It was definitely not a romance for me. It was way too quick and too insta-lovey and insta-lustey. The characters were not memorable, which is fine in itself, but they pissed me off a little. I did not like their cowardice and the way they hid behind the fake engagement to avoid dealing with their feelings. There was also too much sex scenes for my liking. I did appreciate the main message about the milestones and the way some characters were called out for not considering work achievements as actual worthy achievements (like a wedding would be to these characters) but it was not enough to save this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

I loved the concept of this one but it didn't quite hit the mark for me.

I loved the mutual pining, academia setting and fake engagement but found the writing style wasn't to my style.

It had a great slow burn with a bit of spice and characters who are well-developed so check it out if this one is for you

I loved this book! Ali Hazelwood gives us the world of STEM and Jennifer Hennessy gives us the world of literature/research and archeology!

Bianca has just achieved the biggest accomplishment of her life, getting her PHD, and the only person to show up to her celebration is Xavier. Feeling hurt and angry, they decide to fake an engagement.

This was such a cozy, good feeling story!

Sadly, I did not finish this one at about 25%. I think it had a lot of great potential but it just didn't work enough for me to continue. I think it's a unique take on a fake relationship. While I agree with the idea of celebrating all important milestones in people's lives not just engagements, etc..., I felt like this concept was pushed into my face every other paragraph and I found that very annoying. I just wanted to read the story and not be lectured throughout. But, I'm definitely in the minority about this. Thank you very much to Headline Eternal/Headline and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

"Degrees of Engagement" is a delightful blend of academia, fake engagements, and long-standing mutual pining that creates a charming and spicy romantic tale. The story follows PhD students Xavier and Bianca, who, in a fit of drunken mischief, decide to fake an engagement as a form of petty revenge.

Jennifer Hennessy's writing captures the essence of academia, making it relatable for those who have experienced the trials of higher education. The characters, are well-developed, and their chemistry is palpable from the first interaction. The slow burn with a dash of spice quickly grabbed my attention.

While the writing style may take a moment to adjust to, with its third-person perspective, I found the book enjoyable.

This is a spicy, romance book which is definitely not suited for younger readers, absolutely loved this book from start to finish, the main characters have it all going on, which made it a fast paced read

This is such a feel good romance that will have you smiling and laughing and kicking your feet! This is the book for you if you need a palate cleanser because it's just so wonderful and good. I love anything that has the fake dating/fake engagement trope, and this book does it so well. The characters are well developed, the plot is great and moves at a fast pace, and ithe chemistry between Bianca and Xavier is just so palpable. It was both sweet and spicy, and it's so interesting how they navigated a fake engagement since both of them had been pining after each for years. This book is perfect for those who are fans of Ali Hazelwood and Morgan Elizabeth. I did take a way a star for this being in third person POV present, because I desperately wish it was in dual POV first person, but this is overall such a great book and I recommend it highly to others!

Thank you to NetGalley, Jennifer Hennessy, and Headline for the eARC of this book!

I greatly enjoyed this story! I’m so glad that I stumbled on it - I actually follow the artist that did the character art for the cover! (We were in the same fandom for a while.) When they posted about this book, I was instantly intrigued, and was so happy to find it on NetGalley!! The characters were very fun, and had such great chemistry. This is going in my romance recs, for sure!

Thank you Headline and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bianca Dimitriou is the friend who is always there at the drop of a hat for her friends. She flies to different continents to be in weddings or babysits with hardly any notice. She has many close friends who she would do anything for. She is therefore incredibly hurt when none of her friends or family go to her party celebrating the fact that she successfully defended her thesis and is now a PhD. One of the few people who does come is her classmate, Xavier. Xavier was Bianca's only friend in her academic program, but he pulled away upon learning that he would soon be moving to Greece for a fellowship. When Bianca suggests that her family and friends would have dropped everything if she was getting married, Xavier suggests that they should pretend to be engaged. Bianca agrees and well, you probably see where this is going.

Another fake dating book (you know I can't get enough of those) but this time it's a fake engagement! I think this book had a lot of positives and a few negatives that took me out of the story a bit.

Pros:

I liked how much the Bianca and Xavier respected each other academically. I liked that their friendship was formed from challenging each other. As the story goes on, both characters comment on how brilliant they think the other is and it was nice to see "could be rivals" acknowledge each other's strengths.
Xavier was so supportive of Bianca throughout the book. Is only reason for suggesting/agreeing to the fake engagement is because he was a good friend and was mad at Bianca's other friends for not being there for her. He repeatedly shows that he wants her friends to be supportive of her and defends her when they are not.
I liked that each of Bianca's friends were at a different stage in relationships. It was fun seeing her interact with friends who have reached different milestones.
I enjoyed this book in general. The writing was good and I wanted to keep reading it.

Cons:

I get annoyed when pretty much the only conflict in a book is that the characters won't communicate. Bianca goes into this fake engagement to teach her friends and family a lesson, but she spends most of the book not even telling them how she feels. All she had to do was say, "It hurt me that you weren't there to celebrate the massive accomplishment that I made." She also continually semi-communicates with Xavier about their feelings for each other, but they never actually say what they mean and always immediately change their minds when they set boundaries.
While the different friends showed up every so often, I felt like I didn't really know any of them. The characters felt like they were in a bubble.

Overall it was a solid read.

Thank you to the publisher for the free copy from NetGalley!

⭐⭐⭐ (3/5)

TW: spice, not suitable for younger readers

Hands down my favourite part of Degrees of Engagement is the absolute shade thrown to the British Museum over the Parthenon Marbles, and I cannot applaud Hennessy enough for this. Onto the review.

Degrees of Engagement follows Bianca, a recent PhD graduate who shows up for everyone else when they need her, only to discover that they aren't prepared to do the same for her. Cue a drunken proposal from Xavier, her friend, to finally get Bianca the attention she deserves from her friends and family after they fail to show up for her graduation party. The fake engagement trope is always a little far fetched, but I felt like it had a really good set up with Bianca’s party. Hennessy is making a great point too, that there is more to life than relationships and traditional milestones like marriage and kids. But I’ll be honest, once Xavier and Bianca are ‘engaged’, it feels like very little happens until the third act break-up. I hit the ⅔ mark and had to force myself to finish, skimming to the end of a story I just wasn’t that invested in.

As far as characters go, I did genuinely like Bianca and I was absolutely rooting for her to be a little more selfish after being there for everyone else in her life. Xavier could be charming, but he was definitely a lot flatter and whilst the supporting characters were varied enough to be distinct, they weren’t particularly strong additions to the book. Hats off to Hennessy though, as I have never read a cat so accurately written.

Considering that this is a romance book, the romance is, you know, important. I hate to say it, but Bianca and Xavier’s relationship was unsatisfying and underdeveloped. The fact that these two are living together during their fake engagement was the perfect setting for some charged and awkward moments, but the chemistry between them just wasn’t there for me. They also had sex pretty quick meaning you don’t get to see much sexual tension between them. Again, the physical side of things overtook the relationship too much when they finally confessed their feelings and it was so quick that I genuinely missed it. Now, don’t get me wrong, Bianca and Xavier had some good moments together (although I will say that sexting before a job interview seems extremely unwise) and their friends to lovers arc was a refreshing read compared to the common enemies to lovers. Ultimately, Bianca and Xavier were entertaining enough, but their relationship throughout felt like it changed very little - they liked each other and that was that. I appreciate that they already had feelings, but I would have preferred to see some more development.

All in all, Degrees of Engagement was an okay book with an okay romance - I’ve certainly read worse but I’ve most certainly read better. That being said, I would definitely be interested to see more of Hennessy’s work with a few more books under her belt.

I loved this!! Bianca was everything - sweet, introspective, funny, clever, and a very good friend. I was rooting for her from the very start, and angry right alongside her when her friends and family failed to show up to celebrate her PhD - it’s not every day someone becomes a Doctor - and I couldn’t fault her slightly insane plan to fake an engagement to her very hot fellow doctorate student. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as planned and the engagement story spirals out of control, along with Bianca and Xavier’s tightly controlled feelings for each other.

I loved Bianca and Xavier and their friends (although I hope Xavier learned to open up to more people and make more good friends in the three years between the last chapter and the epilogue!!)

I’ve given this three stars but it’s really 3.5. I really enjoyed reading it & it made me think a lot about how important it is to support all of your friends big milestones!!! Plus I now need to check out Amelia Peadbody! Thanks to NetGalley & Headline for the ARC.

This was a cute story of colleagues (but really into each other for years) to lovers with a fake engagement. The pretense of the story was a bit silly, but the writing and the chemistry between the two characters make up for it. Definitely a fun, summer read.

I received an ARC from netgalley and the publisher.

Do you wish Ali Hazelwood wrote about librarians instead of scientists? Me too. I loved this book. I loved it more than I love Hazelwood because Hennessy somehow managed to convey sexual tension from the first interaction of the characters. She made me feel the five years that their tension had grown without making me suffer through it and I’m truly in awe. Read this book if you’re into academia, slow burn with spice, or because you agree that it’s truly wild that marriage is seen as a greater accomplishment than a phd. You will be glad you did.

Degrees of Engagement is a lot of fun. And anyone who has ever been in academia will love it. Xavier and Bianca are both phd students at the end of their schooling journey. But when no one, outside her advisor and Xavier, comes to Bianca’s party when she passes her defense, Bianca gets drunk and she and Xavier hatch a bit of petty revenge, pretending to be engaged. I love the way they become fake engaged. I don’t think I have ever said this about any fake relationship book but it made sense to me how that happened. I mean who hasn’t gotten mad drunk and hatched a ridiculous scheme. Every romance novel has a bit of absurdity, I just liked that these two were able to have a realness that every story doesn’t have. Jennifer Hennessy does a great job giving the reader two people that belong together but have to put in some work. The writing is great and the characters are very relatable. Great Read

Thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for this ARC! I found this book to be such a feel good romance. Everyone in this world needs their own Xavier, someone who is there for you no matter the situation and no matter the consequences. I love how much I actually loved the characters and their development throughout the story.

this was an interesting and fun book! i enjoyed the writing style and technique. but i didn't love the characters

Going into this book, I was expecting an easy, romance read. And that is what I got.

The writing style took me some chapters to get into as it's dual third person (you get insight on both lead characters, though more so Bianca). Additionally, the frequent usage of ellipses was a bit much.

As for the story itself, like many “fake dating/engagement/marriage/etc” books, the reader must suspend reality for a bit. However, more bothersome to me as a reader, was that the ending felt incomplete. At the very least, some plot points didn’t make sense to me (ex. Xavier’s exchange with Miranda). And I don’t think the epilogue did enough to explain how the lead couple overcame (one of) the main challenge(s) for them to get into a real relationship. It was tidied up as “they make it work,” but with little explanation on how they make it work.

Despite my criticisms, I don’t think this is a bad book. The lead characters are endearing, and I found Bianca’s relationship with her family very relatable. And while this is not a ground-breaking story - it doesn’t need to be. It is a cute, easy-to-read romance with a fair amount of spice. I enjoyed my time reading the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Headline Eternal for the ARC. I appreciate the opportunity to read this book.

3 stars.

Okay, so the blurb sounded very interesting to me which is why I picked up the book. It was the first book I read by this author and it was good. So the writing style was a bit hard to get into because it was in the third person POV. The beginning was great though but as the story progressed, the book fell flat for me tbh. I liked the chemistry between Bianca & Xavier, the mutual pinning was good and the message the book was trying to put forward was great, but I just couldn't connect with the story as much as I thought I would've. Still, I'm looking forward to read more from this author in the future.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me this ARC in exchange of an honest review

Sadly, I did not finish this one at about 25%. I think it had a lot of great potential but it just didn't work enough for me to continue. I think it's a unique take on a fake relationship. While I agree with the idea of celebrating all important milestones in people's lives not just engagements, etc..., I felt like this concept was pushed into my face every other paragraph and I found that very annoying. I just wanted to read the story and not be lectured throughout. But, I'm definitely in the minority about this.

This book was super cute and had concepts that I absolutely love. Give me all the books with academic rivals turned lovers, even if they were fake engaged at first. The mutual pining in this book that lasted YEARS before they got together in an attempt to get back at Bianca's friends and family, while proving what society views as important milestones, was a delight to read. This book pissed me off in all the right ways, especially how Bianca's theory that her friends and family would actually show up for her if she was engaged, rather than making huge strides in her career in getting a PhD. Hennessy does a really good job at showing the painful reality that relationship advancements sometimes take a higher value to society rather than professional ones. Bianca deserves so much more from her friends and family, and it had to take Xavier, her fake fiancé, to put them in their place and make them show up for her. I got upset in all the right ways over this. The romance had some heat to it, but the spice fell a bit flat. I also was a bit confused at what the POV was at times as the writing was not what I am used to in that sense. The rating took a hit on the insta-love because this seemed a bit unbelievable to me at times, and for a third act breakup. I despise third act breakups, especially ones that don't make a whole lot of sense and end up being resolved extremely quickly like this one. Overall, this was a quick and enjoyable read, and I plan on throwing this onto a friends TBR because I know she'd enjoy this as well. If you like a fun academia heavy romance read, this might be for you.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.