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From the publisher:
She’s read every romance…except her own.
Irene Park loves romance novels—so much so she’s made a career of them as an online book reviewer with a massive following. But Irene’s real life dating story? Non-existent. So when she starts her freshman year of college, she sets her sights on finding true love using the one thing she really understands…romance book tropes.
If only it were that easy.
Enter Aiden Jeon, Irene’s online book review rival and biggest nemesis. When Aiden challenges her to see who can find love-by-trope first, he becomes the one person standing in her way to getting everything she wants both professionally and personally, too. So when the competition takes an unexpected turn, forcing the two of them to have to partner in the ultimate trope, fake dating, Irene is not prepared for everything she believed about romance, and Aiden, to flip on its head.
As Irene tackles the challenges of college life, struggles to figure out what she really wants for herself, all while trying to win the race for love, Irene realizes the answers may not be found in a romance novel. Happily Ever Afters seem so easy on page. But for Irene to find her ultimate HEA, she’ll have to get her nose out of the book and become the main character of her own story.
DNF: I read 90 pages of The Romance Rivalry and the first few pages were highly sexual and had a use of strong profanity. The characters are teens just graduating high school and then just starting college. I’d call this more of a “new adult” book rather than young adult. Talk about romance/dating involves a lot of talk about sex. The story is fine but I didn’t love it, so I just DNF’d at that roughly quarter mark.
Rapid Rating: High.
Profanity includes at least 9 uses of strong language, roughly 15 instances of moderate profanity, roughly 10 uses of mild language, and roughly 20 instances of the name of Deity in vain. (I scanned through for F-words and extrapolated for the others.) Sexual content includes intense making out and some clothed sex in front of others in a limo full of teens after prom, lots of talk about sex, and at least one scene that goes from kissing to undressing, private touching, etc. to probably more behind closed doors.
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