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A review by sherwoodreads
Ten Rules for Faking It by Sophie Sullivan
Spoilery discussion ahead.
Everly has the worst birthday ever, arriving home to discover her boyfriend in the sack with his assistant. She goes to work, because she can't let Stacey, her best friend and partner in their morning radio show, swing in the wind, as Everly is Stacey's producer. Everly is usually very quiet in the way of those with extreme social anxiety, but she lets it all go about the crappy boyfriend and scummy men in general . . . and discovers too late that Stacey had flipped the switch and they were on their air--she'd meant to sing "Happy birthday."
So the entire world (or so it seemed) heard the rant, which incidentally zoomed the listener quotient, a lucky break as Chris, the manager, is getting a nasty phone call from his dad (who owns the studio) to fire the pair. But he doesn't want to for a number of reasons, with secretly liking Everly at the top.
In a brainstorm, they come up with an idea: finding Everly a perfect date. The radio listeners can nominate guys.
So there's the setup, all accomplished in the first couple chapters.
Now I have to get generally spoilery.
The beginning took off like a rocket, but then we got chapter after chapter of Chris secretly liking Everly, but not doing anything about it because he's her boss, and she's anxious. anxious at work, anxious on the dates, anxious around her boho parents. She has panic attacks and nerve storms one after another, as Chris tries to back her up, while hiding his feelings.
Chapter after chapter, repeatedly the same note.
The characters are lovely, some of the dates funny, but the central romance stays on this single note, with the strongest emotion being Everly's really well described panic attacks, until the last quarter of the book. Then things begin to move rapidly again, with the expected bad scene, followed by a cascade of resolution that pulls everything together in the last few pages.
Nice writing, great characters, fun beginning, but that middle needed a lot more romance and fewer of the (very vividly described) anxiety scenes to really work for me.
Copy provided by NetGalley
Everly has the worst birthday ever, arriving home to discover her boyfriend in the sack with his assistant. She goes to work, because she can't let Stacey, her best friend and partner in their morning radio show, swing in the wind, as Everly is Stacey's producer. Everly is usually very quiet in the way of those with extreme social anxiety, but she lets it all go about the crappy boyfriend and scummy men in general . . . and discovers too late that Stacey had flipped the switch and they were on their air--she'd meant to sing "Happy birthday."
So the entire world (or so it seemed) heard the rant, which incidentally zoomed the listener quotient, a lucky break as Chris, the manager, is getting a nasty phone call from his dad (who owns the studio) to fire the pair. But he doesn't want to for a number of reasons, with secretly liking Everly at the top.
In a brainstorm, they come up with an idea: finding Everly a perfect date. The radio listeners can nominate guys.
So there's the setup, all accomplished in the first couple chapters.
Now I have to get generally spoilery.
The beginning took off like a rocket, but then we got chapter after chapter of Chris secretly liking Everly, but not doing anything about it because he's her boss, and she's anxious. anxious at work, anxious on the dates, anxious around her boho parents. She has panic attacks and nerve storms one after another, as Chris tries to back her up, while hiding his feelings.
Chapter after chapter, repeatedly the same note.
The characters are lovely, some of the dates funny, but the central romance stays on this single note, with the strongest emotion being Everly's really well described panic attacks, until the last quarter of the book. Then things begin to move rapidly again, with the expected bad scene, followed by a cascade of resolution that pulls everything together in the last few pages.
Nice writing, great characters, fun beginning, but that middle needed a lot more romance and fewer of the (very vividly described) anxiety scenes to really work for me.
Copy provided by NetGalley