ARC Review: "Fake It 'til You Make It" by Laura Carter ★★★★

 

ARC Review: Fake It 'til You Make It by Laura Carter

”I’m just not the kind of woman who fakes it until she makes it.”

PLOT SUMMARY

Abigail (Abbey) Mitchell has the perfect life – until in the space of 24 hours, she doesn’t! Her boyfriend of 4 years whom she has known her whole life, Andrew, instead of proposing fesses up to cheating on her, and she loses her job as an auditor. Her checklist of making it all by the age of 32 is not looking very likely (a “gigantic hot mess” as she would say). Devastated, she splashes out her wedding fund on six months’ rent in the hotel in New York that she always dreamed of staying in.

She bumps into her upstairs neighbour, 32, blonde hair blue-eyed, Theodore (Ted) Thomas, a nerd who has his own tech company Vanguard RED Industries (which has developed some of the key software packages Abbey has used for business) – and is also hiding from the world due to his fiancé Fleur cheating on him with his business partner and ex-best friend Roman. Along the way, both of them get caught up in lies: Ted pretends he’s his sporty baseball player brother Mike due to a misunderstanding, and Abbey pretends she is an actress to cover up Ted encountering her embellished Tinder bio.

With Abbey’s parents’ vow renewal and the unfortunate fact that Andrew is going to be there, she comes up with the idea that she and Ted should pretend to date each other so that she doesn’t have to expose Andrew as being a cheat and deter people from bringing them back together. Of course, Ted and Abbey are conflicted about their feelings for each other, with their own secrets and external factors like their exes wanting to reconcile driving them further apart.

This is a present-tense, first-person narrative, dual POV told by Abbey and Ted.

[Contains some spoilers]

POSITIVES

This was a very sweet story and at times very amusing (I was definitely smiling throughout). The author’s note at the end (and epigraph) dedicates this to “every person who thought they had to be someone else to be loved… stop doing it because you are enough and the good people around you already know that”

What a very touching thing to say, and I like that the whole premise of the book is this. Most people go through this feeling at some point: that they are not good enough as themselves. It explains a lot of why this was written the way it was as both Ted and Abbey feel they have to reinvent themselves to be ideal for the other person: Ted thinks a baseball player is cooler than a programmer to be with an actress whereas Abbey believes being an actress is better than an auditor knowing Ted’s ex is a model and believes him to be a sporty guy. However, when they are their true selves, aka nerds, they are more alike than they think!

Indeed, I especially appreciated the tech nerd aspect of this book, being one myself. Therefore, Laura’s reference to programming here and there, merging it poetically with the narrative was nice:

"The way her attention is fixed on me, it’s like she’s trying to read my source code. I hope she can find my next instruction in there and tell me what it is because I’m clueless."

I like Abbey’s "what I want to say is" vs "what I actually say is" moments which, as she grows more confident, align and she says exactly what she wants to say (such as chapter 16 and chapter 48). Unfortunately, this is few and far between. I would have liked more of confident Abbey. She is my favourite character.

I adore the parallels. Of both of them saying to the other at some point: ‘The world is full of shitty humans and you are not one of them’

There were some hilarious moments and descriptions, such as what Abbey says about her younger sister Dee: "I love her for what she is, and in spite of what she isn’t" or when she says to Ted ‘Goodnight, my knight in chauvinist armor’!

And then there were very heartwarming moments which I must say did change my opinion on some characters, like Abbey’s mother Anna. The chapters near the end where both Ted and Anna respectively have a private heart-to-heart chat with Anna shows how completely wrong Anna was to withhold that Andrew did not treat her well and how Anna also admits she was wrong to keep pushing things about being with Andrew and wished she had been a better mother.

NEGATIVES

For me, I am all about similarities as not always opposites attract. However, there were a bit too many parallels: siblings, both family-oriented, life being perfect then not, significant other cheating on them then wanting to get back together. Indeed, I think the latter annoyed me because both Fleur and Andrew want to reconcile with Ted and Abbey respectively, and behave like narcissists so again there was a lot of repetition. Surprised they don’t ever meet each other in this book as they would be perfect for each other! Even Abbey’s mum is like that, keeping on pushing the idea that Andrew is perfect for her without knowing the details.

I also felt the pacing was off: I am a fan of the fake dating trope but it felt like there wasn’t actually enough of it. There was the slowest of slow burns and a low amount of spice but I did not mind it. The start dragged out too long, as did the pretence, and then everything wrapped up so quickly at the end. What happened after the airport? What about the legal case between Ted and Roman? I honestly wanted to see Ted (or Ted and Abbey together) tackle the issue of Roman and Fleur. Therefore, I think an epilogue should have been considered. Ted could have had another GQ Interview about his solo success or something. Anything to clear things up.

I would have liked to have seen Dee clear things up with her unborn child’s father Brett. Perhaps this is part of a future series of books but being able to read a book as a standalone is ideal.

*⁀➷ Favourite quotes

•‘I’ve got you,’

•"I can’t help wondering what would have happened if we had met under different circumstances. If we had met first. Before Andrew. Before Fleur. Before I became Mike. Because I think possibly, maybe, we’d have been a good fit."

•‘if you want, I’ll happily marry you by the time you’re thirty and make babies with you by the time you’re thirty-two. Not because those things are on your checklist but because I want those things too, and I only want them with you.’

I am honoured to have been selected as an ARC reader for this book, and I’d like to thank Laura Carter and NetGalley for the opportunity. This has not affected my opinion in any way.

“Fake It 'til You Make It” is out April 8th