For this book to be considered a romance book, I definitely was expecting there to be more romance. There were a few moments in the book that were quite cringy. It was a light, quick read that was just okay to me. I don’t think this is really a book I would recommend unless you want something that is an easy, quick read.

Oh my, I loved this one! It wasn't at all what I was expecting but loved the friends-to-enemies-to-lovers storyline.

All the characters were delightful and I loved the depth of development so that the love story wasn't the only point to all of this.

Sweet and short- I think this book could have been a lot better than it was but I enjoyed the read. I expected a little bit more out of the romance and was disappointed.

I am a huge fan of romance books. But this one just seemed like the run of the mill romance book. Nothing really stuck out to me. This was just not my favorite. I did think the story was cute. If you are looking for a romance book I am sure you will like this one.

Couldn’t get into it 25% in. Good idea but wasn’t loving it and struggling to finish. I ultimately haven’t made time to finish the book because it just doesn’t peak my interest

This was a really light and easy to read book. The romance is more PG than I normally read but I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything while I was reading! And it didn’t feel like any of those kinds of scenes were needed. I really loved the characters, especially the main character Aly. I would absolutely recommend this book!

Aly has always dated men that were "projects". They all needed to be nudged or guided to their potential and it seemed once the men found their great life goal, Aly became an afterthought. Her work friends decide this can be a great business model, helping women gently nudge their men in the direction they need to help the relationship or personal growth. So begins the Fixer Upper business. All is going well until Aly is confronted with her childhood best friend/first love/one who got away. Does she want to nudge him to propose to someone else? Is meddling in someone's life really fair?

This was a slow burn read for me. At times I found myself frustrated with Aly being such a doormat. But by the end, I was cheering her on as she found her strength and worth. Also, I felt this book was more a contemporary fiction as the romance aspect seemed to take a backseat to the business/friends relationships. If you are looking for hot and steamy, this book is not it. But it's a cute, fun read and a solid 4 stars.

Aly has always dated guys who've shown a lot of potential, guys who she's done a lot of emotional labor for-- guys who've gone on to have successful lives built on foundations she set for them, while her own life has stagnated. So when her two work friends convince her that she should use her ability to help men live up to their potential for good, she reluctantly agrees. And thus, The Fixer Upper is started, a service that helps nudge men in the direction their partners need, whether it's being a more present father or understanding why the mother of their children might want to get married.
And then they're approached by their biggest client yet, an heiress-turned-influencer who wants to help her normal boyfriend succeed at his job-- and propose to her, so they can star in a reality tv show. But when the boyfriend shows up, he turns out to be Aly's childhood best friend and first love. And he pretends not to know her.
What follows is a delicate balance of career coaching, relationship nudging, and the ever-growing inkling that maybe what Aly is doing isn't the right thing, after all.

The Fixer Upper is like if the movie Failure To Launch were sweet and uplifting instead of incredibly problematic. It could have so easily gone the way of that movie and put down the people The Fixer Upper was trying to help, but instead, Lauren Forsythe approached this book with care, often having Aly and co come to realize that the situations were more complex than they'd anticipated. There was a lot of talk between the crew about the morals of what they were doing, there were lines drawn from the beginning (no finding out if men were cheating), and there was a shift in the company, at the end, that perfectly merged all the various aspects of the book to create what promised to be an absolutely wonderful company.
All that, with great, well-rounded characters, prose that drew me in, and plots I couldn't help but want to read about. I cannot wait to read more by Lauren Forsythe.

This was a cute read but honestly it felt weird to want the main characters together for me. I just didn't feel they were a good fit.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book. I felt a lack of chemistry or tension between the characters. I loved the FMC character development, and the trope of friends to lovers is a favorite of mine. I just wasn't as invested in their relationship as I wanted to be.

Blurb: In this funny and sharp romantic comedy, a woman with a knack for turning her boyfriends’ lives around starts a professional service to help wrangle men, only to be unexpectedly matched with an old flame.

I really loved this charming British romcom! Aly, the main character, was so completely relatable. I was cheering for her to reunite with her childhood best friend and crush, Dylan, and to finally find her happily ever after. Aly’s two best friends, Tola and Eric, were also such fun, likable characters. I would love to read another book about each of them! The whole book is fun, filled with witty banter, genuine friendships, real life struggles, and sweet second chances.

The Fixer Upper releases August 2, and I highly recommend it as the perfect lighthearted read to complete your summer!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Special thanks to Netgalley and Putnam for sharing an ARC with me in exchange for my honest review.

This was a nice quick read. It was childhood bffs to strangers to enemies to lovers and was very much slow burn - which I felt had a lot of great potential.

The story follows Aly and her work besties who create a side business helping women see their "fixer-upper" partners reach their full potential. Aly finds herself coming face to face with her first love, Dylan, while in the process of fixing up other people’s love lives.

In the beginning I was excited because I thought I was going to fully resonate with Aly since she is a career driven women working at a marketing firm — but that’s where my resonation ends. Slow burn is always a hit or miss for me. I always love it when you just feel their tension throughout the whole story and you’re just waiting to see how it’s all going to unfold that you don’t even feel that it’s slow, you’re just itching for more and more moments — this book didn’t do that for me, I was waiting for it to end and the romance aspect overall felt a bit flat. I didn’t get that yearning from either end until the book was all practically over. The plot picked up so quickly but then just became stagnant for most of the book until the last quarter of it. I don’t think the story focused on Aly/Dylan as a couple but more on the office moments and friendships. That said, the book felt more general fiction than romance which is also GREAT had it not been marketed as romance. I did like the friendship Aly had with with Tola and Eric and always enjoyed their banter and found myself looking forward to more of their interactions.

This was a 3.5 stars to me.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons, and #NetGalley for sharing this eARC with me in exchange for my honest review!

I have to say, this book started out slow and I really didn’t see the chemistry with the characters. It took me almost half way through the book to get into it. But when Dylan and Aly finally had that moment alone, I was hooked. Very clean read and very satisfying ending.

Fixer Upper is the book we all need to read this summer!

Forsythe’s modern day love story follows Aly, a thirty- thee year old woman, who has put her career, family, and others happiness before her own. In a twist of fate, Aly discovers that she has the gift of “fixing” men by helping them achieve their full potential. Things are looking up until Aly is reunited with her childhood best friend and first love, Dylan. The two manage to reconnect and mend the hurts they endured from each other as teenagers.

If you are looking for a relatable romance, Forsythe delivers! She captures how easy it is for miscommunications, fears, and insecurities to get in the way of true happiness.

In addition, Aly’s journey to finding her self-worth in life and business was refreshing. Women too often are passed over for the promotion in a male dominated field because they are too valuable to lose, “emotional”, or simply not apart of the “boys club”.

Finally, if you love romance but prefer to leave out the spice, this is the book for you!!! It is wholesome without being corny.

Special thanks to NetGalley.com and Penguin Group Putnam for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

Aly has a talent (almost a superpower!) to make men live up to their potential. When her friends Tola and Eric encourage her to set up a side hustle helping women "fix" their husbands, boyfriends, and significant others, it seems like a good idea- especially since her soul-sucking corporate job feels like it's going nowhere. Enter her first love, Dylan, who she's been hired to "fix" by his current reality-star girlfriend, and things get complicated in a hurry. Will Aly be able to make it out of this with her reputation-and her heart- intact?

The premise of this book had a lot of potential, and there was a lot to love about this story. The things that made this story good were: the friendships and the modern woman energy. I love when female main characters are strong, competent and kick butt. This is true for Aly (our main character) for the most part- she's incredible at her job and finds out she's incredible at setting up her significant others to be successful later in life. She is the inspiration for all of her exes to chase their dreams, shape up and live up to their potential. The downside is that she doesn't get to reap the rewards because it's always after they break up that they follow through on their ambition. Aly's friends, Eric and Tola, see this and they all decide to make a side hustle off of it and create Fixer Upper- a company where women can hire these three to coach their men into living up to their potential. This all goes sideways when Aly and friends are hired to fix up her "one that got away" from her childhood, her old best friend and unrequited love, Dylan.

Nicki is where things were hard for me to love this story. The premise of the book was good but the execution of the fixing up became less about helping people grow and more about manipulation and deceit- which Aly struggles with and acknowledges, she just is too selfish to stop. Nicki was one of the worst characters I've ever read (and I understand she's supposed to be the villain) but because Aly works with her for SO LONG it made me dislike Aly so much.

Eric and Tola were the saving graces of this book. The friends were awesome, they held her accountable and showed grace. They were fantastic. I wish that there was more surrounding their friendship and less about Aly feeling guilty but not doing anything about it. If the confrontation had happened earlier in the book and gave us more time for the resolution, I think this story would've worked so much more for me. Since Aly is selfish for 90% of the book, it made it hard to root for her, despite knowing she had such a skewed view of love growing up.

Dylan was a fine love interest but he lost points when he blurred the lines with Aly at the end before the conflict. It gives me yuck feelings when a guy is sleeping with his girlfriend one minute and a couple hours later he's flirting and trying to make a move on someone else.

Overall, this story was fine. There was a lot of potential there but it eventually missed the mark for me.

The Fixer Upper
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Romance
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 8/2/22
Author: Lauren Forsythe
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Pages: 304
Goodreads Rating: 3.67

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for providing a digital copy of the book for me to read in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Aly decides to put her talents to good use and, alongside two work friends, sets up The Fixer Upper, an exclusive, underground service for women who are tired of unpaid emotional labor. Using little tricks and tips, Aly and her friends get the men to do the work themselves – to get out of the job they hate, sign up for that growth seminar, to do more parenting. Before long, a high-profile Instagram star hires them to fix-up her app developer boyfriend. There’s just one catch – he’s also Aly’s childhood best friend and first love. As Aly tackles her biggest “fixer upper” yet, she’ll have to come to terms with their complicated history and figure out how much to change someone she’d always thought was perfect as he is…

My Thoughts: This is a second chance trope with no real steam, which does not bother me, just mentioning as I know some readers look for that exclusively. The characters were developed well, while there was chemistry between Aly and Dylan, the steam wasn’t there, and there was some depth, but some more would of been a notch up. The friendship was built in this book was sweet and endearing. The miscommunications were more annoying and maybe a little much. This book did not completely meet my expectations. It was not bad, I just expected more from the book. Having said that, I would still read other books by this author.

When I first started this title I was very much interested in the characters and the development that would be happening. However, by the 30% mark the story just fell flat for me and I decided to stop reading in favor of other titles.

A romance that's all sweet and no spice, this story has elements of second chance romance, childhood friends to lovers, and enemies to lovers. I really loved that the main character grew so much in the story -- especially that her focus shifted from fixing up the "fixer upper" men around her to helping the women around her (and helping herself) stop settling for less than they deserve.

I was so happy to have been chosen to read this fun romcom. It was really cute and funny and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I look forward to reading more from this author!