Im sorry to say but this was terrible.
Very difficult to get into. The "hero" was HORRENDOUS. He was just a jerk.

Once Upon an Algorithm had caught my attention because the cover is so cute and I'm a math girl. i utilize algorithms daily. I thought yes! This is going to be great!

And the beginning does give a spoiler because the male says something about how they shouldnt be together and she says what? are you married? and he says no one would care or something.

Anyway, the way the wife is portrayed and the interactions with the female main character are just not enjoyable.

I personally would skip this one.

Thank you to netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK's One More Chapter and Clara O'Connor for the arc copy of Once Upon An Algorithm to review in exchange for a fair review.

Once Upon An Algorithm sounded a great STEM romance, with a bold confident career woman protagonist and a workplace enemies to lovers scenario. As a whole, the premise delivers and I enjoyed reading 90% of the story and I thought author did an amazing job representing the dynamics of an AGILE software development environment. Top marks for realistic portrayal about the highs and lows of product management and software development.

An interesting story with a majority of likeable and relatable characters, however somewhere in the middle things got strange. I couldn't get stay with the story after it plunged into the bizarre and cringy as the skeletons came out the closet. Some of the bumps in the road got a little far fetched for me and I felt Leonie became a little too passive in the story, especially when she had been a strong lead at the start. I liked Jack as a romantic counterpart to start, but to be honest by the end I hoped Leonie would run a million miles away. I don't think the ending redeemed him enough for me as a love interest either. This wasn't the romance for me in the end.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK, One more chapter, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was my first “stem” romance novel so I went in super excited, but it just didn’t deliver for me. The story line was a bit of a tumultuous read because the two main characters were just so aggravating. Their chemistry and connection didn’t really seem to be there, and then we find out the MMC is actually married and I was just done with the story. I did finish reading because I had to see how it ended, but the ending was somehow even more of an underwhelming disaster.

Leonie is 40 and has spent so much time with her work she hasn’t found love. During a weekend in Paris her friends talk her into meeting Jack; a guy from an app, who has been tagged as the opposite of what she’s looking for. Feeling brave she meets him, and they spend the night together.

Fully prepared to never see him again, she is shocked to walk into her stepbrothers new start up company where she is helping out to find Jack working there as well. What ensues is a long and tedious timeline of them working overtime to launch the startup, her stepbrother being extremely inappropriate in his work expectations of her, and a confusing back and forth of her and Jacks feelings.

So basically she is a hard main character to like because she makes a lot of strange choices. Jack is a slime ball who is married. Her stepbrother Mike is a full fledged bully. And her Mother and friends all pepper her very questionable “advice”.

I gave two stars because I did enjoy the “stem” parts of the storyline, but the character and character development was really off for me with this book.

Gosh, I really wanted to like this one. I give it 1.5 stars and I truly debated rounding up or down. But I really couldn’t get into it.

Spoiler ahead:

And once I found out that the main male character was married, I was kind of checked out. It had the potential, until that point. It did end happily, but I would have liked it more without the marriage and cheating aspect. Even if the marriage was of convenience for a green card….

DNF - CHEATER MMC.

I’m sorry but no. When you know, you know and this is the kind of book you know it’s going to be trash just by reading the first page.

Who would even want to read a book where the MMC is a cheater? And sorry for the spoiler but, they even meet on a dating app when is freaking married!!! Also, this was boring as hell.

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley, I received an ARC in exchange of an honest review. Unfortunately, this book did not work at all for me. The writing style did not click with me, I didn't see the humor, and I had major issues with the MMC.

Standard romance story with the usual misunderstandings and withholding of essential information until the end. A lot of the story is taken up with the job she is doing and has considerable detail about the IT industry and what is involved in starting a new app, including the technical details. If you are not in this industry it can be hard to know exactly what they are talking about, however the general gist can be followed

An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC.

Going into this book, I enjoyed the premise at first, loving Leonie’s character and the plot. However, as I read further into the book I found myself highly disliking Eric and Jack, and also Leonie. Leonie never stood up for herself against Eric who constantly put her down, and both her and Jack were terrible communicators.

I didn’t enjoy how much tech talk there was because at some points it felt like I could not follow along properly.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. The writing was good and fast paced, but the miscommunication and some of the tropes let me down.

I don’t think this book was for me, the plot was a bit all over the place and was very little chemistry between the MCs. The MMC had too many questionable red flags for me to fully enjoy reading.

That moment when you finish a book and you're not really sure what you just read.

I think it was supposed to be a romcom but the *very minute* snippets of what could have been romance related were sprinkled in like you forgot to add salt in a dish you were cooking and appeared very randomly.

Supposed to be an enemies to lovers work place romance. She's a consultant in his place of work, and the entire story was work and code focused with moments of the two main characters just being plain mean and angry.

The constant mentioning of age and that he's SO much younger and how much of an issue it is. We never do find out how old either of the characters are which, truly isn't an issue, but the author put so much of an emphasis on him being way younger ended up feeling a little questionable when all was said and done. Based on the context we do have I'm guessing he's early 30s and she's late 30s, maaaaybe a 5/6 year age gap. Which given what else we know about each of their lives/work history didn't feel that bad at all. Had this plot point been removed it, the book would maybe be half as long, that's how repetitive it was.

At the end of the day, this storyline could have worked and could have work well but it was not for me. It didn't feel like a cohesive story you could get lost in, we missed a lot of details that would pull the reader in and I didn't want to root for either character (*spoiler*........the cheating aspect of the story is always going to be a no from me), and finally, the brother is an absolute douche canoe. I want to like this but I just can't get on board.

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for the ARC in exchange for my review!

I love the premise, but the writing leaned heavily into tech project management speak that made me think I was at work.

I like that this story had an older (mid-thirties) FMC and a younger MMC. I love that our FMC had her own 'Greek Chorus' of best friends who were always available and supportive. I also like that our FMC was capable and the story wasn't about her 'finding herself', but instead allowing herself to be vulnerable. Bonus points for referencing The Princess Bride.

I didn't like that there were many miscommunication tropes happening here between the FMC and the MMC, the FMC and her brother, and the FMC and her parents.

I work in Agile/Project Management, so maybe this book hits a little different for me than for others, but there's a lot of jargon that took me out of the story. We have MVP (minimum viable product), Sprint, Ts and Cs and even a casual reference to the EU GDPR regarding privacy and information sharing laws. Perhaps it's because of my work background, but I felt like I was working while reading this book, instead of relaxing with a contemporary romance.

Thank you to Netgalley and One More Chapter HC for providing me an advanced reader copy.

This book is best read while sitting in economy on a transatlantic flight, pressed up against your workplace crush.

For taking place over not a hugely long period of time, the book feels like a big one. I liked the characters well most of them), and I particularly particularly Max and Leonie's relationship, I wish we had seen more of Max's confidence being built up over time.
I liked the friendship, and the trip to Paris was good fun.
Jack had some good dialogue when he wasn't being a grumpy a-hole, but the whole restaurant scene after the mountain, for me, he ruined it, and I would not have ever forgiven him.
There's a lot of tech language that can get a bit mind-boggling. I found the description of the work they were doing really lost me at times, as did the explanation of silicon Valley etc, maybe to an American it is pretty well known and therefore of interest, but I could have slept through that journey across California and missed nothing.
Despite Jack being in my bad books, I did like that the relationship for Leonie and her mum and stepdad was salvageable in a small part thanks to him. It was nice to see Leonie realise that.
I'd have liked an epilogue, maybe just 6 months or so, down the line to see where everyone was. I just like a rounded ending.
The story flowed well. It kept me engaged to read fairly quickly, and I'd definitely pick up more by this author.

The plot follows Leonie, an American singleton who meets Irishman, Jack whilst in Paris. After spending the night together, Leonie doesn’t intend on ever seeing him again. That is until she turns up to work and realises that Jack has recently come on board for the latest project.

The storyline is an interesting one but unfortunately I just couldn’t connect with it. I found the relationship between Jack and Leonie lacking chemistry, I didn’t really care if they ended up together or not. The miscommunication trope missed the mark for me to the point that it didn’t add anything to the character development and instead was irksome. The relationship Leonie had with her step-brother and the secrets he made her keep felt very juvenile.

Thanks to Netgalley, Harper Collins UK and One More Chapter for the ARC

This was not good. I stuck it out so that I could honestly review it. I did not like the protagonists, and this is definitely NOT a romantic comedy. The combination of cheating, toxic friends, and manipulative family members turned me off, as well as the workplace sexual harassment that the readers are supposed to laugh off. I do not recommend this at all.

Leonie and Jack meet on an app that is based off of them being opposites. Even though they like totally different things, their chemistry is super hot. This book was very spicy and totally different than I thought it would be. A very quick, easy read.

Once Upon An Algorithm was not it. I don't think I've genuinely disliked a book or its characters this much in a really long time, and I was so hopeful for this one lol

Nope! No! Absolutely not!

I didn't like the writing style - too much inner monologue. I didn't find the book funny either.

But the real clencher was a revelation about the male MC at about 75% in the book that should have been mentioned within the first 20%. <spoiler> He's married and still lives with his wife. He doesn't want a divorce at the moment. </spoiler>

I enjoyed the story of Leonie and Jack, I wasn’t sure I was going to at first, but I ended up totally engrossed in their relationship.

Really enjoyed this romcom set in the world of coding and app development! Definitely learnt a bit more about the goings on behind the scenes. I really enjoyed the scenes with Leonie and Jack although did struggle with Jacks grumpiness/standoffish behaviour but guess one of the main tropes is that so would recommend for those who like that! The sunrise scene was incredible and of course we got our HEA even after that “goodbye” kiss!

I don't often give harsh reviews but this was really hard to get into and the romance did not illustrate romance unfortunately. I really like the idea of this but it just didn't translate well. I'm sure the author tried her best but this felt very forced like her friends asking her to go on a date with a complete stranger and then the guy character saying really mean comments and potentially sexiest which should NOT be happening in a work place environment ever. I don't what the storyline was trying to achieve because it was so chaotic with the characters and plot. Thank you to the publisher, the author (I would use beta readers next time), and Netgalley for this review.