The Breakup Tour — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Emily Wibberley & Austin Siegemund Broka
Published Year: 2024
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 352

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this novel.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): A rising-star musician has a second chance at love with an old flame she remembers all too well in this swoony romance from the acclaimed authors of The Roughest Draft .

Riley Wynn went from a promising singer-songwriter to a superstar overnight, thanks to her breakup song concept album and its unforgettable lead single. When Riley’s ex-husband claims the hit song is about him, she does something she hasn’t in ten years and calls Max Harcourt, her college boyfriend and the real inspiration for the song of the summer.

Max hasn’t spoken to Riley since their relationship ended. He’s content with managing the retirement home his family owns, but it’s not the life he dreamed of filled with music. When Riley asks him to go public as her songwriting muse, he agrees on one he’ll join her in her band on tour.

As they perform across the country, Max and Riley start to realize that while they hit some wrong notes in the past, their future could hold incredible things. And their rekindled relationship will either last forever or go down in flames.

First Impressions

I love Wibberley/Siegemund-Broka and I love Taylor Swift. I knew immediately I wanted to get my hands on this book. The cover is cute, if not a little on the immature side for my tastes. I still would’ve picked it up off the shelf based off the cover alone.

What I thought

I first read this duo with their YA debut. I loved the first two YAs they wrote, then the next two fell to 3 stars. They then switched to Adult books, and similarly, I have loved their first two that they’ve written. This one, however, it their lowest rating for me yet.

Riley Winn has recently his super popstardom with her recent album, The Breakup Album. Eleven breakup songs written about each one of her exes. She also recently got divorced from a jerk actor who is trying to claim her hit song is about him, while it’s actually about her college sweetheart. Max has been working at the nursing home his parents own, when his ex shoots to fame. He hasn’t listened to her album until she shows up and asks him to announce the song is really about him. Instead, he decides he wants to find out if he made a mistake giving up music, and asks to play piano for her on tour.

I hit about 75% of this book and just couldn’t keep going. I skimmed the last 25% which says eek. Riley is extremely unlikeable and Max is just whiney. This is supposed to be a second chance romance, which to be fair is not my favorite, but we don’t get enough of their history to understand why they work together. I dislike second chance romances because I often feel like they just have the people get back together without truly working on the issues that broke them up in the first place. This book does exactly that.

Riley pretty much moans the entire tour that she only knows how to write break up songs and therefore she can never find love because she’s broken and needs to keep her success. Yet she’s still obsessed with being successful and only wants to focus on her career. Max on the other hand, has zero idea what he wants in life. He is wandering through life completely unsure of anything except for the fact that he’s attracted to Riley. But again, that seems to be all there is??

The character development is poor. The drama is repetitive. The book is too long. I honestly don’t know if I could find anything positive to say other than the first 50% was relatively entertaining. But it lost me after that because it just continued with Riley moaning about her ex and wondering whether anyone would love her for who she really is.