💕enemies to lovers/ high school enemies
💕witty banter
💕 Spicy Ramen challenge had me laughing
💕Workplace romance

Overall, quick rom-com but didn’t love the ending. Might have made more sense if they knew each other college instead of still worrying about high school at the age of 30. It doesn’t help that I compare all office romance books to The Hating Game.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a cute, quick read. My biggest complaint is that there were moments that read really immature. I like my book characters to act their age.

Nami's entire life is wrapped up in the company she started. Her days are spent at work, she socializes with coworkers, and at night she worries about how they are going to stay solvent. When one of her business partners reveals that funding has dried up, she is shocked to discover Rainforest (aka Amazon) is interested in purchasing the company. This would make her a ton of money, but would possibly put her friends out of work and dismantle the company she helped create. Then she discovers that the man behind the acquisition is her high school nemesis and she knows she must do whatever it takes to prevent the sale. A seasoned romance reader can imagine what happens next. This enemy to lover trope is well developed as they experience a slow burn. The initial twist in the story is obvious, but the ultimate conclusion is quite unique. Author Cara Tanamachi is an author to watch.

Just another predictable enemies to lovers rom com! Not a bad thing at all - just the way I like it, light and easy. I was interested and captivated by it at the beginning, and then lost steam partway through and it made it harder to get through.

This book had me laughing out loud and also giggling to myself. As a big fan of enemies to lovers, this workplace rom-com was exactly what I needed.

Add in spicy ramen and attraction, this book is a solid enjoyable ride!

Highly recommend!

I once saw this meme talking about the fact that after you read fantasy, it's a little difficult to take enemies to lovers in a contemporary fiction seriously. And honestly, it's true. To be honest, I wouldn't consider this an enemies to lovers, it's more so a rivals to lovers.

This story follows Nami & Jae Lee. Nami life has taken a turn for the worst. Her fiancé has broken up their engagement and her tech company is about to lose their funding. Frustrated with her life she makes a wish on her 30th birthday to find her soulmate. Instead, the universe delivers her Jae Lee. Her high school rival. The popular kid at school who beat her out of being valedictorian.

Even now, after almost 10 years have passed, Jae is still as effortlessly cool and charming as ever. The worst of it? He's planning a hostile take-over of her startup. And again the two go head to head. As time passes, the two realize that maybe things have changed between them.

This was a super cute rom-com. Both characters were super likable, and I couldn't get enough of either POV. I had a lot of fun reading this one.

In support of the SMP boycott, I will be withholding my review of this title until SMP speaks out. If the boycott is resolved, I will update with a full review.

Perhaps it's because I'd finished Jayci Lee's Off-Limits Attraction (also not riveting reading, by the way) the day before starting this, but The Takeover felt very generic and unremarkable. Nami is a company owner with a heart of gold whose baby (an app that helps people...swap...things?) is in need of a bailout or a takeover, when in swoops her high school nemesis, Jae, an acquisitions director for Amazon Rainforest, to torment her about it, but also take her out for Hell ramen and steal her heart along with her company.

The high school dynamic, and both main characters' incessant referrals to it got grating really fast, as if neither character developed even an iota as soon as they left high school. Not as fast as the pseudonyms used to stand in for real companies whose names totally could've been used in just about every instance without legal repercussions (not sure about Amazon, since it's literally called the Borg by Nami's employees for most of the book, and not in a flattering way - not that there's a flattering way to be called the Borg), but very quickly.

Honestly, it was difficult for me to like either of the main characters: Jae was cocky and his teasing made it clear he always held all the power in the relationship and liked it that way, Nami was too-good-to-be-true and eternally indignant, holding onto grudges way beyond what had to be good for her mental and emotional wellbeing. Jae's reason for targeting her company, when it comes out, (spoiler: he was bored and missed interacting with her, so he thought he'd try to take over her company), makes him look like a massive douche. On the other hand, Nami's finance lady, Imani, is also a pretty terrible peer/friend/whatever to Nami, going behind her back and refusing to ever discuss her thoughts on the future of their company. The rest of the supporting characters were pretty forgettable, I'm sorry to say, though I remember a lot of effort was put into giving them personalities and page time.

So, to sum up: lackluster plot and characters, so how about the sex, after all, this is a romance novel. Unfortunately, I was so uninterested in Jae and Nami getting together, I have no memories of how it went when they consummated their years-long love-hate-lust thing, though I'm sure it was the best either had ever had because, y'know, romance novel. It felt like the second book in a series about sisters/brothers all finding their perfect people, especially Nami's sister, but I was not curious enough about Sora(?) and her lumberjack (whose name I've forgotten) to see whether there are other books written about this set of characters.

Toss it in your beach bag and be relieved you aren't an app developer, I guess.

3.5 Stars. This was a quick and easy read. That being said, the book was an odd mix of tones. Both Name and Jae had very interesting family dynamics and there was an interesting story hidden in there about the two learning to be more than their careers, but it was overshadowed by childish competitions. I did appreciate that they both admitted they were rivals in high school (at least in their own eyes) because so many of these high school rivals stories are one sided. Overall this book was entertaining enough to keep me occupied for a couple evenings.

A very sweet enemies to lovers romance. There were times that I was laughing out loud at what was happening in the book. The story of high school rivals Nami and Jae and how that competition apparently went into adulthood. Jae works for a company looking to purchase Nami’s and along the way their hate turns into hate love.

Nami's company, Toggle, is struggling so "Rainforest" (aka Amazon) is looking to buy it. Besides her already-terrible feelings about "Rainforest" and having to be bought, she then finds out that Jae, her high school nemesis who beat her to Valedictorian by 0.245 of a GPA point, is the VP of Acquisitions who will be trying to close the deal.

I really wanted to love this book, but it was too repetitive and irked me in a way I didn't expect it to. The top 3 things that bugged me were:
* Nami's insistence that her company was FUN and Not Evil and that they were ALL FAMILY (like gurl bye, not in this economy lmao)
* Jae's weirdo reason for looking to buy Toggle?? like ~ oh i was bored and missed competing with you ~
* the preachiness against Big Tech - I get it, trust me, I get it. I get preachy about it too but liiiike reel it in. it's the tech industry after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Irk Honorable mention: if you're gonna high key talk that talk about a company (and obv can't use their actual name), can the names please be less obvious? I see what she did there // it being a Bezos vs Musk type of rivalry but seeing "rainforest" made me cringe SO hard.

If you can get past those pain points, I think you could enjoy the story. At a zoomed out view, it is a cute enemies-to-lovers plot with some work drama mixed in there lol

I actually really liked this book, despite being a little hesitant at the beginning, I think it take a bit to pick up and there’s a lot of tech stuff that I- a not techy person- found hard to understand. But the actual relationship is so cute and I love the slow burn of it all.

This was a great adult contemporary romance novel, that I would definitely recommend trying!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

A birthday wish for your soulmate leads you right to the one person you've hated since school, surely it must be a joke- right? Nami just wants to find love. She's been successful in everything she's done, up until now when she's 30 and still single watching her sister get married to the love of her life and jealousy is creeping in.

Honestly, the pure hatred Nami had for Jae felt a little odd. It's like she hung onto this and ran with it for absolutely no reason and none of her friends spoke up and called her out about it? The root of it irritated me but I am a sucker for some enemies/rivals to lovers and the tension between these two was right on par. The fact that we got some deeper back story on the rivalry was refreshing. It was detailed and visited pretty often and I think we often lack that understanding so this was redeeming. The insane chemistry between these two was undeniable.

Overall, a great rom com that embraces the rivals to lovers trope and gives great banter, tension, chemistry, and backstory to our characters.

This is a cute fun story about two high school nemesis that reconnect years later and realize they might just be right for each other after all!

This was a quick, fun, surface level read! I liked the side characters, all the tech stuff, and I thought the MCs were great together! I even laughed out loud more than once.. that ramen scene was a riot.

In the end though this story was just too surface level for me! It missed the big emotional punches, especially at the end when everything wrapped up easily in a neat little bow!

I really enjoyed this book, aside from a few political mentions that seem as though they’re required virtue signaling by publishers nowadays. Once I got past that irritation, I found the book to be engaging, funny, and sweetly wholesome. My favorite tropes are found family and enemies to lovers, which this book had in spades. I laughed out loud and rooted for the underdog (another favorite pastime and trope of mine). I appreciated the focus on family and culture and the plot line relevance to contemporary world businesses. I would definitely recommend to romance readers. All opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy.

“The Takeover” by Cara Tanamichi is a delightful, two POV, friends-to-enemies romance. Nami and Jae haven’t seen each other since their competitive high school days, but on the day of Nami’s 30th birthday, the same day that the company she helped established, is in danger of being taken over by a giant, evil corporation, Jae messages her. It turns out he works for that company, in charge of acquisitions. Some hilarious moments follow—particularly the aftermath after eating some really, really spicy ramen. Will they continue to fight against each other as they always have done, or will they discover that fighting together, they are a force to reckon with.

This is really a cute story, and I’m grateful to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC. My opinion is my own.

I really enjoyed The Takeover. The story line was well written and flowed nicely. I liked Nami and Jae Lee together. This is a well executed high school revivals to lovers.

As Nami’s milestone birthday approaches she finds herself facing how her personal and professional are not where she wants them to be. The ending of her engagement was difficult enough, but the public embarrassment only made it worse. Her company isn’t thriving and now she is facing a buyout by the man who was the bane of her existence when she was a teenager.

Jae is successful, charming, and representing the company that wants to absorb Nami’s company into his fold. He knew that convincing her would be difficult not only because of her resistance to maintain her independence but the past they shared has been more antagonistic than friendly. Let the battle begin!

Both Nami and Jae are determined to pursue their own agendas however they weren’t prepared for their true feelings to emerge as they take us on journey complete with humor, emotions and realizing what truly matters. I did enjoy the performance of the narrators as it allowed you to understand the characters and what they were going through.

Imagine The Hating Game but set in a tech startup. If you thought that the animosity between the main characters was childish, this book is not for you. If you thought THG was fun, this might be for you.

The first job a book has is to convince the reader that this book is for them. The way The Takeover goes about this is to introduce you to the main character Nami’s startup, Toggle. Toggle is THE BEST place to work and is a genuinely good company, according to Nami. They even made t-shirts “TOGGLE: FUN. NOT EVIL. REALLY. WE MEAN IT.” And I think that sums up the vibe of Chapter 1. If that sort of thing reads as cutesy to you, you are the reader for The Takeover. For me, everything went far past cutesy and into an immature territory that make me really not want to continue on with the story.

I read a little farther and was introduced to the MMC, who was equally as insufferable as the FMC. That’s when I realized the writing style just wasn’t for me. I wish it was, I thought it sounded like a really fun enemies to lovers book.

For me, the characters read as very young and immature, even though they were supposed to be in their 30s. And there is a lot of info-dumping about the business instead of really living in the character’s motivations or moving the plot along.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Tanamachi’s writing develops with her future books.