The Boyfriend Project

Author: Farrah Rochon
Series: The Boyfriend Project, book 1
Publisher: Forever (June 9, 2020)
Paperback, 368 pages
Romance, Adult romance, Contemporary romance
Goodreads

Summary
USA Today bestselling author Farrah Rochon launches a new series about three young women who become friends when the live Tweeting of a disastrous date leads them to discover they’ve all been duped by the same man.

Samiah Brooks never thought she would be “that” girl. But a live tweet of a horrific date just revealed the painful truth: she’s been catfished by a three-timing jerk of a boyfriend. Suddenly Samiah-along with his two other “girlfriends,” London and Taylor-have gone viral online. Now the three new besties are making a pact to spend the next six months investing in themselves. No men, no dating, and no worrying about their relationship status . . .

For once Samiah is putting herself first, and that includes finally developing the app she’s always dreamed of creating. Which is the exact moment she meets the deliciously sexy, honey-eyed Daniel Collins at work. What are the chances? When it comes to love, there’s no such thing as a coincidence. But is Daniel really boyfriend material or is he maybe just a little too good to be true?

Review
I LOVE the opening chapters to The Boyfriend Project, and the bomb friendship that develops between Samiah, London, and Taylor. Unfortunately, the growing friendship between these three jilted women is way more interesting than the romance between Samiah and Daniel. Which if this is “chick lit” with a romance side plot is fine, but for a book being billed as a romance I expect to actually care more about the romance part of the plot.

I have to wonder if I’d have read this differently if I wasn’t reading it in May/June 2020 where the entire US is standing up in protest over police brutality and #BlackLivesMatter. There were several instances where Samiah is explaining to Daniel what she deals with as a Black woman in a male-dominated career (technology, programming, computer science) and multiple times where Samiah is treated in a way that made me yell at the book “they’d never treat her that way if she wasn’t a Black woman!!” One thing that really endeared Daniel to me is a moment where he tells Samiah that she doesn’t have to be perfect, nobody expects that and she explains that yes, she does need to be perfect. She needs to always be exceeding requirements because if she fails that’s all the excuse some people need not to hire a Black woman again, that people expect her to not know about techy stuff because she’s a woman and she’s Black. And Daniel, bless his heart, listens to her, takes in what she’s saying, processes it, and accepts it for the truth. HALLELUJAH. He even further extrapolates that as a part Asian man he benefits from the flip side of that same bias because because expect him to be smart and good at math.

There are also a lot of cute moments/banter between Samiah and Daniel, what with Trendsetters having all these competitions and fabulous massages and ice cream sundae prizes. While there’s plenty of longing glances and will-they/won’t-they here, I struggled with how in-their-heads our two MCs are. There’s a lot of internal debate and thought processes going on in this book, and I struggled to really connect with the romantic leads. I didn’t care much about the romance between Samiah and Daniel beyond how they basically want to devour each other, and while I love a mistaken/secret identity trope I really didn’t care for how this one was resolved.

This is the first book in The Boyfriend Project series and can be read as a stand alone. If I read the rest of the series it will definitely because I adore the friendship between Samiah, Taylor, and London and want more of these very different women growing their friendship and building better lives for themselves.

An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for review. All opinions are unbiased and my own.