thanks to NetGalley for the eARC

⭐️=3.25 | 😘=3 | 🤬=3 | 15+

summary: girl has a giant online romance review following and wants to get this brand deal and thinks she’ll be more qualified for the deal if she has a boyfriend? so she uses romance tropes to try and get a boyfriend and then this guy who just so happens to be her online review rival is at her college and they like compete and fall in love and stuff???

thoughts: very silly motivations, but still mostly a good time! cheesy and infuriating in a cute classic way. like we know he’s in love with her less than halfway through and at the end of the day that’s beautiful. I read it in one sitting—like within hours of the ARC approval, which is kind of iconic of me. also, the love interest writing an Omegaverse novel is so funny. such an out of pocket character decision. I love it. it’s also very impressive that I almost never cringed at the BookTok etc elements of the book, so well done on that front!

however, I do have a handful of critiques!!

- I HATE baby as a pet name. I hate it so much. so much. absolutely not.

- don’t think Aiden got any character resolution w his family etc, or at least it was a very hasty denouement. Classic “we know everything about the heroine and nothing about it the hero,” and tbh Irene’s arc was similarly messy. like the sponsorship never felt THAT serious at the end of the day.

- I HATED the fade-to-black scene; I don’t think Irene was in an emotionally good spot. she was upset with Aiden and didn’t understand his actions on the livestream, and then Aiden just rips off his shirt and is like “I don’t want to talk about the last ten minutes let’s have sex now.” no! bad!!

anyways!! there were still cute moments, and I think the chapter titles were clever! overall a good time ft. an almost-equal number of swoons and slight cringes. if you liked Better than the Movies , you’ll LOVE this—a very fitting comp title.

age rating: 16+
spice rating: 1/5
spice info: references to intimacy, and things got heated in chapter 14, then abruptly faded to black. i was honestly thinking 'um, yeah, this does NOT belong in a young adult book,’ and had to skim.

i absolutely devoured this.
i thought irene was such a sweet and relatable MC, and as a bookish girlie who adores romance and makes it basically the center of her delulu world, i have never felt so seen. LOL
the bookstagram/media representation
was great, and was something i really enjoyed reading about. i cannot stress this enough; bookish romance girlies- this book is for you!!

chapter names were literally tropes, i was giggling and squealing half the time, and aiden is such a freaking green flag. where can i find a guy who reads romance, who'll banter with me irl and online, and has good hair and dimples??
¡ loved seeing both his and irene's character development grow alongside their relationship. both of them had such intense private battles going on, whether it was about their workloads, family pressure and expectations, or even considering themselves unworthy of love.
*whispers* if you love the rivals to lovers trope, miscommunication, friends to lovers, forced proximity, fake dating, and everything in between, you're going to adore this book.

shout out to dr. kingston and his chili pepper obsession
the romance rivalry releases may 13th <3
thank you so so much netgalley and harper collins for allowing me an e-arc copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you so much NetGalley for the opportunity to read an arc of The Romance Rivalry 🥹

I can’t even give it a stars rating, it was just a ♾️/5!!!!

The story? Perfection from beginning to end!!!!
The characters? All ultra lovable 💞

This book is basically a love letter to romance readers and books influencers🥹

I cannot wait to grab a physical copy to annotate and obsess again about it 🥰

I like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me a read.

I really enjoyed his book, more than her other book I read - The Name Drop. This one seemed to be a love letter to reviewers, romance novel fans, and inexperienced gals.

This one - the guy falls first. The guy falls first, but to her he is her rival. Rival in terms of a guy who loves / reviews romance novels, and comments on her reviews. Sometimes his comments trigger angry fans who stick up for him and try to put her reviews down. He hardly ever agrees.

Our female goes to college, and while going to college, she is a approached by a Korean Dating Company who hopes her reviews can help boost their website. However, it's not a done deal, and the offer for this position was sent out to multiple people - including our male lead, who also ends u being in the females college... and ends up as her year partner.

So as the summary says, while doing their partnered project for class, she admits to him she is trying to use all her knowledge (er, dating tropes) to end up with a guy and make her sound more creditable for this company. She comes to find out the company has reached out to hm too, and the game is now on - who will win? If she wins, he must shut down his review platform.

I just loved the male lead, he was the perfect type of swoony, charming but cocky, male lead that it's quite obvious he has feelings for her, but you want her to realize this and the way he is playing along is ... ugh, it gave me the feelz. There is also side characters that are cute too, and who are helping the male and female lead in their quest (their roommates, respectively).

The book, as I said, is a love letter to reviewers and people who love romances. I felt this was a perfectly cute book for teen readers.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me an arc of this book! I love Susan Lee's work—especially The Name Drop, which seemed tailor-made for me—so I was super excited to read this! The romance in this book is definitely super cute, I loved the sweet moments between Irene and Aiden, and I especially loved their rivalry at the start. I'm a sucker for one-sided rivalries or annoyances-to-lovers, so I really enjoyed the romance! I also loved that it was set at university—my kingdom for more YA books set in first-year uni.

My only con would be the writing style—it definitely felt more stream of consciousness and I guess... online? than I'm used to. I totally get that it's the point of the book since Irene is a romance reviewer and definitely in the online space a lot, but I definitely struggled with it as it took me out of the escapist narrative I built for myself in my head.

My favourite Susan Lee still remains The Name Drop, but I'm always excited to try more from her. I would give this a 3.5/5 stars.

I loved this book so much that I devoured it in one sitting! It was so cute! Aiden is the perfect boyfriend for Irene. He loves her for who she is and he’s so supportive of her. Irenes love for Aiden is so romantic! Everyone deserves to have the type of friendship that Irene and Jeannette have. This book made me laugh and cry. I can relate a lot to Irene’s character. It was beautiful to see Irene grow and blossom as a character. This has become my favorite romance book of 2024 so far. I highly recommend this book to all romance lovers.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.