Once again, I find myself completely surprised by just how much I enjoyed reading a romcom. While I admittedly am not one to have a base for comparison - Ten Rules for Faking It hit all the right notes to make this another (nearly) four star romance read for me this year.

Sophie Sullivan created a story that kept things light hearted while also taking a very realistic look into living with an anxiety disorder. The characters felt realistic and fairly well rounded and the banter was witty without seeming too inauthentic.

Solid 3.925/5 Stars

This book gets a forward-leaning 3.5 stars.
Okay. So this isn't a breakthrough in rom-com storytelling or a story that makes me want to shout from rooftops about it, but it is incredibly endearing and it does present an incredibly realistic picture of what it's like to live with social anxiety.
Everly has many reasons to be anxious about other people, but she decides that turning 30 and being publicly humiliated on her birthday are a big enough deal to go about making some changes in her life. And she's got her best friend Stacey and her cute boss Chris to help her shake up her life.
In truth, I would have rated this higher despite being a predictable mish-mash of pretty much every single trope out there if it weren't for the fact that the pacing is slower than slow. It's not even that Sullivan goes deep into describing things or takes forever to set up a scene. I can't even pinpoint what the problem is, just that the plot seems to take forever to get from point A to point B and doesn't make the journey in between particularly thrilling.
Overall, it's a heartfelt story with extremely likable characters and spot-on, positive representation of a fully-functional individual with anxiety. I might forget I read it a few months down the road, but I had a fun time reading it. That's sometimes all you can ask of a book.

Many happy thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the early read!

Every year Everly Dean dreads her birthday. So when the big 3-0 arrives, it shouldn’t have surprised her that she’d start the morning discovering that her boyfriend is cheating on her with his personal assistant, and that she’d unwittingly air all of her dirty laundry on-air at the radio station where she works. Can she turn her 30th year around? Will she finally be able to manage her at-times debilitating anxiety? She’s not sure, so she’ll make a list to help her, just in case: Ten Rules for Faking It. This book was a light, fun read, and that's exactly what I'm gravitating to these days. The plot was fairly predictable, but that didn't bother me. Definitely leaves room for a sequel starring another character!

This book is so funny! I loved the quirky heroine and the hero you can root for, and the setup was pure gold. If you’re looking fir a romance with as much humor as heart, you’ll love this book.

This book and I really, REALLY did not mesh well.

First with the good! Ten Rules for Faking It is cute and lighthearted, and I was majorly intrigued by its fun premise: After catching her ex cheating, radio producer Everly Dean accidentally spills her guts on-air—and kicks off a Bachelorette-esque series of dates that will, she hopes, help her finally step out of her comfort zone and into the big, bold life she's always wanted.

I really appreciated this book's rep of social anxiety, and the myriad ways it impacts Everly's life. (I TOTALLY related to her near-debilitating pre-date jitters.) It was affirming to read a character whose thoughts have crossed my mind before, too:

Of all the anxiety-related issues she cataloged as just part of who she was, the one that bugged her most was not knowing what caused the restless uncertainty inside of her.

I think that other readers will definitely enjoy Everly and Chris's story, likely more than I did; it was more of a chemistry thing (or lack thereof) for me. So I’m going to try my best to articulate what didn’t sit well with me personally.

There were a couple little things that rubbed me the wrong way (Everly's of the word "spaz" to describe herself at one point; the constant mention of characters "aging gracefully"). It also bothered me that Chris's sister was portrayed as an airhead heiress who needed to be distracted with spa weekends, to keep from getting in the way of him and his uber-successful, rich, smart brothers.

My biggest gripes, though, have to do with the main characters themselves. I didn't find the romance between Everly and Chris to be compelling whatsoever; their chemistry was lukewarm, and I wasn't invested in either of them. Chris's intense devotion to Everly without even knowing her was kind of off-putting to me; the more instalove stories I read, the less I find I'm able to tolerate them. A lot of the chapters in his POV are spent waxing poetic about Everly's amazing qualities—qualities that I, honestly, didn't really associate with her.

Sometimes, it felt to me like Everly used her chutzpah more to lash out at her loved ones than to address her self-flagellation and the problematic people in her life —including her ex, Simon, and her weirdly oversexed parents.

Finally, I think it's worth mentioning that, as far as I could tell (and I was looking), the book features only straight white characters. (Two sentences about lesbians doesn't really cut it, frankly.) It's 2020 and I'm over reading stories without diversity.

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I want to end on a positive note, so I've saved my favourite part of the book for last. I really enjoyed the generative conversations that Everly engages in at the end—with her parents, with Chris, Owen, and Stacey, with herself—about love and long-term happiness. She grapples with questions such as: What does commitment look like in the long run? How do you know when it's time to let someone go? How do you even open yourself up to this sort of hurt? As someone struggling to balance vulnerability with risk-taking, I really appreciated that the book touches on these nuances!

My favorite part of any story is always the characters. In romance novels especially. Unfortunately, I didn't quite like these characters the way I wanted to. While the characters as individuals are fine enough, this is a romance novel and as such, I excepted a little more romance. Instead, the characters spend most of their time apart, doing their own things, making their relationship seem a bit shallow and insta-loveish despite the fact that they've known each other for a while. And while I'm all for a slow burn, having the characters take so long to come together made the story drag, in my opinion.

On top of not getting the romantic experience I expected, I didn't care about the things happening outside of the romance. I wasn't invested in Chris' problems with his father, or in Everly's problems with just about everything else.

One thing I did like was the representation of Everly's anxiety. I feel like not many novels, especially romance novels, focus on mental health like that. Sadly, this was not enough to make me love this novel.

An honest review thanks to NetGalley. This was a very sweet read. I really connected to Everly at first because like her I suffer from social anxiety. The episodes she had and her thought process literally matched me perfectly. I could have loved this but the lack of trusting herself and running from those who have shown that they are committed to her and love her rubbed me the wrong way. Overall this was sweet read with a slow burn, it was a very good romantic novel.

Radio producer and Veronica Mars obsessed, Everly Dean, has hit the bottom of her dating life. She catches her now ex-boyfriend cheating on her with his assistant on her birthday and accidentally shares the story on the radio. This is too much for socially awkward Everly, and she can't take it anymore.
Everly's boss, Chris is keeping his distance because there's something about Everly he wants to know more about and he wants to make her boy problems better and save the radio station.
This book was laugh out loud funny and full of relatable moments that made me fall further in love with Everly and co.
The quirks of Everly, Chris, and their friends, family, and coworkers throughout the book made it feel like a story from a friend instead of a book.

3.5 stars. Everly is having a bad birthday, and that's saying something (her parents announced their divorce at her seventh birthday party). She's turning 30, and she surprised her boyfriend with morning coffee and bagels, only to be surprised in turn by him in bed with another woman. And then she accidentally rants about it on-air at her radio station producer job.

But then the station starts to get calls and emails in support of Everly, offering to set her up with a nephew or friend, or asking her out. Chris, the station manager, realizes this is the perfect way to boost ratings and prove himself to the owner (ahem, his controlling father). Everly reluctantly agrees. All Chris has to do is not be bothered by the thought of sweet, shy, adorable Everly going out with other men. No problem, right?

Overall this was a good story, although a couple of things took me away from the plot. First, their radio station has an even-numbered decimal (96.2). I don't know if the author wanted to avoid any real station call numbers, or just didn't realize that all FM stations have odd-numbered decimals, but it bugged me every time they mentioned it, which was often.

Also, Chris can be way too protective of Everly. She has pretty serious social anxiety, but he's a bit too solicitous of her and treats her like she's younger than she is, even though in the story he's supposedly helping to empower her. I appreciate the realistic portrayal of anxiety, though.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC to review.

I loved this - I thought that the two main characters were adorable. Their romance definitely gave me butterflies - it was awesome. I thought it was a different having them main character struggle with anxiety - it is something that you just don’t see. She wasn’t confident in some ways and it was a breath of fresh air. Great book!

I enjoyed Ten Rules for Faking It for the most part, and would probably seek out other books from this author. The story was fresh and the characters were realistic. I appreciated that there was not a lot of unnecessary drama as is found in other chick-lit books.

One thing that bothered me was the ending did not fit the pacing of the book; the slow-burn romance was fine but the main characters went to "I love you forever" declarations quite abruptly which didn't feel in line with their caution throughout the rest of the book. I feel like a "one year later" (or similar timeline) epilogue would have been a better choice and more consistent with the overall pacing.

Everly Dean hates her birthday, nothing good has ever happened on it, and this year is no exception. After finding her boyfriend cheating, her day goes downhill from there, she has a meltdown on live radio and is sent home by her gorgeous but very distant boss. Deciding that this year is going to be different, she's going to overcome her social anxiety and get what she wants in life she makes a list of rules. Following them is harder than it sounds.

"No reason to worry. Ah, but then what would you do with your time? It'd be interesting to find out."

Ten Rules for Faking It was a bit of a struggle for me to get through, not because of the plot or how well it was written (very well), but because I have never felt so seen by a book. When it comes to social anxiety, I am Everly Dean and she is me, I have never before read a book that describes it so incredibly accurately. I felt called out when Stacey told her it was time to talk to someone. My personal issues aside, I enjoyed this book, it's a super slow burn, with great but not overwhelming side characters. Chris was exactly what someone with anxiety looks for, someone who recognizes when you've had enough and knows what to do. I loved the dating disasters, they were funny and cringy at the same time. Overall it's good, sweet read, with some humor and real-life problems.

This book! Once I started reading I couldn’t stop! The main characters drew me in and made me swoon! I loved the dynamic with the both of their parents because it was relatable! I wanted to be Everly’s friend! This book had everything I look for in a romance! I highly recommend everyone add this book to their must read list!

So this book title originally caught my eye because we all know I love the fake dating trope. Well, turns out this book has nothing to do with a fake dating trope haha. But it does have a Bachelorette-type underlying story & I do love the Bachelorette!

This book was a one sitting read & while it was a quick read, it was a slooow burn romance. I loved the Bachelorette style premise of the book and seeing the main character come out of her shell. I loved how the author depicted mental illness and anxiety disorders. It made it a much more real and likable story.

This book was definitely work the lack of sleep I got from reading into the wee hours over the night. But, overall a cute, funny, make you smile rom-com!

Ten Rules for Faking It is a thoughtful, funny rom-com that does a great job at normalizing anxiety disorders.
The dialogue felt witty, sarcastic and real. I appreciated the attention paid to Everly's anxiety, as well as its realistic portrayal of what it is like to live with it. I found her inner monologuing relatable in every way as I also struggle with anxiety. But after all, this was a romance book, and that aspect took forever to develop, making the story drag. I found Chris' infatuation unrealistic, as well as his understanding and acceptance of Everly's anxiety.
The plot was supposed to resemble the Bachelor, but we didn't get to see more of Everly's dates, only her afterthoughts.
Against what it may seem, I did enjoy the story and will look forward to reading more by Sophie Sullivan. Especially if she keeps writing about the characters we meet in this story.

- realistic anxiety representation, more than just her anxiety
- didn’t love the parents relationship parts


This was such a sweet, cute read! I really enjoyed reading this and would definitely recommend it.

Fans of The Bachelor/Bachelorette will surely like the dating game parts of this book. I enjoyed this aspect of the book quite a bit and thought it was fun and different than I’ve read in other romances. I only wish we had some of the dates more fleshed out, there were some we heard nothing about at all.

The romance between our main character Everly and her love interest Chris is one I was invested in from the start. It was a believable slow burn romance, and they were both characters I felt we got to know a lot about and root for independently and for them as a couple.

Beyond Everly and Chris I found all the other characters likeable and real. This was a standout of the book for sure. Particularly the focus of female friendship between Everly and Stacey. I loved it and feel like this is not something we get enough of in romance books. The only characters I didn’t connect with and felt there was too much of for me personally, were Everly’s parents. I just didn’t care for them or for that part of the story too much.

Another focus of this book is on the anxiety that Everly experiences. I felt this was a true, honest, and relatable representation of anxiety. I appreciated how understanding others were of Everly, particularly Stacey. It was also important and great to see that Everly was shown as more than just her anxiety, it was a part if her not all of her. Just like it was part of the book, not all of it and also wasn’t magically cured in the end.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book and very much look forward to seeing what else this author comes out with in the future.

I really appreciated the realistic depiction of anxiety in the main character. It's a topic that is often approached but usually misses the mark in my opinion. The romance was a slow burn, which is nice. No insta-love here. If the author came back with round two, focusing on a new romance for a different couple, I'd pick it up.

I sat down and read this book in one day. It was absolutely adorable! Everly represents every girl that has ever tried to find love despite all the anxiety and childhood trauma.
When Ev decides to take on a new challenge at work, the chaos and fun helps her recognize who she is and why she’s amazing.
10/10 fun romance!

Oh how cute!!! I expected a slowburn and that is what i got it was also super sweet and adorable and i really liked how much chemistry everlyn and chris had—they felt like real people with real issues and i really liked that. I do wish that it was not so long because I feel like the page count could have been cut down more!

I absolutely loved it!!!!! Quick read and full of goodness on every page. Highly recommend this one.