from the beginning, but there's always that one friend right? I was really waiting on some funny, light hearted, sweet, cute romance-y stuff to come up but it dragged a long. For me - it never got to the " love of everything" that I was expecting in the description.

This doesn't discourage me from looking into the author again. It was an easy read overall.
Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture Publishing, and Jessica Hatch for approving me for this ARC.

What’s your favorite romcom or what are you reading now?

I love romcoms – they are right after thrillers in my preferred genres. So I am always on the lookout for a laugh out loud one. This one said that it was “absolutely hilarious and totally addictive” so I had to give it a shot.

None of Liana’s and Brown’s friends know they’re divorcing after being married for two years. When they unexpectedly come to visit, Liana and Brown decide to pretend to be married while they’re there. No problem, right? Well, things don’t go as planned and by the middle of the trip Liana starts to wonder if she’s been fooling her heart and she’s really in love with Brown still. With the divorce papers already filled, will Liana figure it out before its too late and she loses Brown for good? Or will she get the guts to confess she still has feelings?

Okay, this one was cute, but I did not laugh out loud which was disappointing. The premise is really cute and brought up some interesting points. I did reflect back on whether or not forced proximity would have helped with either of my previous divorces (spoiler it wouldn’t have lol). I think part of my problem was I didn’t really like either main character. I did enjoy the current and past timeline in the book. This was not a bad book, but it wasn’t a great book, pretty middle of the road read for me. I think I maybe got my hopes up and was just disappointed.

This book is heavy on the miscommunication trope. If that’s for you then check this one out Feb 8th!

Thank you to the publisher, Bookouture, @bookouture, Netgalley, @netgalley, and the author for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The perfect blend or everything I love in a romance. Humor, characters you connect too, and just made me feel all the things. It’s relatable in the same way it’s beautiful and I am so thankful to have gotten this ARC! Thank you so much!

Review is up on TikTok now!

Unfortunately, this book didn't work for me. I went into it thinking it was going to be a funny romcom about marriage but it was much more serious than that. The cute cover throws me off too and would be better placed for a true romom.

I had really high hopes for this one. Funny rom-coms are my jam and I absolutely love the cover but unfortunately this one fell a little flat for me. I loved the exploration of how relationships can change and there were definitely some funny moments but I was hoping to laugh more and I had a hard time connecting with Lina and Brown.

I am seeing others that have loved it but this one just wasn't for me. If you enjoy second chance romances and a couple you want to root for, you might like this book.

Thank you @netgalley and @bookouture for the early copy

I couldn’t get into this. I wanted to like it. It had a cute premise but it really just didn’t click for me which is a bummer I wanted to like it. It reminded me of how to lose a guy in ten days but it’s the first book I dnf in quite some time .

Dilemma: if you have filed for divorce, how do you fool your best friends into believing you are still a couple? Fake is in their presence as best you can. A cute story of learning about a relationship from an alternative view-separated but longing.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I did like the book!
The pacing was okay, the only thing for me was that there were a few to many flashbacks. That kind of got me out of my reading flow.

I liked the concept and the important message that a divorce is something you really need to consider well and sometimes it can be enough if a couple decides to fight together for what they have. Marriage and a great connection is definitely something worth fighting for, but you have to do it together!
The pretend scenes were funny and understandably complicated for the main characters.

I didn't really connect with the main characters to be honest. I really liked them in the beginning and the end, but not overly much in the middle of the story.
But in the end I was rooting for the MMC and the FMC to stay together. They did actually make a cute couple!

The side characters were also nice and funny.

I would give this book 3.5 stars

I really wanted to like this book. It sounded right up my street but I just couldn’t seem to get through it. I could never get into the humour part of it and it just seemed to drag.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review

Lina and Brown met in an old apartment building, along with their group of friends. The building is at risk and the group must work together to save it, the only thing is the friends don’t know Lina and Brown are divorcing.

I liked the storyline, and the characters (shout out for the non binary rep!). The idea of sentiment bringing everyone back together to fight makes my heart happy. I enjoyed the back and forth between past and present.

It only got 3 stars from me because of the miscommunication trope being more or less the entirety of the book. Nothing against the author or the book, I loved the fake dating aspect! Miscommunication just isn’t for me.

How to Keep a Husband For 10 Days is a forthcoming book by author Jessica Hatch. This book has an interesting premise for a rom-com because the couple is already married. The book goes back and forth between their time when they were first married and living in this little apartment in a small building, and the time in the present when they are going through a divorce.

Here's a little background: Lina and Brown are getting divorced. Their friend Freddy still owns the building they all met in and held progressive dinner parties in for years. Freddy's building is about to be sold to someone trying to "snazz up" the neighborhood - read: Gentrification. Freddy is trying to do everything they can to keep the property as is because they really want to be able to provide affordable housing in a city that doesn't have a lot of those options.

There really wasn't a ton of "Comedy" in this self proclaimed rom-com. It did have a few WTF moments, but nothing that I'd say really put it solidly in that rom-com category. Also, the fact that the couple was already married made for an interesting premise because we already know they were in love once, and probably still are (it is labeled as a romance, after all.) The way they come to different realizations throughout the book is the way you'd expect any married couple to. They have a lot of fun at the beginning, but things get hard once they're on their own away from their friends. Then they realize that marriage is not always easy - that sort of stuff happens with married couples. They both realized this, but what they never did realize was that they don't really have that much in common with each other - which leads me to wonder why they got married in the first place.

Lina did learn a few things throughout the book about what she would need to do in order to be a good wife and about how to admit things about herself that she needed to work on. And I wish Brown had done the same, but he seemed to stay pretty stagnant throughout the book. There was little surprise that their friend Sarah became even more self centered in the "current" part of the book than in the "past." Freddy and Mia, to me, seemed to be the most balanced, open, and developed characters in the book. They could have made a whole book just about those two and the passion they had and the way they cared so much for people besides themselves.

Overall, I didn't hate this book, but I definitely could have done with some more actual rom-com and better developed characters.

The premise of this book sounds absolutely amazing. I mean, hiding an impending divorce from your friends while trying to pretend that you actually like your husband? What’s not to like when you’re a romance fanatic? Unfortunately, the idea of the plot couldn’t keep up with the actual story.

I’ll get straight to the point. The writing of this book was cringey and not well done at all. I felt like I was back in middle school reading a book off of Wattpad. No hate toward Wattpad writers because some of the books on there are actually quite good and got published but this is one of the bad examples of a Wattpad book.

I also feel like the author was trying to do too much. From introducing about 20 characters on the first page to “my friends don’t even know me because I moved away”, it was just a lot. This book was an immediate no for me.

“I guess there really are two sides to every conversation”
The moral of this second chance romance is You Need To Communicate, People!

Lina and Brown’s mutual friendships, and relationship, grew out of their first apartment building’s progressive dinners. In case, like me, you don’t know what that is - each resident makes a course of a big meal and the dinner travels through each apartment from drinks to dessert. Sounds fun, right? Great way to make friends.
Unfortunately, as time passes and the residents move out and away, friendships fade. After a couple years full of quiet resentments, misunderstandings, and arguments Lina and Brown are headed for divorce.

What starts as a weekend ‘fake the marriage is still fine’ to try and keep their friends in the dark until things are final, ends up extended far beyond that as a quick visit extends into a multi-week full on push to try and save the building they all shared from developers. 

After some false starts, and more misunderstandings, Lena finds the marriage wasn’t as dead as she thought and Brown gets some clarity about what their issues really were. Could they (should they?) give it another go before calling it quits?

Despite being frustrated the characters couldn’t all just be honest with each other and talk about their issues, I enjoyed the story of them finding their way back to each other. The secondary plot of trying to save the building had me invested too, and it was the perfect way to give peeks back to the lives of all the characters when they lived there together and how things ended up they way they did. 

One piece of advice - there is a fair amount of time jumping, so keep your eye the chapter headings, because that’s the best indicator of ‘when you are’ 

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC

Thank you, NetGalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Tropes:
- Second-chance romance
- Fake "dating"

I didn't really read the synopsis for this book, so I immediately thought this was a contemporary marriage of convenience romance novel. It's not. It's a second-chance romance novel about a married couple who's in the process of divorcing. Lina and Brown fell in love through their mutual friends just before the (COVID-19) Pandemic lockdown started. They got married during the lockdown but two years later, separated and Lina filed for divorce. Personally, I absolutely hate it when contemporary (romance) authors integrate the pandemic into their books--or even worse, make it part of their plot. It's not just the pandemic, actually. A lot of recent events or recent trends and pop culture. One of them is when TikTok is mentioned. And much to my disappointment, it was also mentioned in this book. It's too "real" and "recent" for my liking. I know a lot of readers feel the same way, because when we pick up a book, especially a romance book, we want to escape. It won't help if the book I'm reading is too close to reality. I guess, in a way, this book is almost realistic. Another trope in this book is fake "dating." Lina and Brown get together one last time and pretend to be still together for the sake of their friend who's visiting and staying in "their" house. Which then turned into them pretending to be together while they help save their old condo building in which their other friend also owns. I don't really understand the "Ten Days" part in the title, because it was definitely more than ten days. I'm not gonna lie, to me, Lina and Brown's relationship is a bit too fast. Especially during the pandemic. As we all know, misery loves company. I don't think that forming a serious relationship during a deadly pandemic is a wise choice. It's not entirely unwise but becoming this serious might be. And the fact they also got married not even a year into their relationship. But if they're in love, who am I to judge? That's why, with the help of the flashbacks in this book, I'm not surprised that they're getting divorced. I do like that they acknowledge that they have a problem communicating with one another. It's what got them separated in the first place. Another thing I wished they had a conversation about is the prospect of having a baby. They reconciled as if the initial thought made by Brown on why they divorced never happened. Also, Lina reconciling with her friend when she felt betrayed that Lina didn't tell her about the divorce. This book was okay. The plot and characters were just really underdeveloped. I didn't love it, I don't hate it. I just really wished that COVID wasn't part of it, too.

Meh. This is a pretend marriage novel- a pretend marriage where the marriage is dissolving. Or is it a second chance romance? Lina persuades her husband Brown to pretend to be happily married because she doesn't want to admit that they're splitting up. SO he does and they do. But honestly, they would have done better had they seen a counselor and worked on their communication. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. One trope too far for me.

I received this book from NetGalley and the publishers to read and review. All statements above are my true
opinions after fully reading this book.
I loved the cover and title of this book and went into it expecting it to be a romance/romcom which is not what it really was. I tried but couldn’t get into this book.

Via Netgalley I was allowed to read this arc in exchange for an honest review. I requested the book because of the hilarious title and romantic story. The book started very promising with nice characters and in the beginning it was really a nice book. But unfortunately, this didn't go through for me and it was a slow read untill the end. It didn't hold my attention.

Thank you so much Netgalley for the review copy!

I was highly intrigued by the arc and the cool title but unfortunately, it didn't live up to the expectations. Maybe because going in, I had different ideas about how the book would turn out to be. My bad. The writing is quite good and I'm pretty sure there is a broad audience for this one. Please give the book a try if you like second chance romances.

I wanted to like this book I really did but, It just did not work. Did not seem like a romance book to me. I felt like I waisted my time reading this. To me it seemed like the author has never read a romance book before.

dnf @ 14%

I wanted to like this but I'm just not enjoying it. I understand that's not how the publishing world works but it feels like the author read a description of happy place and tried to write it and publish it before emily henry.