“Smart, fun, fast-paced.”–Helen Hoang, USA Today-bestselling author, on How to Hack a Heartbreak You can’t put a filter on reality. Bree Bozeman isn’t exactly pursuing the life of her dreams. Then again, she isn’t too sure what those dreams are. After dropping out of college, she’s living a pretty chill life in the surf community of Pacific Beach, San Diego…if “chill” means delivering food … means delivering food as a GrubGetter, and if it means “uneventful”.
But when Bree starts a new Instagram account — @breebythesea — one of her posts gets a signal boost from none other than wildly popular self-help guru Demi DiPalma, owner of a lifestyle brand empire. Suddenly, Bree just might be a rising star in the world of Instagram influencing. Is this the direction her life has been lacking? It’s not a career choice she’d ever seriously considered, but maybe it’s a sign from the universe. After all, Demi’s the real deal… right?
Everything is lining up for Bree: life goals, career, and even a blossoming romance with the chiseled guy next door, surf star Trey Cantu. But things are about to go sideways fast, and even the perfect filter’s not gonna fix it. Instagram might be free, but when your life looks flawless on camera, what’s the cost?
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Rockaway skillfully skewers the tropes of social media, while her highly relatable heroine struggles to achieve an unfiltered life. Astute, touching and very, very timely.
SHE’S FAKING IT was exactly what I needed right now! This clever, fast-paced read about a directionless woman trying to manifest her own destiny will have you both laughing and nodding in recognition.
I won a copy of this book on goodreads..this was a really fun story to read and I throughly enjoyed it.
Fun story that’s labeled romance, but was most definitely women’s fiction or chick lit. Bree the main character spent 90 percent of the story finding out about how to make ends meet and not carrying about romance. A few cliche things took the reading from a 5 to a four-star book simply because I don’t think that they added to the story and it did drown out a lot of the stories authenticity by having that in there. I loved the take away and I also loved the reason for social media and how it plays a role in people’s lives that we may not see all of.
I thought this was a really cute read. I loved the relationship between Bree and her sister Natasha. No matter what was going on, they always had each other’s backs. I loved how this book made fun of the overabundance of “self-help” gimmicks out there, really giving you no real advice but simply taking your money for this and that to “help” you on your journey. I loved as well that it poked fun of all the perfect Instagrams and the lengths people will go to in order to come off as well liked and perfect. I loved how Natasha and Bree, while learning a few good tips here and there, understood that real change in their lives came from their own dreams and work and not from some magical solution. The relationship between Bree and Trey was a fun add on to this delightful summer read.
Another fun romcom from Kristin Rockaway! She’s Faking It would make the perfect beach/summer read, it’s on the lighter side of things and it made for a good palate cleanser after the heavier books I’ve been reading lately. I loved so many things about this book including but not limited to Bree’s character, the theme of fake it until you make it, and all of the drama that ensues after she loses her GrubGetter job.
Once again I listened to the audio and this time the narrator was Soneela Nankani. She did a great job reading the book and she even sounded the way I would imagine Bree to sound. I listened to this one immediately after finishing How to Hack a Heartbreak: A Novel and it was fun to read both of her books one after the other even though they aren’t related. I think Rockaway is such a talented writer and both of her books I’ve read made me feel both empowered and have given me all the feels. I didn’t cry during this book either, but there is definitely a little bit of sadness in it. Mostly though it is just a nice, light read that had me laughing a lot.
I enjoyed She’s Faking It and Rockaway’s writing style so much, and I am now looking forward to reading her debut, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Traveling the World. The themes were relatable as well as Bree, and it is filled with sass and feel-good vibes. If you love romcoms and haven’t read this author yet you should!
Thank you to the Harlequin Publicity Team and the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book! All opinions and thoughts are my own.
Favorite Quotes:
I could almost hear the squeak and clank of wheels turning in her head as she tried to piece together the solution to this problem.
Everyone always talked about finding your passion as if it was this evasive creature you had to smoke out of a burrow. They also seemed to operate under the assumption that everyone had a passion to find. But I had long since accepted the sad reality that I was born passionless.
“Did you Google me?” He looked horrified, as if I’d admitted to hacking his email or rifling through his underwear drawer.
My Review:
The main character in this story was a hot mess. Bree was barely eking by and subsisting on ramen and protein bars while living in a hovel at the intersection of denial and procrastination and begrudgingly relied on her older sister Natasha to constantly bail her out. Bree annoyed me and in no small measure, and while Natasha was her exact opposite, she annoyed me even more, yet their tale and antics kept me smirking in my exasperation. I was more than a bit fraught and a cauldron of conflicted energy until in the middle of a ridiculous desert retreat with a successful charlatan, Bree smartened up that faking it wasn’t making it. As par for the course with this wily author, her writing was wryly amusing, insightfully observant, colorfully detailed, and slyly entertaining.
Uplifting, spirited, and sweet!
She’s Faking It is a breezy, humorous rom-com that takes us into the life of Bree Bozeman as she meanders through all sorts of highs and lows, from struggling to make ends meet, losing her job, becoming an Instagram influencer, an unexpected visit from her selfish ex, and a blossoming new romance.
The writing style is light and witty. The characters are aimless, quirky, and endearing. And the plot is a charmingly amusing tale full of life, love, tricky situations, tender moments, humorous mishaps, self-discovery, family, friendship, happiness, and the relationship dynamics between sisters.
Overall, She’s Faking It is a clever, funny, optimistic tale by Rockaway that highlights just how impactful social media is on our everyday lives, and reminds of the importance of taking chances and embracing whatever comes next.
Full disclosure: I could not completely relate to any characters in this book. But I still really enjoyed the story. I could totally get behind the “hitting rock bottom to rebuild” setting that propels Bree. I also did feel for her at times. The social media aspect is where I just couldn’t relate. Of any of the characters, I think I could probably identify with Trey most, especially his attitude toward commercialism and social media. I think the author captures the whole movement perfectly from start to finish. And that’s why I ultimately enjoyed this book…it’s almost more of a cautionary tale. For a detailed review, please visit Fireflies and Free Kicks. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for a digital ARC of the book.
Bree, a 25 yo premed college drop out, is living beach side in San Diego, and delivering food for GrubGetter – just until she figures out what to do with her life. That was four years ago. Suddenly, life catches up, and her life spirals downward – losing her car – her only source of income, her boyfriend leaving her with all the bills, school loans left unpaid, and Bree scraping to pay rent.
Hitting rock bottom and desperate to make a change, she reads a self-help book on how to succeed, which lead to her opening an instagram account as an influencer. Fake it til you make it only got Bree so far – she soon realizes the real cost of free products, followers and filters.
I enjoyed Rockaway’s relevant and timely social media trope, the stab at influencer culture, and Bree’s character as she learns the importance of adulting, responsibility, friendship, family and love. I recommend this fun summer read.
Bree Bozeman is, to put it bluntly, a flake. A college dropout who’s scraping by in the gig economy, making food deliveries in a junk old car and living in an apartment that’s definitely not up to code, she has no plan and no direction… but what makes her different from a lot of twentysomethings is that she’s aware she has a problem. One which is brought into sharp focus when her car dies, leaving her jobless and desperate.
Bree’s sister Natasha comes to her rescue. Natasha’s a professional organiser and obviously doesn’t understand Bree at all, but she tries to help; giving her a self-help book by influencer Demi DiPalma to try and encourage Bree to find what she’s passionate about. Bree starts an Instagram trying to figure things out – posting images of what she wants her life to be like in an attempt to actualize it – and ends up becoming a ‘nano-influencer’. She soon realises the shallowness of it, though, shilling products she’d never spend money on just because they’re free. And then there’s the new man in her life, former pro surfer Trey, whose ex-girlfriend is not only a major Instagram influencer but used social media to trash his reputation.
This is, at its heart, a coming of age story, and one of the things I really liked about it was both Bree and Natasha finding their paths forward weren’t quite what they thought they’d be. There’s some subtle (and not so subtle) commentary about self-help gurus and influencers and how you really shouldn’t buy into the glossy images you see on social media, or put people you don’t know on any kind of pedestal. The romance is really something of a side plot to Bree’s own journey to figuring out who she is and what she wants. Trey’s already been through the process and they’re not really a match until Bree gets out the other side, so realistically he’s actually another source of conflict for Bree for much of the book. The author didn’t fall into the trap of making Bree use her desire to be with Trey as her reasons for change, which I really liked.
Overall, this is a nice and quite light-hearted read, with a bit of searing social commentary about the perils of lusting after a picture-perfect life and getting sucked into the heavily curated world of social media. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am happy to give it five stars.
HOWEVER. When I went to look up the link for this book, I discovered that the ebook is $9.99 on Amazon US and a completely bonkers $24.43 on Amazon AU. Do you WANT to sell ebooks? Because this is not how you sell ebooks. This is a great read, but don’t buy it at that price. Ask your library for it or something.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.
I lived in the San Diego area for just under 10 years while my husband was in the U.S. Navy. The author does a beautiful job of describing the area of Pacific Beach. She also made me crave a Roberto’s chimichanga…which isn’t hard since I feel as though I’ve been craving a good chimichanga since I moved away from southern California. Anyway, while reading this story I had the feeling of visiting a beloved place and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.
Bree is a very likable character. She doesn’t have her life together, yet I never felt as though she wasn’t trying. She sometimes went about things in the wrong way, but more often than not she seemed to want to succeed. Her problem was that she wanted to do it her way only, even though she didn’t know what that was. Her sister could have easily become a one-note annoying side character, but she was kept from that by her obvious caring for Bree. Sure, she harped on her about her life. There was also always an undercurrent of acceptance from her even when she wasn’t thrilled with Bree’s choices.
My favorite parts of this story were anything that had to do with Trey. I’m an avid romance reader so I guess that could be expected. But I don’t think that’s the only reason. In the scenes with Trey, Bree seemed to be more herself. She was able to forget about her rent, student loans, car issues, etc. That’s not a realistic way to live life, I know that. But Bree deserved some down time and the reader got to see how Bree could be if she would let down all of her guards.
When it came to the Instagram part of the story, it was easy to see where this story was going. I was fine with watching it play out. Add in the self-help guru, and I got a bit bored. Although Bree and her sister are both very bright people, I do understand how even the smartest among us can get swept up into the mob mentality of being a “tribe” of women with positive aspirations. But, as the reader of this book, I didn’t want to read the self-help book. I short passage here and there, a thought from Bree on the contents of the self-help book, some bullet points on the main ideas of that book…all that would have been fine. Not full pages of the text. I kept waiting for that part to end! Now, it’s not chapters or anything like that. It was still too much for me, though.
Again, the reader pretty much knows how this story is going to play out. Some of it I loved, some of it I didn’t. The connection between Bree and Trey was amazing, not so much the connection Bree had with others in her life. Oddly, I felt her sister’s connection to her, but not her connection to her sister.
I’m sure I’ll try this author again. I enjoyed the read, even if it didn’t blow me away. I may look to see if she’s written romance since those were the parts of the story I felt were the best written and gave me the most insight into the main character.
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
She’s Faking It is exactly what I needed to read right now. I was interested and invested from the get-go,
Bree appears to be the complete opposite of her sister, Natasha. Bree is a college dropout whose life just keeps suffering from one setback after another. She works as a food delivery driver and a handy woman who does random tasks, and lives in a not so legal apartment above a garage. Natasha, on the other hand, is living in a 4-bedroom house with her husband and daughter, and running her own business as an organizer and declutterer.
As Natasha attempts to help Bree get her life together, Bree stumbles across the world of Instagram and influencers, and as she’s scrolling through the aesthetically pleasing feeds, decides that’s what she wants her vision board to look like. Of course, this leads to some very eye-opening experiences for Bree and it was something that while we probably all KNOW, we may tend to forget. So, a huge thank you to Rockaway for reminding us about the truth behind so much of what we see on social media.
As for the romance, it was a little light, but I was okay with that since there was so much more going on in the story that I felt was more important. So if you’re strictly looking for romance, this may not be for you.
I love how well Rockaway was able to describe the scenes of the PB area of San Diego, and the goings on of the area, the food, the sheer eccentricity of the area in general. I often felt transported to the scene myself, and that’s always refreshing.
For me, this felt like a story about second chances, finding yourself and happiness, about love, friendship, and sisterhood, and so much more. I never like to say too much for fear of spoilers.
I think this would be a great beach read and good for discussing during a book club or buddy read, especially for people with a social media presence. I’d recommend this to those that enjoy contemporary
Many thanks to Netgalley and Graydon House for my DRC and the opportunity to provide my thoughts.
She’s Faking It is certainly a timely novel given today’s world of social media influencers, oversharing, embellishing, photoshopping, and well – faking it. The story is fast-paced, and Bree is an interesting character even if she does fall into the great time-suck that is social media. I guess maybe I’m giving away my age, but I like social media as well as the next person, but I don’t feel the need to share every single moment of the day on there. Nevertheless, people do, and Kristin Rockaway does a great job of showing how easy it is to get caught up in the world of likes and shares. All in all, this is an entertaining read that I feel is going to be one of those fun summer books. The kind that people choose for book club or a beach read.