This was an enjoyable read and I would definitely purchase for my library and recommend to certain patrons. I enjoyed the setting of the start up world and mostly enjoyed the characters.

Super cute and funny book. A really easy nice weekend read type. I read it in a few hours. Definitely one to check out.

Every book Menon writes is a joy to read. Given the opportunity to read her first adult rom-com is a privilege. To be honest, I was a bit scared because I didn't know what I should expect. The story unwrapped itself in a steady rhythm and focused on the two characters in the spotlight as individuals before they became entangled. Putting their dreams and hopes first and focusing on the evolving relationship as a second, was a great choice and something I want to see more about in storytelling.
Annika and Hudson are such different personalities, but that makes them kind of interesting - for each other as well as for the readers. You have two people who build their business from scratches by themselves, while being stuck in their lives as well, not knowing that the answers are in hands length.
Modern, sweet, heartbreaking. Thank you.

Make Up Break Up is a steamy romance novel about two app developers who have a love/hate/love relationship. After meeting in Vegas at a conference, and having a week-long love affair, Annika and Hudson go their separate ways. Until Hudson and his incredibly successful app (an app that Annika swears he stole her idea for) show up next door to Annika's office.

t took me about 25% of the book before I was really hooked. The beginning of the book really focused on Annikas hate for Hudson and felt slightly repetitive. But, once I was further into the story, and was able to see the connection grow, I couldn't stop flipping the pages and rooting for these two. I found myself screaming JUST KISS ALREADY.

Overall, this book is a cute romcom story that I would recommend to anyone who loves a good romance story, or who is looking for a light read!

Thanks to NetGalley & St.Martins Press for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest review.

Make Up Break Up was a truly lovely book. A fun modern romcom staring Annika Dev founder and CEO of Make Up an app to help couples communicate better and Hudson CEO of Break Up an app to help you break up. It was so refreshing to see a woman portrayed as the founder of a tech company and also the heroine. I would love to see more from her best friend June! The end really got to me and I was tearing up. I wish there had been an epilogue or a one year later so I could see where everyone ended up. Hey Netflix, this would make an adorable book to screen adaptation, I think fans of To All The Boys I've Loved Before and The Kissing Booth would really be into it!
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Girl meets boy at tech conference. Girl falls for boy in bed at the conference. Girl leaves boy in bed on the last day of conference so she doesn’t get her heart broken by said boy.

Annika is facing some problems. Her start up isn’t a raging success like she thought it would be. The grant she received for the start up as dried up and she is facing bankruptcy and eviction on her office. Her app Make Up is listens to your love languages as you speak to find problems and misinterpretations in your conversations. Her new neighbors (the opposite of hers and archenemy) an app opposite of hers Break Up has a gong that they ring every time there is a celebration. Turns out the gong ringer is Hudson Craft the boy from the conference.

A fun rivals-to-lovers story set in the world of cut throat competition of dating apps. I really enjoyed the story and it brought a huge smile to my face by the time I reached the ending.

What Make Up Break Up gets right is its portrayal of women in STEM, diversity, the immense pressure of being a female CEO and some really great chemistry between the leads.

What Make Up Break Up gets wrong is the ending. Annika's annoying moral superiority won. There was no compromise. She just won. That's not how adult relationships work in the real world and I found it extremely annoying.

4.5 stars - What a great read! The hero in this one is especially heartwarming! This is wonderful as is, but would easily be a 5 star read if it included a dual POV. I think the reader and the heroine never quite understand where the H stood for much of the read. We think we know, but a dual POV would've provided clarity and even greater enjoyment.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was super good. It was super original and I flew through it. It didn't feel like anything I've read in the past. Can't wait to read more from the author!!

This just didn't work for me. The whole thing about worrying about getting evicted from the office space frustrated me, especially because she had both her dad and her coworker offering to pay for it. I also found Make Up slightly creepy and didn't love the way Break Up was just condemned in its entirety and ultimately shut down. I do look forward to Lily Menon's next book though, and I hope it works better for me.

The enemies to lovers trope is a classic and Lily Menon’s Make Up Break Up adds a fresh, techy twist to a flirty, timeless plot. Enjoyable, albeit semi-predictable read!

Annika Dev is the 24-year-old CEO of Make Up, an app that helps people find their second chance at love. Her goal is to help failing relationships and give people a chance at their own fairy tale ending. Enter Hudson Craft, 25-year-old CEO of Break Up, the very antithesis of Make Up. His app allows people to employ “terminators” to end their relationships for them. It’s basically Uber, but for breakups and the exact opposite of what Annika stands for.

Not only are both CEOs and their respective apps competing at a tech convention for investors/funding, but Annika and Hudson have a bit of history. They had a brief, sexy fling in Vegas and then lost touch. Hudson returns to Annika's life after renting office space in the same building and she can't seem to shake him. As the book progresses, Annika realizes there might be more to Hudson and his app than meets the eye.

While I found the story fun and sweet, I also found some parts predictable. There was no real “romance” until halfway through the book and, even then, it was just surface level. It left me wanting more and the scenes that were meant to be steamy and filled with passion were missing a certain something. There was a hesitancy in a lot of the romance scenes. Once I found out that Menon was mainly a YA writer and this was her first adult romance novel, it made more sense to me.

Annika’s assumptions about Hudson cause her to constantly get in her own way. Perhaps that may be a testament to the age of both characters. I enjoyed Annika’s drive and passion for her business as well as her relationships with June and her father. The book would have resonated better with me if Hudson had more depth as a character (we only get to rely on Annika’s assumptions since she spends most of the time not reading between the obvious lines Hudson’s giving her). The ending felt a bit rushed, but also in line with Annika’s character so I can’t fault it!

Overall a fun, light-hearted debut into the adult romance world.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest review.

I've been a big fan of Menon for several years now and I was super excited to hear that she had written an adult romance. Make Up Break Up did not disappoint! It was a fun, engaging read and I found the characters super relatable! I adore a good enemies to lovers story and this one was a delight from beginning to end! I highly recommend!

I've really enjoyed Menon's YA books, so I was excited to try out her adult debut. Make Up Break Up was fun, but in some ways I think it lacked the spark of her YA books (maybe because her YA books focus on aspects of Indian culture that were not necessarily needed here, but something I enjoy from her books?)
With strains of The Hating Game, I didn't quite believe the attraction of the two main characters, and felt their animosity dissipated too quickly. This just didn't grab me the way her other books have.

So I am going to start with the two things that I liked in this book. Hudson Craft, the male counterpart, and the love scene were enjoyable.

Unfortunately, I found the rest of the book, annoying and predictable. Here's what needed to change for the book to be enjoyable (and thus contains spoilers):

1. The main character negatively misinterprets a lot of things. For someone who is trying to create an app that helps people interpret their love interest, this is unrealistic (I didn't understand why she was so bad at interpreting her father and Hudson's comments.)

2. A majority of this book is predictable; actually I predicted a better ending to the book. There is no reason that the two CEOs and companies didn't decide to combine and work together.

3. I liked the love story between the supporting characters, but there wasn't even a conclusion to it. Why did Ziggy ask June out to dinner at the end? Was that supposed to be left vague?

I really loved this one. Perfect hate to love, which I'm a sucker for. I didn't care for some of the side characters but that's just me.

I was so excited when I got to know that Sandhya Menon was diving into the world of Adult Romance. Make Up break Up started out strong. The leads, Hudson and Annika, had the chemistry and I was eager to see how it would flourish and the relationship that would build. I loved how competitive they were when it came to their business and want to succeed.
However, while it did start out strong, the momentum didn't remain steady or went up.


First off, I love all levels of enemies-to-lovers but my favourite is when the hate is so palpable and the characters would rather kill themselves before they could even think about falling in love with the other, but the pull is strong they have no choice but to give in.

Annika and Hudson were a notch or two below this hate scale but I loved that aspect but while Ms Menon had the enemies part down, the lovers' end of this trope didn't live up to the mark. I wanted much more of Annika and Hudson than we got. I just didn't get to swoon over them as a couple.


Second, taking from the first point, there is way way too much Annika and June, her best friend when it should have been Annika and Hudson. Due to this, I didn't get to see a lot of development of them as individual characters and as a couple. They didn't get the time to grow or understand each other when that was what I hoping for.


Annika repeatedly going back three steps for every progress she made, while in the beginning I understood and sympathized, but later on, I just couldn't. She was so stuck in her way of thinking she refused to believe and understand Hudson.

I get not being able to separate Hudson and Break Up because that man built this company with a certain mindset and if I'm being honest, he wasn't really helping his cause, but what I don't get is Annika's inability to give Hudson the benefit of the doubt. It was so frustrating to see her go through that same process again and again but not make any change or progress.


Overall, Make Up Break Up has some parts that I enjoyed and some points that just didn't work for me. Unfortunately, the parts that didn't work for me were a lot more than the parts that I actually did enjoy.


2.5 - 3 Stars!

I was really excited about this one since it was my first (!!!) ARC received through NetGalley, and I have really enjoyed Menon's young adult books.

Unfortunately, I didn't always feel like the delight that I felt with Dimple and Rishi transferred over into the adult genre where I kept expecting the main characters to behave with more nuance but they ended up falling flat.

I LOVE a good enemies-to-lovers trope, but were these two really enemies? They were in the same office, sure, and there were times where they actived spiteful towards each other, but those were intermixed with moments of sweet tenderness and flip-flopping feelings that left me probably more confused than our main character.

Also, while June helped make Annika more interesting, I felt like she was more of a compilation of hobbies and interests rather than a specific person. Why was she hanging out in this app again?

There were some great moments of tension, but as a whole, I didn't find myself excitedly flipping through the pages.

Omg this book is so funny I literally laughed out loud multiple times. Netflix please, please, please make this a movie!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book! It’s one of the funniest rom-coms I’ve read. It had the same type of energy as The Hating Game. Only in this book we get great interactions with side characters too! I love it when romance books include interactions with people outside of the main couple. In here we get interaction with friends and family!

Usually I don’t like romance novels when they are told in third person, but this is one of the few exceptions. I enjoyed the narration style a lot.

When Lily/Sandhya said this would be steamy.....it definitely has steam 😏😏😏

I love rom-coms, but when those rom-coms are steamy then I love them even more!!!

I do wish we had another chapter or some epilogue set a few months down the road. I’ve come to realize that an ending like this I would 100% love in a movie, but for some reason I need a tad more with books?!?! No idea why. Also I'm wishing a couple of the sideplots introduced were further explored.

All in all this book is hilarious, steamy, has great enemies-to-lovers vibes mixed in with a smidge of second chance romance (does it count as second chance if it was only a fling? idk), boss bitches, unapologetically super nerdy side character, hilarious inner monologue (did I mention this book is funny? because it’s funny), A+ banter, and that Sexual Tension™.

You’re going to want to preorder this one!

Content Warnings: alcohol consumption, mentions of marijuana use, death of a parent (prior to novel’s start, cancer), car crash,

Thank you for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

I thought the idea of this book is super cute! Annika Dev is a romantic and CEO of her new app Make Up. Hudson is the CEO and creator of his app called break up which basically the opposite of what Annika wants to accomplish. The two go head to head in a war of apps. If you like some sexual tension and chemistry this book is for you!