Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, and MTV Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Grace is a biracial UCSC (Go Banana Slugs!) college student who has just been dumped by her boyfriend, Josh - although as soon as they broke up, they had sex again. Grace is understandably confused about their relationship, and when Josh tells her he won’t be able to attend an event with her because he’s going to Cancun, Grace gets desperate. She invites her best friends to Cancun for a vacation (without telling them that Josh will be there) and instead frames it as a way to celebrate the breakup. Once there, Grace secretly meets and hooks up with Josh, obviously, although her friends help her meet a new guy, Daniel. Daniel’s actions, both in the bedroom and outside of the bedroom, help Grace realize that her “relationship” with Josh wasn’t actually as special as she thought it was.
While this wasn’t a hard book to read, The Breakup Vacation was hard for me to stay invested in. The FMC is immature (expected for a college student) and she turns to alcohol and lies to handle anything slightly difficult. I am not judging her for those choices, but it was difficult for me as a reader to be invested in her growth when she had SO much growing to do to become an even adequate version of a decent human. I did like how Grace and Daniel discussed their biracial identities, and I liked that Grace was able to realize she deserved more than she had been getting from Josh - a lesson I think many young adults need to learn. The book also included some steamy scenes - they were well done and helped keep me going :) This seemed to be more of a New Adult book than Romance, and I think that genre reclassification may help other readers find this book, but maybe it's considered Romance because of the steamy scenes.

Unfortunately this one was a miss for me. I didn't like the main character at all and I found her very unlikable in everyway and even her friends could see it. I felt completely disconnected from her and didn't want to read her story at all.
This was marketed as a romcom but it didn't feel like a romance. There was a lot of hooking up but no relationship development or growth. Everything felt superficial and unbelievable. This book also read very YA and juvenile. There was spice so the author was trying to make it seem adult but the writing was choppy, simple, immature.

Overall this was a big miss and I do not recommend this at all.

An Asian American college student follows her ex to Cancun hoping to reconnect only to find herself falling for someone new while there. I really enjoyed this vacation romance with relatable characters, a great group of female friends and lots of spicy moments! Highly recommended for fans of Crazy Rich Asians and great on audio too. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

Steam level: open door

Fooled me with this cover. I tried on several different occasions to get into this book but it's just not for me.

Thank you so much for the opportunity but I will not be leaving a public review.

✨The Breakup Vacation✨

Rating: ⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley @netgalley and MTV Entertainment Books for the free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Oof this book was rough! I wanted to DNF it so badly after countless racist and homophobic references! If it wasn’t a NetGalley arc I definitely would have. That being said I’m glad I continued because the spice was worth it and earned it another star.

The main character grace was so problematic and such a shitty friend and just a bad person overall. And this wasn’t like a unreliable narrator you love to hate. I just plain hated her. Her two best friends Tiffany and Camille were also super problematic.

The amount of times a character expressed that they were feeling too drunk and the other characters would all chime in more shots! I felt like I was reading a cross between a bad episode of Jersey Shore and too hot to handle.

This was plugged as a romance book and there was absolutely no romance. There was a lot of hookups and groveling towards her ex who clearly didn’t want her but no romance.

The spice however was serving and Daniel was a redeeming character! I kept hoping he would show up in every scene so I could read more of him.

This books comes out March 5th!

Could not get past the first 25 pages. This book made me uncomfortable in all the worst ways. It started with how cringey our main character was. I really don't like a female character who begs for a males attention, but I figured I could get past that since she was going to eventually find a new love interest in the book. Unfortunately what I could not get over was the hate towards another woman, the internal racism, and the way the French character was described.

I completely understand having a "nemesis", but the hate she had for this girl was on another level and it didn't seem like she did anything personally to our main character. She was just jealous. Maybe later in the book we find out she's an actual mean girl or they become friends, but it just rubbed me the wrong way.

When it came to the French character I felt like she was almost portrayed from a xenophobic lens. She was made out to be extremely ditzy and didn't know the word "douche" when it's a French word. Yes, the way it's used is different than the French origin, but you want me to believe that a modern day French woman who has enough money to go to an international university doesn't know what calling someone a douche means? Weird.

Lastly, the thing that just really rubbed me the wrong way and what made me stop reading the book was the internalized racism. Our main character mentions very strange things about people's race and well before we find out that she is also mixed race. The things said were very weird, out of pocket, and would have had her cancelled if she was anyone else. Before deciding to officially DNF I read other reviews to find out if this is a character flaw that she eventually overcomes, but everyone said it only gets worse.

Will I be finishing this book or recommending it to others? Absolutely not.

The Breakup Vacation by Anna Gracia is a fun and easy romance to read. The book follows Grace, a college student studying to be an actress, as she struggles to cope with the breakup of her ex, Josh. Convincing her two best friends to plan a vacation to Cancun, where Josh will be working (although her friends don’t know this), she struggles to see that she deserves more than Josh has to offer. Despite going down there to rekindle things with Josh, she ends up running into another sexy man who makes her question if she wants to get back with Josh or not.

I do feel like this book could have used some more character development, but I can appreciate the diversity of multiple characters in the book. There are definitely some heated moments and spicy scenes in here, which I definitely enjoyed.

If you’re looking for a quick and fun vacation themed romance, this book releases on March 5th!

Thank you to Netgalley, Anna Gracia, and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing for providing me with an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF.

I really wanted to love this book - the cover is so fun, the title is catchy and the synopsis gave me high hopes. Let's just say, my hopes were higher than what I read.

The characters fell flat and the story itself was just a bit bleh. Just not for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and MTV books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Let me just start off with what I appreciated. I enjoyed the biracial representation in both Grace and Daniel. As someone who has always felt stranded as a transracial adoptee, many things they said about being stuck resonated with me. Going back to a place people say is your 'home' only for you to feel disconnected. To be treated like you don't belong. These paragraphs resonated and had the most emotional depth in The Breakup Vacation for me. But I think where this book struggles is to find a line between a story about Grace's journey to find out her own self versus a series of somewhat shallow vacation disasters in an almost caricature movie like story.

Some moments, the characters almost felt shallow or underdeveloped. I enjoyed the foundational interactions between Grace, Camille and Tiff - especially as Grace serves to be some sort of medium between the two in terms of beliefs about identity - but then they'd have these moments which felt a bit over the top. I didn't really get a good sense of the depth of these side characters which is a shame because I think so much of the book is about Grace's lies to them and how she feels she can't be open with them about her break up.

Additionally, Daniel unfortunately also felt like a side character and not a love interest. I wanted to fall in love with him, but unfortunately the bar of "doesn't treat you like garbage" wasn't high enough for me to fall. I saw their connection in how they viewed pieces of their identity, but I wanted to see more in terms of their connection besides purely physical. How can I have the hope that this might work if I cannot buy the hope for the moment never mind tomorrow?

This was sexy and fun and a very quick read. Unfortunately, a few parts fell flat and just read a bit too young for me. I appreciated the sex positivity and empowerment messages, but at times they felt a bit clunky. I am also not the biggest fan of a dialogue-heavy book, so that made it less enjoyable.

this book was truly just your average vacation romance book, which i normally do enjoy! but the main character in this is so unlikable that it made parts of the book difficult to get through. to me, the actions she does would get her shunned from her friend group forever, and that does not happen. by about halfway through, i was sick of her. i do think characters that make unlikable choices are intriguing, but this went above and beyond any of that leading me to hate-read the rest of this.

dnf.

This is my third reminder this week that a cute cover is sometimes just that.... a cute cover.

The real question I have is this: Why is Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing putting out this book?

This is marketed incorrectly as romance. It belongs firmly in a YA category with very little romance. Just call is YA. It's coming of age. It's learning to understand dynamics and understanding your place in this world.

We meet the main character drunk on her way to try to hook up with her ex boyfriend, who, when the fmc arrives, has another girl over and is leaving with that girl the next morning to go follow that girl's dad around a movie set. The FMC is all, "I'm an actor, I won't be emotional and he'll want me," and then her friends show up, drag her drunk butt home, and this is where any hope of the book getting better dies.

Major complaints:
- no depth to characters
- diversity (good) but done one dimensional, using stereotypical behavior (not good)
- marketing
- writing is chopping, immature
- storytelling and plotting could use some fleshing out and direction

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for an ARC of this one. These are my honest thoughts.

This book wasn’t for me. Not only did the straight jump in confuse me, I was instantly annoyed by the main character. The use of a quote between Caity Ruiz name every time it was mentioned got old very quickly. I had high hopes for this book because the synopsis sounded like everything I would enjoy, but I was ultimately disappointed. I would have enjoyed it more if I didn’t feel like I was stuck in the main characters head listening to her never ending inner monologue.

The premise of this book, three girls chasing an ex-boyfriend down to Mexico in an epic "get him back" plot, is addictive. I love the determination Grace has to prove her worth to Josh. Her best friends, Tiff & Camille are a bit misled in the trip's purpose, but nonetheless, are there for their bestie when she needs them!

This book is fun, it takes place in a cool setting, and the banter between friends keeps the book moving forward. The friendship between the three girls is the real standout to me. They fight and argue, but they hold each other accountable and their friendship is what sings in this book.

Although I like the plot, the characters all lack a little bit of depth. We don't really know them at all, and the only thing we know about Grace is she is desperate for Josh. Grace seems to have a lot going for her, so I didn't really understand her lack of self worth. I want her to kick Josh to the curb from page 1. I didn't understand why she needed to get him back at all.

This book is quick and enjoyable, but I wanted more from everything - the characters, the romance, the entire plot.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the eARC.

This one... wasn't for me. I felt confused and really struggled to connect with our MC.

I was all for this book, and I was so damn excited, the plot was something I was interested in and the characters are funny. But the writing style threw me off a little bit, I was expecting a spicy adult romance read, but Grace was so damn juvenile, and then the characters started to look even younger. When Grace met her rebound I was so damn excited because he was HOT HOT, but then even that didn’t do it for me.

I mean the fact that Grace lied to her friends to follow an ex who she knows she doesn’t deserves but still chases him annoyed the living crap out of me. This book just wasn’t for me, it should be labeled a YA and skip the “spicy” scenes all together, and make these women into girls about to graduate high school, dumb the ex all together, lol.

Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

DNFed so fast. I guess this is intended for adults, but the writing is insanely juvenile. I was in the mood for a fun, spicy novel with beach-vibes, but this is … kind of a mess. I do not think this is a book for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and MTV books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

Grace, a college student, was recently broken up with by her ex, Josh. She desperately wants to get back together. She finds out he will be in Mexico for the summer break & Grace plans a trip with her friends there to try and win them back. Her friends, assuming it’s a « breakup » trip, are down for the count.


I thought this book was cute & very relatable. I loved that it showed a women overcoming a controlling, A-hole of an ex. Many women, including myself, have been stuck pining after someone who just wasn’t interested in them.

I give it a solid 4 stars!

DNF 4% in.

Thank you Atria Marketing for sending me a widget of this book.

When I got the widget email from Atria Marketing I was excited as I have loved other books they have sent me but I hated the first chapter to the point I was skimming it just to finish the first chapter. I see on Netgalley this is from MTV books which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing which was odd when I thought this was an adult romance but it read like a bad YA romance. It was repetative, the FMC was chasing after her ex who was a crappy person it seems, and the worst part of it all was they were adults. They were I think at least 21 but they were acting like some of the middle schoolers I have met. There were quite a few jokes that would have been funny if done once but they were repeated in slightly different ways the whole first chapter. This book might work for some but it doesn't work for me at all.

I DNF’d in chapter 3. I’m not a fan of the “win him back while lying to your friends” trope. I’m more of a “move on and find someone better.” I’m sure this story is good but I don’t think it’s for me. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this before release day.