*I was sent an ARC of The Romance Rivalry in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to HarperCollins and Susan Lee for my copy of the book*
Synopsis:
She’s read every romance…except her own…
Irene Park loves romance novels—so much so she’s made a career of them as an online book reviewer with a massive following. But Irene’s real life dating story? Non-existent. So when she starts her freshman year of college, she sets her sights on finding true love using the one thing she really understands…romance book tropes.
If only it were that easy.
Enter Aiden Jeon, Irene’s online book review rival and biggest nemesis. When Aiden challenges her to see who can find love-by-trope first, he becomes the one person standing in her way to getting everything she wants both professionally and personally, too. So when the competition takes an unexpected turn, forcing the two of them to have to partner in the ultimate trope, fake dating, Irene is not prepared for everything she believed about romance, and Aiden, to flip on its head.
As Irene tackles the challenges of college life, struggles to figure out what she really wants for herself, all while trying to win the race for love, Irene realizes the answers may not be found in a romance novel. Happily Ever Afters seem so easy on page. But for Irene to find her ultimate HEA, she’ll have to get her nose out of the book and become the main character of her own story.
Review:
The Romance Rivalry is a love letter to romance readers that explores relationships through popular tropes. We’ve all read books packed full of tropes but this is the first one I’ve read where the main character tries to find love by utilising tropes. The competition was so fun and I’m honestly amazed both Irene and Aiden managed to get so many different dates.
My favourite part of The Romance Rivalry was how each chapter was named after a different trope and this was foreshadowing what would go down in the chapter. My favourites were ‘fake dating’ (obvs) and ‘there’s only one bed’. Which just so happen to be two of my favourite tropes. You can probably guess what happens in those and trust me, it’s wonderful.
The short reviews from both Irene and Aiden before each chapter were really fun. You slowly see them start to share opinions the further you get into the book. They’re notorious for having conflicting thoughts on books, but as they spend more time together, getting closer, they start to write similar reviews. This is a fairly subtle change but one I really appreciated.
It’s so refreshing to read a romance book with a male main character that celebrates the genre. Aiden’s reason for loving romance books is also so incredibly sweet, but I can’t comment more on it without giving spoilers.
Another thing that’s refreshing about The Romance Rivalry is the main characters being online book reviewers. There are a million romance books about writers so reading a book that’s told from a perspective I can relate to (being a reviewer) was really nice. It actually made me want to post video reviews but then I remember I do not have the confidence (or time) for that, so that dream died very quickly.
It was also great to not have the author make a dig at people who give books low scores or find flaws in what they read. Just having Irene and Aiden have opposing views on books was nice to see. You don’t have to love everything you read just because an author has put a lot of time into it. I did love The Romance Rivalry though.
Irene was an interesting main character but she did make a lot of poor decisions. At times I didn’t know whether to feel pity for her or second hand embarrassment. The assignment situation really frustrated me, she could be really self absorbed at times but she does learn from these mistakes so I liked her in the end. I loved Aiden the entire time.
I’d highly recommend The Romance Rivalry if you’re looking for a fun, tropey romance. It’s a real celebration of romance readers and the chemistry between the main characters is great.
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