The Book:
Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon, 2021
The Characters:
Annika and her friend/employee June
Hudson and his employee Ziggy
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
Love, romance, second chances, fairy-tale endings…these are the things Annika Dev believes in. Her app, Make Up, has been called the “Google Translate for failing relationships.”
High efficiency break-ups, flashy start-ups, penthouses, fast cars…these are the things Hudson Craft believes in. His app, Break Up, is known as the “Uber for break-ups.” It’s wildly successful—and anathema to Annika’s life philosophy.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if they’d gone their separate ways after that summer fling in Las Vegas, never to see each other again. Unfortunately for Annika, Hudson’s moving not just into her office building, but into the office right next to hers. And he’ll be competing at the prestigious EPIC investment pitch contest: A contest Annika needs to win if she wants to keep Make Up afloat. As if it’s not bad enough seeing his irritatingly perfect face on magazine covers when her own business is failing. As if knowing he stole her idea and twisted it into something vile—and monumentally more successful—didn’t already make her stomach churn.
The Ending:
Annika had ghosted Hudson, so she was the reason he created Break Up. She was sad about breaking up with him, so she created Make Up. I thought the companies were going to merge, but Hudson withdrew from the investor competition so that Annika would win and dissolved his company. Annika got the investor money, and she and Hudson got back together.
The Review:
This cute, techy rom-com reminded me of The Dating Plan–another female Indian developer trying to balance her work life and dating life. I loved the look into what it’s like to be a woman of color trying to start a business in the male-dominated tech world.
I thought the idea for the Make Up app was interesting and liked learning about it, although the “future prediction” feature seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen! What I didn’t love was how Annika wouldn’t let her best friend invest in the business that both of them had created, because she wanted all the credit for herself. She wouldn’t let June do the pitch to the angel investors because she thought June didn’t care about it as much–but June is working nonstop for too-little pay, I’d say she’s just as invested as Annika! All I wanted was for Annika to appreciate June as much as she deserved. Maybe we’re looking at a second book about June, with this as a plot point??
The romance was cute, although I could see where it was going early on. Sometimes the lack of communication between characters makes me want to pull my hair out! I enjoy the enemies to lovers trope, but I didn’t love that Annika just expected Hudson to give up everything he had worked for because she needed the money more than he did. She just came across as a little bit selfish, so it was hard to root for her.
I liked the audio version of this book. The narrator had a pleasant voice and read all the characters well. For some reason I kept thinking the book was in first person, so when the narrator would say “Annika did this” I kept thinking they were talking about someone other than the main character, but that’s on me! I got the hang of it eventually.
