Let me say that my new thing with romcoms is finding modern representation in a book. This one does a good job incorporating women in the technology field and setting a level playing field between male / female love interests.

I really enjoyed the twist on enemies to lovers. Since this one went from lovers to enemies to lovers, which made for a humorous adventure between the two main characters. We still a somewhat bumbling female main character that’s trying to overcome her own personal and business struggles. But she becomes completely relatable.

Read this one if you enjoy:
* enemies to lovers
* RomComs
* Technology / dating apps
* Easy weekend reads

A mix of second chance and enemies to lovers romance all stirred up gives the reader Make Up Break Up. Told from Annika's point of view
throughout maintaining the single POV. Both Annika and Hudson have developed apps, so far one successful and one stalling. The chemistry they had when they met a year ago in Vegas is making it hard for both to keep their competitive spirits from exploding. I'm glad I waited for the audiobook to listen to while I read the ARC courtesy of NetGalley and St Martin's Griffin.

I thought this was a fun, light, romance and the perfect beach read. While I had a few qualms with the characters decisions, it made sense within the context of the book's world and it didn't ultimately impact my enjoyment of the story. This is a fast, delightful read for those who love hate-to-love romances, especially with a diverse twist!

Menon's first foray in the realm of adult romance is overall entertaining. Although, I will say that she's definitely more skilled at writing YA romance (her debut YA is notably better crafted than this debut). But seeing that romance is a tricky genre to write with its very particular readers, I think Menon can absolutely get to a point where I love a romance book by her. Because I only liked "Make Up Break Up."

What I liked:
- The premise: two app developers with seemingly fundamentally opposed philosophies competing against each other.
- A driven heroine who is still soft, insecure, and optimistic
- The heroine's backstory and relationship with her dad. They have great chemistry.
- The slow burn. The protagonists also have great chemistry, and the push-and-pull is engaging enough.

What I disliked:
- The slow burn: it is too slow and becomes infuriating.
- The last 15% which had way too much going on. The stakes were hella high, and the resolution pretty unsatisfying.
- No epilogue. I think this story needed one.

In 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗨𝗽 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗨𝗽, Annika and Hudson meet in Las Vegas and have a brief summer fling. Pillow talk included Annika’s idea for an innovative app, Make Up, that helps couples communicate with each other. Next thing she knows, an app called Break Up shows up that helps couples end their relationship and it was started by none other than, Hudson! Bad enough that Annika feels he stole her idea and is having way more success than she is, but he also loves into the office next door. Could the rivals become friends, or even more...?

Unfortunately, this was a miss for me because I failed to connect with either character. The actions and relationship of Annika and Hudson came off as juvenile and lead to a lot of eye-rolling as I read. I did find the premise interesting and think so much could have been done with this if the characters were more mature.

Reviews are all over the place on this one. I did not care about their dating apps and so much of the book focused on them. I did enjoy their relationship and could have used a little more of it. Would I read this again? No. Would I give the author’s next adult romance another try? Yes. If this is on your TBR, check it out and let me know what you think.

This book was really just okay for me. I don't know whether Annika was just naive when it came to Hudson's motives or if she was just really self-centered, or maybe it was a deep down insecurity about herself, but for me it got old kind of fast. They never really say why after their fling in Las Vegas that they went their separate ways, so I never really understood why Annika hadn't kept in touch with Hudson. It was fun to read as it is February and I feel I should read romances in February, but there were not really a lot of surprises in the story.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

As much as I love the YA books by this author, I was just not feeling this book. It could be a not you but me situation but I was not invested in this couple at all.

Annika Dev's app Make Up is in direct competition with her nemesis app Break Up. After her week with Hudson a year ago Annika vowed she'd never let him break her heart again. Now that he's moved into the office down the hall she finds herself running into him at the most inopportune times and each time she doesn't let him hear the end of her opinion regarding his app Break Up. Who would create something that allowed people to break up with their significant others without giving the relationship a full chance? That's what Annika's app Make Up is all about and she's confident the pitch she's going to make at the Epic Conference is going to gain her the funding she needs to get it off the ground.

This is a classic case of miscommunications and misunderstandings. I enjoyed the banter between Annika and Hudson throughout their encounters with each other. I also loved Annika's friend June. She cracked me up and was always there to give Annika the hard truths. I also liked the relationship between Annika and her father.

If you're looking for a fun adult rom-com than I would definitely recommend this one!

[DNF REVIEW] I don't typically write DNF reviews but am sharing a few thoughts since I got a copy for review on NetGalley. Make Up Break Up is the adult debut of well-known YA author Sandhya Menon. The book focuses on two rival app developers, and I struggled to sympathize with adult business owners who spend so much energy sabotaging each other. It was so unprofessional and juvenile! The heroine is on the verge of losing her business, and she was in complete denial + continued to dig herself deeper. The immaturity of people the heroine and hero made me feel like I was reading the worst kind of YA novel. Because I felt like a judgy old lady while reading, I had to put it down. There may be growth by the end, but I couldn't handle anymore.

<b>**FULL REVIEW**</b>

This one was a slow one for me...a lot of fluff, not a lot of substance.

I would be plenty fine sitting on the beach, listening to the surf and running my toes through the sand, losing myself in the tech world sweet love story of <I>Make Up Break Up</I>.

So yeah, this is a beach read. One that involves zero thought, not much connection, and just enough cheeky dialogue (along with some steamy short, fade to black love scenes) to keep you turning pages.

Annika and Hudson are a perfect contradiction as are their business models. Classic meet-cute, enemies to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers...I liked it, but didn’t love it.

<b>**3 Let’s Make-Break Up, Stars**</b>

I did not love this one, unfortunately. I just feel like the characters were hard to relate to, Annika was too tough on Hudson and usually they meet in the middle somewhere at the end of the story and really, to me, in this it feels like Hudson got the bad side of the deal. It was a light fun read and the secondary characters were great, but overall fell a little flat for me!

Content warnings for racism, sexism, and loss of a parent several years ago.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a Netgalley ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is Sandhya Menon's first adult romance about Annika, the developer of upcoming relationship app Make Up, who clashes with rival app developer Hudson Craft when he moves into the office next door. Things wouldn't be so bad if their apps didn't serve completely opposite purposes and if they hadn't had a summer fling in Vegas...

The romance was fun but both the main characters were very frustrating at times. For two adults, who are CEOs of their own apps, their actions were childish and the way they tried to sabotage each other made them seem unprofessional.

I liked some of the romantic scenes (especially the fountain scene) and I really appreciated the fact that Annika and her father communicate so much with each other. They always let each other know how they're feeling, even if they don't always agree with one another.

But some parts of the story felt a little unrealistic to me (Annika and June both own really expensive cars despite only being 24 and Hudson is a millionaire when his app only launched a few months ago?), which pulled me out of the story at times. There's also a lot of miscommunication between Annika and Hudson that I didn't enjoy, but that's just my personal preference.

This was a fun, fast read, but I would have liked the characters to act more professionally and I needed a little more realism at times.

📚 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 / 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄𝗪 📚⁣⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
Title: #MakeUpBreakUp
Author: @sandhyamenonbooks
Publisher: @stmartinspress #griffin
Pub Date: 2/1/21⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ - *OUT NOW*⁣
Type: #PhysicalBook #FinishedCopy
Genre: #RomanticComedy / #WomensFiction
Must Read Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

My thoughts:

-This book was an "enemies to lovers" romantic comedy with lots of depth and heart! I really liked the premise of this one. It featured 2 young professionals, both wildly successful in their early twenties, who wanted to make apps to help couples Make Up or Break Up. And of course, they both extremely attractive and just so happen to have a past together. It's not every day that you read a book where *spoiler alert* the 2 main characters had a passionate, week long affair and then one disappeared without so much as a text or call.

-Let's talk about CHEMISTRY! It was burning off the pages in this book and you could cut the tension with a knife. These characters had it BAD for each other, but they let their pride and careers get in the way for such a long time. There were definitely moments where I wanted to shake them and just say, OMG ... can you two just please hook up and get it over with!?

-Yes, every romantic comedy is completely predictable, but don't you still enjoy the ride? I found this book to be super heartwarming and sweet - an easy and charming read from start to finish.

I love this book!! It was a great romance story and an amazing first adult romance from Lily Menon. I think the characters were all super interesting and I loved the concepts of the apps the book also talked about. It was a great hate to love story.

Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon Sandhya Menon (2021/02/21)
Rating 3.5/5 Stars

Disclaimer: Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher (St. Martin's Press) for providing me with an eGalley to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This story follows Annika Dev who has created an app called Make Up which is used to help save relationship. She thinks her rival Hudson Craft’s stole her idea because she had a summer fling in Las Vegas with him. Now he has an app called Break Up which is used for people who want to get out of relationships.

Annika thinks that Las Vegas will be the last time she ever sees Hudson but all this changes when he moved into her office building. To make Matters worse he’ll be competing at the EPIC investment pitch contest which is a contest Annika needs to win if she wants to keep her app working. But as they spend time Annika realized that Hudson probably didn’t steal her app idea and he’s not as bad as she thinks he is.

I enjoyed this story. I enjoyed the banter and chemistry that they character had. I also really enjoyed the side characters, I found them to be a nice addition to the story. I really liked that Annika was a female CEO and was super hard working.

What hindered my enjoyment of the novel was the heroine. I found her extremely unlikable. At times I really couldn’t sympathise with her. I also found that she kept referring the hero by his full name which was funny at first but got repetitive after the 30th time. I wished the story was told in dual POV I feel like I would have enjoyed the story more. This story is supposed to be an enemies to lover story but I felt like the enemies/hatred was so onsided it was really obvious that the hero did not feel the same way as the heroine from the very beginning. Ultimately, I really wanted to love this story, but I found the reasons who why they both created their apps way too predictable.

Overall, I do really like Sandhya Menon’s YA work so I definitely would be interested in reading more of her adult novels. Once again, thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eGalley to review.

TW: Mentions Death Of Loved One, Terminal Illness, Car Accident, Racism

thank you net galley and st. martin’s press for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. wow i loved this book. i loved the plot and the romance. the writing style was amazing. i couldn’t help laughing out loud at some points. there were many plot twists i didn’t see coming. hudson craft was my favorite character. i loved him so much. the only thing i didn’t like was how immature the main character acted sometimes. that wasn’t enough for me to lower my rating though. i highly recommend this book:)

2.5 stars rounded up

What I liked
-light, quick read
-strong friendships
-Annika's loyalty to and love for her dad
-women in tech

What I didn't like
-the apps that were the center of the controversy
-the time to resolution and so much skirting around everything
-repetitive mentions of Las Vegas and EPIC. It felt like these were the only things that were key events in the whole book and both are so overly mentioned

Maybe I'm just not cut out for the enemies to lover trope? This one just missed the mark for me, personally.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/St. Martin's Griffin for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars

Make Up Break Up is a love-to-hate-to-love romance between two CEOs. One is Annika, a woman who struggles with the launching of her app Make Up that wants to help struggling couples by working on their communication. The other is Hudson, the successful man behind Break Up, an app who helps people break up with their partners without having to do it themselves. After a week together in Las Vegas and leaving each other behind, Annika is persuaded that Hudson stole her idea. When the both of them will be forced to work close together and compete against one another for investors,

Overall, I wanted to love this book but sadly I didn't really connect with the story or characters. The Hate to Love trope is always fun to read about but I didn't like the main characters all that much. Some of the fights made me cringe and I didn't react when they grew closer. But just because this romance didn't really work for me doesn't mean you won't like this especially if you love hate-to-love tropes in an office or something like that.

(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Netgalley)

Ultimately, it seemed clear early on that this book was not for me. I liked Menon's book under a different name, When Dimple Met Rishi, and therefore I assumed this one would work for me. Even when I saw other people saying there was too much tech talk, I thought, "Well, I felt like that was lacking in Dimple," and was still pretty sure I would like it. But there's something about these 24 year old characters that feels so juvenile and also just... awful, that I couldn't seem to get past it. I know this book is for someone, but I am definitely not the audience for it.