I think this book was okay, but I did not like it as much as I hoped I would. The idea of having meet-cutes was a fun concept, but I think that it fell flat because of the way Frankie, the main character, went about it. I was expecting this to be a light, cute rom-com and while it was both light and cute, especially when they go to Hawaii because who doesn't love a tropical vacation story, there was not much romance. I think that the characters are not fully developed, which leads to a romantic plot that I could not get invested in. I wanted to love Frankie and Max, but we just get them at surface level and it makes it difficult to root for them. I don't think their connection was strong and their romance felt rushed, which led me to not care whether they worked through things and ended up together. Since the characters and the romantic connection weren't well developed, I found myself losing interest towards the end of the book. This book was a quick, light read that I could see as perfect for a summer beach day, but because I found the romance and characters lacking it just wasn't for me. Overall I'd say it's a 2.5/5.

I’ve really enjoyed Portia Macintosh’s rom-com novels, but this one didn’t measure up. Maybe it was because the heroine seemed rather unlikeable. She’s a writer for a woman’s magazine and assigned to write stories for single women trying to find love. Her editor pushes her to write a story about meeting guys “normally,” by not using an app, but trying all sorts of “meet-cute” methods. Everything she tries goes terribly wrong. There doesn’t seem to be any awareness that she’s trying to meet guys under false pretenses and then planning to write about the experience. It just seems so manipulative and dishonest. Then she meets a perfect guy, and he’s attracted to her, but he seems deserving of a better love interest than a woman who lies to men and then writes about them. OF course, she’s also misleading him about why she’s spending time with him on a dream vacation and it all seems too unbelievable. I am happy to suspend disbelief, but not for a heroine whom I don’t really like all that much.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

Hilarious, witty and charming. A proper belly laugh experience.

Frankie George doesn’t believe in love yet she is tasked with trialling and writing about the old fashioned meet cute method. From stolen dogs and books to being ignored by the side of the road Frankie couldn’t be further from her meet cute if she tried… until she’s whisked off to Hawaii for a complimentary holiday with her new friend Max. Frankie is torn between not being fired and her actual meet cute.

I absolutely adore Frankie. She is one of the most relatable characters I’ve met in some time. She’s the kind of person I’d love to have cocktails with. I love how the story plays out in Hawaii. Max is sweet and charming but also somehow relatable and easy going too.

You absolutely must read this book with a large cocktail in hand preferably on a beach.

🏖Light, whimsical: if at first she doesn't succeed...?💘

4-4.5🌟 stars
Yes, this story floats way past the bounds of reality in a Cinderella fashion, but I enjoyed it, particularly heroine Frankie's fantastic fails in her meet cute assignment for a terrifying new boss. It's got plenty of good, amusing flops as she tries to research an article for her love and dating section of a British women's magazine and gets into scrape after scrape, including acquiring a dog that should have only existed in her imagination and being publicly outed for hitting on a guy (very much attached, thank you very much) at his son's birthday party. The action is split between London and Maui, with a smidgen of Los Angeles thrown in.

The romance that comes at Frankie from left field is, if she just focused on its development, what tropes are made of, big-time! The guy is perfect for her but is she really looking for or ready for love after making a study of self sabotaging her potential love life?

This was an easy read with situational dilemmas but minimal angst and would be great as a beach read, right down to the lovely, cozy ending.

Thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

Reading The Meet Cute Method by Portia MacIntosh reminded me of drinking several Mai Tai’s in a row—it seems like a great idea until the sugar and liquor catches up to you and, instead of cheerfully tipsy, you find yourself vaguely sick. MacIntosh’s story is a laid back romance that nourishes readers who want to escape but whose main character (and sadly the sole first person POV) continuously gave me the dreaded ick.

So what is this story about? Thirty-four year old Frankie George is feeling the pressure as the sole Love & Dating writer at Stylife, a women’s magazine based in London. A new editor is brought in to clean house, and desperate to keep her job, Frankie pitches using meet cutes straight out of the movies to find love instead of swiping endlessly on Matcher. While she attempts different meet cutes, Frankie meets Max Ray, a tech reviewer who works in the same building as her. Their friendship grows, and during a lunch conversation about how overworked she feels, Max offers her a free trip to Hawaii. It sounds too good to be true—and it is. Frankie arrives in Maui to find that Max, who she met only a week ago, has told his family that she’s his fiancee. Told in not so many words by her boss to focus her article on this wild twist or be fired, Frankie must decide whether to let her practical need for her job outweigh the growing desire she has to turn their fake engagement into a real relationship with Max.

From the bat, the thing I noticed most about The Meet Cute Method is that its characters are flat and cliche. Frankie, who should be the most dynamic and compelling of the cast, reads as whiny, listless, and suffering from the worst case of Not-Like-Other-Girls Syndrome. Having unhappily worked at Stylife for a decade in the same position, the reasons Frankie gives for wanting to stay seem more like excuses to not try. (SPOILER: Somehow, mystically, in the last 20-30% of the book, Frankie is admitting suddenly how her dream job is a copy editor. Her ambitions come out only after she starts coming up with ways to not write the article for Addison. END SPOILER.) Max, the rich boy with a sad history and messed up family dynamics, is equally boring and cliche. He fits perfectly in with bland Nice Guy book boyfriends, but his actions are so unrealistic that he’d fit in better as a Ken doll. He acts only to react, with even his worst moments being so perfectly understandable that Frankie forgives him fast. Side characters, from Frankie’s boss Addison and work bestie Cora to Max’s entire close family and playboy uncle serve only as a means to an end without any personality to share between the lot of them.

In a twist I did not see coming, it is Frankie’s meet cutes themselves that ended up proving the most realistic component of the story. Frankie goes through numerous meet cutes of varying degrees, though all sort of stem under damsel-in-distress. Her car breaks down and she needs auto help. She “loses” a book with her phone number in it on the bus. Her keyboard gets drenched. She’s left without her wallet at the hotel bar. And, my favorite of the batch, Frankie is “struggling” in four foot deep water and needs the life guard to save her. Unluckily for her article, each meet cute is thwarted by reality— a group of women stop to help her instead of men; her fellow commuter just keeps the book; tech support is too busy for her flirting; drinks are complimentary; she just needs to stand up. Luckily for me, these delightful failures are so authentic as to what would likely happen if a reader tried to replicate them that I found myself smiling at each new plan. There are meet cutes I think Frankie missed out on that would work without being damsel in distress (same coffee order as a stranger and going for the same cup, as an example) but overall they were my favorite part of the book.

After their third-act breakup, readers and Frankie alike are led to realize that while she has been engineering romance tropes at every turn, it is with Max that they occur naturally. This realization is a complete shock to Frankie and is the catalyst she needs to quit her job at Stylife, but any romance fan would see the signs in glowing neon. I mean, they literally meet in a stuck elevator the first time and the second is when she spills a drink on him! Those situations are classics yet could not save this book. Perhaps Frankie’s rampant cynicism rubbed off on me from the first portions of the book, but I find myself doubting Frankie and Max would last anywhere outside of their so-many hundred pages story, the ultimate strike I have against a romance.

At the end of the day, I feel the best romance novels are those that manage to make the unbelievable situations feel authentic to readers. That connection just never happened for me with The Meet Cute Method. I wouldn’t regret picking this book up if I found it at a library, as I did get some kicks out of reading it. I just cannot feel justified in spending money on a copy of it going forward.

Rating: ⭐️.75/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: .5/🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 (There is set up for a steamy scene that fades to black.)

**I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

If you are a fan of funny, heartwarming love stories with plenty of laugh out loud moments you need to read books by Portia.

This book was so funny, I had plenty of moments that really set me into a fit of giggles. I could picture Frankie with some of her cringeworthy situations that she managed to get herself into - the blue tongue being one of them.

Portia does it again with another brilliant story that I flew through in a day. I loved Frankie and am excited to read more of Portias books
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the ARC!

When I first read the blurb, I was sure that I would be enjoying this book. The story started great but eventually got confusing with so many male characters.
The thing that frustrated me a lot was how desperately Frankie wanted a meet-cute to happen, even in her worst state. Every time she met someone she was like 'is this a meet cute?'
I was pissed at all the characters and their overacting was too much for me to handle. I do agree that there were some cheesy and laugh-out or oops moments but overall this book just didn't hit me the way I wanted it to.
This was my first Portia MacIntosh book and I didn't enjoy it fully. Still, looking forward to more of her rom-coms.

Perfect summer fluffy beach read! I mean wouldn’t we all love to meet a highly rich, kind and lovely man to whisk us off to Hawaii??!!! Brilliant book for the beach or just an afternoon with a drink, snacks and a comfy sofa, pure escapism and I loved it!
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy

What a lovely cute romance I read it in one sitting and I was hooked on the story throughout! Thank you to the author, the publisher and to netgalley For the chance to read this title early!

I enjoyed The Meet Cute Method soooo much!
This book checks off every romance trope in a cute, fun, hilarious and sexy way. To me, this is exactly the book we all need to read in order to simply feel carefree and to see the world through heart shaped lenses.
I loved how easily I could relate with its protagonist: she is my age, her favourite romantic movies are my favourite romantic movies (that means her favourite love stories are sad as hell) and, although she is cynic when it comes to love, she is also basically secretely waiting for her chance to find a good job, a nicer place to live, a ton of disposable income and a smoking hot boyfriend who also happens to be the love of her life. ( mean... is it too much to ask?!
I am telling you... if you want to have a great time, go read this book!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

It’s impossible to give a high rating to a book that includes the word yeeted. I thought this was a decent rom com read until that popped up. Bleh. Please consider editing that out.

I was in the mood for a cute romance read and after reading the blurb of The Meet Cute Method I had really high hopes it would hit the mark for me. There were definitely things that did work very well, but there were also elements that bothered me... Resulting in a story that wasn't exactly bad, but it didn't manage to blow me away either. Fans of the genre might have better luck with this one though! I'll try to explain briefly what did and didn't work for me personally.

First of all, I really like the idea behind this story with the main character being a journalist writing for a lifestyle magazine focusing on relationships and romance. I had a lot of fun reading about her disastrous attempts at forcing a meet cute with someone; I mean, they ARE very cliche, but very entertaining to read about either way. I did feel that things started to become weaker once Max is more firmly in the picture... A lot of this feeling has to do with all the lies both Frankie and Max keep telling, and also with the fact that Frankie has so many opportunities to tell about her situation, but never does so. The whole cheating and love triangle vibe didn't really help either...

What I did love was the Hawaii setting and its descriptions. It does sound like a dream location, and it's the perfect backdrop for this story. I do wish the characters themselves would have been developed more thoroughly though. The majority of them felt rather one-dimensional and Max's family is VERY hard to like (especially the brother and uncle). There were also a lot of cliches involved, and the ending felt a little too convenient and rushed for me... The chemistry between Frankie and Max could have been developed better as well.

As a whole, there were things that worked for me and elements that made me enjoy the story less than expected. It's not a bad read and I might just not have been in the right mood for it... If you are looking for an easy romance read and don't mind less developed characters and cliches, The Meet Cute Method might just be a winner for you. The Hawaii setting is a bonus!

I really enjoyed this book, and didn’t want to put it down. Our heroine is on a mission to keep her job, and has a specific task to enable her to do so, yet our hero inadvertently throws a spanner in the works, and our heroine needs to decide what she really wants in life. Would recommend

Why are there so many stories where the brother marries his brothers ex? This part I mostly do not enjoy. A really enjoyable book but not the best main character. There are many sides of Frankie I'm not the biggest fan of. Liked the book though.

Thank you netgallary for the aARC of this book.
The cover of this book really drew me to it. Who does want to be there?
Frankie is a 30 something non believer of true love. But then again maybe it does happen like the movies after all. Perfect summer read to Wisk you away.

This effervescent romance with an appealing quirky main character who gets into ridiculous situations puts the comedy in romantic comedy. The events that ensue when Frankie sets up her meet-cutes just keep getting more disastrous as the story progresses like a classic 90's rom com starring Sandra Bullock or Goldie Hawn. The novel embraces the fake fiancée and the millionaire tropes, and the love interest, Max, is a charming character with loveable faults. Add in Frankie's tyrannical boss, who channels Miranda Priestley of The Devil Wears Prada, and Max's rogue uncle Albi, and you have a cast of characters that makes for a lot of wacky fun. Readers who enjoy humorous light romances will find The Meet Cute Method an entertaining read.

Loved this! Frankie is such a likeable main character - really down to earth and willing to make herself look like an idiot for a fun article. I have to admit, I found the first third of the book a little bit dull - I couldn’t see where it was going and had started to get a little bored of the office setting. Without ruining the story, I loved the rest of the book! I wish there had been more family events written about for the Ray family - I felt like he was perhaps missing a sister / best friend figure in the book for frankie to bond with but it was really fun to read about the rest of the family. Overall? I’d have to say the second half of the book is definitely a fun summer story - but I’d worry about recommending it to friends or family as the first third or so will put a few people off reading the whole book.

"Wow. I thought I was bad at meeting men the modern way. It turns out I’m crap at the old-fashioned way too."

I definitely did not expect deliberate-meet-cutes-gone-wrong to be this hilarious! It’s not that they just simply go wrong. Instead, they go in various directions of how-did-that-happen shocks and then go terribly wrong. Frankie George, the curator of these meet cutes and our protagonist, has lost all hope of finding love. This has made her blind to all the actual happenings in her life involving an amazing guy. Through the story, Frankie and Max, get it all wrong and then find their way back to each other.

From a gloomy summer in London to bright sunshine days in Maui, this was equal parts funny and totally crazy, with a dash of please-realise-you-love-him-already. It also gives a peek into exactly how crazy rich the rich can be and how out of place a non-rich person can be in such places. The good thing about this mash-up of tropes was that when things came crashing down, the band-aid was taken off in one go so that things could begin afresh again in the correct order.

Thank you @bookandtonic and @netgalley for my complimentary advance copy. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This was super adorable! I loved the dynamics between the main characters, it felt authentic and realistic, despite the themes within this book about unrealistic expectations and the importance of non-romanticized love, especially romantic love. If you love realistic rom-coms, you should definitely read this!

I like the story line of the book and the fact that you try and do these meet cutes in real life and not all of them work out and I also like that it's not about a 20 year old which is refreshing all in all it was a fun read