Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/St. Martin's Griffin for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

This book is adorable and just what my heart needed - a light fluffy rom-com book, with enough predictability that I didn't have anxiety but enough uniqueness to the plotline and characters that I didn't feel like I was reading the same story for the nth time. This book follows Leah and Eli as they find themselves, and subsequently love, as they face the trials and tribulations that accompany big life changes. Leah is learning to adapt to life after a major loss, and though she is used to being alone, this is a new kind of alone. Eli is trying to win back the girl of his dreams (so he thinks), but is being told to change everything about himself in order to do so - he struggles to determine what is beneficial change/compromise for a relationship and what is more harmful to his person. Especially once he is stubborn and has already committed months to said project.

The two of them find out things about themselves through each other, and through their wonderful group of friends, and while this is very much playing off of a lot of Rom-Com's, it still feels very grounded in reality & plausible. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would enjoy reading something else by Jayne Denker.

3.75 stars

Fun, fluffy, and (unsurprisingly) full of references to various major rom-com movies from the past few decades as well as fairly regular allusions to Gilmore Girls. I didn’t love absolutely everything about the book (some of the representation of different identities could have been better, in my opinion), but overall it was a fun story with small-town vibes, an interesting range of characters, and intentional exploration of some bigger issues. I did largely enjoy it.

4⭐for Leah ~ 2⭐ for Eli = 3⭐ total

Featuring ~ dual 3rd person POV, foster care, found family, slow burn, friends to lovers, no steamage

Leah & Eli
I really liked Leah as a person. She had a great heart, but I felt she invested way too much time waiting around for Eli.

Eli coulda went for a crack upside his noggin about the whole Victoria thing ~ how could he not see what was going on ~ get a clue, dude.
Foster brother, Patrick, was a tool too.

Overall, this was alright, but I would have liked it much better if Eli got his act together way sooner. I did enjoy all the references that brought me back to the good ole times in the 80's & 90's.

I was fortunate enough to have an audio and ebook to review, but preferred the ebook on this one.
It's narrated by Erika Schindele for 10 hours and 55 minutes. Although she did a fine job I really wish there was a male narrator, so that's why e-book was better.

Everyone loves a Rom-Com movie. Especially the early 2000’s rom-coms. Swoon. This is a book that plays with all the ideas of a romcom like “meet cutes” and “makeovers” but of a male character. Seeing a male character seeing and adjusting his “weaknesses” is unique but I wasn’t sold on his reasons.

This was kind-of love triangley to me. After 4 months he proposed and she fled. Now it’s months/year later and he still wants her back. His group of girlfriends help him “win her back” but our main FMC starts to fall in love with him. So there is a friends-to-lovers once he stop’s pining over his ex which took too long to realize.

The Rom Com Agenda filled my heart with love, humor, and nostalgia. Willow Cove is nestled in the Thousand Islands of New York, along the St. Lawrence River and near the Adirondack Mountains. This small town is the ideal setting for romantic escapades in a story featuring Leah, Eli, and a sparkling support cast of friends and family.

Leah's personality and character won me over. She was very loyal to her foster mom, Cathy, during her illness, and now works hard at several jobs. Eli was rejected by his girlfriend, Victoria, and is the reluctant subject of a "makeover" by his friends to help him out. Author Denker created a perfect ensemble cast of characters, with definite chemistry, in her book about finding love and seeking a sense of belonging.

A fun sub-plot in the book involves watching many romantic movies from generations past, sometimes on vintage VHS tapes. This brought back fond memories trips to the video stores in the eighties and nineties, searching for just the right film for weekend nights with friends. I need to pop some popcorn, curl up on the couch, and re-watch some of those favorite movies from my younger days!

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for the advance reader's copy. My review is my own.

Leah Keegan is used to being alone, especially after taking care of her sick foster mother for the past year, and now that she's gone, there's nothing keeping her in the small town of Willow Cove. She's working tons of odd jobs to save up money to get out of town, including the clothing store in town, when in comes a group of girls determined to give their friend Eli a makeover. Eli Masterson is all sorts of torn up over his ex-girlfriend, Victoria, who decided to jet off to Rome for a year. He's convinced she's the one who got away and needs to win her back, hence the makeover plan his friends came up with, complete with a list of rom-coms to watch and take notes on. Leah was drawn into the scheme and ends up being Eli's guide through the list of rom-coms, introducing him to the world of grand gestures and meet cutes that will help him win Victoria back. But Leah thinks Eli is great the way he is and doesn't need to change a thing.

As a rom-com lover myself, I chose this book solely for the title when I saw it on NetGalley! I loved all the discussions of some of my favorite 80s and 90s rom-coms, the lovely group of side characters and all their meddling, and the suuuuuper slow burn romance between Leah and Eli. What I DIDN'T love was Eli being the biggest knucklehead and pining over a woman who clearly did not feel the way for him that he did for her. I'm all for fighting for love but this man needed to get a clue. When he finally snapped out of it and realized how great Leah was and how perfect they were together, he was a bit easier to like.

All in all, this was a super cute book that had some depth to it with struggles the main characters faced and I loved the author's writing! I will certainly be checking out more of their work. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 ⭐️

The Rom-Com Agenda was an enjoyable winter-y read for me, but there was something about the story that I couldn’t totally get into.

I really enjoyed Leah’s character and all of the jobs she was working around town, which was definitely very reminiscent of Kirk in Gilmore Girls, but I do also feel like I didn’t get a great sense of her actual goals in life. Leah mentions many times that she has all these jobs so she can save up enough money to move away, but she only mentions one time what career she’s actually interested in and she doesn’t give a lot of details. It felt like something that could have been focused on a little bit more, especially because there is such a clear storyline about Eli’s future career paths and pursuing new opportunities.

I liked Eli as a character, but I was a little bit disappointed with how his plot played out. Obviously Eli’s storyline is about changing himself to win back Victoria, but I just felt like there wasn’t enough of how Eli usually is. I enjoyed the makeover and all of the rom coms they watched to make Eli the perfect boyfriend for Victoria, but there are a lot of other activities Eli mentions being interested in that just happen off page. He mentions kayaking, snow shoe hikes, white water rafting, and his main job is as a wilderness guide, all of which sound like they would be so much fun, but not once do he and Leah do anything like this. Maybe it’s just my own personal preference, but I don’t understand why you’d give a character this job and then not explore it at all during the relationship. This could have led to some really cute, fun dates!

Eli’s friends and family definitely play a huge part in this book and I absolutely loved all of them. They brought a really fun dynamic and all the activities that included, or were orchestrated by, Eli’s friends and family were probably my favourite.

Leah and Eli were definitely cute together and I enjoyed some of their moments, but Eli spent a long time still hung up on Victoria. I was a little unclear on the timeline for parts of this one since there weren’t really any dates mentioned for chapters 1 and 2, but I believe that by chapter 2 Eli and Victoria have already been broken up for longer than they were together. I maybe could’ve believed this more if there wasn’t a time jump between chapter 1 and 2, but 5 months was kind of a weird gap between the breakup and when the makeover to win her back started. And Eli was so committed to this makeover for months, despite the fact that he also kind of struggled to list specific things he liked about her? He genuinely says ‘she was nice’ as a reason he wants her back.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

THE ROM-COM AGENDA by Jayne Denker doesn't hit the mark for me. Elements of this book have the potential to be a hit but the book falls flat. It is so slow and repetitive. Overall, a sea of sameness that doesn't make me giddy to read. Bummer.

2.5 Stars After spontaneously proposing to his girlfriend of four months before she leaves for a European sabbatical and getting rejected, Eli is determined to win her back. His gal pals agree to help him in his quest and transform Eli into the ideal pan. Leah is still reeling from the loss of her foster mom, but is inadvertently pulled into the scheme to transform Eli and guides him through the world of rom com meet cutes and grand gestures. Leah doesn’t think Eli needs to change anything about himself in order to be loved, and finds herself falling for him.

This was a sweet slow-burn with many classic rom com elements. I love the idea of the classic rom com “makeover,” but this time it’s with a man. An easy, fun read!

Eli is in love…with someone who isn’t in love with him. But he’s determined to win Victoria back after her research trip to Rome, and his sister and friends decide to give him the makeover of a lifetime to reach his goal. They change his style and tell him to learn from the men of classic rom-coms, enlisting the help of new friend Leah. The problem is…Leah doesn’t think Eli needs to change at all.

Leah and Eli have a really sweet love story, slowly falling for each other as they watch rom-coms together. It’s all part of his education, but when they’re together, they both seem to forget his end goal. They have great chemistry. I love when a book couple are new friends first, because the transition to romance always feels so natural.

I think overall, though, I needed just a little more depth from this book. Leah has some serious trauma in her past, and it does get discussed, but it’s all a little surface level. Her trust issues are barely a factor between her and Eli. There’s drama promised with her foster brother, but it kind of fizzles out before it even starts. And while I liked the supporting characters, they all had very similar personalities and sort of blended together.

If you’re looking for something light and fun though, with cute main characters, this is the perfect read!

Friends to loved AND found family? Count me in! ✨

This book was so fun! The characters were so well-written and I loved the town so much!

The characters all felt so real, and I’m rooting for them to get their own books. The humor in this one is top notch and kept me laughing all throughout the book.

I can’t wait to see what Jayne Denker comes up with next! ✨

DNF after chapter 2…

i found the storyline or this book strange after reading the first couple chapters. it open with the main guy proposing to his girlfriend of like four months, she says she doesn’t want to marry him, breaks up with him, and she moves away. the main girl also was a witness to this situation.

the next chapter is a year forward and he is still hung up over his ex and his sister’s are going to help make him over to win her back. after reading other reviews, it seems that he spend the majority of the book still in love with his ex, so therefore i will not be continuing this book.

The Rom-Com Agenda has all the elements of a Rom-Com. It is a quick read with and endearing group of friends and two main characters that find each other in a comical way.

This was cute, but it felt like it was missing something? The entire concept was fun, and honestly the story was very sweet, but I think I just never believed Eli and Leah's jump from friends to more. The development of their friendship felt perfectly paced, but the next step, especially given how hung up Eli was on Victoria, just felt too rushed.

I still liked this overall though, particularly with the found family aspects, but it just felt like it could have benefited from a bit more development in places.

3.5

For a book with such a cute title this one was not my cup of tea. I really didn't like any of the characters, that may totally be a me problem though. I am sure many folks will like it, I just personally didn't resonate with either character.

In The Rom-Com Agenda, Eli’s friends are giving him a makeover to get his ex back, and Leah is cleaning her late mother’s house and waiting to get out of Willow Cove. But when she finds herself involved in Eli’s makeover, things get a little more complicated.

This book and the small town of Willow Cove were cozy but not isolating. Eli and Leah fit together on their own and in the world around them.

I loved the meddling friends, but I wish they were more self-aware of their attempts at trying to change Eli - it felt like they already had a list of his faults and were waiting for the opportunity to pounce. Still, I loved the book and look forward to reading more from Jayne Denker.

*Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Jayne Denker for this ARC!

2.5 stars rounded up.

I had high hopes for this one because what a cute name, The Rom-Com Agenda. I love rom-coms! give me the Sandra Bullocks and the Hugh Grants and the less-problematic John Hughes movies.

But, this book wasn't really delivering on the roms or the coms. At least for me.

The premise had promise. Leah accidentally is a witness to a man (Eli) getting dumped by his girlfriend right after he proposed, or rather gave a ring as a promise propose (I refuse to say "promise ring"). She leaves in a rush to head to Italy, and Leah feels bad for this heartbroken man.

But Leah has other worries. For the past few years she has taken care of her ailing foster mom's who died recently. She is not working many odd jobs to save up and move out of the small town. She is living rent free in her foster mom's house and her foster brother keeps dropping hints that he wants to sell. She is independent, and has no family or ties to the town she grew up in.

Meanwhile, Eli has let him self go after the breakup, even though they were only together four months. His wacky group of friends and family are determined to make him over because he wants to win back his ex. So, they take him to various places in their small town to get new clothes and a haircut. Who happens to work at all these places? Leah. His group of friends ropes her into joining them on Operation Eli Makeover. They give him homework to watch romantic comedies so he can learn from them. Throughout the process a friendship forms between Leah and Eli, and she catches feelings for him. But it's hopeless, because all this work is to win back his ex, right?

Listen, this book was...fine. I just didn't really connect with the characters and the wackiness of the friends felt forced. All the beats of romance (meet-cute, conflict, grand gesture, swoony moments) kind of fell flat for me. All the references to romantic movies from the 80s and 90s made me think I would rather just re-watch When Harry Met Sally.

Thank you St. Marten's Press and Netgalley for the ARC for my honest review.

Thank you St.Martins Press and NetGalley for a copy of this ARC.

After Eli’s girlfriend turns down his proposal and temporarily moves to Italy for work, Eli’s family and friends put him through a makeover to try and help win Victoria back.

The premise of this book was super cute, but the length of time Eli spent pining over Victoria was getting a little too much for me. I will say though that the rom-com movie references were a hit!

I adored Leah and just wanted to wrap her up in a huge hug. She was always so positive even after the life she had. I’m so happy that she found her own family with Eli’s friends and family.

Typically closed door romances are not my thing, but it just worked with this book. This was my first book by Jayne, but I would be open to reading more of her work :)

A cute contemporary romance with bundles of pop-culture references which I absolutely loved! This was a cute story but it felt like Eli spent most of the book missing his ex. That kinda killed it for me. A little residual heartbreak is fine but don't let it outshine the main coupling that's supposed to be happening. Denker did a great job utilizing the friends to lovers trope though, over all.

I want to start off by saying I really did with this books. Every time something happened that made me uncomfortable I tried to just push through cause I liked the premise of the books and loved the romcom references but I just couldn't read anymore. I DNFed at 42%.

First, I want to start off by saying that I don't know how I am supposed to like Eli after what he pulled in chapter 1. Proposing to a girl after only dating 4 months because she's leaving, and sure I sound a little bit like a hypocrite cause I am a fan of instalove. But Victoria's reaction to his proposal should've give him enough information that she was not interested in him.

Second, I was listening to the audiobook, to clarify English is not my first language, both names of the main characters were confusing. Eli and Leah in this narrators voice sound similar in some moments and I confused some things Eli said with Leah... and don't get me started when Eli thought Leah and Leia are the same thing.

Third, this book has a lot of pop culture references, if this is not your cup of tea, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK... I got at least 4 or 5 Harry Potter references.

Now to the reason why I did not finish this book:

Eli is still in love or interest in Victoria at least 40% of this book. The reason why I couldn't continue is because (spoilers ahead) (view spoiler)

Another thing I didn't like, personally to me it felt like everyone pity Leah cause she is an orphan. It made uncomfortable. I don't think any of the characters are likable.

Like I said, I like the concept and I am not a fan of the execution.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc and audiobook arc of this book.