The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon: STEM, Friendship, and Self-Discovery

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon
Published: June 9th, 2020
Publisher: Forever
# of pages: 386
Tropes: Office romance, friends to lovers
Heat level: 🔥🔥 - 🔥🔥🔥
My rating: 3.5 stars
Acquired this book: From the publisher in exchange for honest consideration
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Buy: Amazon Canada || Amazon US || Indigo

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?

The Boyfriend Project has been on my radar for most of 2020, and I was so excited to finally read it. What I liked best about this book was the heroine, Samiah. She’s the type of woman I’d love to be friends with - smart, funny, driven, independent. I’m so glad to see more and more books featuring women in STEM, and I especially loved seeing a Black woman in the technology field, which is still a male-dominated field. I appreciated learning about the challenges and roadblocks women - especially women of colour - face in that field. Samiah continually had to prove herself, stay on top of everything, and excel in her field to get the attention and respect that was given to other people, especially men, so freely.

My other favourite part of the book was the friendship between Samiah, London, and Taylor. I swear I wanted to applaud when the women all came together after realizing they’d been catfished by the same guy. The typical reaction you see in most books, TV shows, and movies is for the women to turn on and blame each other. Not here. It was so refreshing, and I loved the instant camaraderie and connection between the ladies, despite the strange circumstances of their meeting. I also really appreciated how they made a pact to work on themselves before getting back into the dating world. Of course, Samiah met Daniel a hot minute later, but it worked in this case. So often you see a woman saying she wants to work on herself without a man in her life and then in the next minute she meets a guy and her life becomes about him. That wasn’t the case here. Samiah kept her weekly dates with her friends, she continued to work toward her goals, and, with Daniel, she got to do some of the things she loved doing but didn’t have anyone to do them with. I loved this quote: “He made her feel bold and playful and so many other delicious things. When was the last time she'd felt so carefree, so content? Samiah was falling in love with the person she was when she was with him."

What stopped me from loving this book was how drawn out it felt. There was a LOT of detail, especially about the tech stuff - yay for Samiah being a total boss, but all of that stuff is mostly over my head and had my mind wandering. There was also a lot of inner dialogue and a lot of repetition about why they shouldn’t be together, work stuff, and how Daniel was lying to Samiah. I also kind of wish there’d been more to the relationships. I felt this weird mix of wanting the book to be shorter because there were parts that didn’t hold my interest, while wanting MORE - more of the female friendships, more of the relationship between Samiah and Daniel, and more to the ending.

Overall I enjoyed The Boyfriend Project and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to romance fans. The tease at the end hinted there’s another book to come and which of the friend group it would be about, and I’m looking forward to returning to Austin with these characters.

Have you read The Boyfriend Project? Have you read any books recently featuring women in STEM? How about any great friendship books?

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