REVIEW: Fake It Till You Make It by Anne Harper

Fake It Till You Make It by Anne Harper: After accidentally making her very private blog public, Salone is faced with the entire town of Arbor Bay hounding her wanting to know the real identity of ‘guy’. The mysterious guy that she has been in love with for all these years but did not have the courage to confess her feeling to him.

“The internet sees your awkward, hot-mess life and has deemed it relatable and charming. They like you, see themselves in you, and want more.”

Not only does she have to fend if the curious towns people but the resident mean girl who also happens to be the twin sister of ‘the guy’ who is out to make Salone’s life even more difficult. Thinking her best option is to escape to Antarctica, Salone has to first make sure the local bartender, Brady Knox does not let her secret slip, you see he is the only other person who knows who ‘the guy’ really is, after Salone let it slip while drunk at his family’s bar. The very bar that he needs help bring back to it previous glory. Deciding to capitalize on Salones need for someone to play the role of ‘the guy’, he suggests that they fake date so that Salone gets the town of her back and he can use her new found internet fame to drum up some publicity for the bar. It also doesn’t hurt that playing happy couple will really stick it to Brady’s ex who happens to be engaged to ‘the guy’.

“She was a contradiction . Not a fan of attention, and yet she’d published her innermost, secret thoughts for the entire internet to read. She was sexy as hell, too, and he doubted she even realized it.”

What starts out as the two helping each other out in a jam, soon turns into them running around town as a lady pirate and merman while trying to put together a float for the town’s parade. The question now is what happens when all those for show kisses start to feel very real and not for show at all.

“When she finally met his eye, Brady had already gone from being amused to trying really hard not to do anything stupid. Like admit he wanted to kiss her. Or actually kiss her.”

Fake It Till You Make It was such a fun read, I practically ate it up. Salone is such a relatable character, I mean who wouldn’t be a bundle of anxiety if the whole town just read your inner most thoughts, while still having to share what happens next if she wants her blog to get turned into a novel, which will help her start her own event planning company. As for Brady, well he is your typical broody bartender but with the help of Salone he finds that he actually really likes the town’s folk.

“Between the night before, the parade, and the pageant, Brady was pretty sure he’d be finding specks of glitter for the rest of his days.”

Salone and Brady’s snarky banter had me laughing my way through this cute fake-turned real romance. I loved the sense if community in this novel and the way the towns people rallied behind the pair in creating their float for the towns parade. The secondary characters were very worthy of a mention as they added a great deal of detail and substance to the story. I think my favourite scene would have to be when Salone gets stuck in the store room window of the rival bar and Brady, Emma and Callum had to rescue her.

“But you have helped show me that without the risk, there is no reward. People don’t leap to fall. They leap to try and fly.”

There was not a single thing that I did not love about this novel, it has truly checked all the boxes for a romcom in my opinion. Harper has done a stand out job with the novel, I can not wait to see what she has in store for us next.

Book Info:

Publication: April 20th 2020 | Entangled: Amara | Accidentally Viral #1

Sloane De Carlo is going to have to move to Antarctica.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that she accidentally made her private blog very public, and all her innermost secrets and embarrassing moments are trending, now the entirety of the Internet is dying to know who her all-consuming, never-get-over-him crush “Guy” really is. She’s even got a literary agent dangling a book deal in front of her nose—but there’s a catch. She’ll have to get closure with “Guy” and give her story that pitch-perfect ending.

Too bad the real “Guy” is engaged to someone else. #Blessed

The only person in her teeny hometown of Arbor Bay who knows the truth is local bartender Brady Knox. And he’s not telling…for a price. He’ll pretend to be Sloane’s “Guy” if she’ll use her newfound Internet fame to bring more business to his struggling local bar. Brady’s always been a lone wolf, but there’s something about the pint-sized, supremely awkward, yet beautiful Sloane that charms him.

But keeping secrets in a small town like Arbor Bay isn’t easy. And Brady was never meant to be the guy for a pitch-perfect ending…