Can a dating app truly make you find love, even by just building it?

Synopsis

Beth is fed up with dating.

Sam doesn’t date.

So why are they creating a dating app together…?

After a failed marriage and a string of strikeout dates, Beth is starting to think she’s not cut out for a forever love. Then she meets Sam.

Sam has an uncanny knack of matchmaking his friends into long-term relationships. Now they’ve challenged him to turn his skill into code – a dating app with a difference. It all seems ridiculous… until he’s introduced to Beth.

Beth’s job in venture capital, and her dating experience, are ideal. Plus, she desperately needs a fruitful client project, or her job is on the line.

Sam clearly has the matchmaking skill and the coding knowledge to make this app a success. Not only that, maybe he’ll find her a Mr Right?

When they start double dating for project research, Beth falls hard. There’s just one problem: Sam, an incurable romantic, has his heart set on a Paris meet-cute destiny, and won’t consider anyone else.

However, when they decide to fake date as part of the app’s marketing plan, it’s clear to everyone that they belong together.

But if Sam can’t see that Beth is his perfect partner, he’s failed the ultimate matchmaking test, and the app is doomed.

Can she change his mind, save the project, and secure them both an Appy Ever After?

Appy Ever After is a laugh-out-loud, closed door romcom full of chemistry but no spice.

My review

Beth has always believed in love. However, her failed marriage and terrible dates afterwards, she is truly fed up with the dating scene. To make things even worse for her, her job in capital venture needs her to find a great new client project. And Beth feeling the breath of her new boss, someone she used to date, doesn’t make her feel any more comfortable.  A client that may come in the shape of Sam. Because Sam has an idea, an idea that will bring people together. Even if Sam isn’t looking for love himself, as he knows how he will meet the woman of his life, he is able to match people and have them have long-lasting relationships. So why not bring his skills to use and create an app? Beth not only may be able to give him the necessary money, but she is also a great coder. When two great forces meet, great things may happen. And even some fake dating may be taking place… But the more time Beth and Sam spend together, the more the people around them see how perfect they are for each other. So could their Appy Ever After make them, and especially Sam, see what potential there is for them?

In a way, I really connected with this story. Because both Beth and Sam are single and are or have been looking for love. Just like Sam, I used to have these great expectations about my own meet – cute. Several years later, I have to admit that I have given up hope and I just enjoy my single life! 😊

And in a world where many people are looking for love, the cyberworld is filled with several apps and websites that promise you the perfect match. And haven’t all been disappointed with a few of our matches?

So yes, I was a bit wary of Sam and Beth joining forces and writing a new app. Because where would they be different from all the other ones that there are out there?

Coding is not something I understand, but I do have the complete respect for people that are able to create apps or websites that go so much beyond than the easy website I have for my own blog 😊. And I was happy to read that Beth was used as the person with the technical brain. I found it refreshing that the female main character is used and not using the cliché of a coding male main character.

I also felt a bit sorry for Beth. Her marriage ended because sometimes that just happens. It isn’t that her husband is a bad person, it just ended without a specific reason. But Beth never gave up on love, and it was sad to read how on her search for her perfect match, she had to have several disastrous dates…

On the other hand we have Sam. He isn’t looking for love, as he has this image in his head how he will meet the woman of his dreams. And while it was rather sweet how he hung up on that dream, I found it also a bit silly. I am not saying that Sam is silly, but he held on so much on that idea, that he doesn’t see what is right in front of him.

However, I liked how Sam wants his own friends to find happiness and love. And it is not because of some kind of gift, or magic that he has, but he just manages to connect the right people in the right place. And it even is some kind of admirable, that he wants to use that insight to connect even more people.

Sam is also a righteous man, as we see further along in the story. Because when he discovers something that breaks his heart, he knows that the truth must come out, even if it may cause further heartbreak. But he is also righteous in the sense that he doesn’t just judge, but he gives chances to explain and to come clean…

Seeing Beth and Sam together was both so great to read, but also so frustrating! Because just like everyone around them in the book, I could see the potential, the sparks. Beth and Sam start as business partners, become close friends, having each other’s back and are each other’s support, beyond everything.

In this book, we see how strange love can work. It can take just one moment to bring great people in your life. But we also see how sometimes we can be our own enemies, where we make ourselves unable to see the truth, what is right in front of us. And we also see how fear of losing what we have can hold us back.

But we also see how meeting the right person can make us feel brave, courageous and how we dare to nor only believe but also feel love again.

All this is captured in a funny, sweet story with great characters that feel real, that go through real emotions and have real struggles. All that easier to not just like them, but love them and cheer for them!