E-galley Review: The Romance Rivalry by Susan Lee

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Romance Rivalry by Susan Lee
Published by Harper Collins on May 13, 2025
Genres: NA Contemporary Romance, YA Contemporary Romance
Pages: 368
Source: the publisher
Format: E-galley
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Also by this author: Seoulmates, The Name Drop
My Rating:

Blurb:

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.

My Review

I have read and really enjoyed this author’s first two books, so I was very excited for this one. And while the amount of spice in this one makes it YA maybe? I am calling it NA because of the age of the characters. To me college students are NA. There was so much about this story that I loved. I totally feel like Irene about real life love/relationships. Of course at her age I was nowhere near this organized and passionate about one thing, books, like she is. Although I have always been a reader, at that age I was still more into sci-fi and horror.

I loved how they used all the tropes as chapter themes, as well as for the dating experiment that Irene decided to do to make herself better suited for the sponsor she was trying to get. It was so easy to see how much Aiden was the perfect guy for her. And she was being so stubborn, even if it was understandable. I loved how she followed through those stages as did he. I could also totally understand how she felt overwhelmed starting that first year at college, and I think I kind of had the same issue when I first started college but in my case it was having more of a social life that I’d never really had before and the freedom from parents as well.

The one thing they talked about was when she said miscommunication is a real thing and I know it is. And sometimes I’m okay with it in romances, but when it is something that seems ridiculous for them not to say or tell someone, then it becomes drama for drama’s sake in a story, in my opinion. And in a way that happened here. However the way Aiden said he would be there waiting for her while she did what she needed? That made him a perfect book boyfriend for her.

This was a perfect little romance story with good friends and lots of lessons. And while I technically believe this age of character should be considered new adult, I think this is still a good YA romance that I can’t wait to share with my students!