I loved listening to this audiobook. I really enjoyed the narrators and that there was both perspectives portrayed and throughout the book. I loved their story!

Jae and Nami have the perfect enemies to lovers story. Childhood rivalry that spans into their careers as adults. Nami’s start up is in financial trouble and Jae swoops in with his company to buy them out. Unfortunately the plan is to dismantle the company. Cute chemistry between the two main characters and a fun storyline to follow.

The audio of this book was a little bit hard to follow since the narrators didn’t alter their voices when another other person was speaking. This is a dual POV, which I love. I just wish it was easier to follow along as it was sometimes confusing as to who was actually saying the words. The Toggle Chat was hilarious but was a little bit hard to follow along with as well.

If you like an office romance or the enemies-to-lovers trope, this one is definitely for you! Nami and Jae are high school rivals who reconnect when Jae’s company, Rainforest (which is a very thinly veiled Amazon), attempts to acquire Nami’s struggling start-up. Some of the antics were a bit juvenile, but it was an engaging, light read, and I enjoyed the story overall.

I listened to this one on audiobook and had mixed feelings towards that- the narrator’s voice for one of the characters felt like they were treating the audience like children and that grated on me a bit. It seemed to get better later in the book though and I still enjoyed the experience overall.

Thank you to NetGalley, RB Media, and the author for the early listen to the audiobook!

The Takeover by Cara Tanamachi 1/30/24, Run time: 8:46

Thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for this ALC! I voluntarily give my honest review and all opinions expressed are mine alone.

The narrators are Donald Chang and Chieko Hidaka with all characters read by them. I believe the voices fit the characters with Nami and Jae as standouts. Their voices were the most distinct, but I could easily tell the difference between all characters. The reading style did bring the story to life especially during their squabbles. The pacing was great and flowed easily with the story. The narration and the author were in sync, and they fit together perfectly.

The audiobook's flow was pretty good. I liked the progression of Nami and Jae's relationship from hate to like to falling in love. The narrators paused and announced each dual POV chapter.

Nami is lamenting a failed engagement. She is the boss everyone wants to work for. She's fun, accommodating, and knows her stuff. Her tech business "Toggle" is losing funding and selling maybe the only option. Jae was her high school nemesis and is now Vice President of acquisitions for "Rainforest"-a tech/social media company. He has met with her third partner Dell about selling, and surprises her by reeking havoc in her life, a decade later.


Overall, this multicultural, enemies to lovers, rom-com was great. Nami and Jae challenge each other but find they work better together. I loved the LOTR references and all the Toggle employees rooting for their love story.

My recommendation is to read the audiobook because you can adjust the speed, skip parts easily (if desired), and picture the characters more vividly.

Rating 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cute story, I enjoyed the glimpses into Asian American family structure and culture. Loved the characters competitive nature and the office chair debacle! Strong female lead, just wish it had a little more spice. But overall, I enjoyed this book.

Thank you to @netgalley @stmartinspress and @macmillian.audio for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The Takeover reminded me of Richard Gere’s storyline in Pretty Woman, less the hooker. Jae owns a company that is known for purchasing other companies and selling them off in pieces. The company in question for this story is partially owned by someone from his past. Rather than taking over Nami’s company and selling it to pieces, he helps various stakeholders become the investors instead…and saves the day! Girl falls for boy. The story was not original, but it was still cute.

I mostly listened to this book and feel that the narrators are what kept me invested in the story. They did a good job making me interested in the characters.

3.5 stars

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #stmartinspress #macmillianaudio #netgalley #goodreads #ltbreaderteam #thetakeover #caratanamachi

I rlly liked this book, fun and fluffy , fast paced and interesting loved the relationship between the characters it was rlly intense but also very cute

More like a 3.5 ⭐️

This book was a fun, cute, and enemies to lovers read. Nami’s company is in financial trouble and Jae comes in as a shark trying to takeover her company. But Nami and Jae are old high school rivals and always pushed each other to the limits with their competitiveness. The banter between the two was really entertaining and I loved the Hell Ramen scene. I also especially liked that they added elements of life in an Asian family and I found it so relatable.

The downside to this book was that it was such a slow start and especially the beginning of Nami’s parts were boring. I almost put it down but was glad I didn’t because when it picked up, I enjoyed the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely loved the chemistry and banter between the MCs. The ramen scene was iconic, I loved it SO MUCH! Sort of a second chance romance coz they knew each other before, but can we just talk about their dynamic? I love how Nami reacts so aggressively to Jae and how Jae sees Nami as his drive and competition- a challenge to work harder.

But then there's some major issues in here. I hate the pacing; it was so damn slow I zoned out very often. So when we reached the third act, I was like "huh" and had to go back to relisten for context. But yea, it still doesn't make much sense to me so obviously I'm annoyed with the ending. To add to the mess, Nami continuously tells us how much she cares about her employees and her company. If she isn't telling us, she's telling another character. Classic example of telling not showing. I mean yea, I did see it, and yes, we get it why put so much effort?

I didn't love this, but I see how others might, and I too loved a good number of scenes, so I won't tell you not to pick it up, put keep your expectations low.

TLDR: Recommend!

I love a good enemies to lovers romance and this was definitely that. I loved their hate flirting and the hell ramen scene had me cracking up. Especially since Nami can't even handle a little spice. I love that kind of petty in a FMC. I also love when the guy falls first. It always makes me love the MMC a little bit more.

I really loved the diversity of this book. Not just in the main characters, but in all of the characters. And getting to see traditional aspects of other cultures merging with more modern views just made me hopeful that different generations can find a happy medium with one another. This story also gave a nice perspective of how your own perceptions of people can blind you to their truth.

For the audiobook, if you've ever watched The Emperor's New Groove, the male narrator made his voice sound like Kronk whenever the MMC was talking. I even looked it up because he sounded so similar. And while it might be a niche take, it made it hard to think of the MMC as this intelligent business man. I could only think of, "Ah! My spinach puffs!"

Also, in the beginning of the book, the narrators would switch based on the dialogue, not the chapter's POV. It felt a bit stilted, but I ended up liking it. But by the end of the book, they quit doing this. The narrator for the chapter's POV ended up doing both voices. The inconsistency felt a bigger issue than the dialogue being a bit stilted in the beginning.

Even with my critiques of the audiobook, I really enjoyed Nami and Jae's story. And I can't say too much, but within the story is a nice twist of who the hero of the book is. I really, really liked that it strayed from who you'd usually expect.

I really likes the enemies to lovers vibe and thought the banter was great. I think the overly descriptive info about the workplace took away from the story, for me. At times I was glad that I was listening to the audiobook so I could speed up the narration to get through it quicker.

This was my second attempt at The Takeover—I had the ebook and wanted to like it, but I never got into it. I enjoyed the audiobook more, but the book was still mostly fine to me. I liked the rivals to lovers vibe, but there’s some goofiness in here I didn’t love, and some of the FMC’s character development frustrated me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Nami and Jae have this explosive energy from the beginning that caught my attention! The beginning introduces that Nami and Jae went to school together. Jae was the popular kid in school and was voted "Most Likely To" for literally every successful/cool category where Nami was teased for her follow the rules behavior and was looked at by others as possibly a tattletale for anything rule breaking or partying. Nami's views of Jae from school carried on years later as they are forced to work together to help her work while Jae's views of Nami is a little less negative. He saw the attraction to Nami and believed if she could let go of the past and negative views, they would have been close in school.

Although I liked the enemies to lovers, second chance romance, and workplace romance tropes, I couldn't quite get past Nami's character. She was often looking at life with the glass half empty viewpoint and had many negative and annoying things to say about men and would point out the worst in Jae before looking at the positive. Her character did improve as the story went on, but it was something that stuck out to me from the beginning. I liked Jae's character and thought he was confident, charismatic, and funny. He was definitely a more relatable character.

Got to 20% and didnt finish. There were some trigger topics I was uncomfortable with and decided I should stop.

ALC Review
The Takeover by Cara Tanamachi
Narrated by Donald K. Chang & Chieko Hidako

💜Enemies to Lovers
💜Workplace (ish) romance

The Takeover is a funny rom-com for fans of The Hating Game. Nami & Jae were rivals in school but haven’t seen each other since high school graduation. Jae works for the company that is offering to buy Nami’s company to help save it. Nami is very resistant to this, naturally. I liked the story and the supporting characters were great, except Del (seriously that guy, ugh!). I liked Nami & Jae together, even if they’re both pretty immature still. The third act breakup and resolution were pretty meh to me (but I don’t love third act breakups). I did really enjoy the narrators! Overall, a solid read!

Thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for the ALC!

Nami’s life is falling apart - her fiance ended their engagement, she’s struggling to be happy for her sister who is getting married, and now the tech company she helped start is getting sold, likely to a company that her high school rival, Jae works for. Their rivalry picks up right where it left off ten years ago, but their banter quickly begins to turn into a different kind of chemistry.

This was a fun enemies to lovers romance with some interesting insight into what it is like to work for a tech start up. The banter between Nami and Jae was top notch. I mostly listened to the audiobook of this one and enjoyed the narration. This book was a fun and cute read overall!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, RB Media, and NetGalley for the advance copy.

High school enemies meet again in a takeover scenario - Nami is surprised to hear from her old school nemesis Jae and wonders when she'll see him, not expecting it to be at her place of work. If you're into enemies-to-lovers tropes with a mix of relationship history, family dynamics, and business scenarios. I rooted for the characters and liked how Tanamachi brought them to life.

I devoured the audiobook in 2 days. Thank you to Netgalley and to RB Media for the ALC.

Thank you so much NetGalley and RB Media for my advanced copy and the chance to review it honestly.

On Nani’s 30th birthday, she is constantly reminded that her life has it gone as planned. Frustrated with her life, she makes a birthday wish, but the universe had other plans.

The Takeover was a fun and quick listen. I received this as as ALC and was able to get through it pretty quickly. I found it to be well paced and I enjoyed the banter. I thought the narrators did a good job and I can’t say they swayed my opinion of the book one way or another. I do have two gripes… the first one is that I didn’t care for the high school nemesis aspect of the story because at 30, we really shouldn’t care about what happened in high school anymore. And the second gripe was that the last part of the book did not do it for me. It brought a four star read down to a three star read for me. As always, take my opinions with a grain of salt because I see some raving reviews! The Takeover is out today, 1/30/24!

Happy reading

Nami wishes for her soulmate on her 30th birthday but instead the high school boy who was practically her arch nemesis is brought back into her life. Jae Lee was the one guy who could get under her skin and still does. Now instead of stealing the valedictorian title from her, he's trying to steal her company she's worked so hard to build.

The Takeover is a fabulous enemies to lovers romance that stole my heart. The character development and relationship growth between Jae and Nami is just perfect. They have spicy chemistry, smart witty dialogue, and tender moments that keep you reading well past your bedtime.

The Takeover by Cara Tanamachi
4/5 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

•••Spoiler free review below•••

The perfect mix of rivals to lovers and workplace romance, The Takeover will have you equally rooting for our main characters to one up the other. Nami and Jae spent most of high school competing. After going their separate ways for college and beyond, their paths are now intersecting again when the company Jae works for puts in an offer to purchase Nami’s start up. Nami is determined to not let the purchase go through and Jae is thrilled to have a worthy competitor back in his orbit. Told in dual POV, I think you will enjoy both of these overachievers and the potential romance that will ensue.

Read this book if you like:
-high school rivals all grown up
-workplace
-dual pov
-witty banter

The Takeover will be released January 30th and if it's not already on your tbr, it should be!
.
.
.
Special thanks to RB Media for sharing a free copy with me in exchange for my honest opinions.