The Cheat Sheet
By Sarah Adams
Rating: 4/5 Genre: Contemporary Romance Steam: Closed Door Publisher: Dell Pub Date: August 17, 2021 Available: Amazon (Updated 2.19.22-- now off of KU)
The Cheat Sheet Synopsis:
Bree and Nathan have been friends since high school, minus that small break of college, but best friends through and through. The only problem? They both are in love each other. The next problem? Nathan is the starting QB for the professional football team in LA. When Bree gets drunk and admits her love of Nathan to a reporter, they take the problem and turn it into a fake dating scheme for a commercial for the Super Bowl. Nathan wants nothing more than to keep it real. With the help of his teammates he creates the Bree Cheat Sheet, the one list to win her over. Is their friendship worth the risk?
The Cheat Sheet Review
I found this book to be incredibly sweet and cute. Like the friendships, the small tender moments, the want for more but concern for losing it all.
The friends-to-lovers trope is WELL executed here. You could feel both Bree and Nathan wanting to take things a step further, but didn’t want to destroy their friendship. They had a lot of build up to this and the dual POV helped a ton. Without that dual POV this book would not have been a fun to read and I don’t think the characters would have been as sympathetic.
I ADORED Nathan’s friends. Honestly a novel just about their antics I would 1000% read. The scheming, the mood setting–ALL OF IT was just amazing. And this is the kind of friendships I WANT to read in romance books! Male friends bonding and being supportive.
While there were some aspects of the novel I wasn’t a fan of (ballet dancer clumsy?) and the whole “let’s start this marriage off right” thing rubbed me the wrong way. Actually that was the part that threw me off the most! Like what? I did not expect that turn of “sex before marriage is bad” coming in in the last 10% of the book and honestly kinda spoiled the book.
Long Story Short
I did like the sweet nature of this book and don’t regret reading it, so I do recommend it. Highly recommend this for when you need a lighthearted read or something just to make you go “aw” many many times. I think if you take it for that then you’re set.
If You Like This One…
I would highly recommend checking out To Sir, With Love by Lauren Layne as it is another very clean romance and just as adorable! Another good one if you want a clean romance but make it historical would be The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews–it’s SO good and layered. Or if you want a steamier friends-to-lovers book I recommend People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry!
Born and raised in Nashville TN, Sarah Adams loves her family, warm days, and making people smile.
Sarah has dreamed of being a writer since she was a girl, but finally wrote her first novel when her daughters were napping and she no longer had any excuses to put it off.
Sarah is a coffee addict, a British history nerd, a mom of two daughters, married to her best friend, and an indecisive introvert. Her hope is to always write stories that make you laugh, maybe even cry; but always leave you happier than when you started reading.
