thanks to netgalley for the arc

unfortunately, i did not like this at all. it was a very obvious taylor swift x matty healy fanfiction! ("until you" the tiktok hit??? max harcourt m.h. inituals???) and the whole thing was cringe at best. maybe let's stick to original plots and stories when we are publishing books instead of posting them on ao3

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an eARC of this book.

I really wanted to love this book, it was a second chance romance and was 'for the swifties' but it really just felt a bit "bleh'. Max and Riley's relationship fell flat to me. Their internal monologues dragged and I just felt myself getting bored throughout. While I did finish this, there was nothing in particular that gripped me or will have a lasting impression on me, unfortunately.

I only had to see Taylor Swift on the front of the book and I was sold.

Riley is a promising singer-songwriter who became a sensation overnight due to her new album of breakup songs. One of which is inspired by the college sweetheart. She's newly divorced and fed up of her ex husband taking the limelight for her newest hit, she heads back to see Max and sparks start to fly!

This book is:

- Duel POV
- Second chance romance
- Country singer
- Shes newly divorced

I found this book much easier to read in the 2nd half, I felt it flowed more in that part. The first part was building the story and giving background.

I didn't fly through this book as quick as my typical reads but I still liked the book.

I struggled a little with reading the arc. Some one the letters were missing from words which I had to fill in myself. Also the numbers on each line became a little distracting.

I’ve loved Emily and Austin’s other books, so I was really excited to read this, especially as I’m also a big Taylor Swift fan. The premise was great and really engaging, but I struggled at times - I think the point was to make the language very lyrical (both characters are musical and write songs), but sometimes that just threw me out of the moment and felt a bit too flowery. I’d have loved to see a few more moments of Riley and Max in the present day, just clicking and bantering, because I think that would have made me root for them in the present as well as just their pasts. But all in all, a fun, engaging read, and I loved the musical setting and clever inspirations, which felt quite original.

I really enjoyed this one. I love me some Taylor Swift and this book gave me the feeling it promised when I read the synopsis. Might or might not have cried a few times reading this. I honestly expected this to not be a happy ending because of the third act breakup and I'm never been more glad to be wrong.

If you take away that this story is meant to be a love letter to Taylor Swift, then this is an interesting romance with some really fun moments. I did like the main characters but only in certain situations that they found themselves in, and for me I need more in a romance book.

GAH. No one is more shocked than me that I didn’t love this! A romance book inspired by Taylor Swift? Hellooooo perfection. This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, but agh, I gotta keep it honest and I just feel it missed the mark. The writing is truly beautiful in places and I had high expectations based on that to begin with, but the plot was going nowhere fast; by the time I’d gotten to 30% through they’d only had a few conversations and agreed (very quickly) to tour together, nothing else had reaaaaally happened. Riley had some beautiful quotes about her relationship with music, but it was starting to feel repetitive and like she was a caricature of a musician. Despite some reflections on the MMC and FMC’s past together, I felt there was utterly no chemistry between them. Max was super under-developed as a character too, I didn’t get much of a grasp of the kind of person he is outside of his career aspirations. I DNF’d this one halfway unfortunately because I just stopped enjoying it!

This book is sold as a love letter to Taylor Swift but if you told me the authors hated Taylor with every fibre of their being, I would fully believe you. Both Riley and Max are one dimensional characters with nothing to cheer about. There was also no romance in this, a romance book. Hugely disappointing.

These authors have been on my auto-buy list for years from when they first started writing YA. And obviously when I saw the chance to read and review their new adult romance book, I was all in. But I found I didn’t love this one as I’ve loved their other books. The premises of the book was everything for me. Romance + Music = perfection. However, not in this case.

I found it really hard to see the chemistry between the two leads. We don’t get that much of an insight into their relationship and then they come back together and fall in love after a few sex scenes. I also couldn’t get my head around a person who only does things to get a good song out of it. I’m no artist, but surely there are healthier coping mechanisms.

I wanted to love the relationship between Max and Riley but it just all felt very two dimensional, the whole world lot did to be honest. I’ll still read the authors books, but this one was a let down for me.

Everything in me wanted to hate this book. The whole second chance romance / rock star who is scared of love kind of vibe felt old. But I LOVED it! It has all the feels: happiness, hope, sadness, despair, some more hope, some more sadness, anger....and there may even have been a few tears that welled. Think Adele meets Taylor Swift meets Daisy Jones.

I didn’t get on well with The Breakup Tour because I didn’t much like the main characters and didn’t much care what happened to them. I liked the supporting characters better.
I did read to the end and I was interested in how it was going to work between them if they stayed together.
I did like the concept of the story and I enjoyed seeing the complete songs at the end.

I really enjoyed this one, I loved that it was inspired by Taylor swift as she is one of my favourite artists and I really enjoyed the journey I went on with Riley and max in this second chance romance!

🎤second chance romance
🎤dual pov
🎤celebrity romance
🎤collage exes

I will say the formatting of this arc made it really hard to reads at times as there were so many words with letters missing that I had to play a guessing game filling in the blanks, and the first sentence of every chapter had part of it missing as well for some reason, however despite all that I really enjoyed the story!

It's clearly a Taylor Swift fanfic but not in a good way. Swifties wasn't going through the trenches explaining that TS songs aren't just about heartbreak & boys only for certain authors to write a book where the TS-coded heroine struggles to write a whole album about heartbreak & boys.

It was fine I suppose. I expected a lot more because I've also read 'The Roughest Draft' which I really enjoyed, so thought I could trust the authors with this Taylor Swift inspired narrative, of which I thought I would relish in. But I just couldn't connect to the characters or their relationships. I found Riley quite unlikeable and Max quite pathetic. Though I will say their (third?) reunion scene was cute, but entirely unrealistic. The plot was rather dull and completely predictable. The characters lacked authentic depth, and there wasn't enough context - this almost felt like a sequel.

It took me a very long time to read this, that's not to say it wasn't east to do so. I just didn't particularly want to. But if you're looking for a light-hearted palette cleanser and you're a swiftie and not spoilt for choice, you may enjoy this.

As a swiftie, I was obviously very excited to read this book but the truth is no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't like it. The story was dragging but I'd have put up with that. I'd have even been fine with the rather plain MMC but Riley (aka Taylor) is one of the most unlikable characters I've read recently. It feels like the author whilst dedicated the story to swifties and Taylor actually really dislikes (and I was kind here) her because they ended up portraying Riley as a self centred, selfish, manipulative little pop star who uses everybody for her own advantage. I don't know what the intention was, I imagine not this but whatever they tried to do, it didn't work.

You think you have it all! But there is a piece inside of your heart "The One That Got Away" which inspired my new hit song ' Until You' from my new album.

I'm Riley Wynn, a famous pop star and The Queen of Breakup songs and my new album proves it all. However, when writing Until You I didn't expect my ex-husband to claim it was about him and use it for his fame which, left me with no choice but to go back and ask for help from the person who broke my heart the most.

I'm Max Harcourt, I run the family retirement house. Music used to be me and Riley's passion we were going to rock the world together until I left her changed my major to Business and I haven't seen her since then and now she's in front of me asking to reveal the true inspiration of her hit song.
A heart-wrenching Poignant love story a second chance romance that will break your heart and mend it a soul-searching journey written in dual POVs about the life that you could have had about a lot of what-if questions. Together Max and Riley while touring will come face to face with so many unanswered questions and feelings that might change the course of their life.

Always manage to write beautiful and emotional love stories and this one is no different.
Loved and highly recommend.
Thanks to @netgalley and the publisher for granting me an ARC of #TheBreakUpTour in exchange for my honest review.
Xoxo 💋

"Every song is a love song if you play it with the right person"

In The Breakup Tour we get to follow singer-songwriter Riley Wynn and former musician Max. The book takes off at a time were she is finishing up her new album, but the last song appears to be extremely difficult as it's about the person she loved most. Even if she hasn't talked to Max in ten years and he clearly moved on to another life, she never forgot about him and when the hit single of the album is the one about him, things take a turn.

What she doesn't know, is that Max hasn't entirely moved on as well. He still loves music a lot - but he likes Riley even more than that. He seems scared to listen to her new album and even more when his sister suggests THE song of the album might be about him. The featured song, the most important one. He’s convinced it could never be about him, but it just might be.

Throughout the book we get to follow the story through the eyes of both Riley and Max. Max thinks Riley is a master manipulator and only falling in and out of love for the sake of her career, while Riley is actually learning that she deserves to be loved for who she is and not what she does. When Max joins Riley on tour to play that one song, they decide to give their love a second chance.

The second chance romance is really well thought out and feels very real. The fact that both main characters are quite flawed, makes it feel realistic and the struggles they go through are quite relatable. Max is deciding between a career in music and the facility center, but it gets clearer towards the end that he's just trying to decide if he should follow his head or his heart.

The book is very fluently written and I had a hard time putting it down. As a reader, you get so invested in the love story and even though both Riley and Max aren't always the most likable characters, you start caring for them. The only criticism I might have is that four months between recording the album and a stadium tour is quite short - I mean it isn't impossible but as it's clearly established that The Breakup Album is the breakthrough album it feels a bit short. Next to that the issues in Harcourt Homes seem to have vanished like snow before the sun, which is great for them, but I wonder if it wasn't too fast.

The end scene is the cutest thing ever and it feels like watching a movie in slow motion. I was rooting so hard for Max and Riley and even tho' there is no way on earth he could have made his way through a 80K capacity stadium, it was very very swoon-worthy. Also very big up for adding the lyrics to the most important songs in the back. Could some band please release them?

I wanted to love this but I spent a large part of the book just wanting to shout at max and Riley to just get together already, and stay together!! It’s often the way that we know the likely ending of novels of this genre but I don’t usually find them as frustrating- which is odd because I really liked Riley’s character. So friendly and warm, not diva ish. Max was cute and endearing, their family were lovely too. Just something about it made me feel frustrated rather than loving the “chase”.

As an aside this copy also was missing basically every “tt” and “th” and “ft” which doesn’t make it very easy to read- so maybe that coloured my opinion!

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. Celebrity, second chance romance - sounds like a winner. Unfortunately, this did not float my boat.

I was disappointed with the story. I did not connect with the main characters whatsoever and I didn't see the connection between them. I couldn't pinpoint why until about halfway through the story. Majority of the story takes place using inner dialogue. Riley and Max hardly have proper conversations with each other. I felt like they communicated in riddles or long-lasting looks and then the inner dialogue would explain to the reader what was going on. I don't know if this was meant to create angst but it didn't and ultimately left me feeling disconnected from them and their story.

I did not like the make up after the third act conflict. Yes, the scene was cute but why on earth was Max chasing Riley? She has just as much baggage yet he is the one who has to go after her each time. She may have had her ah-ha moment (to put it loosely) but she never actually takes accountability for her part in their break-up. It was too Hallmark for me and lacked the depth that I love in second chance romances because of the history that couples already have.

If you are a fan of a certain blonde-haired singer whose name rhymes with Schmaylor Schmwift, then you're gonna love reading The Breakup Tour . This book is laden with references and easter eggs. There's just something about Wibbroka's writing that just hits differently; it always ends up making me feel kind of emotional.

Riley Winn is a successful singer-songwriter who writes songs about her breakups. When her ex-husband claims she wrote her most successful song about him, she is forced to call up Max, the person it is actually about. And as they perform across the country together, their past and their feelings are (obviously) brought up. There is intense passion between the two, burdened by their break-up and the pressure of performing for the crowd. Wibbroka successfully make you feel for the two and their relationship; and make you root for them really easily. Trust me, there was nothing more I wanted while reading, than for Riley and Max to be together again.

All in All, The Breakup Tour was a really great read, quite reminiscent of certain things that have happened in real life, but obviously fictionalised. And if you are someone who gets emotional easily over romance in books, then this is a book that you should definitely try.