4 stars!
"Dealbreakers" by Lauren Forsythe is sooooooooooooooooo freaking good! I was addicted to this story from start to finish. It is a quick read full of laughs, banter, swooning, changing feelings, and shifting perspectives. This story is an opposites attract workplace rivals forced proximity rom-com where he falls first. What's not to love!? I adored main characters, Marina and Lucas. Marina knows exactly what she wants from her life. She has a strict plan for how her life is supposed to go and nothing will deviate her from what she wants. Enter Lucas, a tattooed goofball who wears bad t-shirts, smokes, swears, and is Marina's total opposite in every way and grates on her last nerve. When they are tasked to go on a bunch of "fun" "date night" activities together (axe throwing, dancing, mixology classes, etc) so one of them can get a promotion at their work, Marina slowly but surely starts to see her long list of strict wants crumbling down the longer she spends with Lucas. It begins to dawn on her that maybe unpredictability and entertainment mean more than adhering to or tying yourself to a specific checklist for your life. Marina and Lucas feel sort of like an "against all odds" type of pairing... maybe that's why I rooted for them so hard! I truly loved their dynamic, which is full of inside jokes, little quirks, and pointed barbs. The longer the book goes on, the more that readers get to know that it's not all that meets the eye where these two characters are concerned. There has been a lot of hurt in both of their lives and at the end of the day, they both want a partner who appreciates them for who they are.
I am very rarely left leaving a book saying, "I wish I had 100 more pages!," but that was definitely the case with "Dealbreakers." I wanted more Lucas and Marina banter! You can finish this delightful book in a day, that's how addicted you'll be to their story. Check it out now!
Thank you to NetGalley, Lauren Forsythe, PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for this review.