Okay this book was a lot of things. I've really been leaning on the women's fiction genre lately, so in concept this was what I was looking for.

I really loved the anxiety representation from Everly. I can sing praises about how real it felt to be with her, having a panic attack before a date and worrying about what the closest people in her life actually thought of her. It was by far the highlight of my reading process, just getting to know Everly's mental processes and feeling frustrated with her when they could be less than understandable.

So on that front, all of the stars.

However, this book was so unbelievably slow! There were so many pages full of fluff and background about the most mundane things, nothing that advanced the plot or even really changed my perception of the characters themselves.

If anything, it made me dislike Chris even more, solely on the basis of how bland he is as a character and person. It also really didn't sit well with me how the foundations of his relationship with Everly were so one-sided too, especially when they barely even knew each other.

The main pairing didn't feel good together? There was a lot more telling than showing with regards to how they even felt about one another, so it kind of made their feelings very distant and gave them a not necessarily genuine touch.

All in all, a fun enough read when the fun parts came along, but otherwise I spent a decent amount of time wondering when actual things would happen.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

I am a big Bachelor fan, so the premise of this book stood out to me right away. When Everly makes an accidental announcement about her birthday break up on air at her radio station, her town goes bonkers with support and outrage. The station manager comes up with a Bachelorette style dating challenge to help boost ratings and also help Everly. The romance that comes out of this mess is so sweet and endearing. I loved the plot. I loved Stacey and Everly's friendship. I always love a story of growth and overcoming personal struggles. I really hope that this book is the start of a series because there is just so much potential here.

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.

I absolutely loved this book. The story was so original, the characters were loveable. I'm so glad I read this book, I flew through it in a day!

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!

“But one is so lonely. They need a partner. Someone to play with. Someone to fight with. Someone to love.”

WOW WHAT!? A FIVE STAR ROMANCE READ!? Y’all I love romance. 80% of the books I read (probably, I haven’t done the math) are romance. But the usual rating I give is 3.5-4 stars because oftentimes they fail to either 1. end strong or 2. give me the depth of characters I need for a five star book. This book. Was. Awesome. I laughed. I cried. I believed in every moment. Okay let me calm down and explain why this book was a five star read.

First, a quick synopsis: the set up doesn’t sound super exciting but I don’t need big drama to get invested in a book if the characters are strong and there is a sturdy plot. This book has a sturdy plot even if it is a real life believable one. Honestly I found the normalcy super refreshing. It tells the story of a woman, Everly, who works as a radio producer in a small town outside of Los Angeles. Our Hero is Chris, her boss, a big time New Yorker who came to town to run this company to prove to his father (the owner) that we could swing it in the Little Leagues before getting to play with the Big Boys. Everly is unlucky in love, partially because she hasn’t found partners who she is comfortable enough with to be her true self. Her best friend and deejay, Stacey, gets her into a situation where Everly ends up agreeing to go on a series of public dates funded by the radio station as a promotional ploy and get-out-of-your-comfort-zone tool. You can kind of guess how our story unfolds, but it does so in a totally unpredictable and deep way.

The characters spend a lot of time in their heads which took me about twenty pages to get used to and then I absolutely loved it because it helped me really buy into their personalities. By the middle of the book I knew them so well that their internal dialogues were SO FUN to be a part of. I love that we spend most of our time with Everly because it’s really her book even though we get some chapters from Chris’ perspective. It was the exact right amount of his perspective for me.

I also loved how STRONG the relationships are with the side characters. I sometimes find that romance books only focus on the romantic leads which actually serves to limit their characters. The friendships and relationships with siblings and parents in this book were fabulous. I loved seeing real conflict in these relationships! Sometimes friendships in romance novels are so hunky dory they’re not relatable or realistic. I adored seeing a female friendship where they figure out how to better serve each other as friends, even as imperfect humans. Also. Y’all. A romance novel talking really intelligently about counseling and divorce? I have never read that before and I was absolutely so here for it. I also loved how this book explored Everly’s complicated relationship with both of her parents, especially her mom. I needed that.

Finally, I cannot express how well I felt this book dealt with looking at a main character who suffers from social anxiety. I won’t say more because the evolution of Everly’s character was almost more powerful for me than the romance. BUT. THE ROMANCE.

No cheap gimmicks here. There’s no instant love, no running to each other in the rain. But W O W. THE ROMANCE! SO SWEET, my heart was a melty puddle. Also I found it really refreshing that it wasn’t overly sexy. I feel like I’ve gotten a little bit jaded by hearing explicit sex scenes in books. This book gave me the absolute trust that these two characters are so hot for each other without actually showing me that they can get it on in the bedroom. This is pretty much a PG book but you don’t miss out AT ALL on feeling their intimacy.

I’m so pumped for this book to be released because I want to buy it for everyone.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I reviewed this book on Goodreads on 7/15/20 and will post to my Instagram account at @sophies_library on the publication date.

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 is a great book and I really loved how realistic the characters are. Everly hates her birthday cause she thinks it’s bad luck but this year she went to her boyfriend’s house unannounced and he was with another woman. After spilling coffee on herself and dropping all the bagels she rushes to work at the radio station where she is a program director and there she finds her best friend the DJ and stops her from singing the birthday song and goes on a horrible rant about her day. Everly didn’t realize she was live on the air and is now in trouble with her boss Chris. Chris is in California running this station to prove to his father who owns it that he can be responsible. He’s ready to move back to New York City and be with his brothers again. But Chris needs to improve ratings first and he has just the idea. Everly should try dating prospective listeners in a contest. Everly suffers from anxiety that is terribly debilitating to her social life. She is against this until her friend makes her make a list of rules to live by. She makes these rules to just get her through the dates. The only people who really understand her anxiety is her best friend and her boss Chris. This book does an excellent job talking about anxiety and family issues. Everly is a lovable character that you can’t help but root on through her adventures and mishaps. Definitely a five star read.

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.