"The Boy with a Bookstore" by Sarah Echavarre Smith invites readers into a delightful tale where romance and reality collide in the most unexpected ways. Joelle Prima, a baker with dreams of a perfect romance, finds herself entangled with Max Boyson, the tattooed bookshop owner she's been crushing on. As they embark on a temporary collaboration due to building renovations, Joelle's fantasies clash with the grumpy reality of Max.

Echavarre Smith crafts a story filled with humor and heart as Joelle and Max navigate the challenges of sharing a space. Max, initially seen as a toad, reveals layers beneath his gruff exterior, sparking a unique chemistry. The novel beautifully explores their evolving relationship against the backdrop of a bakery and bookstore, with delectable descriptions of Filipino pastries and literary discussions.

As the characters uncover the true reason behind the renovation, the narrative unfolds into a test of both business acumen and emotions. "The Boy with a Bookstore" is a charming read that encourages readers to look beyond appearances, teaching us that sometimes, love and connection blossom in the most unexpected places.

I love friends to enemies to lovers. Add books and baked goods in, and I'm there! This was definitely worth the read and I'll be looking for more Smith books in the future.

this book was cute, nothing over the top amazing but still an enjoyable romance! The tropes are always what a romancer reader enjoys but it seemed to jump around quite a bit. lots of pettiness to throw around hahahah

I loved the premise of The Boy With The Bookstore--a baker and a bookstore owner fall in love? Absolutely ideal match.

I wasn't feeling Joelle and Max's romance, though. Max was so irrationally mean to Joelle repeatedly throughout the book. Yeah, we all have bad days and can snap when we're grumpy, but he was disproportionately harsh to her! I do agree that Joelle was a bit of a doormat, but mostly in regards to how he treated her (but also her parents didn't try to prosecute the person that stole presumably hundreds of thousands of dollars from them?). I don't think Max really showed Joelle that he changed in the end, and she accepted him back with no guarantee that he wouldn't blow his lid again the next time they hit a bump in the road.

I usually love this author's books, but when I can't get behind the relationship in a romance novel, there's not much left. I could kill for some ube baked goods right now, though!

He's a bookstore owner. She's a bakeshop owner. And there is a massive renovation happening on their shared building, forcing them to share a new space until the renovations are complete. *cough forced proximity cough cough*

And although Max may look handsome, rugged, and like the bad boy of her dreams... his attitude is just... bad. Joelle is the sunshine, to his midnight rain. With the shared spaces, and business problems, they'll be forced to deal with each other and see if they can cohabit the space.

My feels: It was sweet and cute, and I really liked it!

*Gifted by Netgalley & Berkley - thank you! All opinions are my own.

The Boy With a Bookstore é uma leitura de muitos altos e baixos.
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Joelle é dona de uma pequena padaria filipina, que é seu sonho desde nova. Depois que ela teve que abrir mão de fazer uma escola de culinária, ter seu próprio negócio é um orgulho. Ela tem um crush no dono da livraria que fica no mesmo prédio: Max. Acontece que o crush é mútuo e Max também está de olho em Joelle. Agora o prédio onde eles tem seus negócios será reformado e os dois precisarão dividir o mesmo espaço. Mas Max não parece muito feliz com isso.
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Meu principal problema com esse livro é que Max é uma montanha - russa. Ele tem altos, quando ele é maravilhoso e baixos quando ele trata a Joelle que nem lixo. E isso me incomodou demais enquanto eu estava lendo esse livro.
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A Joelle é maravilhosa e merece o mundo todinho, ela teve uma vida bem difícil e teve que abrir mão do seu sonho por conta da família.
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A relação dos dois nasce desse crush e vai se desenvolvendo apesar do Max. A Joelle tem muita paciência e entende alguns problemas que ele teve no passado.
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Enfim, não é de todo ruim se você ignorar esses baixos do Max.
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Yeah, no. I don't like it when characters are mean. Was he supposed to be curmudgeon or angsty? Doesn't matter. No thanks.

Enemies to lovers done not well! 🥵

If there’s one thing I can’t handle in a book, it’s protagonists that are immature (and not meant to be), Plus, we don’t put up with men who are jerks 👀 MAX. I really didn’t enjoy this one… a romance’s one job is to have you root for and love people falling in love. Mission not accomplished, so I can’t rate this one well. 🥲

I’m normally a fan of Smith, and because of the synopsis, I was very excited to read this one. Unfortunately it wasn’t for me and I had to DNF it.

I enjoy Smith’s writing, and her writing in this one was no exception. I enjoyed the main female character and the love for animals. Even the plot of this was good.

So why did I DNF it? Because the main male character was so. bad. He was just flat out mean and rude, and completely unlikeable. He was fine in the first chapter or so, but once they find out about the renovations, he just became a massive dick, to the point where I didn’t care about him at all, was annoyed with the main character for liking him, and he wasn’t redeemable to me. He was condescending to her, rude, disrespectful, and just angry.

I will continue to read Smith’s work, and maybe this book was redeemable as it went on, but I didn’t want to take that chance.

Let me premise this by saying I listened to the audiobook while following along in the ebook. I enjoyed the concept, I love a good bakery, and a good bookstore, so combine the two in a fluffy rom-com, I figured I'd be completely in for it. However, that chapter 11 conversation where they admit to liking each other was the most cringe worthy thing I've ever read/listened to in my life. I physically shuttered. Other than that, the book wasn't horrible. It didn't exactly stick out to me, it wasn't a "oh my goodness I need to tell all my romance reading friends to read this." type of book, but, I'd probably give it as a recommendation

I don't know why I waited so long to read this book but how fitting that I was reading it during National Library Week when we embrace book lovers and readers. This was a cute read. I enjoyed the characters and thought they were all very interesting. I really enjoy Sarah Echavarre Smith's books. She adds a unique twist to each of her books. Looking forward to her next book.

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me an ARC!
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Unfortunately I DNFed this, it just didn’t catch my attention and maybe I’ll get into it again when I’m in the perfect headspace to give this another try! But I would buy and recommend this to others definitely!

love bookstore romances, but not this one, loved the heroine and her hamster and her bakerty, didn't get the attraction of the hero

It was a really nice and cute romance story. This is the second book I've read by Sarah Smith and I liked this light and romantic love story. The MC is a shy filipino American nerdy baker girl, he is a badass biker-look bookstore-owner. Both are cute and perfectly made for each other, both felt attracted to the other since the beginning. Everything is so perfect, the story could have been over after 60 pages. The conflicts in this novel seemed to constructed and artificial for me. I could not understand how Max could do the same errors again and again. But this was the only thing I have to criticize here. Besides that, I felt very good entertained and am beyond happy to find a female MC with filipino roots and a lot of love for Ube-flavored food. Would love to taste an Ube latte!

I would recommend this book for everyone who enjoys a cute romantic love story and some steamy love scenes.

The dialogue was cringe-worthy and neither of the main characters was likable in any way. Reading a romcom, one wants to root for the characters both individually and as a couple; I did not care about them at all due to their personalities being so off-putting. I just wanted it to be over.

I really wanted to like this book about a baker and the bookstore owner next door to her bakery. But sadly this was not a hit for me. I did not believe the romance between our main characters. I was told they had a crush on each other and they did jump right into a heavy make out session during their first private conversation, but there was no build up, no tension at the beginning. And their communication with each other was either non-existent or just awful for most of the book. I did love her loving family, but that's about it. I would not recommend.

Absolutely not.
Bad writing, cringey dialogue, an immature 32 year old pushover and a massive fucking asshole does not a romance make.

Now, just to be clear, am I a hater? I absolutely am, but I tend to not be one when it comes to reading because, after all, these books are people's life's work, but whenever I come across a book as genuinely bad as this one, my hater tendencies kick in and I just have to vent.

I did ask for this book on Netgalley, before even looking it up on Goodreads, which was a very bad move on my part.
Had I seen the average rating, which wow, I wouldn't have requested it because I wouldn't have wanted to get stuck with it, but I did and reading it was a necessary sacrifice in order to get it off of my Netgalley.

I'd like to do an honorable mention of the VERY few things I enjoyed about this book:
. Our main character is a woman of color, which is something that I always appreciate and tend to enjoy in romance books.
. The concept of a baker and bookshop owner romance is very cute. Mind you, I said concept, not execution, because again, just wow.
. I really appreciated Joelle's dedication to her family, which was heavily shown throughout the book.

That's it, yep.
Moving on to the drama:
. Max, said bookshop owner, second main character and love interest, was truly atrociously written.
Throughout this book, he was consistenly written as a major, and I mean Major with a capital M, asshole, dick, and generally unlikeable person.
He did fucking mistreat Joelle, at least verbally, for half of this book, and then it got worse when they got together and he couldn't control his temper.
Max is 100% someone who could easily become an abuser, and that is not something you want to see in a love interest and main character.
Yes, he had his struggles, but you do not treat people that way, especially someone you claim to be in love with.
. Joelle, albeit nice and a dedicated family oriented person, who's supposedly 32, seemed very immature throughout the book, a pushover and just someone who's got no spine.
. The writing itself was just not good. Very amature, clunky, with some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen and I do believe I won't be picking up another one of this author's book.
. The sex scenes, which should've been the saving grace of this book, were also badly written, although they did manage to turn me on so at least there's that.
. As I mentioned beforehand, Joelle and Max's relationship was very much tense for half of the book, as their interactions were just fights, not cute banter, which was very unappealing to me.
. Shit got even worse when the third act conflict kicked in, as Max insulted, berated and verbally abused Joelle, who did end up fighting back, albeit in a way that left her on the same level as Max, so I ended up disliking both of them even more than I already did.
. The ending didn't do anything for me, as I would never take someone back when said someone berated and insulted me to my face and then proceeded to ghost me for weeks afterwards, and it shows a lack of good judgment on the part of Whitney to be a willing participant in Joelle and Max getting back together.

I know that this review comes across as very harsh, and I truly don't mean to insult the author by doing so, but when a book is this bad, and contains a character like Max who's just not a great person, it really surprises me that it got published, and by Berkley out of all the publishing houses, and I can't help but need to vent and get all of this off my chest.
Not recommended, like at all.

This was a super cute book that I fully enjoyed! It was a quick read and the characters were written in a very relatable way. They both definitely had their faults, but that just made them more real. My only dislike was I hated the communication-or lack thereof between them. I just wanted them to talk!

I wanted to love this one, but unfortunately it was a DNF for me. Sarah's writing hasn't been working for me for her last couple of books, and I just really didn't like either of the main characters in this one.

THE BOY WITH THE BOOKSTORE is a cute read. It has its swoon-worthy moments. The pace of the story was good and all-in-all enjoyable.