⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

So so cute!

Thank you, NetGalley and RB Media for allowing me to listen to the early copy of this book.

Enemies/rivals to lovers are always a hit for me and in The Takeover this trope is splendidly executed.


Nami is 30 yo, with a failed attempted marriage and a company she gave all herself to sinking every day a little more. On her 30´s birthday, she wishes for her soulmate but fate presents her with her old high school enemy/rival Jae, who is working for the multibillionaire company threatening to take over Nami´s smaller one.


I liked a lot the dynamics of this book, and the drive Nami shows for her company and her employees it´s something that I would love to see all people in charge have also in real life.

I particularly enjoyed the prose of this book, how the writer makes us understand what´s important for our main characters, who on top of everything else, are also struggling with their being second-generation immigrants with very demeaning parents. Yes, they are adults, but it´s always difficult to do something that it´s against or not so much in line with what your family wants.

The story is fast-paced and easy to follow. A lot of the dialogues were very smart and relatable (mainly for the sexist talk inside the office).

Also Jae!!!!! He is the perfect book boyfriend. I enjoyed everything about his character.

The audiobook was well produced and Donald Chang did an amazing job voicing Jae.
On the other hand, Chieko Hidaka, who was voicing Nami was a little off with the timing. I found her punctuation all wrong and was slighty annoyed in the beginning. I definitely needed to get used to her tone and musicality.

The best part of this relationship is they don’t change who they are, but they grow and learn new perspectives. They struggle with their families and with themselves. They learn to move on from the past while maintaining their fun rivalry! So relatable!

I received this ARC audiobook through NetGalley.

I always love workplace romance and this delivered it, even though it's not really co-workers. As an Asian girlie who worked in a tech corporate company, I love the representation of the characters and the whole shiny corporate world in a different perspective of a CEO who loves her people and treated them as family.

In the story, we follow Nami who owns a tech company with financial troubles and Jae, her high school nemesis and rival who worked in a huge acquisition company that wanted to buy the company.

The whole story was entertaining and made me laugh out loud (especially with the LOTR references since I love that movie), and I love that we also see the work banter. The ramen scene was gold.

I also love that we see glimpses of their own family and how everything was not perfect as they also struggle with their own hurdles.

The one thing that kinda threw me off was I saw the third-act break-up coming from a mile away, although it was kind of necessary in this, but I kinda wished it went on a different direction but that doesn't take away much from my overall reading experience.

Read if you like:
🌏 Asian American Characters
📦 not a fan of Amazon Company
🥵 Spicy Food Challenges
😡 Enemies to Lovers
📥 Workplace Romances

Overall, this is a solid romance that features high school enemies that are brought back together through business when one wants to facilitate the purchase of the other’s business in a somewhat hostile takeover, hence the title 😉

Jae is the privileged executive of rainforest (Amazon vibes) who is wanting to buy up Nami’s company to chew it up for pieces and spit it out after the deal is solidified since competing with Nami is something that has always brought him joy and currently he is bored and could use with her challenging him to bring a spark back for him.

Nami is definitely blindsided by this even though she has known their small company has been struggling and needs a solution but never thought it would be Jae or selling out to the corporate evil that doesn’t align with her business ethics and values.

This creates quite the tension for the enemies to lovers combined with their high school rivalry and bad blood.

This book, obviously features some miscommunication that leads to the third act break up which I think was something you’d see coming with this plot.

All in all, this is a solid romance that follows the traditional enemies to lovers with miscommunication tropes formulas and will be enjoyable to many.

Thanks so much to the publisher for my ALC in exchange for my honest review!

"The Takeover" was not only a fun romance story, the two main characters also worked to find themselves. Nami and Jae Lee had great rivals' chemistry and banter on the page! I also enjoyed reading about both of their separate families throughout the book and in the little moments with them. I found myself rooting for Nami and Jae Lee all the way through. I couldn't put this book down! I listened to this book and the two narrators were both great to listen to! Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for the advanced audio version! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and RB Media for allowing me to listen to The Takeover audiobook!

Oh wow… this book. The Takeover is about a young business owner who finds out that her business is being bought. Turns out that the top spot for buying is her high school arch-nemesis. Funny enough, books like this are actually really fun to listen to, and even though this book was not my favorite, I listened to it in 2 days. The narrator was fantastic but the story had so many issue from a listener’s standpoint… the main guy, Jay, is awful and so selfish. I hated how Nami stopped hating him, because he was finally being nice. I guess there’s a fine line between hate and love????? Anyways, I did not root for this relationship at all, and I truly feel like these two will fail at marriage. They literally just like each other for their looks and their challenge. Not my favorite trope. I give this 2.5 stars. The dad and grandma were by far my favorite characters, so they brought laughter and cuteness to the story.

I got this audiobook as an ARC, and I can honestly say that I loved it. Just the right amount of humor and sassy romance. The characters are believable and just meant to be. Great enemies to lovers book that reads so quickly. Also, I loved the mix of cultures in this book that are often underrepresented. Interested in reading more from this author!

Oh and I really need to try that chair.

THE TAKEOVER
By: Cara Tanamachi
Narrated by: Donald Chang and Chieke Hidaka
Pages: 304
St Martin Publishing Group
Publication date January 30, 2024
#romcom, #humor, #contemparyromance

This book is the ULTIMATE hate crush story. Fall in love with Nami and Jae Lee through the lively narration by Donald Chang and Chieke Hidaka in this story of corporate takeovers, meddling parents and spicy Ramen.

Nami has always excelled in everything she has done but she was never a cool and popular kid like Jae. All bets are off when these two rivals must negotiate the business deal of their lifetime.

4.25 out of 5 stars

I absolutely adored this audiobook! I had such a good time reading this book and enjoyed hearing the characters on the audiobook. I enjoyed the fact that the author took the time to explain the rivalry from their high school days. I thought that was a great extra layer of tension and contempt between the two MC's. The way the relationship unfolded felt a little fast but natural nonetheless. It would have felt off if they had not known each other previously. I also really enjoyed the way the author fleshed out the side characters. All of the characters felt 3 dimensional and that they had a purpose. The office chair shenanigans definitely stole the show for me. Overall, I consumed this book over the course of two days and it was fabulous. The audio narrators were great and everything felt immersive.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for this book in exchange for an honest review.

I made it 25% through this one. While I loved the story a lot, the male narrator sounded too much like Gronk from The Emporer's New Groove for me to continue. The performance felt so dramatically evil and condescending, and I just don't feel that's what the author meant the voice to feel like. I appreciate so much the representation and attempt to match voices with lived experience with the characters they are portraying. The male narration is over-acted and truly distracted me away from the importance of the character.

Aside from the performance, I was really into this story and fully plan to finish this with my eyeballs instead of my ears one day in the near future. But the audio was not for me and is getting a DNF @ 25%.

I honestly did not know what to expect with this book. I did enjoy the banter and cute situations. The repetitiveness of the company's name started to drive me a little crazy. The male narrator was fantastic, the woman was just okay for me. The concept of the book was cute and entertaining enough but I am not sure it is a book that will stay with me forever. I did love learning about the culture and how things and expectations are a little different. Also, I love ramen so points for that scene!

This had some good banter but it did feel a little childish at times. I also felt like the shift from being "enemies" to a straight up couple happened too fast. Also, the solution to the main problem in this book felt very anticlimactic. All in all it was a quick, fast paced read.

*Thank you netgalley for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review*

Thank you NetGalley for an ALC of The Takeover in exchange of my honest opinion.

The takeover follows two high executives that are dealing with an acquisition but were also childhood nemesis.
Nami is one of the founders of this tech company that is not turning profits. She strives to have a good work ethic and being a good boss to her employees, but that came with a cost of not having enough time to dedicate to personal matters. Everything changes when her company receives an offer to a merger from an Amazon-like company and the one that is dealing with the merger is her (very hot) childhood nemesis.

I liked seeing Nami and Jae’s relationship with their own family. Here it shows that their migrant Asian families have a complicate dynamics with unspoken expectations that sometimes is impossible to achieve. Both Nami and Jae, feels that they can’t make their parents proud and struggles with proper communications. This was a very interesting topic approached and I liked how the conflict was solved in Jae’s family but I thought it was left open ended to Nami’s family

The whole environment of the tech company and side characters that are Nami’s co-workers were very funny and the whole chair incident was hilarious in my opinion.


The relationship between the main couple though started as enemies to lovers but the transition to lovers part was too abruptly in my opinion and the third act breakup was like “can’t you read my mind?” Type of issue that I’m growing tired of it.

Although I liked the narration, I thought sometimes it felt a bit clunky.

Overall it was a light and easy read with the main characters having their own issues that they worked it out. The pacing of the book was great and it was hard to put it down.

This was a fun, enjoyable, and quick listen! If you love a workplace romance, enemies to lovers, and women in STEM/entrepreneur representation you will enjoy this book. As a romance it took almost 35% of the novel to get to any real interaction between our two main characters, so I kept feeling like I was waiting for things to get going. Once they did I really enjoyed the story!

A super quick listen and it was a cute story. You have a women in the IT business with a second chance romance. For me, the narrator fell a bit flat but I did enjoy the characters. I was able to listen to this one in one day and for that reason I enjoyed it. Im just not sure this was a book for me. The spice was minimal which is fine but I do enjoy more buildup. The romance felt a bit rushed.

Rivals to lovers done right. I was a little apprehensive in the beginning of the book because work place romance can get so wrong so fast but The Takeover was a breath of fresh air. This book has its finger on the pulse and delivers a realistic look into romance in your 30s. Kudos!

I will be filming a TikTok and posting my review on Goodreads!

A quick, easy enemies-to-lovers read. Nami and Jae were high school rivals that are still obsessed with one-upping each other as 30 year olds.

I found Jae to be unlikeable. He picks at Nami, intentionally calling her a nickname she resents, because he’s bored and wants some excitement in his life. When his family learned of why he was in contact with Nami every single one of them told him how poorly he was behaving.

Nami expected everyone else to make wonderful decisions all the time and got upset with them if they didn’t make the same choice she would’ve made.

The story was well paced and lighthearted. I appreciated that the characters had realistic flaws and had logical consequences for their actions. I do think that the evolution from enemies to lovers felt rushed.

I had a difficult time with the lack of emotion in the narrator for Nami. I thought Jae’s narrator did a better job of this.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for allowing me to review this audiobook.

I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook of The Takeover and although I do prefer to read along/read the book I really enjoyed this story. Loved that this was dual POV and both narraters were engaged in the story. This was the first time I've ever just listened to an audiobook just itself and I was able to easily follow along with the story.

The story follows 30 y/o Nami who at this point in her life is not satisfied where she is. She had expected to be married and have a successful career instead- she ended her engagement with has no current prospects of love and her tech company which she helped start is losing it's funding. Her wish for her 30th bday is to find her soulmate. Then comes along her high school rival, Jae who comes back into her life working for a company who wants to buy her tech company. Nami was not expecting that her wish to find a soulmate would lead her to her rival.

I love being able to read a book and feel a connection with a character(s)- and this was how it made me feel when I read/listened to this book. As an Asian American I felt that I could relate to both of the main characters. I recommend this book if you are looking for contemporary romance, rivals to lovers, force proximity, and open to/want to read elements of Asian family cultural values (which both characters do experience- which I loved to see).

I look forward to seeing other books that Cara plan to write in the future.

Audio Arc Review: The Takeover by Cara Tanamachi

I devoured this book and I absolutely loved it. The audiobook was well done and I'm already thinking about rereading it👏🏻 The bantering and tention between Nami and Jan Lee was entertaining and hot. Jan Lee is officially on my book boyfriend list💖 Also I loved the sub plot of the workplace pranks they played on Dale with his office chair😂

Thank you @netgalley for providing the arc, I loved it💕

Cute romcom with some fab tropes. Gave me ‘The Hating Game’ feels. Really enjoyed it, and enjoyed exploring these characters!