3.5 Stars! The Break-up Pact was a cute Rom com with likable characters. I really enjoyed Levi and June as a couple and appreciated the internal work they each had to do to end up together. This book was close to being a 4 for me but some of the outlying plot points don’t make sense. However, it was fun read with moments that were light hearted and moments with real emotional depth. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

The Break-up Pact was a beautiful book about self-growth, grief, friendship, and love. Taking a modern day twist, the main characters each had some internet fame which did not go the way they would have liked, but took it into their own hands. Once best friends, and now ten years later, they lean on each other through some hardships, while finding themselves in the process. I thought The Break-Up Pact gave us a deep look into June’s life and thoughts, and how she handled so many things going on all at once, while also building a relationship with someone she thought she wouldn’t be a part of her life again after something happened in the past. I really enjoyed this book, the modern storyline, the growth of the characters, and the support the characters gave each other throughout the book, including friends and siblings. I would highly recommend this book to romance readers who may also like to read through how someone else was dealing with grief, as well as the friends to lovers trope.

Could you imagine getting dumped on national tv then being hashtaged the Crying Girl? Could not get worse? Sure why not running into the boy you had a severe crush on in High School that didn’t reciprocate those feelings!
Soooo while taking over your older sisters tea shop and trying to pay homage to her, helping your brother plan his marriage …. You should fake date your old crush to help him get back at his ex while helping your best friend try and get published in her favorite magazine!
It must be exhausting being a people pleaser who pushes their own feelings aside to make sure that they get what they want. But what happens when you deserve more, discover that maybe what you thought wasn’t true could be a reality?

This book was adorable and so sweet but really was great for people like me who are transforming from a people pleaser to someone who knows what she wants and goes after it

Oh goodness gracious….. to say I loved this story is an understatement. I was so invested in every moment of this fake dating with a side of childhood besties. I loved watching both June and Levi navigate their way back to one another one fake date at a time. I always love a witty funny side character and June’s bestie Sana was just perfection. I was routing for them to deal with their grief and toxic past relationships and to realize they are just better together. I had some major Emily Henry vibes with Emma’s writing style. I really really enjoyed this heartwarming story of second chance romance. Side of pop rocks #iykyk

This was ok. Didn’t love, but didn’t hate. I loved the idea of Tea Tide—my dream hideout. I also really liked the idea of the book. Jilted lovers, publicly dumped-come together for a somewhat second chance. But I didn’t feel like I was “inside” the book; almost like I was at arms reach. I didn’t feel like there was much relationship or character development. They always had these feelings, but never acted on them. When they did act on those feelings it fell flat. The book touched surfaces of everything and didn’t delve into any one thing. Kind of bland for me.

This one was just okay for me.

Two people, June and Levi, who were part of an awesome threesome, including June's sister as kids, are now together again after going viral for all the wrong reasons.
June's ten-year relationship with an adventurist ended on live television, and Levi's fiancée left him for a mega-movie star.
Wounded, they each go back to their roots, the town they grew up in, and face the loss of a loved one, which draws them together and gives the paparazzi a new story to push- the Revenge-Exes are a couple!
While the concept is good, I couldn't get behind June and Levi's growing relationship. Rather than feeling organic, it came across as fake as they pretended it was supposed to be for the cameras.
Levi is wishy-washy with his feelings, a definite back-away-before-you-get-hurt in my book, and June kept giving him passes, which struck me as wrong.
I love second-chance romances, but this one missed the mark for me.

I loved the Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord. It's a fun look at a fake-dating storyline with an interesting twist of both parties having recently gone through viral breakups. The setting is dreamy and atmospheric.

I just reviewed The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord. #NetGalley. It is about two best friends who haven't connected in ten years.

I found myself rooting for June and Levi to not just find each other and what they want from their lives.

I liked the plot and the characters and I would read another book from this author..

I thought this was a cute read. It’s a light romcom with some funny moments and a little bit of spice. At times if felt a bit slow, however i did feel very invested in the characters journey and I wanted them to have a “happily ever after.” This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I would continue to read more based on my experience with this one.

Thanks to Netgalley & St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion. I loved this book it was so cute and fun.

I have not read anything by this author before, but I will definitely be looking out for their work in the future. I loved seeing the story unfold and seeing the characters grow.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this arc. I loved this book so much. I loved reading the story and all the characters. It was so cute!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for a Netgalley ARC in an exchange for an independent and honest review.

This book breaks my heart for several reasons. First and foremost, I wanted to LOVE this book and I think it had the set up and potential to get there. I really did. However, it just never got there. I kept hoping to see and feel a little more passion out of the characters and the storyline, but all we ever got to was 'luke warm' emotion and withheld feelings/opinions from our two main characters.

After having years of history and backstory as best friends, June and Levi definitely had the foundation for a slow burn romance after ten years apart and then coming back together on the heels of both having gone through highly publicized breakups. Both characters had more then enough reasons to resent each other, the past, time they lost together, but I felt that both of them never showed any passion or feeling towards each other about how they actually freaking felt. It was easier to sweep things under the rug or leave feelings unspoken, and eventually, that got really annoying from a readers perspective. I'm not actively seeking the drama (am I the drama here?) but I want SOMETHING that helps make sense of this all the sudden lack luster reunion of old friends that should have been old flames. I just wasn't buying it because there didn't appear to be anything on the surface of their relationship that warranted such a strong and quick reunion or for the behind-the-curtain pining June was doing for Levi. I guess long story short, I was missing the emotional connection with the characters and with the book.

Also, unrelated to the story, but I feel it also needs to be mentioned, there were a lot of syntax errors with this edition of the book for it to have come this far and still have so many grammatical issues. There were times when I would get completely thrown because a word was entirely incorrect, or removed, or typed out twice. Some letters were even just missing at some points. I'm hoping or assume this book will have a couple more edits/reviews before publication, but in all honesty, it just threw me off as I was reading and I had to slow down to figure out what word should be there or what was missing as to not entirely change the meaning of the intended sentence structure. This is really the fist time I've encountered that issue with an ARC.

All in all, I have to give a solid 3 stars because I can see where this book could have gone and it would have been great, but I think it fell just short and is really missing some important story arcs that could have been better vetted out to instill more raw emotion into the storyline. I spent most of the time wanting to shake June and Levi and yell "Give me something! Anything that tells me you have an opinion on something and are willing to stand up for yourself and said opinion!"

That being said, I'm grateful for the early sneak peek, and will keep an eye out for more by Emma Lord as this was my first read of hers.

If you like romance, this one is a fun take on viral breakups and turning lemons into lemonade. It was light and cute but lacked real depth and I'm not sure I really got to know any of the characters. I started to feel a connection towards the end, but it wasn't quite a 5 star read.

This book is perfect for anyone that loves a good breakup story! The two main characters both just had viral break ups and are dealing with the after math. They are old friends that haven't talked in a while and there is a bit of a rift between them over their silence.

You can expect themes of grief and moving on after the death of a loved one as well. I enjoyed hearing about Annie but again, the characters were more surface level for me.

Still worth a read and there were definitely parts I found really unique and engaging and loved.

Thanks to netgalley for an ARC to review.

3.5/5 stars

This book was a fun pool read. While I enjoyed it I did feel it fell short in a few areas for me, mostly in flushing out the main characters lives, particularly those closest to the female lead. I wish we had more time with Sana, Dylan, and Mateo, and the community as a whole, as I think they could and should have been a bigger part of June and Levi's story. Overall I would recommend this as a fun Rom Com, friends to lovers type story.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Griffin for this advanced readers copy!

When I first started reading this book I absolutely fell in love with the writing. Emma Lord really knew how to describe a moment in such capturing detail that I was immediately on board!!!! I loved the character Sana, she’s an icon and my scone daddy forever. I really enjoyed how detailed each character was. I felt like I understood the intentions from the beginning of the book!

Unfortunately, I found myself becoming really frustrated with this book the more and more I read. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. There were a lot of motives and plot points that I thought were uncalled for in the grand scheme of the book. I’m a sucker for second chance romance/“enemies” to lovers so that was interesting in this book. I think this books formula just wasn’t for me. This will absolutely in no way deter me from reading more of Emma Lords books!

Parts of this book were great, but ultimately the book left me wanting more. The indecision and miscommunication by the characters drug on for so long that I had problems connecting with the characters. I had such high hopes for the small beach town setting, parts of this book just dragged on. I struggled to pick a rating because it has some great moments in it and I love the premise.

This is one of my new favorite books! I laughed. I cried. I didn’t want it to end. I loved June and Levi together — the chemistry that they had was incredible, and I found myself rooting for them from the very beginning.

I did find Dylan and Mateo to be kind of one dimensional in the first half of the book, but by the second half, it felt as though they were given more dimension. Also, the first half was pretty slow and could probably be trimmed down a bit, but I sped through the second half!

The Break-Up Pact was a cute short rom-com read that included all my favorite tropes. Good communication? Friends-to-lovers? Beach Tea Shop? Fake dating? She fell first but he fell harder? LOVED IT.

Thank you for the opportunity of receiving an eARC, and I am leaving this review willingly.

The break up pact is the perfect summer book with great characters and even better side characters. With the common tropes of fake dating and friends to lovers Emma was able to put her own twist and make it a new and exciting experience for readers. I would definitely recommend as your next summer read!