“Do I belong here?”
Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 3.5 stars
Spicy Meter: 2 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses death of parent/foster parent, grieving, breakups, struggling to make ends meet, potential homelessness, and an honest addiction to an ex.
“The Rom-Com Agenda” starts with a rejection. Eli is proposing to Victoria, is utterly turned down, and Leah is there to witness it all. Talk about secondhand embarrassment. Now, months later, Eli and his friends are trying to have Eli go through an extreme makeover in order to win Victoria back when she comes back to the States, all with the help of Leah, who volunteers to help him after befriending Eli’s sisters. Little did they know, they were lowkey made for each other. Through rom-com movies and mishaps, Eli and Leah get to really know each other, and question all about the future they envisioned apart—and how that might look if they were together.
I have to be honest, throughout this book I defaulted at times to just reading the dialogue. Eli’s back and forth was driving me insane. His sisters’ and friends’ obsession with meddling with his life felt so forced and unrealistic. Take this book as a true fiction romance—this could never happen in real-life.
I was so hyped for this book and I just simply didn’t vibe with it. The jokes weren’t funny, the dialogue was iffy, and the romance was alright. Leah and Eli seem like a good match, I just hated how they got there.
I would recommend this book, perhaps, as a palette cleanser between tough books. It’s lighthearted mostly and is an easy read. The pop culture and rom-com movie references were awesome—it just wasn’t as life-changing and heartwarming as I was expecting it to be.
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ARC provided by NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.
Publication Date: January 10, 2023
“When we said we are family, we meant it.”
andrea's galley 