I'm a huge fan of Sandhya Menon's YA romances as they're so endearing. This is her first adult romance and it fell a little flat for me. I prefer her YA offerings but appreciate she wants to branch out.

I wanted to love this book. The premise sounds good, and the cover is perfection. Unfortunately, the story didn’t meet my expectations and I did not finish it. I just couldn’t connect with the main character (Annika). I think, I’m general, I struggle with workplace enemies-to-lovers storylines. I appreciate the opportunity to read this one, but ultimately, it just wasn’t for me.

Having heard many reviews from pals and due to the time elapsed, I will not be reading or reviewing this book. It seems to be not my kind of read and not worth my time. Thank you.

Sadly this did not meet my expectations, which was just me hoping for a simple and good rivals to lovers.

I'm going to tackle these really fast and saying right now that my main problem was the female protagonist, Annika. she was just too judgmental to the point of being annoying to read and I hated "being in her head". Yes, she grew up through the book and it is possible to see the changes in her, but it seems to me that inadvertently this character ended up needing a redemption arc that came too late to change my mind.

As for Hudson, there was nothing wrong with him except for the fact that he was a rather soft character with little to contribute, so he didn't wake any spark in me, as did the romance between the two characters.

This book had potential but, for me, it fell flat. I didn't vibe well with the main character and that usually takes me out of a book. While this may be perfect for someone else, it wasn't my cup of tea.

I love Sandyha Menon's YA books, so I knew I had to read her Adult Romance! This was a great debut in the Adult world, and I know I'll be reading her future books!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

Annika Dev is the creator of one of the newest apps "Make Up" and it seems to be doing well, until a rival app creator creates a similar app called "Break Up" and moves his office close to hers. When she finds out about it, she feels hurt and angry and she can't believe that someone who has always been so nice to her, has created something that could destory her business entirely.

This book was the perfect light read for me and was relatable in a time where technology has taken us to finding love on apps, making it easier to connect with someone behind your phone's screen. As soon as I picked up the book and started reading, I was engaged in it right away. The narration and writing was smooth and easy to follow and the book itself included a mixture of drama and humor which kept the plot interesting.

Overall, this was a good story and I would definitely like to read more books by this author. I give this review a 4/5 star rating.

I received an ARC of this novel from St. Martin's Press via Netgalley in exchange for my review. I enjoyed the characters because I always love a good enemies to lovers romance, but I just found this story to be a bit slow at times. I think this would be perfect for the beach!

Make Up Break Up was an enjoyable read with a fun storyline and interesting characters. While I enjoyed the writing and liked many of the character dynamics I did find some parts a little slow and there were times where I found some of the characters a bit frustrating.

Overall it was enjoyable, but I don't think it's a book I'll be revisiting.

It’s sweet and lighthearted novel of love in second chances is a perfect summer beach read. I received this novel as an advanced reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I usually love an enemies to lovers trope, but this book just isn't for me. Nothing about the main character really sparked an interest for me and the enemies part was unbelievable. Ended up DNFing. Not for me but others may enjoy!

I just couldn't seem to get into this book. Maybe it just wasn't for me.
The main character didn't see as much growth that i figured they would. Instead they seemed to be stuck. The romance was alright and kind of saved the book for me.

Fun book, quick read, contemporary plotline. A great beach read. You find yourself rooting foe the make-up.

I started reading this book and then put it down because I just couldn’t get into it. I was hoping after coming back to it I would be able to really get into the book. I’m so sad I wasn’t able to. This book had so much potential but I just couldn’t make it worm for me.

This book was difficult to get through. It was a sweet premise, but the happily for now ending was sorta bland

This has been sitting on my shelf for too long and it actually got me back into reading adult romance! I hit a little snafu, but now that’s gone thanks to Lily (aka Sandhya in the YA world).

Annika is determined to prove that she has what it takes to have her own successful company, an app that helps people get the second chance at love. The only thing standing in her way (and next door to her office) is her one night stand from Vegas, Hudson Craft, who also happens to be running a more successful app that helps people break up with their significant other.

Talk about tension! Hunter and Annika had so much tension, good and bad, that it caused me to push the two of them together in my mind. The connection is obvious and they are honestly the kind of “couple” that know they are meant to end up together, but their pride and their memories of Vegas keep them from taking that plunge. It makes for good tension, though.

I loved Annika’s ambitious and boss girl attitude. She has the drive that other girls aspire to have, but it’s hard to keep. There are moments where she feels let down and like people are against her dreams and it sucked to see her take some of it to heart and let it affect her. When she reminded herself why she was so aspirational, it made me cheer harder for her. She’s got her partner/best friend that helps to keep her on her toes and her head in the game, too. Honestly, Annika is one of those perfect female leads that you automatically loop arms with as you follow her on the ride.

Hudson Craft…sigh. I’ve never had too much of a physical issue with characters, but it kind of made me cringe that he had blonde hair. I don’t know, I guess it’s because I kept picturing him as a wannabe frat boy or some douche at the beach, if that makes sense. His character, though, was pretty entertaining. He’s a smart cookie and he knows how to push Annika’s buttons…no pun intended. I really liked how it didn’t take him long to open up to her and to be himself outside of his business. His true character is pretty relatable, so it was nice to see him toss the mask every now and then. I didn’t expect how he acted near the end, though. Kudos for being selfless.

I really did love everything about this story and the way the plot was held and written. It kept my interest and my only regret is not reading it sooner. Back when I got my copy, I was in a bad slump where I didn’t want to read anything. I think, if I had picked it up then, it would have gotten me out of my slump. I hope Lily/Sandhya writes more adult.

This is a super fun read. I really enjoyed this one!

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

Yeah...this was a no for me. I was really looking forward to this one - enemies to lovers in the tech world sounded so great. But that's about all it had working for it, for me. To start, this was pretty much a one-sided hate relationship. As soon as we met Hudson (and why did he have to always be Hudson Craft?), it was obvious he was still into Annika. Their "hatred" was really petty and childish, particularly on Annika's part, and it gave me no real reason to root for them to actually be together. If Annika had just taken the time to actually listen to Hudson, so much of this could have been avoided. Just overall a big disappointment for me, but I'm glad to see that some others have enjoyed it more.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

If you’re not a romance reader, you may imagine that the average heroine has a cutesy job, like owner of a cupcake bakery or a store selling Christmas ornaments. But today, a lot of books feature protagonists who work in STEM fields; Honey Girl and The Boyfriend Project are a couple of my recent faves. When I saw that Annika Dev, the central character in Make Up Break Up, was an app developer, I was intrigued.

Annika and her best friend, June, are working on Make Up, an app meant to help people improve their relationship, kind of like an AI marriage counselor. Right down the hall from their office is Break Up, headed by the arrogant and handsome Hudson Craft, which describes itself as “the Uber of break-ups”—instead of having to do it yourself, Break Up will send someone out to do the dirty work for you. The app is a massive hit, having facilitated over 300,000 break-ups.

Annika and Hudson had a fling several months ago when they met at a conference in Las Vegas, but now they are professional rivals, as both are getting ready to compete in a pitch contest for a significant round of funding. Since Make Up is teetering on the edge of insolvency as they continue to work on its cutting-edge technology, Annika and June really need to win that money. Meanwhile, Annika’s father, a doctor, keeps nagging her about going to medical school, which he sees as a more stable career than head of a start-up.

Enemies-to-lovers is a classic trope, but Make Up Break Up doesn’t do it particularly well; the leads’ brief affair doesn’t seem to have ended too badly, and the reader just gets the sense that it was a holiday fling that reached its conclusion. Also, it’s hard to imagine Break Up succeeding—I have too many logistical questions about how it works. Hiring contractors to go out and do the actual breaking up in person just seems like a dicey proposition. You have to figure that in due course, someone is going to (literally) shoot the messenger, and then you’ll have a P.R. nightmare on your hands.

Lily Menon is a popular author of YA fiction under her real name (Sandhya Menon), and Annika struck me as more of an immature, petulant teen than an adult CEO. As for Hudson, I was hoping for a deep dive into what makes him tick, but that never comes. Then when you find out that there was a Big Misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with a five-minute conversation… sigh. It’s a romance, so of course there’s got to be a happily ever after, but in this case, I didn’t buy it. I doubt even Annika’s Make Up app could save this relationship.

This one was a struggle. I liked the premise and it started out good enough. The problem was that Annika was the most annoying heroine I have seen in a long time. She was very petty and judgmental. She kept talking about how she wanted to change the world. Okay, she came up with a relationship ad . . . she didn't cure cancer. Calm down. I also never fully understood her app. In the beginning, she talked about how it allowed exes to come together, but there was no explanation. Then it became about an app translating conversations so people could talk to each other better. It just seemed like the app was a bit cheesy. And I hated the way she talked to Hudson. Okay, the concept of a breakup app was somewhat cold. But she kept acting like he was killing puppies or something. Her pretentiousness about the two apps got old and unfortunately, there was zero growth on her part.

Also, why was Annika so sure she would never find love at 24 years old? And she had felt that way since she was a teenager. There was not enough development there to explain why she was so sure she would stay single forever or why she was bad at dating. That part didn't make sense to me either.

I also didn't think the main characters had a lot of chemistry. I generally like the enemies to lovers trope, but since it was pretty obvious Hudson had a thing for Annika, there wasn't much of an enemies thing. The more the book went on, the pettier their arguments became and it just got annoying. I started skimming a little. This one was just not very good, in my opinion.