Review: Fake It Till You Break It by Jenn P. Nguyen
Title: Fake It Till You Break It
Author: Jenn P. Nguyen
Publication Date: May 28, 2019
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Find It: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Book Depository
Source: book sent for review by publisher
Rating: 3 stars – stick to your bedtime
Mia and Jake have known each other their whole lives. They’ve endured summer vacations, Sunday brunches, even dentist visits together. Their mothers, who are best friends, are convinced that Mia and Jake would be the perfect couple, even though they can’t stand to be in the same room together.
After Mia’s mom turns away yet another cute boy, Mia and Jake decide they’ve have had enough. Together, they hatch a plan to get their moms off their backs. Permanently. All they have to do is pretend to date and then stage the worst breakup of all time—and then they’ll be free.
The only problem is, maybe Jake and Mia don’t hate each other as much as they once thought.
Mia and Jake have known each other for their entire lives. The mothers are best friends who live across the street from one another and their biggest dream in life is for their children to marry so that they can become family, in the eyes of the law and not just in spirit. This dream has consumed them to the point that they start trying to get their children to fall in love starting as children. When that doesn’t work, they start making up lame excuses to throw their children together and going so far as to sabotage their other dates. In order to squash their parents’ dreams of wedded bliss once and for all, Mia and Jake decide to fake date for 2 weeks and then break up in a spectacular fashion. What you expect to happen, happens, and soon the two discover that maybe they don’t hate each other after all.
Fake dating is a tried and true romance trope. Generally, it’s one that I really like because the main characters usually hate each other (at first) and I love seeing people fight their attraction to one another. On paper, this doesn’t sound like a bad premise except that the intensity with which their mothers are obsessed with getting their children hitched was a little too unbelievable for me. I am sure there are meddling mothers like this in the world but it was hard for me to imagine two moms trying to hook their children up at such a young age. It’s one thing to wish for such a thing but it’s another to really push and manipulate their children like these mothers have done.
It took me a minute to get over how crazy and somewhat unbelievable their parents’ behavior was but, once I moved on from that, I could appreciate other things about this book. Mia and Jake have a love/hate relationship which I always find entertaining. Mia is messy and emotional while Jake is neat and rational. Mia is a cute character but isn’t particularly unique. We’ve seen characters like her before but she’s definitely likable. I thought Jake’s character was a little more interesting. He writes songs and has a complicated relationship with his brother. I also really enjoyed the sweet relationship he had with his mom. Mia’s chaos is a nice foil for Jake and I can see why they are drawn to each other. They finally start to appreciate the other person once they’re not forced to hang out. Ironically, all of the meddling their mothers did probably kept them from getting together sooner.
While this isn’t the most original story, it was a fun read. If you’re looking for a light, fluffy rom-com to hold you over until the next installment of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before hits Netflix, Fake It Till You Make It might be just the thing you’re looking for.
P.S. – I want to add that I was also pretty excited that the book featured a Vietnamese American as one of the main characters. There were a lot of fun little cultural tidbits that I could appreciate so that was fun.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my review or opinion of the book.
