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ladybeez's review
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Cute. Gave be butterflies.
stillhurtingolive's review against another edition
1.0
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I really wish I could rate this book higher than I did. It's one of those easy read, boss/ceo romances, but there were certain things I could not get past.
Brief summary - Natalie works retail for the Branson company, and one night while working late, James Branson, heir to the company and current CEO - unbeknownst to Natalie-, comes to the store to tell her to turn her loud music down. After what is a funny and unique meet-cute that involves the throwing of a mop, Natalie leaves the store and her sketch book behind. Instead of firing her, James sees Nat's potential and brings her on as a designer to help Branson. It's a pretty standard romance from there. However!
Natalie, while working this full time job is also going to fashion school. And at this school she has a creepy touchy-feely professor, MG, that hits on her and makes her uncomfortable. The way that the characters (and really the author) go about resolving this makes light of the situation and doesn't take acts like this seriously. MG is high power in the fashion industry, which is why Natalie and other women don't want to go to the heads of the school with information that he's harassing her. Understandable. This would be an awful position to be put in and why MG abuses it so. He thinks he's untouchable.
When he texts her privately asking her out, as a joke, Natalie and her roommate go to send a very explicit text back to the professor about how her "boyfriend" is taking care of her. (This text is the catalyst of the whole story as the roommate accidentally sends it to James.) But this doesn't make sense to me, because if Natalie is so afraid to piss this professor off in fear of retaliation, why would she send this text that could also get her in trouble?
But if I need to suspend my disbelief because the author needs to use this as an excuse for James to play fake boyfriend, fine, I'll push past.
But jumping to the end, the professor never stops being creepy! The "resolution" is Natalie's roommate sending the professor's creepy messages to a class-wide group chat. Other girls come forward with their own messages, and instead of banding together to go to the people above this guy or the powers at school, they submit the evidence TO A BUZZFEED ARTICLE. BUZZFEED. When I read that, I was like - you have to be joking. In 2024? I'm sorry, but you might as well have said it got posted the school's MySpace page. Or for a more current reference, "we made a TikTok about the guy who is harassing you!" The sheer amount of insensitivity in the entire B-Plot storyline of being harassed was insane. To have sexual harassment be such a plot point in your story, only to conclude it to say "oh no actual consequences came but we now have a buzzfeed article, exposing a sensitive situation you were in without telling you about it," is so glib and frankly disgusting. I cannot believe I finished this.
There were other things that annoyed me about James, like the way he treated Natalie and ran his business, but I could've looked past that, given the book 3 stars, a basic nice review and been on my way. But I won't pretend like this book wasn't insensitive to the topics it uses for shock value. I, like most people, read romance to escape. If even in my story the bad guy gets away with a slap on the wrist from a BUZZFEED ARTICLE (yes I am still hung up on that), then it's not worth reading.
I really wish I could rate this book higher than I did. It's one of those easy read, boss/ceo romances, but there were certain things I could not get past.
Brief summary - Natalie works retail for the Branson company, and one night while working late, James Branson, heir to the company and current CEO - unbeknownst to Natalie-, comes to the store to tell her to turn her loud music down. After what is a funny and unique meet-cute that involves the throwing of a mop, Natalie leaves the store and her sketch book behind. Instead of firing her, James sees Nat's potential and brings her on as a designer to help Branson. It's a pretty standard romance from there. However!
Natalie, while working this full time job is also going to fashion school. And at this school she has a creepy touchy-feely professor, MG, that hits on her and makes her uncomfortable. The way that the characters (and really the author) go about resolving this makes light of the situation and doesn't take acts like this seriously. MG is high power in the fashion industry, which is why Natalie and other women don't want to go to the heads of the school with information that he's harassing her. Understandable. This would be an awful position to be put in and why MG abuses it so. He thinks he's untouchable.
When he texts her privately asking her out, as a joke, Natalie and her roommate go to send a very explicit text back to the professor about how her "boyfriend" is taking care of her. (This text is the catalyst of the whole story as the roommate accidentally sends it to James.) But this doesn't make sense to me, because if Natalie is so afraid to piss this professor off in fear of retaliation, why would she send this text that could also get her in trouble?
But if I need to suspend my disbelief because the author needs to use this as an excuse for James to play fake boyfriend, fine, I'll push past.
But jumping to the end, the professor never stops being creepy! The "resolution" is Natalie's roommate sending the professor's creepy messages to a class-wide group chat. Other girls come forward with their own messages, and instead of banding together to go to the people above this guy or the powers at school, they submit the evidence TO A BUZZFEED ARTICLE. BUZZFEED. When I read that, I was like - you have to be joking. In 2024? I'm sorry, but you might as well have said it got posted the school's MySpace page. Or for a more current reference, "we made a TikTok about the guy who is harassing you!" The sheer amount of insensitivity in the entire B-Plot storyline of being harassed was insane. To have sexual harassment be such a plot point in your story, only to conclude it to say "oh no actual consequences came but we now have a buzzfeed article, exposing a sensitive situation you were in without telling you about it," is so glib and frankly disgusting. I cannot believe I finished this.
There were other things that annoyed me about James, like the way he treated Natalie and ran his business, but I could've looked past that, given the book 3 stars, a basic nice review and been on my way. But I won't pretend like this book wasn't insensitive to the topics it uses for shock value. I, like most people, read romance to escape. If even in my story the bad guy gets away with a slap on the wrist from a BUZZFEED ARTICLE (yes I am still hung up on that), then it's not worth reading.
natalie_wyatt's review against another edition
3.0
Received as an ARC in return for my honest review.
namirsolo's review against another edition
3.0
This was a run of the mill boss-employee/billionaire romance. Generally these tropes are not my favorite so take my review with a grain of salt I guess. I didn't find either character very interesting. It doesn't help that the heroine is loud and abrasive in the first scene and doesn't consider the fact that a person she discovered in the building she works at overnight might also work there. This leads her to threaten and even hit him, which is just jumping to all sorts of conclusions. We're not off to a great start when I don't really care for the characters who I'm supposed to be rooting for to get together.
Next, the plot was not exciting. I can put up with a dull plot if the heat is there in the romance. Let me just say that this cover lead me to believe that there would be more excitement in that department as well and there just was not. If you like workplace or billionaire romances this might be for you. There are fun scenes with him taking her shopping and to fancy parties, but as I said it's not my thing.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Next, the plot was not exciting. I can put up with a dull plot if the heat is there in the romance. Let me just say that this cover lead me to believe that there would be more excitement in that department as well and there just was not. If you like workplace or billionaire romances this might be for you. There are fun scenes with him taking her shopping and to fancy parties, but as I said it's not my thing.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
woeckie03's review against another edition
4.0
James Branson is a billionaire and the CEO of their family company and his world is rocked when he runs into a woman whose first encounter has her hitting him with a wet mop!! After embarrassingly discovering that she just attacked the CEO of the company she works for, Natalie’s world is also changed as he offers her a promotion on the design team the following morning.
The banter between these two is absolutely perfect and I laughed out loud for some of the sass that came out of Natalie’s mouth! The slow burn of their relationship is absolutely perfect and then we see a glorious glimpse of some fake dating (a trope I ride or die for)!! Don’t get me wrong on how much I love the spice between these two, but the sweeter moments between them also had my heart aching.
I’d definitely recommend this for a quick and enjoyable romance with some spice and a HEA!
Thank you to Netgalley, Leslie North, and Relay Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review!
The banter between these two is absolutely perfect and I laughed out loud for some of the sass that came out of Natalie’s mouth! The slow burn of their relationship is absolutely perfect and then we see a glorious glimpse of some fake dating (a trope I ride or die for)!! Don’t get me wrong on how much I love the spice between these two, but the sweeter moments between them also had my heart aching.
I’d definitely recommend this for a quick and enjoyable romance with some spice and a HEA!
Thank you to Netgalley, Leslie North, and Relay Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review!
readwithrishika's review against another edition
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
summary: natalie falls for her boss james, and they have to work to keep their relationship both secret and working.
footnotes: there are about 3 chapters with full on sex scenes, so please be mindful where you read this.
thoughts: natalie came off really spoiled and bratty, at first which made her unlikeable. as the story progressed, it made more sense, but the first half just made her seem like a spoiled brat. james also acts really hot and cold. he's into natalie some moments, and not the next. his actions are very choppy and don't make sense a lot of the time. the side characters also don't get developed much, and overall the characters feel very flat. the plot was somewhat unreasonable, but i still enjoyed reading it. the main thing for me was the excessive amount of sex scenes in this book, in places that didn't even make sense for the characters emotionally. the sex scenes really took away from the emotion of the book and what the characters actually were. the writing overall was subpar. i enjoyed it, but forgot about the book the moment i finished reading it. the ending was also very iffy for me.
overall, i recommend this for someone who just broke up, and needs some spice and romance without thinking too much about it.
footnotes: there are about 3 chapters with full on sex scenes, so please be mindful where you read this.
thoughts: natalie came off really spoiled and bratty, at first which made her unlikeable. as the story progressed, it made more sense, but the first half just made her seem like a spoiled brat. james also acts really hot and cold. he's into natalie some moments, and not the next. his actions are very choppy and don't make sense a lot of the time. the side characters also don't get developed much, and overall the characters feel very flat. the plot was somewhat unreasonable, but i still enjoyed reading it. the main thing for me was the excessive amount of sex scenes in this book, in places that didn't even make sense for the characters emotionally. the sex scenes really took away from the emotion of the book and what the characters actually were. the writing overall was subpar. i enjoyed it, but forgot about the book the moment i finished reading it. the ending was also very iffy for me.
overall, i recommend this for someone who just broke up, and needs some spice and romance without thinking too much about it.
srhshdlr's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0