Ten Rules for Faking It by Sophie Sullivan (2021/08/03)
Rating 3.5/5 Stars
Disclaimer: Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher (St. Martin's Press) for providing me with an eGalley to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ten Rules for Faking It is a standalone that follows Everly Dean. When it comes to birthdays, she has the worst luck. Something unexpected happens on those days, exactly like on her 31st she discovers her lover hooking up with his assistant. To make matters worse, her DJ bestie Stacey forgets to close her mic while arguing with her over her ex-cheating jerk Simon and it gets broadcasted on the news station.

However, she does not receive the humiliating reaction she expects, and her fans urge her to pursue her own happiness and wish to take her out on dates. Chris, Everly's boss, sees this as an opportunity to host a dating contest on the radio to boost the station's listenership and figures it will help Everly to overcome her breakup.

I enjoyed this romance. I found it to be very lighthearted and funny. I like that the characters were both in their early thirties, I found that really refreshing. I loved the social anxiety representation in this story, and I found it to be realistic. I really liked how friendship was such an important theme throughout the story. I loved Chris’s relationship with his brother.

What hindered my enjoyment of the novel was that I didn't really believe the characters' romance. I wish we had gotten flashbacks to the moment the characters first met so we could have seen why they were so drawn to each other. I also wasn't too keen on the heroine's family drama which hindered my enjoyment of the novel. I found the hero to be really sweet.

Overall, I am interested in reading more from this author and if you are looking for a short/sweet slow burn workplace romance then definitely check this one out.

Unfortunately I couldn't really get into this. I'm not too sure why. I am actually going to give it another attempt in the next few days, so I might update my review.

This was such a cute read. It keeps you guessing as to how long they can keep up a dating charade, and the tension between them is enough to make someone not want to be head over heels for the story. Also, the addition of the misogynistic boss was a great way to have readers rooting for Everly to stand up for herself. Every time he spoke, I wanted to scream at her to lash out, but alas… waiting until the end made it that much better. And the addition of putting Chris in a public situation where he basically had to declare his intentions with Everly only to succumb to stage fright was amazing!

I was so excited to read a book about a character with anxiety. But unfortunately I just didn’t love this one. The writing was a little clunky and the plot was lacking.

Love the focus on anxiety disorders. This book felt like I was watching an episode of the bachelorette or another dating show. Love all the blind dates and issues that come along with them. Not a big fan of slow burns, so I didn't enjoy this one as much as others might.

I received an ARC of this novel from St. Martin's Griffen via Netgalley in exchange for my review. Everly is a radio producer who suffers from social anxiety, so when she is asked to be the "Bachelorette" on a radio version of the T.V. program in order to boost ratings, she is terrified. Everly is afraid to say no to her boss, Chris because although she is attracted to him, she wrongly feels that he doesn't like her. Once Chris gets to know Everly better, the last thing he wants to do is to run the risk that Everly would actually fall for one of the bachelors. Under the guise of work safety, Chris decides he should monitor Everly's dates. This was a fun read-mainly because I'm a huge fan of the Bachelor series. I also appreciate how the author, Sophie Sullivan handled the role anxiety played in the character Everly's life. Well done!

4 STARS
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such a cute RomCom. This one has "Bachelorette" vibes. this was a delightful feel good story with a “The Bachelor” vibe. The radio station setting was very fun to read. The story was so fun and relatable (we've all been embarrassed about something, right?). The characters were wonderful! Chris and Everly (our main characters) had such cute chemistry. The side characters were so funny, and I loved all of them. There were many laugh-out-loud moments.

The thing I appreciated the most was the portrayal of Everly's social anxiety. It was done in a very realistic way, which was so refreshing to read! As someone who struggles with social anxiety, it is hard to find a book that portrays it in the same way that I experience it.

Overall, this was such a cute, uplifting, and enjoyable RomCom, and I highly recommend!

**Special thanks to St. Martin’s Press for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own.**

I loved this book so much. The author did a great job of switching between characters and growing their relationship.

I am sorry for not reviewing fully but I don’t have the time to read this at the moment. I believe that it wouldn't benefit you as a publisher or your book if I only skimmed it and wrote a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for not fully reviewing!

Let me be honest - around the time I read Ten Rules for Faking It, I read about three other books that were so similar I’m not sure I can distinguish the four. And this was the last in a catch I read almost entirely back-to-back, so maybe the lower rating is due to me just being over the repetition. I wanted to love the book and I really did like the idea of the storyline, but I found myself to be quite irked much too often.

I enjoy romantic novels that have strong female leads and have diverse characters. I didn’t dislike Everly, but I was worried too often that she would sacrifice her own goals and plans for a guy that she doesn’t even think likes her so much. That isn’t to say that Everly wasn’t a strong character. One of the major pieces of representation within the novel was Everly’s apparent social anxiety. It was so interesting to see the mixture of Everly’s anxiety mixed with the bachelorette-themed plot line. I appreciated Chris’s understanding and supporting of Everly’s anxious tendencies. And side note: I also really loved all the Veronica Mars’ references!

But what I didn’t love so much was the constant back and forth of “I like him/her but there’s this issue” over and over and over. It was so repetitive and just really annoying after a certain point. It just screams “do it already and get it over with!”. Like, I get it. The sexual tension is part of a romantic story, but at a certain point things just have to change for better or worse.

Lastly, once the book came to a close it was so abrupt. I don’t love when things are so damn wrapped up there’s no room for further growth. There’s the aspiration of a romantic novel, but there should also be a realistic ending that leaves a little open-endedness so as the reader, you can imagine the endless possibilities for what’s next to come.

Honestly, by the time I finished the book, I was just so over it. I would read Sophie Sullivan again, but this particular story just left me too annoyed to really appreciate.

I think I liked the idea of this book more than the actual book. In reading the synopsis I was really excited but it never seemed to get there for me. I read it in two days and enjoyed it, but it wasn’t everything I wanted it to be.

This book was an easy and fun read, but ultimately was not something very memorable. I'm disappointed because it sounded like something I would really enjoy.

This book was delightful. I also appreciated the mental health aspect. The hero wasn't my favorite, but overall, I enjoyed this one.

It was a cute slow-burn romance. It was quite cheesy at times. Wasn't that great but was a good read.

I really, really loved this book. I won't rehash the synopsis but I will say that I have never resonated with or felt so understood by a book before. Our heroine, Everly, deals with severe social anxiety, which is also something that I struggle with. So many of the thoughts that ran through her head also run through mine on a daily basis. It was so encouraging and inspiring to see that while she struggled, Everly realized she was more than her anxiety and didn't let it define her.

It was also amazing to see how those around her, the love interest and her best friend, weren't put off by her anxiety but instead supported her and made changes relating to Everly's comfort level. There was no judgment. I loooved her relationship with her best friend, Stacey. There was so much girl power and support between the two of them. All around, this was a fantastic read and I highly recommend.

Meet Everly. Everly is a radio station producer with severe anxiety, a strong dislike for birthdays, and an even stronger dislike for men after she walks in, on her birthday, to her boyfriend cheating on her. To make matters worse, she ends up spilling the entire story on live air to her best friend Stacey, the radio DJ. Needless to stay, Everly really hates birthdays now and surprises. Oh, and don't forget the piñata full of condoms from her parents.

To fix all of this, her super hot boss, Chris, pitches a Bachelorette style game where Everly and the listeners get to choose who she dates. Throughout the story we get glimpses at Everly and Chris' personal lives and how they have become who they are.

I really liked this story because it was not super steamy at all., which worked for the plotline. I really enjoyed the realistic struggles that Everly faced with family, friends, and romance. I felt like the list was a main focus for the plot, but it was not focused on enough. It was mentioned here and there and created a few times with modifications, but it was not as big of a deal as I thought it would be. I do like the first list and the last list in the story.

First off, Everly and I would be great friends. We would sit around all day, watching Veronica Mars, chatting occasionally about favorite radio segments. We would never meet in real life, of course, because we’d both never go anywhere that we would possibly meet the other, so reading her story was a great alternative.

This book didn’t grip me the same way others I’ve recently read but once I got in to the story I found myself looking forward to every page. Everly has surrounded herself with a great cast of people, especially her friend Stacey that really filled out this book and Chris - Jensen, not Pratt/Evans/Pine - was the perfect male lead for this book. I’m hoping we get to read more of Everly and Chris soon! Noah and Wes are begging for books of their own!

“ I’ll always choose you.”

Everly doesn’t do birthdays especially her 30th since her boyfriend is horizontal with his assistant. And she definitely didn’t expect the ratings of the radio station she works for and his thousands of listeners to listen to her rant about her slimy ex. Soon her life becomes a Bachelorette type to get her love life back into gear. Little does she know that the production director, Chris has always had a crush on her. He persuades her Everly to get outside her comfort zone so maybe it would decrease his feelings for her. I really loved he friendship to romance and how Chris wasn’t judgemental to the fact that she had severe social anxiety and this was WAY out of her comfort zone.

Both Stacey, her best friend and Chris were great support systems and we slowly get to see Everly the reality of her having social anxiety. I don’t have social anxiety, but this seems like it was a good rep for it. Overall, I really enjoyed this slow burn, forbiddden(co workers), friends to lovers romance.

TEN RULES FOR FAKING IT is a slow-burn, workplace romance set at a radio station. The premise was fun, but it really was a slow-burn. I didn't know this going in, so I wasn't expecting the book to drag on, but sadly it did. My favorite part was the social anxiety representation, though, which was spot-on!

I was excited to get to read this book. The characters were easy to fall in love with. This book had me laughing out loud at times. It's a great read that I would recommend to anyone that likes rom coms. I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. .