App developer Annika Dev cannot believe what is going on. She spent years trying to figure out how to translate her belief in love into a practical application that couples can use to strengthen their relationships. That became her app idea Make Up, a app that can help couples who are struggling find a way to communicate with each other in a way they can understand, instead of arguing or simply ending the relationship.
Annika believes in this so completely that she has invested everything she has in it. She has made pitches, gotten grants, and opened an office in L.A. for herself and her best friend and coder June. The two of them work together day after day to get the app to the point where they can put it on the market, letting users download it and try to fix the bumps in their relationships.
And then another relationship app came along, Break Up, where users can hire someone else to break up with their partner for them. It was developed quickly and is already out on the market, with hundreds of thousands of downloads and hearts being broken all over town from Break Up’s “Terminators.”
Annika finds the whole concept of Break Up corrosive, and the worst part of it is that the CEO of Break Up stole her idea and bastardized it into that horrible idea. Hudson Craft, the man who Annika hates so much, has not only breached her relationship space in the tech world, he’s now invading her space literally by moving into an office just down the hall from Make Up. And he’s going up against her for the big tech competition, EPIC, where app developers compete for an angel investment large enough to change your life.
Annika really needs that investment. The bank is not impressed with her bottom line and is considering eviction. Annika sees that EPIC investment as her only alternative to bankruptcy. All she has to do is wrap up all her passion and all of their tech into a monumental pitch for the competition. She cannot be distracted.
But she is distracted. Because Hudson Craft is everywhere. He’s down the hall at work. He shows up at a pitch that Annika does for local high schoolers looking to get into the tech sector after college. He shows up at her date. He shows up in her office when her father stops by and gets himself an invitation to her weekly Saturday night dinner at her father’s house. And he’s not just everywhere. He’s also charming and flirtatious and attentive. And Annika finds herself falling back into the feelings she first fell into when she met him at a weeklong tech convention in Las Vegas. Back when he stole her idea.
But the question now is—what does she do now, now that she can’t stop thinking about him? Does she break up with him, or does she make up with him?
Make Up Break Up is Lily Menon’s first adult rom com. A bestselling YA author (as Sandhya Menon), she’s been able to take her love of romantic comedies and pivot it into a novel for adults, and it’s a very successful change. Make Up Break Up is a fun rom com with all the charm of a good Sandra Bullock movie, popcorn not included.
I enjoyed reading Make Up Break Up. I thought that the setup was cute, like a good movie, but I did have some issues with the characters. I thought that they were unbalanced, and a premise this good deserved a better distribution of positive and negative characteristics. Or maybe I just needed to find out more of Hudson’s story to feel like the story was complete. But it was still a lot of fun to read, and I think rom com lovers will find something about this story to cheer for.
Egalleys for Make Up Break Up were provided by St. Martin’s Griffin through NetGalley, with many thanks.
