Falling Off Script: Contemporary Enemies-to-Lovers Romcom

by Bonnie Charming

Two rival dating coaches. One viral feud. Zero chance of keeping it professional.

Emily Parrish helps women avoid alphaholes. Adrian Zayne teaches men how to become them.

When a feminist podcaster publicly roasts a toxic masculinity guru, she doesn’t expect to go viral—let alone spark internet theories and a betting pool. As their feud spirals into live debates, fan-made videos, and one very incriminating dream journal, their clients start falling for each other across enemy lines.

Is it all just content… or are Emily and Adrian about to go completely off script?

Falling Off Script tells the origin story of Matchbox—the modern dating agency where The Matchmaker Files series begins. This snarky romantic comedy features slow-burn romance, witty banter, and a happy-for-now ending. Perfectly satisfying as a standalone.

Tropes &
- Enemies to Lovers
- Opposites Attract
- Dual POV
- Heat 2/5 (Fade to Black)

Buy today before the price changes!

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 12, 2025

Reviews

[Ninja · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a great book. I enjoyed every second of it.
Emily and Adrian were both funny and cute.
I knew they would end up together but I still enjoyed reading it as it happened.
I will be reading book 2 to see how the match making goes. I can already read the wit and sarcasm from both of them.

If you are looking for cute and sarcastic individuals that come together with some comedy look no further

I got this by being on the arc team and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Bonnie keep it up, this book was good.

@Bonniecharming

[Miss R · Rating 1 out of 5]

Allow me to preface my review by saying that I am heavily anti-spoiler when it comes to reviews. I take great pride, actually, in giving thorough, in-depth reviews of books with zero spoilers. However, this review may be the exception, because I genuinely don't know how I can possibly write this review & not give away any spoilers. I took over fifty notes of my thoughts throughout reading this book, & it just became progressively worse from start to finish. I've read some bad books in my day, but this one? Wow.

In my best attempt to summarize my review, just know this: "Falling Off Script" is a poorly written, poorly developed book. The summary isn't even accurate: "rival dating coaches", "feminist podcaster" & "toxic masculinity guru" does NOT accurately represent the story in any way, shape or form. The characters are underdeveloped with personalities that are minimal to nonexistent. The ideology of both main characters, Emily & Adrian, is so ridiculous that I cannot fathom a single living soul who could possibly see anything either of them believed to be true or accurate. Emily has the logic of a tin can while Adrian has the emotional stability of rotting garbage. Emily & Adrian have little to no contact throughout the entire book, but we're supposed to believe they fell in love? I didn't buy it for a second. Any interactions they do have are antagonistic at best, there is zero development of any possibility of love & a real, lasting relationship whatsoever. In fact, I genuinely hoped they did not get a happy ending because I detest these two characters so much. I wouldn't even call that ending a "happy ending". It left me with more questions that I had zero desire to answer. I found myself, actually, rooting for two minor side characters but even that fizzled out & found I could not care less about this book or any of the characters within. There's a way to do "enemies to lovers rom-com" style books & this was not even remotely in the ballpark of being close to such a story. I, personally, found all the talk of sex to be grossly off-putting. When I'm reading a "clean story", I have zero desire to hear about a character's sex life, fantasies or sex dreams, no matter how "closed door" it claims to be. Also, for a "clean story", it had some pretty vulgar language, cursing throughout that I had not anticipated & got annoyed with really quickly.

Now, for those of you interested in my in-depth exposé of everything, in my opinion, that's wrong with this book, let's begin.


I will say, I am not a feminist by any stretch of the word. I am an old-fashioned, traditional-minded woman. When I read the summary for "Falling Off Script" in my inbox, I was confused, because clearly I'm not the target audience; but, I went into this with an open mind. I figured I can disagree with any feminist topics or whatever & still enjoy a good book & I can enjoy a book where I agree with the man the entire time, except I did not read a good book by any stretch of the imagination nor did I agree with the man as I anticipated doing. I cannot fathom a living soul on this planet legitimately, genuinely believing a single idealogical concept that either of the main characters possess throughout this entire story.

Emily's opening podcast rant, which launches the whole "feud", where she initially goes after Adrian, just sounds petty & immature. You can disagree with someone without sounding like an immature child, she misses the mark. Somehow, this feud launches an online betting pool on if & when Adrian & Emily will hook up. Honestly, Adrian seemed perfectly respectful in the first couple chapters. Don't get me wrong, he was unnecessarily smug, which was annoying, but he wasn't outright gross or rude at that point in the story. Emily, however, was a nightmare from the very beginning. Her best friend, Jessie, doesn't have a job & can't pay her bills, has applied for seventeen different jobs in one week, without ever getting an interview, but she applies to be Adrian's personal assistant so she can, buy groceries & pay her rent, yet Emily calls her "best friend" a sell out & says Adrian won't hire her anyway. What woman would ever be so hateful towards their best friend over something like getting a job so they can pay their bills & buy groceries & generally take care of themselves? It's not like Jessie is putting herself or others in harms way by taking this job as Adrian's personal assistant, so Emily's vitriol at her friend is totally & completely unjustified, in my opinion. You can disagree with your best friend's choices without attacking them for it.

Now, I may disagree with feminists, but that doesn't mean I don't understand the meaning of the words that come out of their mouth; however, with Emily I often found myself thinking "What on earth are you even talking about?" Her ideology, which honestly you don't see much of throughout the book unless she's ranting against Adrian like a petty teenager or "coaching" Rachel, a secondary character, but whenever Emily's beliefs did come up in the story it usually made zero logical sense. Again, I may disagree with feminism, but I'm perfectly capable of understanding the words they say. So when Emily connects the dots that Rachel is dating one of Adrian's "students", Matt, she has this little internal paragraph of how Emily has worked with Rachel to "unlearn every internalized rule about being chosen, about being palatable, about playing small" & "watching her [Rachel] step into power she didn't know she had". That logistically makes zero sense. I am a woman & never in my life have I felt like I've had to downplay my womanhood for the sake of others. Truthfully, that "unlearn internalized rules" sounds more like a trauma response than anything else.

Speaking of trauma responses, let's chat about Adrian for a bit. Because I spent 99% of the book wondering "Adrian, who hurt you? What made you behave this way?", other than the author purposely writing him this way, I figured there would be some kind of backstory to his behavior, spoiler alert: there isn't. I, truly, cannot fathom anyone legitimately believing that masculine men are out here to "hit it & quit it" via "confidence training" & actively teaching other men to do so through "men's retreats". Look, we live in a fallen world. Plenty of men in this world grew up without a father, or with a bad father. Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable for said men to need a guide, a mentor to teach them how to be a good, upstanding man, an example to live up to. I can only imagine that the writing & development of Adrian's character was driven solely by feminist ideology, & their preconceived notions about men, because all the chapters in his POV, have minimal to nonexistent realistic qualities of men as a general whole. I'm not saying that there are zero men on the planet who act, think or behave the way Adrian does, but as a general whole it is completely unrealistic to believe that a man like Adrian exists & has an insane following of men who view him as some "god of masculinity". The audacity of Adrian to throw around the word "neuroplasticity" to Matt, his student, when Adrian learns that Matt's girlfriend, Rachel, has begun suspecting his authenticity because Matt is just reciting Adrian's lines to her instead of being real & vulnerable with her. Neuroplasticity is a legitimate thing, often associated with therapy called "brain rewiring" or "cognitive behavioral therapy", & the fact that Adrian is trying to associate his "hit it & quit it confidence training" with neuroplasticity really just pissed me off.

Real, authentic, genuine masculine men do not even remotely behave or think the way Adrian does. In no way, shape or form is Adrian what I would classify as a masculine man. I'll give you toxic, but I won't give you masculine. I am a traditional-minded woman & I love masculine men but Adrian ain't it. To further prove my point, why on earth is Adrian surprised that the men taking his confidence training want a real, meaningful relationship with a woman? He is so incapable of giving these guys legitimate advice on how to be good, upstanding men that he excuses himself & locks himself in the bathroom in a panic. Then the scene just ends; no resolution, no internal breakthrough, just panic & end of scene! The men at Adrian's retreat didn't even ask hard questions about women! They were literally the most basic questions I can imagine a man asking about a woman when said men don't have any basis of information on women; examples of these questions: how do I ask a woman questions without sounding insecure, or is meeting her friends a sign of commitment, or is it weird that we both want to take things slow? Ladies, you cannot tell me that you think those are hard questions for a man to answer. Come on, those are basic, easily answered questions!

Furthermore, the lines Adrian has these dudes saying to women are so bad I get second-hand embarrassment for them. Rachel tells Emily that Matt sends her little voice memo messages in the morning. In theory, that is totally sweet. His execution, however, leaves much to be desired. If a man sent me a message saying "Morning, beautiful. Today's intention: you're worthy of pursuit, not performance. I'll be thinking about you... while I conquer my goals." I wouldn't find that endearing, I'd be kind of creeped out. Remember Matt IS performing at this point in the story. That's what Adrian has taught him to do. He doesn't teach men to be real & genuine. He teaches them to put on a persona to get into a woman's panties then hightail it out of there before she realizes "you didn't know who you were". So as Matt starts to flounder in the face of Rachel's skepticism, his inability to be authentic, ends their relationship, which sets Adrian on the war path against Emily for totally unjustifiable reasons. Also, I think it goes without saying that, whether you are a man or woman, do NOT order for someone unless you know implicitly what they want, or they specifically ask you to do so. Matt was faking his confidence so hard that he ordered for himself & Rachel, but he ordered something they both hated & pretended to like for the other's sake.

This actually circles us back to Emily for a bit. So she's "coaching" Rachel, again I don't understand what exactly she's coaching her on because it makes zero logical sense, but I digress. They have a few "sessions" where they discuss Rachel's relationship with Matt & Emily makes perfectly sound, logical statements about his behavior. Basically, Emily tells Rachel that while it's great that Matt is making an effort, that doesn't mean much when he's not being authentic. If Matt is just putting on a front that isn't a relationship, it's a performance, branding, & even if it hurts, walking away doesn't mean you left something good but left something fake, because you deserve to have a man who's being as real with you as you are with him. Literally zero feminism there, straight-up logic. Even my anti-feminist sister agreed when I told her what Emily said. It's those bits of conversation that lead Rachel to end things with Matt & ultimately sends Adrian on an immature petty war path to ruin Emily's life by ambushing the live stream she's doing & exposing this bad date she went on with some loser guy who adores Adrian & everything he stands for. I don't see how or why that makes sense unless you're a completely unhinged individual with zero emotional control, which I believe Adrian fits the bill there.

Now, I haven't mentioned it yet, but Emily sees a therapist. Why is unknown, since she doesn't appear to need one from my point of view; but, we see a couple of short scenes where Emily is in a therapy session complaining about Adrian & how he's begun showing up in her dreams. The therapist recommends Emily record some "dream logs" to help her work through the sex dreams she's having of her "nemesis" & they'll discuss them at her next appointment. Well, after ambushing Emily's live stream, Adrian uses Jessie, remember her best friend is his personal assistant, to play messenger to Emily to help him get Matt & Rachel back together because he feels bad for Matt. Emily semi-agrees & sends some "raw audio files" to Jessie to send to Adrian for review to see if his "get back together" show idea is even plausible. Do you see where this is going? If not, allow me to enlighten you to the moral corruption & disgusting behavior about to enfold.

​Emily mistakenly sends her dream logs to Jessie, who doesn't check the files before sending them to Adrian. He proceeds to listen to all "thirteen files" of her dream logs, which is "over an hour of listening". He even states that he should feel bad & close the folder, tell Jessie there's been a mistake, or even pretend he never opened them, but he doesn't! Then, after listening to all of them, he proceeds to show up at Emily's apartment at "8:12pm" for a booty call. That's right, Adrian totally violated Emily's privacy, intentionally, even after realizing what he was listening to, then showed up on her doorstep to have sex with her. They do, in fact, sleep together. Which was totally & completely bizarre, in my opinion. They have had no development in their "relationship" whatsoever. All interactions have been pretty hostile, but suddenly Adrian is on Emily's doorstep, & she asks zero questions about why he's there just lets him tempt her into bed. It, honestly, read like Emily was under the influence of some kind of substance or actively dreaming from her perspective. It was so weird & so disgusting, even though it was "closed door", the violation of Emily's privacy & Adrian not telling her what he did & showing up like a disgusting pig to use her, because he definitely hit it & quit it, was totally gross. Before he "quit it", he even called it a "game" in his head & that if he stayed it meant he "forgot the rules". He later admits, a few weeks after sleeping with her, to his MOTHER that he couldn't be real with Emily, but he could "give her the fantasy". Dude, you are disgusting & your mother should be ashamed of you. Why is she sitting there acting like your behavior is normal? Is it because she's a therapist, specifically Emily's therapist? Yeah, did you see that one coming, because I did from a mile away. Also, a quick side note: we learn at the beginning of the story that "Adrian" is a stage name, yet his mother never calls him by his given name. She always calls him by his stage name. Why? That makes no sense.

I spent the entirety of the remainder of the book completely disgusted & horrified yet it STILL got worse. We're just going to dive right in, so stick with me here because it's about to get messy. Emily is back in a therapy session after sleeping with Adrian & his subsequent running out on her. She admits to her therapist, remember this is Adrian's mother, though neither of them have made that connection at this point, that she has real feelings for Adrian, which still doesn't make sense since their only non-hostile encounter has been them having sex. This is when Emily learns that she mixed up the files & sent her therapist the feminist rants & her dream logs to Adrian. Emily responds with a simple, "Oh no. And yes, it explains everything." I don't know about y'all, but if I had made a mistake like that, I would not respond in total calm, I would be thinking "so I need to fake my death & go live on a deserted island for the rest of my days". Also, I would be completely HORRIFIED by the level of violation for someone who wasn't supposed to hear said dream logs to have not only listened to them but obviously sought me out just for sex afterwards? BE SO FOR REAL! Still, the worst is yet to come, folks. So Adrian has this media manager named Tyler, a lowlife dude with zero morals, probably why he works for Adrian, let's be honest. Well, guess who finds Emily's dream log files & PUBLISHES them on the internet, so Adrian can go viral & so Tyler can win that bet? Yep, Tyler publishes them AFTER Adrian specifically told him not to. Kind of surprising, but Adrian fires Tyler on the spot when he learns what Tyler did. I'm not about to give brownie points for the one decent thing Adrian did, but I guess this is supposed to show us he has morals buried somewhere deep inside.

The fallout of those leaked files sends Emily into a tailspin, or at least her version of one. She basically secludes herself inside her apartment for weeks on end until she's ready to deal with it, after she gets some encouragement from Rachel. At this point, it's been about three or four weeks since Adrian hooked up with Emily, & he has not spoken to her since leaving her apartment. Jessie, her best friend & Adrian's personal assistant, has also not spoken to her since Emily's logs were leaked online. She just shows up with takeout a month after the fact to check on her/make amends. What kind of best friend isn't, at the very least, considering war crimes after they learn their best friend has been violated & betrayed like that? Emily feels like "the only man who's ever seen me is currently monetizing my public humiliation" & I don't have a clue how she feels like Adrian saw any part of her other than, in the most literal sense, when he slept with her because, again, there is nothing between them. After her meeting with Rachel, Emily puts out a little video to address the leaked audio files & when Adrian sees it, he thinks she's found clarity without him. Dude, why on earth would Emily look to you for anything? You're not even qualified to fix a sandwich, let alone fix her problems or anyone else's.

Next thing we know, Rachel & Matt are both on Emily's video podcast for "couples therapy", which is weird, since earlier Matt told Adrian he didn't want to do a show to win Rachel back because that would just be performing, which is why he lost her to begin with. Anyway, Jessie is co-hosting this therapy thing with Emily & guess who crashes the podcast? Adrian, invited by Jessie to do so in an attempt to win Emily back. I don't know how you win something back that you never had, but it leads us to the epilogue, which is just confusing & leaves me with questions I have no desire to answer.

In the exhausting conclusion of my in-depth exposé, "Falling Off Script" is an extremely poorly written, poorly developed story that I do not recommend to anybody. I went into this book with an open mind, expecting some run-of-the-mill feminist girl-boss empowerment stuff, instead I found a garbage fire of a horribly written story with a woman who's petty & immature along with an extremely toxic man who can NOT & should NOT be used as an example in any way, shape or form of what a REAL masculine man is or represents.

[Michelle L. E. Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a funny, quick enemies to lovers romcom. Best parts were definitely the witty dialogue and the quirky world of social media influencers. Loved the side characters, and truly enjoyed the pace. My only critique (and it’s my problem, not the story’s!) was that I kept feeling like literally everyone was younger and cooler than any circles I run into in real life!

[Beena K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how to explain properly my mixed feelings about this book. I mean the banter between the enemies was really on point, and enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes so I usually devour such books. But somehow the way Adrian was, his behavior irked me sometimes and I feel like he was able to get away with everything. Emily was good and in my opinion she saved this book, otherwise I would have goven a lower rate. She is a strong FMC and I'm always in for supporting strong FMCs.

thank you for the eArc

[Angee Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute witty, feminist romantic comedies (she has a degree in gender studies) with slow-burn tension. It was funny, emotional, and entertaining. The banter between the couple was amazing. The beginning was a little lackluster as it kept jumping to the next conflict between the main characters. It really drilled in the point they were total opposites, and this was an enemy to lover story. It seemed a little incomplete like we were missing something. However, by the end I was invested in the story and happy that they got their happily ever after.

[Hollie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid 2.75.

It was hard to read in the beginning until about halfway through the book. It was difficult to get into with all the skipping to the next point of conflict (I do get that this is enemies to lovers). At points it felt a little incomplete, but still enjoyable. Especially the banter. Didn’t totally love the ending. It felt a little rushed and I didn’t feel like there was closure, though it was hinted at in the last chapter. Still, pretty abrupt. Felt like there could have been a more redemption arc for Adrian/Andrew, but that’s just my opinion. It was more like enemies to something more maybe. It was cool to see both of them by the end of the book grow into better people. It was both good and frustrating that fact the it took literally until the end of the second to last chapter for Adrian to “become” Andrew and we barely got to meet the new him.

Overall, enjoyable but at points, incomplete.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily and Adrian are on opposite sides… big time.
He’s an arrogant user, and she’s tilting at windmills. When they end up debating the good ol’ battle of the sexes, he decides to try to create an opportunity to peddle a relationship??? Gross….

Ok, I’m not sure about her ‘friend’ Jessica - she’s taken a job with him, and trash-talks her in the interview. I was hoping that this was subterfuge to get the background, but it wasn’t hitting right.
Then… not gonna spoil… but she send something to Adrian - not sure if sabotage or mistake….

I really didn’t like Adrian/Andrew/whatever.
Emily was coaching/counselling her clients and worrying about them being catfished essentially.
He treated it like a war - coaching these men to ‘perform’ and reel the women in. He’s a horrible person, and even though I know it’s a book, I was disgusted at how he weaponised everything and was worshipped as some kind of hero.

Call me out, but this is exactly the kind of bullcrap that is out in society today - a toxic bro, who isn’t even real targetting a female who tries to be real, and succeed. Not sure if the author planned this, but if they did, bravo.

This was a fun read, emotional at times, but oh my lord, I was ready to throw my kindle so many times! Semi-rage read tbh - our female lead got treated atrociously and there were no repercussions. This could have been a 5 star, but…

[Cait's Reading Nook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this novella and the banter between the lead characters, Emily and Adrian, was well written in how the storyline of the two life / dating coaches was adapted for modern day with podcasting and social media. It showed the strong chemistry between the two leads from the start. I enjoyed each of the supporting characters in the novella. When the supporting characters have a strong role / presence in a book, it shows how the story of all characters is well-thought out. I thought the pace of the story was well done.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story pulled me into the world of content creators. Emily is a 32-yr old dating coach and speaker, with a degree in “gender studies.” She’s also started a blog for women. Adrien is already a highly popular podcaster. He’s monetized social media, written books, and gives seminars for men that address dating and masculinity from his alpha’s perspective. When Emily’s scathing analysis of Adrien’s latest podcast goes viral, they’re invited to meet to debate their differences in front of an audience on a well-known podcast. This romance story has some sparks, banter, entertaining plot twists, character growth and engaging dual points of view. A book club could really enjoy discussing how Emily and Adrien get to a HEA, considering their big initial differences. Very interesting romance! I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Linda Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coaches fight to love.
This was a great story with a lot of humor and fight and some really great comebacks when it came to conversations and humorous plans of revenge against each other .
I laughed a lot throughout this book. A few tears too !
I loved Emily and her counselor. There was quite a few surprises about that. Also her assistant Jessie was a hoot and plays a semi-reliable spy for her against her adversary Adrian Zayne! Who turns out to be a strange mix of good and bad. He was clever I will give him that !
I loved how the story ended !
I loved this author and will be reading and reviewing more of her books in the future.

[Amanda✨️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharp, funny, and full of chemistry!

Falling Off Script delivers clever banter, great chemistry, and a unique take on enemies-to-lovers in the age of internet fame.

The dynamic between the leads is entertaining and layered, though the pacing lags slightly in parts. Still, the payoff is satisfying, especially if you enjoy a slow-burn with wit and heart.

A solid, enjoyable read with a fresh twist on modern romance.

[saisha · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is 100% written by ChatGPT.

[Lavender Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is clever, full of twists, and hilarious. I totally loved Emily, Adrian, and Jessie.

A review copy of this book was sent to me by the author. All of the above opinions are my own.

[Taryn Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, good banter. Liked the idea of the plot and everything, ending was as expected.