I appreciated some of the family backstory that the author created here. There’s definitely a place in romance novels for diverse family dynamics, and I thought that the bones were there to dive deeper into the impact that pressure to be a parental care-giver can have on romantic relationships. But it never really got that deep.
I truly don’t understand the set-up of this book, in that…I don’t there was one? Matt and Cadence are already half in love when we meet them, and there’s little to no conflict throughout the book. One of the biggest hurdles they have to overcome is that his family…. teases her? Once? There’s nothing inherently BAD about this book. Just didn’t hit any of the beats that makes me want to gush about it.

I went into this thinking I’d get a cute romance story and got everything but that. From the get-go, I didn’t like Cadence at all – she’s constantly mean to everyone around her, but she’s extra awful to Matt. Sure, it does get better as their story evolves, but their relationship wasn’t that believable because of that. I didn’t think they had any chemistry, especially at the start.

The book got significantly better towards the end and I didn’t actually hate it, but I still can’t say I’ve enjoyed it. Around the 50-60% mark, a bunch of characters are added out of nowhere and I have to say I enjoyed Matt’s family more than I enjoyed Cadence and Matt. There wasn’t that much romance, to be honest – the book was a lot more focused on business than I expected it to be. Their relationship wasn’t believable to me so them getting together felt a bit rushed. I had some major problems with the writing style, because it tends to be so repetitive, it doesn’t flow the way it should have. None of the main characters were that well developed and I cannot tell you a simple thing about them besides “works in business, one’s grumpy, one’s a ray of sunshine”. I liked how the book dealt with grief, that was really well done and I have to point that out.

So, this definitely wasn’t the book for me and I should’ve probably DNF-ed. But maybe it will work out for someone else! I’ve heard the rep was good, but it’s not my place to deny or affirm that, so take it with a grain of salt.

3.5 stars
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
After really enjoying Julie Tieu’s debut, I was optimistic for her future books. And while Circling Back to You left me with slightly more mixed feelings, it’s still pretty solid.
Cadence and Matt are interesting characters, and I love their bond and how it begins as co-workers and friends (even if Cadence is rather guarded and doesn’t really let anyone in at first). Cadence can be prickly, sometimes overly so, to the point of often being overly critical, even of her close family. However, that only gives her depth for me, and helps flesh her out. And Matt is generally sweet, the perfect charismatic sunshine to balance out her lovable grump. They have a fun, playful relationship, which hints at their secret desires that they’re unable to vocalize or act on.
I also really liked exploring their respective family dynamics and how that influences their bond. As the blurb indicates, Cadence has a complicated relationship with her father, and while I’m not sure the juxtaposition between the lovely elderly man he was and the flawed man he was in Cadence’s childhood came across effectively, I can respect an attempt to explore that type of trauma from the perspective of an adult child. And on the flip side, Matt’s family is generally loving, but loves to meddle in his love life, in a loving spin on a familiar trope.
However, I had mixed feelings about the pacing. The middle of the book in particular feels kind of bland, and like it was going through the motions until the big conflict came to test Cadence and Matt’s relationship.
In spite of my issues, I mostly enjoyed what this book was trying to do, and the positives more or less outweigh the negatives. If you enjoy multicultural contemporaries with workplace romance, friends to lovers and/or fake dating, you might enjoy this one.

A cute read about two colleagues who fake dare, but of course they can’t keep up the facade for very long.
The beginning was a very slow build and I was having trouble with the book’s vibe.
Halfway through the tempo,got better. I liked Matt better than Cadence, although I loved her name.
Chalk this one up to fake date turns real genre.

CIRCLING BACK TO YOU was a solid and very enjoyable romance book. I love that Cadence and Matt are co-workers and friends first. It's refreshing to read a novel that's not an office enemies to lovers story. I also appreciate that they both strong in their careers and help each other succeed. Both characters are rich with details and you're rooting for them the entire time. It's fantastic that we're seeing more diverse authors and characters in romance now. I can't wait to read more from Julie Tieu in the future.

I kind of DNFed this book because the romance wasn't for me... It was a bit slow and off track a lot on the romance and it wasn't for me tbh.

What I had hoped would be a cute office romance was... something different. This book wasn't for me for a lot of reasons but mostly for the romance. Not only does this book get bogged down with unnecessary boring business jargon, but the romance just was not it. Cadence was so mean to Matt and I really didn't understand why. There was no chemistry and I wish the banter was as good as it was promised.

I tried a few times to get into this book, but the writing style wasn't a good fit for me. I found myself getting easily distracted and I wasn't invested enough in the characters to be invested in their budding relationship. I ended up giving up around the 15% mark.

I really wanted to love this book. I thought the idea was great. I did think the beginning started off strong but then, I felt like, it got a little slow and boring. I did love the ending though.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters. I felt like Cadence was mean at times and Matt was a little too into himself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Circling Back To You is the typical contemporary romance. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it but there weren’t any elements that made this a 5 star read for me. It is extremely predictable but sometimes that’s exactly what we need!

Read if you like:
- Asian American representation
- Friends to Lovers
- Workplace romance
- Real estate

What I Didn’t Like
- Not much romance
- Slow paced (but still a quick and easy read)

(3.5 ☆)

What to expect:
- multicultural family
- delicious descriptions of Asain dishes
- colleagues to lovers
- a sweet and cute read based in California
- fake-dating trope
- big family gatherings
- adorable gay side couple trying to adopt (!!!)

<b>Thank you Avon and Harper Voyager for providing me with an ARC of "Circling Back To You" in exchange for my honest review and thoughts.</b>

Though the beginning was a little too much info-dumpy for me, I would like to say that I quite like our main characters. Cadence was extremely likable within the first act, though towards the middle she was starting to get on my nerves. Matt, however, was such a light within this novel.

I loved how diverse this was. The big family trope is something that fills me with so much warmth, especially when they're all likable like they were in this read. The pacing of this novel caught me a little off guard and I found myself flipping back to see how to piece together the timeline.

Both of our main characters are neighbor cubicle employees of a high-stakes real estate company. Cadence works as a big shot analyst and Matt is our magazine voted the best broker in California. When they're thrown together to land a sale with a top-priority investor, both of their livelihoods are on the line.

I loved the fake dating in this book, though. I am a sucker for fake dating. This book capsized on the feelings behind a fake relationship, though I wish it was more established. I think there were only two or three actual talks about them faking it, but at the same time, they weren't faking it? Maybe it's the third person format because I'm so used to the first person, but this made the pacing a little more weird for me.

Regardless, this was a pretty good cutesy workplace romance read with friends to lovers. You can grab your own copy on July 12, 2022, when it hits shelves.

Unfortunately this one didn’t hit the mark for me.
I never found the relationship to be believably real. things felt predictable and over played and I just didn’t ever connect with the story or the characters.

One of my greatest disappointments of adulthood was realizing that there is no point at which you have your life completely figured out for all time. In every decade we find ourselves considering our priorities and our choices. After reading her debut, The Donut Trap, I think I can safely assert that Julie Tieu writes characters who are figuring out how they want to be in the world really well.

In Circling Back To You, Cadence Lim and Matt Escanilla are at a point in their 30s where career, family, and personal goals need to be reassessed. They work together and everyone in the office thinks they are, or should be, a couple. For a good third of the book they pine, and even when they do decide to try dating, they have to figure out what that means in the face of job opportunities and family needs and expectations.

An added complication is the different ways they interact with the world. Cadence hides her grief with reserve. Matt hides his anxiety with sparkle. Tieu makes sure to show that the two have built a strong work partnership, and the foundation for a friendship and more. But they both have to learn to communicate feelings and be honest about what they want. Cadence has been so firm in her separation of work life and personal life that Matt has a lot to learn about her. Matt is willing to learn all he can, and I love that he takes a back seat to Cadence when he needs to.

I like the way Julie Tieu writes. She’s engaging, has a firm hand on her characters, and writes with nuance. The marketing department at her publisher doesn’t seem to know what to do with her books though. There are funny moments in Circling Back to You, but it doesn’t feel a rom-com. And while Matt proposes at one point that Cadence pretend to be his girlfriend, there is no fake dating. I had similar issues with The Donut Trap. It’s a shame because people will pick up the book expecting something very different. If you are looking for a good friends to lovers, workplace romance with a healthy side of dealing with family expectations, and excellent AAPI representation, read Circling Back to You.

CW: death of parent and grand parent in past, grief, parental disapproval, racist microaggressions.

I received this as an advance reader copy from NetGalley. My opinions are my own and freely given.

DNF at 18%.

Co-workers Cadence and Matt are pretty much expected to get together, everyone at the company sees it but them. While Cadence's family has become strained and she wants a new start, Matt's family has been nagging him to find someone to settle down with. Naturally, the best way to solve both of their issues is to fake date!

I know, I know, I'm DNF-ing pretty early on, but I can already tell that this book is not for me. I'm not vibing with the characters, and to be quite frank, I'm starting to get tired of the fake dating trope as a whole. Maybe I've just read too many of them in the past few months, or maybe the trope is tired and authors should set it aside for a bit. Either way, I don't want to read it.

I'm also not finding the humor very funny... I don't know if I'm just being picky but these jokes aren't even making me smile the tiniest bit. The banter between the main characters doesn't give me friends vibes, it just gives me co-worker vibes. And let's be clear, there is no way that either one of them didn't know about the other's feelings for one another. They were so obvious about it, it hurt.

I've read some other reviews as well, and from what I've read it seems like this is the best possible decision for me. This book was doomed from the start. I was never going to like these characters, even if the trope had been different. It seemed promising when I first heard of it and I had heard really great things about Tieu's other novel, The Donut Trap, but I am just never going to get hooked onto this one. Maybe at some point I will come back around to it and give a proper full review, but honestly it seems pretty doubtful.

DNF @50%

As a friends to lovers supremacist, I went in really expecting to love this book and it just ….. did not work. Part of my problem is that this edition needs a good deal of work before it’s ready to be published—the writing doesn’t flow, there’s a lot of repetition, everything is told not shown, and there are constant grammar mistakes and missing words.

Beyond these issues, the relationship itself didn’t convince me. The starting point for Matt and Cadence has them as friendly coworkers who’ve known each other for years, and there isn’t really any development or change between them before they’re suddenly in a relationship. I just didn’t feel the chemistry and there’s no clear progression from point A to point B.

The diversity in Circling Back to You is, at least, great. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a filipino love interest in a romance (I’m sure there are some out there, I just haven’t personally seen any), and the cultural aspects with both of them were the most interesting parts of this book. Additionally, I felt that sexism in the workplace was very realistically portrayed, and even if it’s the absolute bare minimum, I did appreciate that Matt didn’t let his coworkers get away with their misogyny towards Cadence—you’d think this would be a given for a love interest, but somehow it isn’t, so it was nice to see.

Overall, I wanted to love this book but just couldn’t get through it. Maybe I’ll come back to it and finish it, but I wouldn’t count on it.

A cute workplace romance from Julie Tieu with meddling families and forced proximity. Great for fans of Jasmine Guillory!

Matt and Cadence have worked together for years and try to keep the sparks they feel for each other at bay, but when a work trips forces them together, the sparks can't help but fly!

I found this book to be okay. It was kind of slow and pretty predictable, but it is a cute, light easy breezy read. It also has great Asian-American representation and kick butt women killing it in their careers.

It was spicy but tamed and I really enjoyed the MMC Matt. However, I found I didn't sympathize with Cadence, the FMC, much and found her a bit mean as times. I also felt there were too many side characters for me to feel attached to or get to know while reading.

It's got friends to lovers and miscommunication tropes so what more could you want??? Maybe a bit more action and a bit more romance...

Thank you NetGalley, Avon Books, and Harper Collins Publishing for giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you @avonbooks for a copy of this book.

This was a cute office and forced proximity romance. I really enjoyed Matt's character who was portrayed as a player. He was sweet and had an adorable family. Candace was a bit standoffish and I had a hard time with her rub with her family.

I enjoyed the Asian representation and the complexity of an office romance in the story.

I enjoyed the beginning a lot, their relationship moves so fast though and cadence was just a lot sometimes. Still a good book I just wouldn’t come back to it.

Special thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for allowing me to read the ARC for my honest opinion!

What a cute office rom-com! Female Grumpy/Male Sunshine + unspoken feelings + close proximity tropes! I immediately fell in love with Cadence and Matt. It made my heart so happy to have Asian representation with some great banter that had me smiling (and screaming because it was so dang cute)! And a supportive feminist man? Where can I get me one of those?

I literally could not put it down that I stayed up until 5am to finish it. Minimal spice, but it’s the sweet relationship that seals the deal.

EDIT: a really important note I forgot when writing my original review! There are gay side characters in this book that choose to become foster parents with the explicit goal of adopting an infant. The “birth parents” are discussed as possible barriers to their happiness and all of the protections in place for screening and training foster parents are discussed as over the top red tape when there are “so many children just waiting for a home.” As someone who has worked in child welfare and listened to adopted children this is a gross and dangerous perspective. Foster homes are an important resource to keep children safe while working to KEEP FAMILIES TOGETHER. These children have families who love them and are often simply unable to care for them due to economic issues (poverty is one of the highest contributing factor to losing temporary or permanent custody of a child). This book promotes the idea that entering the system as a foster parent looking to adopt is the goal when it should be the last possible option to consider a opposed to thinking of fostering as an opportunity to help support a family in its most extreme time of need. Please listen and seek out the voices of adopted and fostered people if you want more information on this issue.

I really love the beginning of this book but man did that third act feel funny. First of all this is a good book and I will definitely be seeking out the other book by Julie Tieu. I found the beginning of this book to be charming and engaging and the sweet friendship and tension between Cadence and Matt was fun to read and engaging.

But then some cracks in the characters started to show. I though Cadence was a little bit too timid about her boss and her feelings about Matt despite moments of anger and being told over and over that she is a badass. Matt on the other hand has moments where he gets pretty manipulative towards Cadence trying to get what he wants from her without being fully honest about his feelings and wants. Don't get me wrong I liked flawed characters but these seem like they were accidents not consciously added characters flaws that the characters could grow from.

Tieu wrote in her afterward that she started this book pre-pandemic and then had to shift gears when the world changed and it kind of reads like that. At about the half way point this book has a huge shift and introduces over a dozen new characters from both Cadence's and Matt's families and the issues and cultural differences and pressures of their families. I liked these characters but it just felt like too much and also like we were suddenly all over the place. So many things happen all at once, no one actually talks about their feelings like an adult and when you the reader take a step back and realize it has been a single week you feel exhausted.

Overall my issue with this book is that it starts slow and sweet and then starts running completely off the rails too fast, too much, but also some how slow and puttering along. It just fell flat.

Thank you to Net Galley, and Avon and Harper Voyager for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.