Thank you to Netgalley and Avon/Harper Voyager for the review copy!

Enemies to lovers romance: they were next-door neighbors as kids and hated each other all through middle and high school. When they run into each other as adults, they still push each others' buttons, but they might be able to help one another out... *Cue the fake-dating & forced-proximity tropes*

Unfortunately, this one really did not do it for me. Both of the main characters were irritating as hell. Brian especially came off like a smarmy dick most of the time (and not in an endearing but-he's-secretly-a-softie kind of way). The sex scenes were awkward, and just in general the way sex and bodies were talked about in this book was really crude and off-putting. I generally like when romance authors just say things directly instead of being flowery about it, but it came across like weird locker room talk sometimes, maybe because I didn't buy the attraction between the characters.

I also thought the timeline from them being frenemies to frenemies-with-benefits to falling-in-love was absurdly rushed (they fall in love over like 3 days). And of course, the whole thing blows up because of a dumb miscommunication that then becomes even bigger because no one talks to one another like adults. 🙄

Skip this one and watch 13 Going on 30 instead.