Instalove, oh instalove. This was kind of a weird one. I struggled to quite buy the premise of Brinkley's job, how it was working, and how they were getting clients, though I found the way they discussed therapizing each other interesting. The ending was a little too neatly wrapped and there was a bit too much Instalove, but this was fun. (Though I never figured out exactly why Brinkley's cat always needed to wear sweaters.) ( )

An adorable little Rom-Com featuring a charming , quick-talking hero and a messy heroine who gave me multiple bouts of second hand embarrassment. The mother- daughter relationship was reminiscent of Emily and Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore girls and was extremely well written.
I'm giving this book 3 stars instead of 2 only because I loved Winnie the cat so much ! ( )

Heartbreak for Hire falls solidly in the middle of the pack for me. It's an interesting premise: a woman who works as a professional heartbreaker falls for one of the people she's been hired to take down. Because it turns out that not all the women who hire the company are doing it because they've actually been hurt, some just want to eliminate a rival.


The chemistry between the two leads was great, both physical and interpersonal. I found their banter and bickering fun and genuinely wanted them to work it out.

This is a pretty standard contemporary romance, but a few things grated on me and I probably won't be seeking out more from the author. Whether this is my own baggage or something else, I'm not sure. I was unhappy with Brinkley's very privileged approach to opening an art gallery. She doesn't have any business experience, but that's not mentioned at all. Things like academic papers and opening a whole business happen at record speed, with seemingly no hassles like peer review or business filings. A character suddenly becomes a middle school teacher (what kind?) without having teaching certification or going through any hiring process. My teaching friends should be so lucky. I understand that romance novels are not reality and that a lot of things get glossed over, but there are other ways to handle them.


Mostly, I struggled with Brinkley's relationship with her mother. I have a similar parent and I haven't spoken to them in over a year because hey, 34 years is enough trying for me. Brinkley has chosen to get together/talk with her mother every week and fight for two hours instead. This is where I wonder, did I dislike this book because of my own crap or are all the things that irritated me actual flaws in the book?


But I don't feel like psychoanalyzing myself in a book review, so I'll leave it at this:


Heartbreak for Hire is a book that deals heavily with the cutthroat nature of academia, toxic family relationships, and the dangers of misandry, but it's peppered with enough romance and humor that I didn't stop reading it until the end.


Audio Notes: Shaina Summerville must be an alternate pseudonym for someone who narrates a lot of YA, because I spent the entire time in a state of "I know this voice..." That said, the narration detracted from the story and I won't be listening to another adult romance by this narrator. The voice she does for the male lead is this snotty condescending voice and I assumed it would get better after Brinkley decides she likes him, but it didn't. And oh no to the sex scenes. And one picky thing - Brinkley's boss is named Margo and her love interest is named Mark. I spent hours trying to figure out if Mark's name is Marco and why they were talking about Brinkley's latest assignment. I finished the book out of some sort of inertia, but I cannot recommend the audio.


***
Content Notes: alcohol, mention of fatal overdose (parent, past), drug-addicted parent, mentions of past drug use, strained parent relationship, emotionally abusive parent, sexual harassment, a couple of potentially dangerous situations with targets, gender essentialism, gendered language ( )

I picked this up thinking it was a fun romance. It sounded like Brinkley's workplace would be more pranks than actual malice toward their clients' foes, especially since they don't seem to get both sides of the story first. So, it turned out that the premise wasn't for me. That also made the characters unlikeable since they all go along with the revenge idea, whether for money or because of their own hurts in the past. That didn't really excuse their behavior to me, and the whole premise fell flat.
It's a well-written book but not for me. ( )

This book never answers the pivotal questions: (a) Did Mark do the awful thing his colleague said he did, therefore was deserving of Brinkley's services, or did she do this to sabotage him? (b) Is the owner of Heartbreak for Hire creative or crazy? (c) Can people be redeemed?

The premise is a little gross, but it is at least unique. I figured that a talented author can overcome a little cringe, make you sympathetic through point-of-view, and sometimes it is good to start there to move on to another space. I do not want to say Hartl is a bad author - there's solid skills in her work - but someone who has the character questioning the ethics of years of her life should be capable of recognizing that she needs to work harder to make us sympathetic towards the characters. All she did was use Brinkley's (her heroine's) point-of-view, and make Mark hot. She didn't win me over, and I fail to see where she was even trying.

I really like the gloss of romance books (not everything needs to be gritty). However, you need to think of that gloss like icing glaze. Glaze on a cake is pretty awesome: it makes it all shiny and presentable, while bringing out the inherent sweetness. Glaze is generally good. However, no one is going to sit there and eat glaze; glaze is cloying, needing to be tempered with the substance of the cake, and not at all satisfying. Nor would you eat glaze on a turd - it doesn't matter how good the glaze, I'm not eating shit.

Hartl acknowledged the existence of the issue, but never addressed the issue. She didn't truly address any reservations about Mark; I guess because he's hot and happens to have family, one showy gesture of putting clothes on her cat (for which his hatred was established but not felt) is suppose to undo this notion that he may be a sabotaging misogynist? She mentions Brinkley's guilt over her position, but it is so fleeting and easily forgotten the moment she quits the agency, that it does not seem genuine and does not come across as having character. Yeah, we've all done things that are actually against our morals (I don't like who I become when I wasn't watching, was pushed, etc.) but, if she's really a grown-up - a heroine - there's needs to make amends, prove her worth to herself, residual guilt, more conscious efforts to be different, something! I hate this trope of I acknowledged it and put it into words, so now it's okay and I get to do the horrible thing. *sarcasm* After all, just saying it puts an end to prejudice, misogyny, and every other evil-will.

And the sex just made Brinkley look like a slut. It's not that she would have sex early in a relationship, enjoy it, whatever. It's that it is not erotica; sex in romance is fine (heck, healthy sex where the woman gets to orgasm too? I encourage it!), but the genre necessitates emotional bond, usually before the sex but sometimes after. Sure, there's chemistry, there's lust, but little real between the characters. Yet, she lies to herself that this is a relationship. No, Brinkley, you are just lonely and wanted sex with the hot guy. You're allowed, but own it like a grown woman.

All-in-all, don't bother. ( )

1.5 stars rounded up.

I truly don't know what t say-just, because it was not to my taste doesn't make it a bad book.

I must agree with some of the other reviewers that said that this book was no ordinary rom-com. On its face, this book appears to be a light, funny read, but when we actually start reading, we find that this is a book that makes annihilation as revenge, a business. It sounded good at first, but the longer I read, the more my stomach was churning. How can anyone think it is funny to ruin a person totally, financially, and at times ruin a family for some of the things they had done. Men really no longer have the upper hand and for someone to use entrapment to ruin these men is just wrong.

Another thing that I couldn't get into was the sex; I thought that women had gotten over the whole- I must get into his pants now even though I've only known him for a couple of hours-thing. The rest of the sex scenes were just too descriptive for my taste. I'm finished with hearing about juices, and lapping, and fingering. I've not read erotica for years, and nothing about this book's description led me to believe that this book was going to have overly descriptive sex.

*ARC supplied by the publisher, the author, and Edelweiss/ATTL. ( )