Pick up LOVE YOU, MEAN IT for:

Fake Dating
Blue vs White Collar
Small Town
Family Business

This will be a relatable read for anyone stuck inbetween - jobs, relationships, life. It has a heartfelt through line of being honest with yourself which pairs so cleverly with the fake dating trope. I appreciate the journey both Ellie & Theo went on to be confident enough to advocate for themselves.

Sadly though, I feel like best friend (and ex) Sam, and am very skeptical of the legitimacy of Ellie & Theo's relationship. There were hints of Theo having an "I've always noticed you," revelation that didn't have a payoff. The use of amnesia after a traumatic brain injury is there and gone so fast I would note it as a content warning but not a trope.

The strongest theme in LOVE YOU, MEAN IT is family - both supportive and dysfunctional. Ellie comes back home to support her family after her father dies. Theo tries to balance his individual goals with the family business bottom line. I was more invested in their family roles than in their romance.

With a hopeful heart, theres still much to love in Theo & Ellie's lives in progress.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group / Ballantine for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy!

This story starts out like the movie While You Were Sleeping and turns into an enemies to lovers/fake dating romance. Overall it was cute but I didn't find myself rushing to get back to the story. It was a like not a love for me.

Enjoyed this book. I wasn’t feeling well and searching for something relaxing to read, this fit the bill. The story was cute and worked well overall. Little bit of sadness thrown in but not too much. Not really a rom com either.

eh? That's how I felt at the end of this story. It was very "eh" overall. The plot was a play on "While You Were Sleeping" but if the amnesia patient was in on the ruse from nearly the beginning and was getting something out of it. I liked that part. But everything else was some even more ridiculous than the movie plot. The writing was so hard to rate! The dialogue was amazing, but the choices Gagnon made on where to put exposition and self-discovery moments was so bizarre. I found myself skipping entire paragraphs because I just didn't care about that moment and wanted to get back to the conversation we were in the middle of. I pictured the other person in the convo just hearing Jeopardy music while our MC thought through her entire life before giving a witty reply. I will say it's a fast read, I finished it in 2 sittings, and the pacing was good. I just think this author's style of storytelling isn't for me.

**Thank you NetGalley and Dell for the eARC**

Love You, Mean It by Jilly Gagnon is a romcom that follows Ellie, a deli owner who is on the verge of losing her job when the threat of a bigger market comes to town. She decides to try and sway, Theo, the building owner, to not move the new store in and hijinks ensue.

This book was mostly a fun time. There was a bit of amnesia and some fake dating. This entire book is from Ellie’s POV and she is pretty oblivious to things and she can be a little whiny but it didn’t bother me too much. I really didn’t like the direction this went in the third act. Things were wrapped up too quickly and the drama was kind of silly.

I think this was a cute was overall and perfect for a quick read. It just had a few problems but I think most people will have a good time reading it.

This romance tells the story of a deli owner, who finds her livelihood threatened when the rich family in town threatens to bring in a big market. In order to stop this plan, she begins a fake romance with the heir of that rich family—and complications follow from there. There were a few holes in the plot, but it was overall an enjoyable read.

A wonderful rom-com that's not exactly the normal plot. Ellie was living her dream life until her father's death. When she comes home to run the family deli, she never thought that it was be in jeopardy of closing. When she goes to plead her case to the son of the guy trying to ruin her life, she is put in an awkward position and tries to make the best of it. Now, can she hold it all together and keep everyone happy?

I'm actually quite disappointed that I didn't like this more. The premise sounded SO FUN and when a book initially starts out like one of my fav movies of ALL TIME (While You Were Sleeping), I'm almost always a surefire sign that I'll love it.

Alas, I didn't like any of these characters or the situations they got themselves in. They all felt selfish and hypocritical and it really didn't make sense for them to be in any of the scenarios that they were in. That, and it's supposed to be a romance and I felt a whole lot of NOTHING between our MCs.

This could be a case of me just being off and not in the mood, but. Do with this what you will.

Love You, Mean It is set to be published on April 30, 2024. Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, NetGalley and the author for the digital advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

ARC REVIEW

Love you, Mean it
BY Jilly Gagnon

RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Ellie is in charge of  her family owned, decades old, deli. Everything is smooth sailing until she learns that  a local businessman is planning to bring a multi-level grocery store to the neighborhood. This "food department store"  will certainly hurt, if not ruin her family business.

Ellie decides to contact the landlords son Theo to plead for reconsideration.  After an accident and brief amnesia (yes, lol), Theo and Ellie decide to pretend they are engaged. I mean...would your fiances dad REALLY put his new daughter in law out of business?!

Ellie didn't think she would have to fight off her own feelings for Theo as well as his ex fiance, who she somehow agreed to help get back together....all this to save her deli?!?

REVIEW: Eh.

I feel like I've read so much "fake dating" that it has to really be something special to impress me. And this didn't wow me.

I didn't hate it. It kept me mildly entertained, but for me, it was mediocre. Not memorable.

You know what they say....You can't love em all!

I won't be going out of my way to recommend this one but as always, thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse the Arc!!

Dueling delis, amnesia that leads to fake dating, and two people, who despite coming from two completely different worlds have more in common than meets the eye,,,what more could you want?

I have been looking for a romcom that had characters I adored, banter that had me giggling, and a couple I wanted to root for from start to finish, and Love You, Mean It checked all of my boxes. I absolutely adore Theo and he may have taken his place as top romcom MMC. He and Ellie's chemistry (even when forced) had me rooting for them and excited to see whether or not they got their happily ever after.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. I love enemies to lovers so when I read the synopsis, I knew I had to read it, I give it 4 stars because I really liked it, but I would have liked an epilogue from Theo's point of view.
Positive points.
The male protagonist.
The beginning of the novel left me hooked from the beginning.
The Trope of Amnesia.
In conclusion you should read this book.

The one-sidedness of this enemies-to-lovers trope didn't work for me. Ellie seems to hate Theo for no other reason than he has money, which reads as kind of icky. She uses that excuse to play with his feelings, dismissing them as belonging to "Commercial Real Estate Ken" until very late in the book. Again, icky. This book is competently written so I'm giving it 3 stars, but I didn't like it.

What a delightfully engaging rom-com! There was humor and swoon, all the things you want in a rom-com.

4.5 stars
Very cute story! A little bit of fake-dating, a kind of enemies to lovers, and just the right amount of trope-y without turning into cliches. Theo is not your stereotypical rich white man, no matter what Ellie’s first impression may be, and she is more than the deli-owner she paints herself to be. I love how these two uncover their layers together as they fight to protect Ellie’s business. The banter is top-tier and the plot is phenomenal - familiar (in the way most romance novels are) without being boring or repetitive. I also love the side characters, especially Sam and Mimi, and appreciate their uniqueness. Where it would be really easy for the author to follow a standard formula, she instead switches up the approach and I enjoyed the difference.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

"Love You, Mean It" by Jilly Gagnon is a romantic comedy ideal for fans of the movie "While You Were Sleeping" and anyone who enjoys a contemporary enemies-to-lovers trope. The main characters, Ellie and Theo, clash from the start of the story but are involved in some trope-y hijinks that eventually bring them together. The WYWS trope was amusing and well done, but I had trouble connecting with Ellie, who was often wishy-washy in her decision making and internal monologue.

Having read All Dressed Up and Scene of the Crime, and loving these mysteries, I was surprised that Gagnon wrote a rom-com. But what a great story...typical trope of opposites attract, enemies to friends, fake dating, small town cuteness. This was just a feel-good fun book to read, although predictable, I still enjoyed it. I loved that the main character Ellie was spicy and unfiltered as was her grandma Mimi, and Theo was really a nice guy. Gagnon just showed her diversity in writing both rom-com and cozy mystery. This would be a great beach read for the summer. Many thanks to #netgalley #jillygagnon #loveyou,meanit for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This one was cute and I didn't want to put it down. I loved the combination of enemies to lovers & fake dating. I loved all the drama and the plot moved quickly. This one was spicy and sweet all at once.

I really thought Love You, Mean It would be up my alley given the premise, but this just wasn't for me.

A classic romantic comedy with some fun tropes: enemies to lovers, fake fiancés, and a small-town Main St business vs a huge conglomerate, among others. The two MCs, Ellie and Theo, engaged me in the action immediately, their initial antagonism swiftly becoming attraction and moving into deeper feelings. Their back stories figure into the present goings on believably, and the supporting characters, especially Mimi, Bella, and Sam, make good foils for the protagonists. The conflict arising because of the differences in their backgrounds and the appearance on the scene of Theo’s former love adds tension to the story without seeming too contrived. The story’s humorous moments are not overdone or slapstick and come mainly through the foibles of the characters. Good fun and thoroughly enjoyable!

I loved this one from the start and didn’t put it down unless I had to (aka walking the doodles). It definitely gave me some While You Were Sleeping & You’ve Got Mail vibes, and I was not disappointed! I found myself commenting, laughing, and exclaiming out loud several times while reading this, and it was so much better than I imagined. Ellie was relatable and endearing, and ‘reading’ as her character evolved kept me glued to the pages. Fabulous witty banter, a bit of spice, and a couple of twists on a classic enemies-to-lovers trope easily made this one of my favorite reads so far of 2024!

My only critiques are 2….I don’t fully understand the choice of title. I kept waiting for the line to pop up somewhere in the dialogue to explain it, but it never did. And I wanted an epilogue or one additional chapter where we could get Theo’s reaction to seeing her in that final dress!! I really wanted to 'hear' his thoughts on how she looked, so I felt a bit cheated. Other than that, I absolutely loved it!! Thank you so much to Jilly Gagnon, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this e-arc.