A second chance romance from enemies to lovers. It was smart, sweet, quirky and heartfelt. I loved that this book had a plus size woman as the main character, she was relatable and inspiring!

Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 STARS

EHH. This book unfortunately wasn't for me. I really wanted to root for the two main characters, Alison and Colin, but I really just didn't.

Colin was awful. In undergrad, he screwed Alison over and broke her heart at the same time. Now in graduate school, he screwed her over, but 100 times as worse!! Like I was not expecting that betrayal and honestly that was just unforgiveable.

Alison wasn't much better. She tried to be strong and independent, but she was just mean at certain times. Based on the verbiage in the book, she was overcompensating for how she felt about her weight, even when she didn't need to.

This book OVERLY focused on her weight. I get it, everyone "saw" her as overweight, but every single situation reverted back to her weight. It was got to be a lot.

I absolutely loved the plus size narrative that wasn't too overplayed and instead was just a natural part of the storyline. Allison is a sweet heroine with a great backstory and Colin's character arc is beautiful and fun to watch develop. However, the ending fell a little short and felt forced to me. I wish there had been a true "winner" even though they still ended up together I wish there had been true working through it together and not just coming back together at the end

The Make-Up Test is a cute, academic rom-com, with an exes to loves trope. Intertwined with PhD classes and family health / drama, this was an quick and easy listen! Highly recommend if you enjoy exes to loves tropes, romantic comedy stories, and stories of that similarity.

Overall, I would recommend this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orangesky Audio for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Make-Up Test by Jenny L. Howe
3/5 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️

•••Spoiler free review below•••

I am feeling very conflicted about this one!!
The writing is wonderful (especially for a debut novel) and I really enjoyed the Ph.D program aspect. There is a lot of discussion on medieval literature which I found fascinating and it is clear the author is very knowledgeable on this subject. Our female main character, Allison, is passionate about her work and it translates wonderfully in this story. I liked every part of our main character's journey...except the romance.

This is a second chance romance which I knew going into it. I was fine with how things ended between our main characters the first time they dated. I really appreciated the aspect of growth that the author attempted to portray but the male main character, Colin, slipped right back into old habits and I felt one of his pivotal moments in the book was an act that was unforgivable.

I'm giving an extra star for the medieval literature and writing but this one was just not for me!

The Make-Up Test will be released September 13th.
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Special thanks to OrangeSky Audio and NetGalley for sharing an arc with me in exchange for my honest opinions.

This book had me often asking wait, didn’t that already happen. . I enjoyed the first third but then felt like it was too repetitive. I liked the narrator.

Allison is a character I think many people can really relate to. She is confident in herself and her body, but struggles with other people's opinions.

Allison's relationship with her father is something that hits closer to home than I thought it would. I understand her pain and struggle of trying your best to impress someone who will never care about your accomplishments as long as you are fat. It's hard. As much as you love them, they don't respect you. It was difficult to read at times, but her story was one I thoroughly enjoyed.

Allison's character growth was great! And the love interest's, Collin, was even better. He went from being a character I despised (based on the background info we are given) to becoming a better person since the break up. I enjoyed reading about their relationship reconnecting while also being Academic Rivals.

The Make-Up Test was such a cute nerdy romcom with Medieval Literature jokes and commentary that I did not understand. 😅 But that's okay. The bickering, pining and misunderstandings were all fun to read regardless.

Thank you so much Netgalley and OrangeSky Audio for providing me an audiobook arc copy. All thoughts are my own. 🖤

I struggle with rating this one. There were things in here I loved - not so much how Allison was treated, but how those plot points made me think about how these toxic relationships exist in real life.

Toxic relationship #1: The easiest one is between Allison & her dad. Through present day and her memories of growing up with him, we see that he's a constant source of negativity in her life and that he has only ever seen her weight and not *her.* My mouth dropped several times during the hospital scene and I think that's the sign of a good book if it's making me feel so passionately.

Toxic relationship #2: Allison & her mother. Yes. It's toxic. Allison may talk about how much she loves her mom and how they've always been there for each other, but this woman pined away after the man that left her for years and *forced* Allison to have a relationship with him. As you can see from above, her dad SUCKED. Mom knew this and yet she constantly put her own daughter's wellbeing aside because "he's your father." Neither Allison nor her dad wanted a relationship and mom just kept on forcing.

Toxic relationship #3: COLIN. In a nutshell, Colin ends their relationship years ago because of his fragile male ego, takes her interests as his own, exhibits the same insecurities years later, culminating in a jaw dropping move which I won't spoil for you. Then Allison gets mad at herself for not hearing him out for said jaw dropping move. It was mind blowing.

So why were there things in here I loved if it was so toxic? Because it really made me think. It makes you question if the relationships in your life are actually as good as you think they are or if they're stunting your growth.

The thing is.... I don't think that was the author's intent at all. I think I was supposed to think the romance was sweet and endearing. Which I did not.

So I really enjoyed this book for reasons I shouldn't have... Which is why I'm going with 3 stars. If you want to read a "romance" that ends up being enraging and somehow enlightening at the same time, try this one.

This story was cute. I loved the characters, Allison and Colin.

I did however feel the author pushed the academia side of this book a little far. There was so much talk of classic literature that I felt bored at times.

And Allison needs to be a little less judgy 🤷🏻‍♀️
She gets angry at people who basically do to her what she does to them. I feel maybe she needs to grow up a little.

I do love that she stood up to her abuser! I don’t like that the author then turns her and makes her guilty at the funeral. If her dad truly was proud then she gave him more than enough chances to change things.

Thanks NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

3/5

I wanted to love this book so bad but I honestly just couldn’t get there. It was really nothing about the characters themselves that I thought was but I think it was there was just not much chemistry between the two of them and I had a hard time caring. It was really nothing special and nothing I haven’t read before. However, I still would recommend it as someone who is in grad school I could relate.

Thank you to NetGalley, OrangeSky Audio and St. Martins Griffin for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

I really wanted to like this book. I did. It was such an interesting premise, rival academics and exes end up in the same literature PhD program and TAing the same class, but the competitiveness and miscommunication just ruined it for me. And there was a lot of miscommunication, so much. I also felt at times that the female MC was just borderline mean, which I mean I'm glad we're starting to see more unlikeable heroines, but I just think at times this MC took it a little too far. I did, however, love the fat representation in this book and would love to see more in mainstream books. The other thing I'll point out is that this is definitely not a rom-com, even though it has a cute illustrated cover and a rom-com premise, it quickly delves into not being a rom-com, so keep that in mind when reading.

I liked this story! I loved the plus size female main character who was so comfortable with herself even with people constantly shaming her. I enjoyed the medieval discussions in the academic world even though I’m not very familiar with it.⁣
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The steamy scenes were 🔥 who knew SCRABBLE could be so Seggsy.⁣
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I enjoyed that this was a second chance romance, nemesis to lovers, somewhat close proximity, with some family drama, and the death of a parent. ⁣
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The relationship between these two with hot and cold, and even conflicting at times. I liked them together but sometimes I felt like maybe they weren’t great for each other. ⁣
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Overall, I liked it and would still recommend reading it, if you like academia reads, medieval culture, and nemesis to lovers/second chance.⁣

I enjoyed the narration and felt it was well done!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DNF @32%

I am so bummed about this one because I wanted to love it. Nerdy romance with a fat heroine? Exactly my cup of tea! Unfortunately this really isn't working for me and based on other reviews, I don't anticipate it improving. Both characters are irritating and incredibly immature, especially for being in a PhD program. They don't seem to have much chemistry at all and I don't know how you get past everything that happened to end their relationship initially (it's a second-chance romance). The believability for me is also fairly low- that this program would take two students from the same undergrad school in the same niche field is very unlikely. And the heroines behavior makes me wonder how and why she is even in the PhD program in the first place. I hope this connects better for others and I hope we continue to see fat representation with heroines who love themselves and aren't trying to lose weight, but this just didn't hit for me. Which is unfortunate. The audio narrator does a good job though. I received an audio review copy via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

A huge thank you to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for this arc (in exchange for an honest review).

3.5 stars
I don’t think I’ve read a college academic rivals to lovers before and that paired with the second chance romance concept was fun! I will say one of the events that happened in the book really knocked me off kilter and I was actively rooting against the male love interest for a while before that was cleared up for me. There is fat phobia in this book and a really terrible father figure as well as a very unsupportive mother which is very triggering but the female main character never had those feelings about herself that I can recall so there is that. I felt very satisfied at the end of the book and find it comical how strong my feelings were during the read. Lovely debut from this author and I look forward to more!

As an English major (and a middle school teacher), I really enjoyed Allison's character. Her struggle to be a good teacher and pursue her passionate love of medieval literature. At no point did I ever really like Colin, though. I'm not sure they would have been good together. This book needs an epilogue mainly to prove that.

I enjoyed listening to the audiobook, as well.

This was a really good romance. I am a sucker for a romance with a plus sized main character and this book was on my list for a while. The premise brought me right back to my college days.
This book also had an enemies to lovers storyline which is something else I am a sucker for. Overall the romance in this book was just great. I wanted to go tell these main characters to just get it together and talk to each other about their feelings! This book was just so sweet and well told.

I have a rule that if the central conflict can be solved by the characters having an honest conversation, I need a really good reason for that conversation to not happen. These two characters need to be honest with each other, and they never are.

For most of this, I was right around 3/5. Things were fine, but not great. Loved how the author handles size issues, as Allison is very comfortable with her body. I was a bit put off by how wildly insecure the lead is with every other aspect of her life, but was trying to hand wave it away as all of us being insecure when we're 23. I had some side issues with the author being very judgey in regards to her preferences for different types of lit, but could make my peace with that too. My biggest issue was with the Colin, the love interest who just seemed super shifty the whole time. Then (MAJOR SPOILER) he just straight up plagiarizes Allison's big project. There's no coming back from that. I don't care how good of a kisser he is. He's a thief who cared more about himself than Allison or their relationship. I DNF'd at 91% just so I didn't have to deal with any attempt to make the immature dude into someone worth while.

Colin is the kind of guy that likes to thing he "challenges" people, but is really just a "Nice Guy" who is a selfish butt. He killed this for me.

The Make-Up Test was just the cutest! I love the enemies to lovers trope and this one had the extra appeal of being literature based. I thought Allison and Colin were such a fun, unlikely pair and I really enjoyed listening to it.

I'm usually not a fan of the second chance romance trope, but I really enjoyed this.
Allison and Colin's relationship after their previous relationship felt real - it felt like something I've experienced in my own life. Competition, rivalry, annoyance, but still attraction. I loved watching these characters fall back in love.

I also can't help that I will read almost any book that has a literature plot in it somewhere.

“Allison Avery loves to win. After acing every academic challenge she’s come up against, she’s finally been accepted into her dream Ph.D. program at Claymore University, studying medieval literature under a professor she’s admired for years. Sure, grad school isn’t easy—the classes are intense, her best friend is drifting away, and her students would rather pull all-nighters than discuss The Knight’s Tale—but she’s got this. Until she discovers her ex-boyfriend has also been accepted.”

There was a lot to like about this one:

A plus-sized heroine who *doesn’t* hate herself and spend the book dieting.
University campus setting, with bonus, teaser discussions about medieval literature.
Lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers trope.
Strong boundaries set with unhealthy parents.

Negatives had more to do with personal tenderness, than actual flaws.

Currently in a similar no-contact situation with my own parent, I simultaneously appreciated her strength, and didn’t want it a part of such a fun read. That plot-point was a little too close for me to appreciate it properly.

7.5/10

Thanks to NetGalley and Orange Sky Audio for this ARC.