Review: The Break-Up Pact

The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

June left her home town to travel the world with her boyfriend Griffin, but when her older sister Anna died she returned home (with some relief) to run the tea and scone shop they had dreamed of together. Unable to stand being dispensable, Griffin dumps June live on his reality TV show by introducing her to 'the love of his life'. Bad enough to be publicly humiliated, but June also becomes a social media meme titled 'the crying girl'.

June, Anna, and their brother Dylan were all friends with Levi at high school, June even had a major crush on him, but he moved to New York to become (gasp) a hedge fund manager and he and June haven't spoken for years. When Levi's artist girlfriend publicly cheats on him with probably the world's sexiest actor (I'm thinking George Clooney - basically someone on everyone's pass card), Levi returns home to finish writing his novel.

As soon as June and Levi run into each other their old camaraderie flourishes, and their mutual fried suggests the two of them change the narrative by posing as a rebound couple - something that takes the internet by storm. But with unresolved issues from their past, scheming exes, a voracious internet, and a failing tea shop to deal with, the course of true love never did run smooth.

I liked the premise of this, the fake dating didn't last more than about 30 seconds and that was okay. However, what dragged this down for me was just how much verbiage there was about everything, honestly I was ready for the book to be over a long time before it was finished. Maybe there were too many side plots (eg dead sister, planning brother's wedding, fake dating, failing business, Levi's writing, etc). I would compare this to Jamie Beck with a little les angst (rereading some of my reviews they were quite vitriolic) but there does appear to be quite a bit of navel-gazing, angsty introspection that I don't enjoy - if you enjoy that then I think you'll love this. SO I'm basically saying I'm shallow and I like my romances light on the angsty introspection LOL.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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