***Thank you Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review***


The Dating Game is a good book. It starts with students in college who are attending an entrepreneur class that's very hard to get in.The three students that this story is focused on are freshmen who nobody wanted in their group because all other students were on a higher grade.The teacher leaves them an assignment to create an app, if they don't they fail. The group is formed of two middle class students and a rich one, the two middle class students are hard workers who know how to code and the other one is a slacker who only gets away with stuff because he knows how to be charming. His charm is what gets them through their presentation and sparks the fire to actually create the app not just for class.So from there there is kind of a love triangle. At some point they start wondering if their app is actually good and is doing what it was meant for or not. There is a struggle between the three in terms of the app and their love lives. What really got me interested was the immigration situation Roberto's family was having and wish there was more on that.

DNF at 25%. It's been over four years since I received this ARC. I gave it a go and have decided it is not for me. It interested me then and no longer does now.

This book was entirely forgettable. Im even having a hard time remembering the characters names. It was a fine read, but literally nothing special. Watch the Social Network instead.

What a fun and wild book packed with romance, memorable characters, and some major plot points that really keep the pace and story moving! The cover art for this book is so much fun and reflects what happens in this book. I like how contemporary this book is and how it feels like something that would or could actually happen to anyone in the modern world and the online dating game.

I am obviously not the right audience for The Dating Game. This is not a ya that works for adults, and it left me with a DNF.

I wanted to read this book because the premise is similar to books I love. Also, the cover is SO cute.

Alas.

The plot, while I wasn't expecting anything super wild and full of twists, was a bit *too* predictable for me. 3 students make a dating app where you rate people. Oh, another predictable thing is the love triangle. Are we not all bored of that already? It's the same old "2 boys, 1 girl. Who will she pick?" type thing with nothing new.

Also, I can get past the characterization sometimes BUT I couldn't this time because their personalities are so flat. It's like their character is one trait and one trait only. Sigh.

This really fell flat for me, despite the fun premise. The characters were too plan for my liking, and the plot left much to be desired. It was rather boring, and I ended up not finishing it.

Cute cover OK story. This is a tough book to rate. It wasn’t like I didn’t like it I just didn’t really love it. The characters were fine, the setting of a college campus is always a bonus and I liked the idea of this dating app. Although I have to say it is a little tiresome and predictable that the white guy is the villain. I mean there is a bit of a love triangle but clearly we are all supposed to be pulling for Roberto over Braden. I mean seriously cant the white guy and the Latino guy both be good guys that occasionally act like a holes? Just saying. I guess I just am trying to say this book could’ve been a lot better than it was, I think the potential is definitely there. Not my favorite but definitely not the worst book I’ve ever read either.

1/5 stars

The Social Network gets a romantic twist in this fresh and engaging new read from the author of Frat Girl, Kiley Roache. Experience the whirlwind ups and downs of college life in this authentic and entertaining new novel!

When a notoriously difficult class for future entrepreneurs leads to three freshmen developing the next “it” app for dating on college campuses, all hell breaks loose…

Type A control freak Sara lives by her color-coordinated Post-it notes.

Rich boy Braden wants out from under his billionaire father’s thumb.

Scholarship student Roberto can’t afford for his grades to drop.

I guess I was hoping for more with this book and it just didnt deliver.
YA is very hit and miss for me. I wish I could have loved it because it seemed right up my alley.

It just didnt work out.

Mare~Slitsread

I really enjoyed this book! The characters were very compelling, and the storyline was really unique. I really enjoyed that this book was lighthearted, but also dealt with some incredibly important topics. This was easily a four star read!

3,5-4 stars

This was a fun read,with a great concept! I loved the premise of it I just didn’t like as much as I wanted the characters.There was a romance throughout most of the book that frustrated me a lot!

Very appropriate for the times. Would recommend to someone in the next age box down from me. While it was an easy read and I made it through, it's just not my genre.
Props to the author, as the writing was excellent and definitely held my attention!

I wanted to love this one. To me, it was just OK, but there were a lot of positive and negative things about it. I thought it took me back to my college years easily and I could picture many of the events with clarity. Although I could connect with the setting and plot, the characters fell flat for me. I just didn't enjoy them and didn't root for them. I also thought the app they came up with was extremely problematic, but the main issue I had was that the problems were not adequately addressed. For what it was, this was a quick read and it was okay!

I expected more from this ya romance story. I wanted a cute and relatable story but found instead a story lacking that special something. I didn't hate this. I just didn't love it.

The author gets major props for being so young and writing multiple books, very impressive! I wanted to love this one, the plot sounded interesting to me and had a ton of potential, but I might be a little too old to connect with the characters and storyline. Sara was my favorite out of the three, I would read a book just about her to be honest, but I didn’t love the romance parts of the book. I would try another book from this author in the future!

I enjoyed FRAT GIRL a lot and was therefore pretty excited to see what college-centered contemporary Kiley Roache might write next. Despite the tepid reviews from blogging friends (I don't think anyone gave it over 3ish stars), I was optimistic about this one, and decided to read it casually throughout my workdays as my "work book" in April.This story moves between a few points of view. Robbie is the smart kid who comes from a "bad neighborhood" (his words) and focuses on social justice. Braden is the spoiled rich kid who gets whatever he wants. Sara is the super smart girl who knows it will take a lot to make an impact in the male-dominated tech world. They each followed the usual stereotypes, to be honest, and I thought they might get more fleshed out over time. It didn't really happen. Braden stayed an asshole, Sara was fairly flat, and Robbie stayed in his stereotype too.The romance was... not great. I don't want to get too spoilery in the open but let's just say the diversion boy/relationship was not fun to read and I just generally didn't like the direction the story went at that point. Maybe it was a good growth opportunity for Sara, which I can see, but I didn't feel like it was actually necessary? It threw me off and out of the story a lot. The app elements were also not great and frustrating that they saw so many bad reactions for SO long, sort of acknowledged it was problematic, but didn't do anything with urgency earlier? I know they're just college students but come on.The ending had a few twists that I really didn't enjoy at first, but it got much better soonafter. Sometimes books with a solid ending ("it's how you leave em") can make up for a lot. It didn't help move it up too much in my eyes but it was a good way to finish up. So yes, overall, this book fell flat for me. I'm still highly interested in anything else Roache writes, especially if they're set in college still, but this was too bland. I won't remember it for any real reason.

When the only three freshmen in an extremely difficult class on entrepreneurialism are thrown together to come up with an idea and pitch for the next hot app, frustrations mount and diametrically-opposed personality traits threaten to sink them before they even get started. Sara is an obsessive control freak from an upper-middle-class midwestern family who is a whiz at coding and has a strong work ethic and moral compass. Arrogant, insensitive, rich boy Braden is the epitome of white male privilege and only wants to get out from under his morally-bankrupt father’s thumb. He has the marketing savvy but knows nothing about computers. Kind, dedicated scholarship student Roberto needs to become successful in order to afford legal representation for his mother who, as an illegal immigrant, was deported to Mexico when he was a pre-teen. He can’t afford to fail the class, but refuses to compromise his ideals by continuing to promote an app that, despite the hype, doesn’t inspire romance, but plays on people’s vanity and need for validation from virtual strangers. Will they be able to work together despite their differences or will they lose the game before they’ve even begun?

Although the book is an easy read with a storyline that has great potential, it falls flat for a number of reasons. There is very little character development despite the first-person narrative from all 3 protagonists, and Braden’s personality goes from bad to worse as the story progresses. Since Sara can’t stand him, it seems improbable that she’d start dating him after a moment of sensitivity on his part. Roberto is the more likely love interest, but their relationship is never developed. So, the love triangle seems forced and devoid of chemistry. Although Roache avoids the eroticism of most New Adult novels, this book is still not geared to high school students.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Harlequin-Inkyard Press through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I was really excited when I saw that Kiley Roache’s new novel was available on Netgalley. I really enjoyed her debut, Frat Girl, when I read it last year and had been looking forward to reading more from her. One of the things that I most enjoyed about Frat Girl was the way that it addressed real college issues and stereotypes while still being a really entertaining book with a great message. My hopes for The Dating Game were pretty high — made even higher, possibly, by the fact that it features a main character named Sara who loves color-coordinated Post-It notes (actually me) — but unfortunately, it didn’t work for me.

I think the biggest problem that I had with this book was how unfinished it felt. The idea of the plot is good. I love the concept of a bunch of college kids struggling to come up with an idea for their class and accidentally creating a really popular app. It’s a really fun idea and I think it could have been a really fun book. But it wasn’t.

The thing is, the app is just disgusting. It’s an app like Tinder, but you get graded for your ratio of left vs. right swipes, and you get penalized if someone you match with unmatches with you. This predictably causes a bit of drama on this college campus and quickly turns into girls crying on the sidewalk because their ranking dropped when their boyfriend broke up with them. And not only is the whole idea of the app disgusting, but you should hear their ideas for advertising! “Oh, when someone’s rating starts dropping, we’ll show them ads for gym memberships and makeup.” REALLY? This isn’t even challenged.

There’s also what I’m assuming is supposed to be a big plot twist toward the end that’s just… forgive me for saying this… bad. It doesn’t make sense. It would never happen in the real world. I mean, granted, most of what happens in this book would never happen in the real world. I wish I could give some spoilers here, but this is an ARC review, so I’m trying very hard not to do that.

So, I think I’ve established that the plot is a little questionable. There were also so many mistakes! Some mistakes are to be expected in an ARC, but this was just beyond what’s normal. I’m talking about names being changed in the middle of a scene. Personalities changing. A character that wasn’t even present in a scene suddenly saying something. Typos and word usage problems. This is not what I expect from a publisher like Harlequin.

I also want to mention something that kind of bothered me every time I saw it, and that was Instafriend. At one point, a character mentions scrolling mindlessly through the blue and white screen of Instafriend. I think it’s pretty clear that they’re referring to a fictionalized Facebook. And that’s fine! Except that a few chapters later, Facebook is a thing. But so is Instafriend? It was just odd.

Now, with all of that said, you’re probably wondering why I gave this book two stars instead of one star when I so clearly disliked it. The reason is that I could hardly put it down! It’s a very readable book and if I didn’t have to do things like sleep in order to be a functional adult, I probably could have finished it in one night.

I have hopes that the finished version of this book will have gone through some rigorous edits to correct a lot of the issues I had with it. I can’t really recommend it, but I would be really interested in hearing from anyone who reads the final, published version.

I absolutely flew through this book I think the synopsis was correct in saying that it was the social network getting a romantic twist. It was definitely different than anything else I’ve ever read and I enjoyed the social aspects of it. I loved that in this day and age we could all relate in someway to this type of app that these students were creating.

Out of the three main characters my favorite would have to be Roberto. He came from a Mexican background and I found it really interesting to read about his daily life. Braden annoyed me so much throughout almost the whole book. When I finally thought he was redeeming himself he turns around and makes me not be able to stand him again. Sarah I could completely relate to. She was absolutely a control freak and I am too so it was fun to see how other people viewed her.

Overall I thought this was an extremely fun, interesting, lighthearted story. It was a quick read, one I would definitely suggest reading in the summer by the beach or on vacation. If you enjoy a cute romantic book with a bit of social aspects this is definitely the book for you.