If there is one book I’ve seen on multiple blogs multiple times, it’s The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams. I actually never paid attention to the bok itsself, I never looked it up. When I found the audiobook on Storytel, it immediately rang a bell and I saved it to my shelf on there. Now I was in the mood for yet another romance and I started to listen, without knowing anything about it. No, I didn’t even read the blurb. Did this work for me?

About the book

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams
Series: The Cheat Sheet #1
Published by Dell on April 26, 2022
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780593500767
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Is it ever too late to leave the friend zone? Discover the heartwarming friends to lovers romance that became a sensation on TikTok—now with a new chapter and a Q&A with the author!

The friend zone is not the end zone for Bree Camden, who is helplessly in love with her longtime best friend and extremely hot NFL legend, Nathan Donelson. The only problem is that she can’t admit her true feelings, because he clearly sees her as a best friend with no romantic potential, and the last thing Bree wants is to ruin their relationship. But those abs . . .

Nope! Nothing but good old-fashioned, no-touching-the-sexiest-man-alive, platonic friendship for Bree. In any case, she has other things to worry about. After a car accident ended her chance at becoming a professional ballerina, Bree changed paths and now owns her own dance studio, with big dreams to expand it. But one more rent increase could mean the end of the studio entirely.

Then, as usual, Nathan comes to the rescue and buys the entire building. A stubborn Bree is not happy about it and decides to rebel with a couple—okay, maybe more than a couple—of tequila shots. Then her plan backfires as she spills her deepest, darkest secret to a TMZ reporter. One viral video later, the world thinks Nathan and Bree are the perfect couple. Before they can really talk about her confession, Nathan’s publicist proposes a big opportunity that could mean financial security for Bree. The catch? They have to pretend to be in love. For three whole weeks.

What will happen when Bree gives in to the feelings she’s been desperately hiding for so long, and could she be imagining that Nathan is actually enjoying it? Sarah Adams scores more than touchdowns in this exciting romantic comedy.

My review

One thing about not knowing what the story is about, is that you are unable to set yourself any expectations. However, this book was really popular on for instance BookTok, and also receives praise on the blogs I’ve seen it on. It’s mentioned a lot on Top Ten Tuesday posts and that says a lot to me. Well, I dove into this story blindly and I loved it.

We follow Bree and Nathan. Bree persued a carreer as a professional ballerina, while Nathan is the quarterback on his football team and is playing in the NFL. Bree and Nathan met in high school on the runners track and they started running together. They have been best friends ever since. Circumstances leave them out of touch for six whole years however. When they run into eachother again, their friendship picked up right where it left off. However, there’s more to it than they both will admit. When one drunken mistake leads to them needing to act like a couple in public for three weeks, both Bree and Nathan are afraid of the damage this could do to their friendship. Are best friends doomed to stay best friends, even though they are definitely attracted to one another?

I really enjoyed this book! I never expected it, because this was such a blind date with a book for me, but it worked really well. Both Bree and Nathan are passionate about their carreers: Bree owns a ballet studio and wants to make ballet classes accessible for everyone, even the people who barely can afford it. Nathan wants to win the Superbowl this year. Both have an enormous drive and focus to make this work, meanwhile maintaining a friendship. Well, their friendship seems really low maintenance, they always seem to make time for one another and that really works well. However, they are declining that there’s more, it’s very obvious to the reader that they like one another much more than friends actually should do. There’s literally nothing much else to say about Bree and Nathan, they are quite sweet characters without having much issues. All characters are so close and friendly with one another that this is just your comfort and sweet read.

This book being just a sweet read leaves no room for any angst or tension. I always like to have some angst in romances, because I mainly read oposites attract or enemies to lovers. Best friends to lovrs is new for me and it’s such refreshing. I therefore see this book as a nice pallette cleanser. The plot is really thin, but that’s nothing bad in this story which obviously is meant as a comfort read. It’s writtten well and the multiple POV narration works brilliantly too. It makes it even more obvious that there’s mmore to Bree and Nathan than them being best friends.

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams is a nice, unexpected surprise. We already know that it’s a best friends to lovers novel and that’s something refreshing for me. I mainly read enemies to lovers, so this is very low stakes. The plot is barely existent, but it works here. The writing is fine and easy flooding. I just barely wasn’t able to put the book down and I loved it. The only thing I didn’t love however, was the narrration of the audiobook. The male narrator was fine, but the female narrator wasn’t. I just couldn’t do it any longer and switched to the ebook. I will definitely be reading The Rule Book, the companion novel to this one!