DNF at 45%. This one was just a bit too slow for me. I wasn’t drawn enough into the story or the main characters. Would have liked to see a dual POV maybe.

This book was definitely a me problem. I was bored and didn't care much about the characters. The chemistry between the MCs just wasn't there for me which is what led me to DNF.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader. All thoughts are my own.

Emma Lord is a go-to read for me. I was excited to see that she was venturing into adult romance. I enjoyed “The Break Up Pact”. I think June and Levi had good chemistry and I liked the premise that they both wanted to get back at the exes who scorned them publicly. Though, I didn’t fully buy into the social media of it all. I loved Mateo and Sana as side characters, but June’s brother annoyed me with his demands for wedding planning. I don’t think he was more busy than she was that he couldn’t do anything for his own wedding. Then we don’t even get to see the wedding. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

I think the author tried to really flesh out the emotional piece of this story. Growing up, dealing with grief and learning to move on without forgetting. There was a lot of miscommunication at the beginning of the story that I think the characters really tried to break by the end. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but there was just something missing that I can’t put my finger on right now. 3.5 stars rounded to 4. Thank you, NetGalley for this eARC!

*I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Griffin for this ARC!*

Emma Lord is one of my absolute favorite authors, so I was thrilled when I got the ARC for her first adult romance, The Break-Up Pact! She is known for her humorous and heart-felt YA contemporary romances, so I had no doubt that she would knock it out of the park.

I really enjoyed the setting for this book! I’ve only been to New York once, and it was to the city. Getting to experience life in a New York beach town was so much fun! It’s not what I would normally picture, and that made it exciting for me. Also, June’s tea shop, Tea Tide, was the thing dreams are made of ❤️🫖 It would only have been more perfect if it were a tea/book shop, but I digress. The setting, and the cast of characters that populate the town, were lovely and made me fully want to visit this cute little seaside town in real life (if only, right?)

June and Levi were a fun couple to get to follow through their shenanigans. June certainly had her fair share of problems, including trying to live up to her sister’s memory and guard her heart from the guy who broke it 10 years ago. Levi was so sweet, and I felt for him. I will say, I got so frustrated that he kept trying to make it work with his ex, though. I just wanted him to fall head over heels for June right away, okay sue me?! The fake dating trope was fun, as it was a way to make their exes jealous, but also a way for June and Levi to reconnect after a 10 year estrangement. It gave me all the feels when they gradually started to thaw for one another.

I do wish that we had gotten more of June’s relationship with her brother, Dylan, in the book, but honestly, that is probably the most nit-picky thing I can say. We still got some lovely scenes between them, and we got lots of great character growth with June and her memories of Annie, her sister who passed years before.

Also, this book had the first spicy scene I’ve read from Emma Lord, and I thought it was really well done! There is really only one, so if you prefer your romance a little more clean with just a hint of spice, this is a good pick. It is certainly more of a slow burn in that way.

All in all, this had Lord’s trademark heart-warming family drama, sweet romance, and a good amount of shenanigans to keep things interesting. Pick up this book, and any of Lord’s other books, today and you won’t be disappointed 🥰

My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I gave The Break-Up Pact 5 Stars!

The Break-Up Pact is a contemporary romance novel about a twenty-seven-year-old woman who is dumped publicly on a reality show and joins forces with a childhood friend to get revenge.

Childhood friends June and Levi are both dumped publicly—Levi for the film star his fiancée falls for when she’s showing him a NYC apartment, and June when her boyfriend of a decade brings a camera crew home to tell her he fell in love with his reality show costar. Levi is back in their hometown while he figures out his relationship status, which throws him directly in June’s path, even though they’ve barely spoken in a decade. But when the internet sees photos of them together, they are deemed the “revenge exes,” and the extra attention sends customers flocking to June’s failing tea shop and makes Levi’s ex jealous. So, a fake relationship “pact” is hatched. But their past friendship and insane chemistry make it obvious to everyone who knows them (and the reader) that there is nothing fake about the “revenge exes.”

This is a romantic comedy with a fun premise and a slow-burn romance. June and Levi have a strong connection that makes the reader shout, “Just kiss already!” It also explores the more serious topics of grief and loss, as both characters have been mourning the death of June’s sister, Annie, for the last two years, and June tries to honor her memory by keeping the tea shop open. There are a few things that frustrated me, like the characters creating their own roadblocks to “happily ever after,” and there was just something that felt unrealistic and convenient to the plot about their friend group and this small beach town. I also didn’t think it was necessary to give June such a dissatisfying previous decade-long relationship with Griffin (he never said “I love you” out loud the whole time they were together…what?) in order to make things with Levi seem so much better.

Overall, this is a cute contemporary romance that takes the “fake relationship” trope and gives it a fun reason to exist. I wished the characters wouldn’t be so stubborn and clueless sometimes, but it was still an enjoyable ride.

3.75 rounded to 4

3-3.5 stars. I wanted to love this book. I really, truly wanted to. The cover is so cute. I love a fake dating scheme and one geared to shut down terrible exes is even better. However, when both the main characters have attitudes towards their exes that are entirely too generous for those exes actions, it loses steam for me.

Let me use this space to share what I did like before I go more into what didn’t work for me. I do love the way Emma Lord turns a phrase. She’s got a way with words that strikes a chord with me. I thought she did a particularly good job with June’s grief over the sudden loss of her sister. She really captured the depth of those emotions and the aftermath left for those dealing with the loss. There was also a good dose of humor in the story, and the quippy dynamic between June and Levi was fun. Knowing this was Emma Lord’s first adult romance, I thought the intimacy between June and Levi was done well and flowed naturally when the time came for that scene.

The main problem for me was that I simply never really connected to June and Levi’s romantic relationship. I didn’t like that they both seemed mildly sympathetic to their exes despite being burned so publicly. I didn’t believe the reason for their decade-long distance having that kind of power. To me, it devalued the strength I was supposed to believe their friendship had. It felt more like neither of them cared enough to make more of an effort to resolve things. I particularly didn’t care much for Levi in general later in the book. I felt he lacked a backbone and conviction when it came to his relationship with June and how he handled things with his ex. Oh, and I felt cheated that so much of the book was focused on June and Levi helping plan a wedding that never happened on page.

Overall, Sana was my favorite character. This wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t a hit for me. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/St. Martin’s Griffin for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Full of small town beachy vibes and a second chance, fake dating storyline, The Break-Up Pact was the perfect summer read. The book was filled with nostalgia for the main characters as they grapple with what went wrong in their friendship after childhood. Make no mistake, though, this story isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Grief and survivor's guilt are an ever-present theme throughout this book. Emma Lord did such a beautiful job of tackling these topics without bringing down the fun summer feel that is at the core of this story.

Oh my SCONES!!

Emma Lord has done it again. This time holding us by the fake-dating-trope-set-in-a-small-coastal-town-with-childhood-friends throat. The baked good combinations were strange, yet left me wondering if someone could possibly make something good out of them. This quick read was fun, delightful, & a perfect way to end summer!

(& Yes, I had to head to my own town’s bakery after to get scones!!!)

I loved this book SO MUCH. Emma Lord, please feel free to release 20 more adult romances and I will gobble them up. .

I will never tire of fake dating, I don’t care how unrealistic it is! The moment when they have to kiss to keep up pretenses….. just gorgeous.

June was the cutest FMC, and I got emotional each time she talked about her late sister. There’s really nothing like sisterhood, and thankfully I got to spend a week with my sister after finishing this book ❤️

Levi and June’s teasing playfulness and flirting was just absolute catnip, and I couldn’t have loved their dynamic more. Especially the double unrequited crushes! Are you kidding! The chemistry was so excellent and I could have read 200 more pages of them together.

I pulled back on reading YA, bc it makes me feel old, but now I want to catch up on Emma Lord’s other books!

Thank you, Netgalley, for allowing me to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own.

I felt a strong connection to Sana in this book as I'm currently the cheerleader to my own June.

A fun beach read, that I would pass on to friends if I could. Not quite at You Have a Match level of rom-com fun, but a top contender

Second chance romance AND fake dating? Combing two tropes can be risky but it is handled with ease in this delightful romantic comedy. The characters have flaws but are still likeable and are dealing with real-world problems. The reader will not want to put this down in hopes that the characters can reach their HEA

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

This was a quick and easy read. Not too much depth to the story or characters but okay if you want a short and sweet hit. 2.5 ⭐️

The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord is two of my favorite romance tropes (fake dating and friends to lovers) rolled into one, and it's set in a beach town with the FMC the owner of a tea and scones shop--it's the perfect summer romance novel, or at least pretty close!

When June and Levi, high school friends that haven't spoken much for a decade, decide to pretend to date to take the focus off their break-ups that have gone viral on social media, they start to wonder just how fake the relationship really is as they remember how close they used to be. The relationship was not a surprise for me as I read the book, it was more a matter of 'When will these two figure it out?' Which leads to my only struggle with the novel: they figure it out about 2/3 of the way through the book, and the ending dragged out quite a bit longer than I thought was totally necessary. I enjoyed the social media aspect of the story, as I can imagine this plays out in reality often with celebrities.

The characters were interesting, well-developed, and with enough conflicts and flaws to make the story fun. I don't think I ever fully understood the relationship dynamics from high school, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of the story as a whole.

The Break-Up Pact is a great summer or beach read, similar in vibes to those by Christina Lauren, Emily Henry or Elin Hilderbrand.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord. The opinionsin this review are my own.

I have loved every single one of Emma Lord’s novels. She is hilarious and clever, and that shines in this title. No one uses pop culture references with the expertise Lord does continually in her novels. This one is no exception.

I still loved this one, but I felt it lacked that extra “oomph” of conflict that comes with being years out of the college world and well into adult life. I feel like a lot of subplots were skimmed at best. I think she has a beautiful YA/NA voice, and I hope she continues to craft her contemporary voice while still using her chops to create YA/NA works.

June and Levi were childhood best friends. They drifted apart over the years. When Levi returns home to his small beach town, he reconnects with June. June has been running her sister's tea shop. Her sister had passed away, and June stepped in to run the business. June and Levi reconnect because they have both gone through very public breakups with their significant others. They have become Internet and meme fodder.

After photos of them surface, everyone thinks that they are dating, and they become known as the revenge exes. They decide to fake date to try to get some of the negative tension away from them.

This story had so much miscommunication, which I found to be frustrating. I think that there were parts of the story that confused me, and there were too many stories to follow.

I wanted more of a focus on their relationship, but it was lacking for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC of this book.

Synopsis: Best friends June and Levi haven’t spoken in ten years, but after they both go through embarrassing and public breakups, they try to fix their images by fake dating each other.

Thoughts: I am a sucker for a fake dating plot, and this one was really fun! I felt like the connection between Levi and June was really genuine and believable, and their banter was great. Be warned, there is heavy miscommunication going on in this one - it affected the character arcs for me and left me feeling a little frustrated. Overall, I did enjoy this book, but there were some growing pains going from YA to the author’s adult debut. I look forward to seeing what she writes for her adult audience next. A note on the audio: I have zero complaints about the narration by Natalie Naudus. The humor in this book came across really well on audio!

Read this if you like:
⛱️ fake dating
⛱️ friends to lovers
⛱️ childhood friends
⛱️ beach town
⛱️ baked goods

Give me an enemies to lovers trope any day! This one is a little different being that Levy and June always had love for each other they grew up together they were best of friends, but they grew apart. And now they are social media sensations in the worst way. Both of their ex’s broke up with them, and they decided to fake date to turn around their horrible social media fame around. This all happened when they candidly pictured together, and people started to call them the Revenge Ex. Well WHY NOT!! Aside from their own personal things that are going through, they were a ticking time bomb, and when they finally fed into their attraction after so many years of secretly loving each other it was amazing. The spice was spicy between these two. The HEA is everything I needed.

I love Emma Lord. Her books are so fun with easy to relate to characters and conflict. This book did not disappoint. For her first adult romance it definitely had the tension and the steam alongside adult conflict/ resolution, but it very much relied on the YA backstory to carry the story. Overall it was a cute summer beach town read that made me want to curl up in my favorite local coffee shop with a hot tea and a scone and my first high school love.

I received an advance review copy for free from the publisher via Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

June and Levi, once inseparable friends, haven’t spoken in ten years. Now, both reeling from humiliating break-ups that went viral, they find themselves the subject of a new rumour: the internet thinks they’re dating. Desperate to boost June’s struggling tea shop and help Levi win back his ex, they agree to fake a romance. As they stage swoon-worthy dates to keep up the ruse, old feelings resurface. Can they navigate the charade without their hearts getting involved, or will this pretend romance become the real deal?

Fans of the miscommunication trope, rejoice! You are certainly in for one hell of a treat in Emma Lord’s adult debut!

Haters of the miscommunication trope…come join me in my misery. Did I bum myself out while reading this book? Absolutely. But a girl can only handle so much. And if you don’t like the miscommunication trope and the main miscommunication is cleared up at 55% of the book…only to be immediately followed by the next miscommunication five pages later that will drive the rest of the story to its final conclusion…you’re just out of luck.

I know this is a very subjective preference, but I just can’t stand miscommunication where everything—the entire plot—could be resolved with one honest conversation. Now, if you give me some extra reasons for this miscommunication? Great, hit me up, give me something to rally against immature characters. But here, we have two adults, and especially our main character June, who will actively utter sentences like “If I win this race, we never talk about what happened again” multiple times to evade an honest, mature conversation and I just don’t want that in my romances. I love open communication, honesty, trusting your partner with your vulnerable parts and this is just not what you’re getting with this book.

Unfortunately, while I usually adore all the tropes Lord brings us and always give her books five stars, this time around, the miscommunication just infused every other part of this story that could have been great with a bad feeling.

One thing is the combination of childhood best friends and fake dating and second chance romance. All great tropes that Lord has handled perfectly in the past, yet here a lot of the character development and even the nostalgia for June and Levi’s childhood years felt superficial and more show than tell. Their connection was tainted by their miscommunication and made it a real challenge to connect to their rekindling of their friendship and eventual romance.

Similarly, the fake dating was quite hindered by the fact that Levi was literally still somehow sort of but not really engaged to a woman who publicly cheated on him—yet he still couldn’t make up his mind. That made the whole fake dating turning into real feelings even harder to appreciate since the miscommunication from their youth further complicated an already insurmountable amount of issues. So while I did think there was a lot of potential here, it just didn’t appeal to me.

For me, the highlight in The Break-Up Pact was really June’s and Levi’s individual journey of growth. June undergoes quite the self-discovery as she struggles with listening to her gut in the face of losing her sister and their old dreams yet eventually learns to go for what she wants and bet on herself even if the odds don’t look good. She’s a go-getter in the end and I think that journey deserves all the love and will be very relatable to a lot of readers.

Meanwhile, Levi also has some roadblocks to overcome and while I won’t get into the whole fiancée situation, the way writer’s block and Levi wanting to go after his dreams but feeling pressure to be what everyone wants him to be in the literary world felt so real and raw that it made me ache for him.

Beyond the things that made me want to scream, Lord still brings her usual charm and humour to The Break-Up Pact. There are moments of utter hilarity, fun bits like a certain scream poetry scene and quirky characters that deserve to have their own book just because they turn out to be absolute show-stealers. So if you’re a fan of the miscommunication trope, you’re sure to enjoy this fun, beachy romp and if you’re not, you still find find a lot to love in Lord’s newest adventure.

Two viral break-ups, one fake relationship, childhood best friends and a whole lot of miscommunication meet in Emma Lord’s adult debut The Break-Up Pact, perfect for fans of Elena Armas and Abby Jimenez!

Following a break up that went viral June has become a meme and has nosy tourists flocking to her beachside tea shop. A tea shop that she’s been trying to keep afloat by herself since her sister’s death. June is at a loss of how to keep the tea shop moving forward until an opportunity presents itself in the form of Levi, her best friend who she hasn’t spoken to in ten years. Levi has recently gone through the same viral break up situation and can relate to June. Together they come up with a plan to fake date in order to help June get back in her feet with the tea shop. Their ‘celebrity’ status will have customers lining up at the door to get a glimpse of ‘the Revenge Exes’. Fake dating never goes as planned and this time around is no exception. Will Levi and June be able to make it out of this with their friendship in tact? Or will their friendship turn into something more?

I was drawn in by the cover of this book and was ready for this fun romance. It didn’t disappoint. I enjoy a good friends to lovers romance and fake dating is always fun, even though we always know it’s not going to go as planned. I liked June and Levi together and enjoyed finding out about their pasts together. The romance was sweet and perfect for a fun summer romance read. Each character had their own baggage and grief that needed to be sorted through and I think this added a lot to the story and their relationship. I enjoyed the main characters, but I really want to know more about the side characters and see their own stories play out. I know this isn’t a series, but I did grow attached to some of the side characters and wish I could see how their lives unfold. Overall this was a fun, lighthearted summer read that is great for romance fans!