Synopsis:
Two viral break-ups. One fake relationship. Five sparkling, heart-pounding dates.
June and Levi were best friends as teenagers – until the day they weren’t. Now June is struggling to make rent on her beachside tea shop, Levi is living a New York cliché as a disillusioned hedge fund manager and failed novelist, and they’ve barely spoken in years.
But, after they both experience public, humiliating break-ups that spread like wildfire online, a photo of them together has the internet convinced they’re a couple. With so many people rooting for them, they decide to put aside their rocky past and make a pact to fuel the fire by pretending to date. After all, that will help June’s shop stay open and make Levi’s ex realize what a mistake she made.
All they have to do is convince the world they’re in love, one swoon-worthy photo opp at a time. Then they can happily go their separate ways with no regrets . . . right?
Review:
The Break-Up Pact was my second read by Emma Lord and it might be my last. I somewhat enjoyed her debut novel but this one, her adult romance debut, was not for me at all.
Absolutely none of this book would happen if June and Levi just talked to each other all those years ago. Who knows if they would still be together by the time this book takes place but they definitely wouldn’t have ended up being cheated on. You usually don’t get miscommunication until the third act of a romance book but this one pretty much started out with it.
Also, they haven’t seen each other for ten years. June spends about one day hating Levi and then she suddenly agrees to fake date him. You literally do not know this man anymore. Ten years is a very long time, especially when the last time you talked you were both teenagers. Their motivations for doing so made some sense, June needed the publicity for her business, but Levi doing so to make his ex (who cheated on him and is currently in a relationship with that person) jealous, is just outright stupid. Why would you want to get back together with someone that’s cheated on you?
This just made me view Levi as pathetic and June was boring. All I know about her is she has a dead sister, a failing tea shop and she likes to run. She was also a little pathetic if I’m being completely honest. She went along with anything her ex wanted to do for years (often extreme sports that she didn’t want to do) and in the entire ten years he never once said “I love you” and apparently he was awful in bed, so what was the appeal to stick with him?
Having a tea shop that only sells scones to eat is a terrible business plan. I can see why the person that June rents the shop from questioned whether or not she should keep the business open. Plus a tea shop in a beach town sounds like a weird choice anyway, especially one that only sells tea and scones. This isn’t even a business model that would work in a small English town, nevermind a beach town in America.
So much of The Break-Up Pact is descriptive. There are way too many instances of overly describing what’s going on or how they are feeling. You can tell me they’re feeling upset however poetically you want, but just do it once. Multiple sentences to describe the same thing gets old very quickly. This made The Break-Up Pact feel twice as long as it is.
I went into this review thinking that The Break-Up Pact was a decent read but I’m genuinely struggling to find something good to talk about – so clearly it wasn’t good. The characters were either bland or outright ridiculous, the constant mention of TikTok was annoying and the romance fell very flat. I love the childhood friends to lovers trope but it didn’t work well here.
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