I loved this fast paced quirky work place romance and can’t wait to read more from this author in the future.This book follows Nami a young entrepreneur who is struggling after covid and is considering selling off her company. Out of the blue Nami receives a text from Jae her hold school nemesis leaving cryptic messages about seeing her soon. When Jae shows up as a representative for Rainforest the company that wants to buy out Toggle. Nami is floored and out right refuses to sale her company to him. During all of the offers going back and forth Jae and Nami reunite and maybe they weren’t such enemies after all.

I really loved the enemies to lovers romance on this one it was such a cute rom com that gave me hating game vibes. I really enjoyed the writing and the pacing kept me interested throughout. I hope to read more from this author in the future and would like to thank net galley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review .

A huge thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for gifting me a copy of this ARC!

I thought the romantic tension in this book was chef's kiss magnificent! It was fun and immature but sexy and unpredictable all at the same time. This is my second Tanamachi read, and her style is just right for me as a reader. She creates these confident female characters that elevate her tropes. Enemies to lovers here with a lighthearted feel. I really enjoyed it!

I loved the Takeover!! A great rival to lovers trope. I love the buildup of the relationship between Jae and Nami. Their banter and chemistry had me entertained from the beginning of the book.

3/5 ⭐️ Came here for the plot, stayed for the banter.

Summary
Nami's pride and joy, the tech company she helped to found, is about to lose funding. Nami’s old high school nemesis, Jae Lee, is planning a hostile take-over of her start-up. Both Nami and Jae are intelligent, fiercely competitive, and unwilling to compromise. You know what they say though, hate and love have one major thing in common - passion. In their fight to win, their competitiveness and passion takes them in a direction neither of them expected.

Thoughts
The hate-to-love trope will always be a fun one and this book has such good hate-flirting banter. I also like that you can see early on how their competitiveness that's always been directed at each other could have the potential to make them such a good team together.

I don't care much for the business side of this plot and all of the conflict around the integrity of the MMC's company, Rainforest, which is obviously Amazon. If you focus more on main characters' personality/banter, it's a good one. But overall, it's pretty average as far as romance novels go.

This review is posted on Goodreads, and Instagram (@_bookish.brittany)

I don't always enjoy the enemies to lovers trope, as the behavior that drives characters apart is so often contrived, but The Takeover was a joy to read. Nami and Jai are delightful and I was rooting for them the whole time.

Wonderful story, great character development, great writing! Highly recommend this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it

I love the premise of this story and it is such an intriguing plot line!

Due to time I will not be giving a full review here.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The main character Nami is sister to Sora from The Second You're Single. While Sora has found her HEA, Nami finds herself without a fiancé and her beloved tech company is in peril. To make things worse, her high school nemesis Jae Lee starts popping up in unexpected places.

I found both novels reflected the sisters' respective personalities well with the first book having more humor, which I missed in this book. However, I preferred Nami's novel. The relationship is better developed with Jae having a more integral role. Also, I can't help but enjoy a tale of enemies/rivals to lovers with (mostly) playful banter. Jae is, however, one of my most disliked male love interests...ever. His overly inflated ego was something I could not stand even as he redeemed himself toward the end. It was hard to let go of my first impressions of him.

I adored Nami's programming team. It would be awesome to work at a place where the people have fun working with each other and the boss genuinely cares about the employees. My favorite part of the book is the running joke with the office chair. I thought it was funny even if Dell did not.

Grab this one if you like office/workplace based books and enemies/rivals to lovers.

Enemies/ Rivals to lovers is my very favorite romance trope, the option for banter this provides is something Cara Tanamachi used expertly. This was so much fun to read !
This is a dual POV romance so both Nami and Jae get their perspective heard.
Nami is has the feeling her world is coming down around her. Her fiancé cheated on her RIGHT before their wedding, her tech company (which kind of feels like her baby) is going under, and she feels like her employees are her only friends, will she let them down? There’s a surprise birthday party (the big 3-0) where only relatives turn up, has she been working that much ? Add to that the pressures of trying to keep her overbearing mother happy and her feelings of getting too old (that is actually something I hate a bit as a 46yo, those 30yo characters in romance novels who feel like they are growing old …but I really truly loved this book overall, just a little aside 😉).
The weight of the world on her shoulders leads Nami to wish for a soulmate at said birthday party…
Only to have her high school nemesis Jae, reenter her life. But to turn things from awkward to really bad he is now vice president in charge of domestic acquisitions of the company coming after Nami’s tech company. On the plus side, he’s tall and hot and something about him drives her crazy in all the best, and worst, ways…
This was fun to read, light enough but with enough of a grip on harder topics to feel real and relatable. Was it a little unbelievable everything was sunshine and rainbows in the end ? Sure, but isn’t that why she read romance - this was entertaining and fun and I want to try some of the spicy ramen they were having !

3.5

There were many things that Nami expected for her 30th birthday, but being single - having broken up with her cheating fiancee last year - and on the verge of losing her company are not on her list. To top it all off, her high school nemesis Jae Lee works for the big corporation looking to takeover her start-up.

Jae Lee has never met an opponent more cutthroat than Nami. He's looking forward to sparring with her over her company. He never backs down and never loses.

Sparks certainly fly when these two are together but instead of being in animosity, it's from attraction.

I have not read a really good enemies-to-lovers story in ages and The Takeover ticks all the boxes. It's so full of spark between Nami and Jae Lee. I think that Cara Tanamachi did a great job of balancing the history between Jae Lee and Nami with who they are as adults. Their competitiveness stems from high school and Nami being the "hall monitor" to Jae Lee's "valedictorian". He always thought she took rule following to the next level and he constantly beat her at various achievements so she always thought he got everything he wanted. If you look back at their history, you kind of see how they influenced the way they do things in their present jobs.

Clearly, nothing can compare tp these two being playing off of one another so as soon as they are together it's game on.

However, I think the whole idea of focusing on Nami and Jae Lee takes away the focus from Nami's start-up. I almost felt like it was glossed over a bit which is strange because it's the whole reason why these two are brought together in the first place. Clearly, there's a reason why Nami's start-up Toggle needs to be bought, there's a reason why a big company like Rainforest (I do like the cleverly masked references to real big corporations throughout) is circling like sharks but we don't really know the why of it all.

I just wish there was a little more balance between the personal and professional aspects of the story.

This was my first book by Cara Tanamachi, but I'm very interested in her previous book which features Nami's sister, Sora, whom we encounter in this book as well. There were many things that Nami expected for her 30th birthday, but being single - having broken up with her cheating fiancee last year - and on the verge of losing her company are not on her list. To top it all off, her high school nemesis Jae Lee works for the big corporation looking to takeover her start-up.

Jae Lee has never met an opponent more cutthroat than Nami. He's looking forward to sparring with her over her company. He never backs down and never loses.

Sparks certainly fly when these two are together but instead of being in animosity, it's from attraction.

I have not read a really good enemies-to-lovers story in ages and The Takeover ticks all the boxes. It's so full of spark between Nami and Jae Lee. I think that Cara Tanamachi did a great job of balancing the history between Jae Lee and Nami with who they are as adults. Their competitiveness stems from high school and Nami being the "hall monitor" to Jae Lee's "valedictorian". He always thought she took rule following to the next level and he constantly beat her at various achievements so she always thought he got everything he wanted. If you look back at their history, you kind of see how they influenced the way they do things in their present jobs.

Clearly, nothing can compare tp these two being playing off of one another so as soon as they are together it's game on.

However, I think the whole idea of focusing on Nami and Jae Lee takes away the focus from Nami's start-up. I almost felt like it was glossed over a bit which is strange because it's the whole reason why these two are brought together in the first place. Clearly, there's a reason why Nami's start-up Toggle needs to be bought, there's a reason why a big company like Rainforest (I do like the cleverly masked references to real big corporations throughout) is circling like sharks but we don't really know the why of it all.

I just wish there was a little more balance between the personal and professional aspects of the story.

This was my first book by Cara Tanamachi, but I'm very interested in her previous book which features Nami's sister, Sora, whom we encounter in this book as well.

I wasn't able to read this book because life has been extremely busy, so I will rate this 5 stars to compensate. The blurb looked very promising though, and I will read this when I get the chance and I will edit my review

I wanted to like this so bad but honestly it lost me so quickly. I couldn't stand the writing and the characters were so boring to me. I'm sorry.

This was such a cute, lighthearted book. Featuring the enemies to lovers trope. I just loved the banter between the two main characters. Overall a fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the E-ARC. And to RB Media for the ALC.

All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own.

This was a fun read! I didn't love how the storyline played out, I hated how much the characters just didn't trust each other. I did love the rivals-to-lovers banter between Nami and Jae. Rivals-to-lovers is one of my favorite tropes so I had high hopes for The Takeover. I loved the rivals-to-lovers that Nami and Jae had and loved watching Nami fight for her company. It was a really enjoyable book overall. I just hated the mistrust between Nami and Jae, especially since they had known each other for so long. I felt like they could have still been rivals but had some trust in each other. I didn't love the dynamic with some of the side characters, which I think some were written to be unlikeable. I enjoyed this book, it was a fun read. I would pick up another book by Cara Tanamachi, but don't think I would reread The Takeover.

want to thank the publisher, Net Galley, and the author of an ARC of this fun enemies to lovers romcom. I'm giving this 4.25/5 stars.
This book opens with Nami's company needing a cash infusion from investors to stay afloat. Here comes her old high school rival Jae and the huge corporation that he works for to swoop in and buy the company from her and envelope it into the brand.
From Jae's and Nami's initial reacquaintance, they begin to discover that what they assumed or thought about each other is not all that there is.
I appreciate the depth of the characters and loved watching the two main characters fall in love with each other.

Nami Reid wished for something special on her 30th birthday: a soulmate. What did she get instead? Her Hate Mate. Her life seemed to be blowing apart at the seems: her ex-Fiance cheated on her, her relationship with her mom was not great, her start up company needed more money and investors and then Jae Lee shows up.

Jae Lee moved back to Chi-town looking for something different in his life. What exactly was he looking for?… his nemesis from school: Nami Reid. Despite the strong feelings of dislike towards each other, Jae felt like he needed something more fun and banter in his life, which included Nami. The only problem was his company trying to takeover Nami’s company and Nami’s hatred for Jae.

The possible takeover of Nami’s company led to overwhelming pressure to pull away from Jae despite the feelings that were lingering beneath the surface.

This was my first time reading this author and I thought the story was adorable! There was a slow burn to the story and academic rivals/hate mates are my favorite stories to read about. There is some steaminess (maybe a little of spice lurking), but mostly fade to black. I’m looking forward to seeing what this author has in store for us next.

There is that classic saying that there is a fine line between hate and love. Nami and Jae are an example of how fine that line is. Okay, most of the hate is one-sided but it still shows how close those two emotions are. ‘The Takeover’ is a classic enemy-to-lover storyline but the characters that Cara gives us are all so amazing we can’t help but keep reading. From main characters to side characters, I have fallen in love with each one. The office prank that happened was also refreshing to see throughout the book and made me chuckle. That was so great to see how much of a family unit the team at Nami’s company is.

Nami and Jae had the relationship of needing to be better than the other person in high school. This really did make them who they are as adults, and even as adults the support system they ended up seeing was always there for them was nice to see.

Cara did give us the typical third-act break-up, but I think this was done well and something that needed to happen between these two characters to figure out themselves before they found each other again. The break-up wasn’t long and done very well just like the whole book. ‘The Takeover’ gets a solid 4 stars from me and has a little bit of spice. It’s level 2 on the spice scale (but there is a scene that brings tears and more to Nami and Jae as it’s spicy). This book is out now and available to get wherever you get your books. Cara did a great job writing 'The Takeover' and you will want to read this book again right away when you put it down.

An enemies to lovers story. Nami and Jae were rivals in high school, will they continue to clash now he is trying to take over her beloved company. I liked how it was told from both points of view.

I love an enemies-to-lovers story and this was a fun one! With great banter and a lot of chemistry, The Takeover sucked me in, and the interesting cultural aspects gave it unexpected depth. Now excuse me while I go order a spicy ramen...

Thanks to St. Martin's for the copy to review.

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.