I loved Black Water Sister and The Order of the Pure Moon, so nobody is more sad than me that this was a miss. The family issues took centre stage over the romance (which I didn't mind because I found the romance bland and the family drama more interesting), but the whole book got too bogged down in tiny details and the pacing was too slow. I think this could have benefited from being a novella and having a little more zest injected into the relationship between Renee and Ket Siong.

✨Book Review✨

The Friend Zone Experiment
Zen Cho
Pub Date: August 6, 2024 - Today

Thank you @brambleromance @netgalley and @macmillian.audio for my #gifted copy.

On the outside it seems as though Renee Goh has the perfect life. She’s running her own fashion company in London and dating a pop star. Her world is turned upside down when she’s dumped and her estranged father calls to tell her he’s retiring. He needs to select a CEO to take over and is considering her as well as her two brothers. Add in randomly running into Ket Siong, the man who broke her heart years earlier.

While this was an overall enjoyable read I felt like the title was very misleading. I went into this thinking it was going to be a cute romcom. However there was a little romance with a lot of family drama and business talk. I did enjoy the flashbacks that were sprinkled throughout the book. Especially the ones that explored Renee and Ket Siongs history.

Narration was done by Rebecca Yeo. I thought this was very well done. Due to the thicker accent it wasn’t possible to fully understand much over a 2X speed.

Read if you like:
✨Second Chance Romance
✨Slow Burn
✨Family Drama

This a sweet novel that revolves around Renee Goh. Renee the daughter of a very rich family, and she leaves her family business in Singapore for London England. Away from her family Renee has started a clothing brand that is becoming well know and she has become successful. One evening she runs into her ex boyfriend Yap Ket Siong who broke her heart, and she has worked hard to get over him. The chemistry between them is still there, but Ket Siong is holding a grudge against Renee’s family, and is trying to find out what happened to dear friend Stephen.
Meanwhile, Renee’s father wants her to come back to the family business in Singapore to help run it. Maybe even take over as the company’s CEO.
The story focuses on Renee trying to help Ket Siong while at the same time dealing with her father and her crazy brother.
This is a nice quick read, and enjoyed it.
I want to thank Net galley, Macmillan audio and Bramble for the opportunity to review this arc.

The vibes: Crazy Rich Asians in reverse with a heavier focus on the business side driving the plot.

FMC immediately has her heart broken and "rebounds" with an long lost friend from yesteryears, where they had once lost out on something that could have been. The morning after, though the MMC wants to explore their long lost "what could have been" he agrees with the FMC to being just friends. After their fated reunion, her family business affairs and her own personal business takes most of her time, and he tries to figure out what happened to his family friend whose disappearance caused him to leave her life in the first place. Add in some mystery and sleuthing, flashbacks, and the good old miscommunication trope.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Friend Zone Experiment is a light, contemporary romance in comparison to all the heavy world building, epic fantasies I typically go for. I appreciated the FMC is a the owner and founder of her own company, smart, witty, cunning, and little naive for her own good at times. The FMC I struggled to like, though I guess he's supposed to be this brooding yet charming person, who shows his character by how much he cares for his family? Completely thought the spice level was going to be a little higher, but it's quite innocent. What's the phrase? "Closed door?"

It's a four star "read" (audiobook). Quick, easy, and fun.

Thank you Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and Zen Cho for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

I will be posting to Instagram, Goodreads, and Storygraph.

DNF for this one. I have not DNF'd a book in a long time. There was really not much romance involved and I felt like the side characters were barely shown or connected. We had way too much insight on the main character and her dad but it just wasn't for me.

DNF @22% - Too much exposition, not enough romance for me.

The writing style felt very clunky for a romcom. I personally really like books - especially romances - where I can really FEEL what the characters are feeling. Instead, I was very clear about everything the MC was thinking about, along with backstory, but there wasn’t a lot of emotions associated with these thoughts. This was especially problematic for me when the lovers finally met - I felt no connection between them, not even during the “hot night they spent together,” (per the blurb) which was a fade to black with no spicy thoughts or feelings. I have no problem reading fade to black books, so long as I can feel the emotional connection between the characters.

You may like this if you want a book like Crazy Rich Asians by way of Succession. Like CRA, there is a lot of family drama, but unlike CRA, I don’t find there to be a lot of emotions about the drama. The main plot may be about Renee’s business and the possibility of her taking over for her father as CEO of his business, and her feelings about returning to her home country after living in England for so long. Readers who have very different values from their families may find this especially poignant.

The narrator had excellent accent work, and really worked to bring this book to life. Considering how exposition-heavy the text was, it may have been difficult to read this one with a lot of emotion, but the narrator kept her performance from being monotone.

Underwhelming. If I didn’t get an ARC audiobook, thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, I would have DNF’d it. But I felt I had to carry on, hoping it would pick up. But alas - it did not.

I rarely dnf, but this one was worthy of it in my book.

Was it the worst book/story I’ve ever read - no. Would I recommend it, also no.

Both Renee and Ket Siong (the female and male mc) lacked a personality. Maybe it was the narrator but there was almost zero emotion behind either of these two. It made for a very flat read/listen.

Still unsure why these two were attracted to eachother.

If like me, you were a Crazy Rich Asians fan, and are looking for a similar vibe, this is not it.

A slow burn that eventually burns as bright as a birthday candle.

Thank you Netgalley and MacMillan audio for the free ALC.my opinions are being left voluntarily. This was such a miss for me and I literally don't understand the point or end of the story. I did like the narrators so that helped.

I suggest to skip

3.5/5☆

This book is marketed as “delightfully funny,” but it’s definitely not a rom com. I’ve seen it called a K-drama, and maybe that’s a better description. It’s not for me.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

I enjoyed this book very much!

The plotting and pacing were good. The relationship building was interesting and complicated. I liked the mystery element with the kidnapped family friend and the corporate backstabbing.

This was a fun relationship story with many interesting Malaysian elements peppered in, which I loved. I also liked the frequent descriptions of interesting types of food and clothing specific to Malaysian culture; I love those sorts of details to help me immerse myself more fully into the story.

I listened to the Penguin Random House audio version and I was extremely impressed by the range of the narrator. She had a lovely English accent, which she used for the narration bits, but did an interesting “not quite American International boarding school” accent for the main female character and many variations of Malaysian accents for several others, and a perfect French accent for Natalie. This was a challenging range of voices and she smashed it!

I chose this book because of its gorgeous, stunning cover and the content lived up to my expectations!

There's a lot going on in this book. Renee gets dumped by her hot pop star boyfriend, but soon finds that her dad is thinking of her as the successor for his conglomerate. She also meets her old crush from college, who has his own problems. Her brothers are horrible people and even threaten her.
The truth is, when I started reading this, it reminded me of crazy rich asians, because both include extremely rich people from Singapore and involve succession drama. However, as this book went on, it got more and more convoluted. So I'm not sure if I loved it, but the journey was fun! Not sure if the title and the rest of the book are strictly related, though.

The Friend Zone Experiment follows a few families through...I'm not sure. A political scandal, business scandal, and relationship scandal. I'm not sure how the title of the book fits but there is a relationship that is pretty rocky. Also, this is not a YA read.

Renee's dad tells her he wants to consider her to take over his company so she has to make time for that while running her own business. Her brothers are horrible and out to sabotage her at every turn including threatening to release revenge pron. She ends up working with one of the brothers on an agreement.

Yap Ket Siong is a man Renee met and started to like in college. He found out that Renee's dad's business friend (maybe?) was doing dirty deals and he suspects they're behind the disappearance of a family friend, Steven.

Renee and Ket Siong are reintroduced and start hanging out. There's miscommunication and withheld information that would eliminate most of the drama. Ket Siong's family is still having fall out from Renee's dad's friends' company. He's still on the search for what happened to their friend Steven.

It took more than half the book to hook me, and it happened after I sped it up from 1.5 (my normal) to 1.75. Overall I enjoyed the book but there was a lot going on and it was hard to keep up with it all. I'm sure that if this type of book is someone's jam then they'd love it. I'm not sorry I read it but I don't think I'd reread it.

I listen to an audio version of The Friend Zone Experiment. This was about romance, love, class, money, and I was there for every minute of it. Loved it.