Let me start by saying that The Break-Up Pact wasn't even on my radar but I needed a new book to read so I went with this one. It was incredibly well done and exceeded my expectations. I really enjoyed the pacing of the novel. I loved the idea of revenge exes and its even better that they fall for each other again. A guaranteed HEA. The setting was perfect for summer and made me want to go to the beach. Definitely will recommend this to all fans of romance.

This book was different than I expected. To me it read differently from the Emma Lord books I know and love. The characters almost seemed juvenile to me? While I did enjoy it, it was not my favorite of hers.

I really enjoyed the premise of the story. I enjoyed the history that June and Levi had with each other. One of my biggest hang ups was June and her brother. He expressed that he felt like they weren’t spending time together yet he had June and Levi planning his wedding and then when he confronted June I felt like there was no real resolve? I felt like that could have been handled better. But the fake dating and the history was enjoyable to read.

The Break-Up Pact is a friends-to-lovers romance with fake dating at its core.

June and Levi both get broken up with in a very public, humiliating manner and find themselves back in their hometown trying to recover. Even though they haven't spoken in ten years, they decide a revenge fake dating scenario could solve all of their problems.

There are a lot of emotional moments in this novel and it has all the makings of a great summer read. Unfortunately I never could fully connect with the two leads, and their chemistry seemed forced. Not to mention their entire relationship or lack thereof (from high school to current day) is based on miscommunication and people who can't express their emotions. (And it kept happening as adults!!!) Levi and June don't seem to grow too much until the very end and it becomes extremely frustrating.

Emma Lord does sweet romance really well and that shows with her YA works. I just didn't feel like that translated well into an adult romance novel, instead it just felt like it was missing something.

I literally spent a month reading this book bc I couldn't get into it. Levi and June are both meh people who let others take control of their lives and then spend 300 pages trying to make their own choices/ It took until midway to learn their ages, the fact they live in New York/Jersey, June's sister and their prior relationships. 50% of the book was focused on scone baking and her thinking of recipes.

Also a lot of typos!! There was at least 1 per chapter.

ARC Review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

No matter which way you spin it, break-ups suck. Compound that with the utter humiliation of becoming a virtual sensations and the pain only intensifies. But when Levi and June are reunited, they agree to fake date in order to help give the impression they have moved on. Will their plan work, or will it result in double the heartache?

The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord marks her departure from YA Literature to Adult Romance. While I liked seeing her writing evolve into a more mature style, I found myself struggling with the explicit content.

Other than the unnecessary steamy scenes, I found the book to be rather enjoyable.

I recommend reading if you enjoy:
-fake dating
-friends to lovers
-small town romances
-slow burns

*Trigger Warning- this book does discuss the loss of a friend/ family memeber in depth.

Special thanks to Macmillian Audio, St. Martin’s Press, and Emma Lord for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.
.

Read if you like:
👯‍♀️ Siblings Best Friend
👧🏼 Childhood Friends to Lovers
💋 Fake Dating
🤳🏻 Viral Break-ups
🏘️ Small Town Romances
☕️ Saving a Small Business
🏃🏼‍♀️ Chasing your Dreams

This is Emma Lord’s first adult romance, and you guys! I am so excited it was my first book from her and definitely need to read her YA romances now too!

I loved the childhood friends to lovers, small town, fake dating, sibling’s best friend, and all the family and friends moments! This book truly had a great cast that came together so well to tell this story!

I also loved that both MC’s had childhood dreams that they fully supported the other to work towards achieving in the light of a tough circumstance with both having very public and viral break-ups that lead to them fake dating as “the revenge exes”

I also really appreciated the history between the characters and the gaps of knowing each other from them both leaving their small town and being apart for many years.

Thank you so so so much to MacMillan Audio for my gifted audiobook and St. Martin’s Griffen for my e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Emma Lord's adult debut is a fairly solid, if forgettable, romance. I didn't love the plot but I enjoyed it enough to finish the book. I would recommend the audio to anyone who wants to read it.

✨ARC Review✨

⭐⭐⭐ for The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord

I really wanted to love this one, because fake dating is one of my favorite tropes, but it fell a bit short for me. I didn't really connect with the characters, and I find I need to know more about the characters's past relationship in a second chance romance to really make me care about them rekindling their love affair. I need it to be more of a show - and not tell - situation, but in this case it was mostly tell.

I did have a personal issue with the aneurysm storyline, it took me completely by surprise and I had to pause my reading to get myself together again; I lost a close friend unexpectedly to a brain aneurysm and reading about this experience happening to a character wasn't something I'd been prepared to deal with. Of course, that's a personal issue of mine and certainly won't take away from other readers's enjoyment of the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and St-Martin's Press for a copy in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

A fun, three star, summer read! I devoured Emma Lord's The Break-Up Pact in a little over a day. This was an easy, bingeable read that is great for those who enjoy a tropey romp of a summer read. I did not go into The Break-Up Pact with high expectations, which was the perfect approach for this book. There are moments of disjoined, almost suspense of belief, however, I think that is to be expected of most rom-coms today.

My biggest qualm with this book is that the two main characters, who grew up together and had deep ties to the same community, just ceased speaking for YEARS. Their families stayed in communication with each other but the two main characters just go silent. Yet, we as the reader are to believe that they are INSTANTLY reconnected and tied at a deep, visceral level. The progress of the relationship between June and Levi felt like warp speed, even with the stereotypical miscommunication subplot found in a lot of rom-coms today.

I wasn't fully connected to the characters nor the subplots of their personal lives (the tea shop storyline actually really annoyed me), but I think as a whole this was a cute read. I think was able to read it so quickly because there lacked real depth to the storyline and the characters.

June and Levi were childhood best friends, until one day they weren’t. They haven’t spoken in ten years when the timely break ups with their respective exes go viral. Levi returns to his hometown where June owns Tea Tide, a struggling seaside cafe. When images of a June and Levi reminiscing on the beach hit the internet, suddenly they are known as the Revenge Exes. Could this mistake work to their advantage? Levi wants to win his ex back and June is trying to save her failing business so a little PR wouldn’t be a bad thing. Two viral break-ups. One fake relationship. Five sparkling, heart-pounding dates. June and Levi can definitely pull this off without their hearts getting involved. Because everyone knows fake dating doesn’t come with real feelings. Right?

Where are all my Every Summer After and Love and Other Words girlies out there?! This one’s for you. I love a good friends to lovers, secondish chance romance and it screams summer reading! The Break-Up Pact is @dilemmalord breakout into adult fiction and I look forward to reading more!

Read this if you enjoy:
🫖 Fake dating
🥐 Friends to lovers
🫖 Beach reads
🥐 Small town romance
🫖 A little bit of spice

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord.

This story is about June and Levi, who fake a relationship to get back at their respective exes, after they both had very public breakups. I really wanted to like this one, it has some of my favourite things, including childhood friends to lovers, beach setting, and lots of scones! However I couldn’t get into it, and I’m not sure why. I found the secondary characters likeable and enjoyable as well, but the book didn’t draw me in and make me want to keep reading. I did find that the constant references to June’s sister Annie distracting – I know it was important to the storyline but it felt out of place for me. Overall I didn’t enjoy the book and I am unlikely to recommend it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this heartfelt novel about June and Levi set in the quaint town of Benson Beach. After childhood friends June and Levi have fallen out of touch for several years, they are reunited after their public breakups go viral on social media. They both have their own reasons for deciding to enter the “break up pact” where they pretend they are dating. I loved the slow burn of suppressed feelings leading to a swoon-worthy first kiss. While, I know this can be an unpopular opinion, I love a good miscommunication trope thrown in there with the build up leading up to the truth being revealed.

A review will be posted to our Instagram account on 8/12 and will post to our story on pub day :)

- Fake Dating
- Former Friends to lovers
- Second Chance-ish
- Grief/Healing

Overall I thought this was a cute, fake dating romcom with a good message of being true to yourself and living your life for yourself and not for someone else. It definitely had a bit of a Hallmark movie feel to it. I personally wasn’t a big fan of the miscommunication/lack of communication explanations throughout, but I can’t say I expected much else.

Excellent set-up and narrated by one of my favorite audiobook narrators, Natalie Naudus. We have a single POV novel with June having been dumped on national TV, turned into a meme, and now dealing with her struggling tea shop on a beachy boardwalk. She runs into childhood friend Levi, who has also been virally dumped recently, and somehow they get caught up on a social media storm calling them the Revenge Exes. They decide to awkwardly follow through with some fake dating so that June can get more customers in her store and Levi can show his ex-fiancee what she’s missing. It’s messy and complicated, especially when we factor in June’s teenage crush on Levi, and his rejection and radio silence for the past ten years. We also get a fun cast of supporting characters in the form of June’s brother, his fiancee, and another one of June’s best friends. This book is funny and sweet and cute and steamy and emotional, all in one.

This book had such a fun premise! Fake dating each other to get back at their exes after their break ups went viral? This would be a good beachy read. There was lots of humor and entertainment, and I really enjoyed those parts!

I wanted to love this book so much, but I ended up feeling just okay about it after finishing it. I didn’t fully connect with the main characters or their relationship (WAY too much miscommunication), and the plot dragged at times. This was not a bad book; I just expected to love it a little more than I did.

A friends to lovers fake dating novel set in the time of social media gone wild. June and Levi were both publicly dumped by their partners and have been living under the shadow of being memes. Now they've teamed up to fake date and post their own adventures in the hope of making those partners regret what they've done and to help June's struggling tea business. it's light to be sure but know that these two convey, despite being in their late 20s, as teens. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I've been a fan of Lord's YA novels but this one didn't quite hit the mark for me.

2.5 stars, rounded up. This was a light romance that was a little too social-media heavy for my preferences. Two estranged friends each have gone viral for bad break-ups when they decide to fake date to get revenge on their exes. June runs a failing tea room on the beach, and Levi has taken a break from a finance career to write a book. The pacing of their relationship felt really off-kilter for me, when they go from reuniting after years of estrangement to deciding to fake date over the course of a few paragraphs. If you like scones, you will probably like this book, as there are a lot of scones mentioned throughout. I'm not sure a page went by without the word scone on it. June and Levi are fine but forgettable. I'm glad they got their HEA, but I finished the book last night and already had to go look up their names to write this review. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin for a digital review copy.

I really enjoyed this book! It was more than a rom com. It explored grief, loss of a loved one, loss of friendships, learning to communicate, and much more. I loved the revenge exes fake dating premise. This would have been higher rated for me if we got Levi’s POV. I love a dual POV.

Unfortunately this just did not work for me. I was SO bored of the plot and the characters, and the premise was something I was really drawn to, but there were too many factors that caused my dislike of this book besides it being mega boring.

The characters - i just did not connect with either of them. They both had a shared grief but idk I just didn’t like the way it was written? I feel like I didn’t really see the impact of grief on them as much as I wanted to and how it actually changed their actions in life. They were also allergic to communication, granted a miscommunication trope I can get on board with but this was not one of those times. It was just so frustrating to see what pulled these two apart in the first place.

The exes. Oh my god I hated how big of an impact they had up until the very end. The only plot was the question of if they were going to go back to the ex and I just hated that I wanted them gone so fast.

And lastly too many tiktok and twitter references. I usually don’t mind them much but this was just so excessive.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the arc!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This was entertaining and funny, but it dragged on for quite a bit at times. I feel like it harped on the miscommunication between June & Levi. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t dislike it and think it could have been condensed some.