This is all the teen drama you could ask for. The author’s note mentioned she wanted to write a story that would offer an escape for a few hours and she succeeded in doing that. I liked the various romantic tropes and the storytelling that rotated between past and present. The glimpses it gave into the past made the reader realize something more was going on and I had to keep reading to find out what! I think teens will love this book and her writing.

🥰really liked \\ low steam
🤟puns, enemies to lovers, Disneyland
📚If I’m Being Honest by
🎶Heat Waves by Glass Animals
📺Dawson’s Creek

I was expecting to go into this story and read about another cliche love story, and that's basically what happened, but what I didn't expect was to connect so much with the main character, Penny. Some people might find the constant reparation of Penny's childhood issues annoying and unnecessary, but as someone who experienced many of those exact same feelings, it was actually very much needed. The repetition of the events allowed the reader to realize just how much of an impact childhood bullying and taunting can have on people. I appreciated the fact that Penny was always strong in reminding people that just because they didn't mean to hurt her, doesn't mean that they didn't, and that their apologies don't erase their actions. I don't think Lund set out to write a story about overcoming childhood bullying in this romance novel, but, I think she did a pretty amazing job at it. This story is a great one to enforce the idea that actions have consequences, some of which can last for years after the event occurs. I absolutely loved this story and Penny, and the guys were pretty cute too.

I read this book in one sitting and I think everyone should pick this up to get a glimpse into how harmful childhood taunts can really be.

Cameron Lund just writes the BEST rom-com YA stories that are completely adorable, incredibly funny, and grab your attention instantly, absolutely making you want to cancel all your plans and read her books in one sitting.

Heartbreakers and Fakers is a story full of some of my favorite tropes. It’s hate-to-love meets fake dating meets a high school coming of age story, and I LOVED it. Penny wakes up one morning after drinking too much the night before and finds out that she kissed her nemesis, who happens to be her best friend's boyfriend and is best friends with her boyfriend. In the aftermath of the drunken night, Penny teams up with her rival, Kai, to make everyone fall for their love story by pretending to be in a relationship, but what happens when those feelings start becoming real?

This romance was just what I needed. Penny and Kai stole my heart. They were SO PRECIOUS! Their banter was everything! I loved that they had this chemistry that was very real. They could be friends and vent about real personal struggles together while still being very honest with each other.

This book was the perfect summer read that made me laugh and gush, and I can’t wait for more books by Lund.

4.5/5

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.*

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14/15+
Overall: 4 stars
Characters: 4.5/5
Plot: 3.5/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 4/5

Thank you Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an eARC of this novel! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Do you like enemies/rivals to lovers? How about fake dating? No? Maybe the one bed trope is more your style—this book has ALL OF THAT. I wasn’t a fan of Cameron Lund’s debut novel, so I was very apprehensive going into this one—but I really enjoyed it! I liked Penny a lot, and I absolutely adored Kai. I might be biased because he reminded me of my own boyfriend a little, but that’s fine. I also really liked Sarah. She was great and I wanted to kick Penny for not fully realizing that sooner. I think that Olivia and Jordan’s characters were really flat and one-dimensional, which was disappointing, but the other characters were so well written it made up for that to me. The plot was fun enough and easy to follow, but it was lacking at times. There were places it dragged. I did really enjoy the sort of split timeline thing that showed the “before everything blew up” versus the present day. I was not expecting the twist at the end, but I wasn’t a fan of it. It felt unnecessary. The whole “happily ever after—oh wait, everything just imploded” trope is one of my least favorite things about YA contemporaries.
However, the book did use like, all my favorite tropes as well, so that little mishap is forgiven. I definitely recommend checking this book out!

I really liked this book so much so that I read it one sitting. The main character Penny I could not stand until towards the end of the book. I'm not a fan of the fake relationships trope but Lund made these for work for me. The banter between some of these characters is hilarious. I recommend giving this book a chance, it takes a little bit but just wait, it is worth it!

For fans of 80s teen movies, I think this one will be a winner. With extremely similar vibes to one of my favorite reads of 2021, Better Than the Movies, this book is equally excellent. I am living for the last summer before senior year, fake-dating on fake-dating, find out who your real friends are super fun plot. The writing is sharp, and the characters layered. It's all-around a great read, and I definitely want to go back and read Best Laid Plans now.

When Penny wakes up and discovers she drunkenly kissed her boyfriend's best friend and her best friend's boyfriend, her whole world implodes. She doesn't even like him! Hates him, in fact. But everyone roots for a love story, so when Penny and her arch-nemesis start fake dating in the hopes everyone forgives them for a horrendous mistake, things start to become real, and Penny starts to reconsider who she is...

This was unbelievably bingeable, and I sped through it in one evening and would definitely read it again. I can't see it on the big screen in the same way I could with Better Than the Movies (too many flashbacks), but with fake-dating your childhood enemy and having a magical day in Disneyland, it's hard to avoid a comparison. But honestly, I loved this one, and I would read, recommend, and buy both. There's definitely space for both of these excellent books, and if you like one, you're probably going to like the other.

Thanks to Penguin Teen for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 9/10

I loved Lund’s sophomore novel following Penny as she fake dates her enemy to try and win back her ex boyfriend.

The story is a lot of high school drama a la Mean Girls but I was here for all of it. Told in a dual timeline, we head into summer before senior year with flashbacks to earlier memories. While Penny made a lot of frustrating mistakes, she was still relatable and you can sympathize as she’s trying to figure life out.

I loved Kai, who was flawed but still so sweet, and had great banter and chemistry with Penny. It’s a story of finding yourself with lots of funny moments, teen angst, toxic friendships and a brief trip to Disney. I read it in a day and recommend for fans of YA romances.

Thank you Razorbill and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Heartbreakers and Fakers felt a bit like a mix of To All The Boys and Mean Girls. It is a teen romcom that is full of angst, some laugh out loud moments along with some cringeworthy parts. Overall it was a cute fake relationship story but the plot felt like it was lacking depth. The book is spread out over an entire summer but I felt like we barely saw anything of that summer. The flashbacks of the year prior were interesting and did give a lot more insight to the relationship between Penny, Jordan, Olivia and Kai.

I did think the relationship between Kai and Penny was sweet but the rest of the relationships between significant others, friends and even parents were borderline toxic. I was happy to see that by the end of the book, Penny did have character growth and was able to finally understand who she was and mended some relationships with friends.

I did really like the ending of the book and like I said, I loved the evolution of Penny and Kai's relationship. Overall, the book is a cute ya romcom with a predictable ending. 3/5 stars for me.

I really enjoyed this author’s previous novel so I was super excited to read this new one. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to expectations.
I really wasn’t into the whole mean girls clique and absentee parent thing that was going on throughout the book. I couldn’t relate to any of the characters and really didn’t care about their stories. I found Penny to be annoying and immature and I didn’t think the romance was believable. I’m usually a sucker for the fake dating trope but it just didn’t work for me this time. I did appreciate the bit of diversity with the half-Japanese love interest.
I think this book ultimately has a good message in that popularity isn’t everything, and that’s definitely important for a lot of teens to learn, but the execution could’ve been better.

4.5 ⭐️

One drunken night, Penny struggles to recall the evening’s events where she apparently cheated on her boyfriend Jordan by kissing his best friend Kai. Kai, who she has hated for years because of a stupid nickname when they were younger and who is dating her best friend Olivia. In order to win their respective partners back, Penny and Kai fake date to make them jealous. Does it work?

Holy moly TEEN DRAMA! But, I loved it. Such a guilty pleasure read, despite predictability and the whole unoriginal popular-girl-who-lost-herself persona. I dug the dual timelines, snippets from the past, and I knew I’d love Kai. The banter, the chemistry, they were definitely there.

HEARTBREAKERS AND FAKERS had all the fun tropes, and is perfect for fans of Jenn P. Nguyen’s FAKE IT TILL YOU BREAK IT and the movie MEAN GIRLS.

I. Loved. This. It made my heart so full, and I don’t understand how it has such low ratings already when it’s probably one of the best books of the year. And I don’t even usually enjoy contemporaries that much.

But this one was so freaking relatable and so pure that it needs to be on everyone’s list. Everyone knows a girl like Olivia, and to be quite honest, I think we’re all in some ways a bit like Penny. I definitely was, and I think that’s why this resonated with me like it did. You rarely see a girl with flaws admit them by the end and then change for the better, and she got her shit together way faster than I did, and I was like a proud mom.

This was funny and heartbreaking and uplifting and it is hands down the most perfect summer read ever. Don’t skip this.

Such a cute ya/new adult romcom full of angst (so much angst) and characters to simp for.

Really enjoyed this, thanks for the e-arc!

This was a cute fun read. Fake dating, rivals to lovers, bitchy best friend. It reminded me a little bit of Mean Girls tbh.

The plot twist was definitely predictable but I liked that.

All of the characters had a certain level of depth to them that I liked. None of them felt underdeveloped at all.

Kai and Penny’s interactions flow wonderfully and at one point I was laughing with them!

I do think that the conversation Penny and Kai had about race and intersectionality fell incredibly flat and completely lacked nuance from Kai’s side. If that bit hadn’t happened, I’d probably have rated this 5 stars.

Overall would recommend to anyone looking for something to get out of a slump.

After loving Lund’s debut, The Best Laid Plans, I couldn't wait to get my hands on her sophomore novel, Heartbreakers and Fakers. However, it fell a bit flat for me overall.

I think a big issue is that I’m over the teenage girl realizes popularity doesn't matter trope. It's tired and overdone and really annoys me. In the same vein, I hated the main character, Penny, and her constant obsession with getting the cool kids to like her. The one bright spot in the book was her fake love interest, Kai. He and his mom were the sweetest characters and I loved their perspectives.

If you enjoy the fake dating trope in YA or Mean Girls, maybe this is the book for you.

Heartbreakers and Fakers is a classic YA story. It's totally a book that I would have read back in HS (13 years ago now... Yikes!). Because it's a "classic" YA story, it lacks a lot of diversity that we have been seeing in YA lately. That doesn't make it bad by any means but it makes it feel like it's a story that has been told before.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy it - I read it within 2 days. It definitely took me back!

*Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for the advanced copy for my honest review*

Wow, where do I begin! Well how about emotions, because I definitely felt that with this book. The gut punch feeling of trying to fit in while feeling like you’re not good enough to. The emotions of thinking you know someone when you truly don’t. This book was raw and I’m not going to lie, I cried!

Penny and Chloe are the best of friends. Chloe was always popular, while Penny was an outcast, but that changed one year when Penny helped Chloe instead of running off and announcing it to all the judgmental classmates. Ever since then they share everything.. including a crush on the same guy. But when Penny lands the affection of Jordan, the popular guy in their class, their relationship is really tested. Chloe starts dating Kai, Jordan’s best friend, but it’s all a ruse because Chloe wants Jordan and Kai wants Penny. Lies keep building until the world around Penny shatters and she has to learn to pick up the pieces and really be her, instead of what she thinks she needs to be.

I’m not a fan of cheating or turning against friends, but when there isn’t really a true friendship to being with than its sort of a wake up call. And that’s what this book delivers. Do we really know or friends or what they want us to see? And how can we be our true selves if we’re always lying to make ourselves fit in? This book delves into that world and I love how the characters are forced to open themselves up to it!

this was such a fun story! Cameron Lund has been on my radar for a while so I was super excited to read this story ( I haven't read her first novel yet) Thank you to penguin teen for the e-arc

The diversity is great in this book! love that we have lesbian rep, bisexual rep, and asian rep. I also love that while yes in essence it is obviously a love story, our characters also deal with self discovery and real problems (divorce/single parents) which makes them more relatable to the reader. it does have my favorite tropes which I'm such a sucker for, fake dating and enemies to lovers. A perfect summer read, I flew through this and can't wait to pick up Best Laid Plans which was this authors first novel.

Quick summary without giving too much away:

We follow Penny, a popular girl who seems to have it all. she's dating THE Jordan Parker, her best friend is Olivia the queen bee, and her social life is thriving. she can't wait to rule senior year the following semester, everything Is going just as planned. At Jordans first-day-of-summer bash, she finds herself waking up on his front lawn the following morning, something must have gone wrong.....oh....she kissed....Kai Tanaka......Jordans best friend, Olivias boyfriend and her nemesis. freshly dumped, the amazing summer she planned is over as soon as it started...

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 for the lake vibes, then and now chapters timeline, and an impressive use of like eight million ya tropes

some thoughts while reading:
- predictions: penny is going to fall for kai. olivia and jordan have been hooking up forever. penny and sarah k are going to become friends, jordan is actually an awful person
- these girls are the worst! they're so shallow and their friendships are so tenuous
- my high school experience was beyond different from these peoples. do they do literally anything besides drink and make fun of people?
- were kai and olivia even actually together? they never interact in the "now" chapters
- I feel so bad for olivia. people usually act that mean because they're really hurting inside

man, these characters are so TOXIC. I was so frustrated and stressed reading this because everyone just made me so mad (except kai and seb, they're great lol). even so, I was surprised by how much I liked this book! it was a quick, engaging read jam packed with ya tropes (kissing your best friend's boyfriend (who is also your boyfriend's best friend because let's make this more complicated lol), fake dating, haters to lovers, becoming friends again with the weird girl, reinventing yourself, working a summer job at an ice cream place in your lake town, etc). penny goes through so much growth, and the end was pretty satisfying and worth the read!🍦🌻🌞☀️🌊🍉


this review will be posted today on goodreads and edelweiss, and on release day on barnes and noble, books a million, kobo, target, amazon, half price books, and any other retailers I can think of!

Last year, I unexpectedly really enjoyed The Best Laid Plans, so I was so excited for this author’s next release. Also, it had fake dating and dislike-to-love, so of course I needed to read it. With a fun plot and a lot of character development, Heartbreakers and Fakers was a cute story about finding what really makes you happy.

Penny wakes up on her boyfriend’s lawn with no memory of the party the night before. When she goes inside, her best friend, Olivia, is hostile towards her and her boyfriend, Jordan, breaks up with her. It turns out that Penny had kissed Olivia’s boyfriend Kai, whom she hates. Realizing now that the perfect summer she had planned is ruined, she confronts Kai, who proposes that they fake a relationship to get back into their friends’ good graces and to win Jordan and Olivia back, respectively. Soon, though, Penny realizes that she likes Kai more than she previously thought and that maybe Jordan and Olivia weren’t quite the people she thought they were.

The reason for Penny and Kai fake-dating was a little hard for me to wrap around my head first, but I think the book does a good job of justifying it in the moment. It’s a very messy situation, Penny pretending to date someone who is her (now ex-) boyfriend’s best friend and her best friend’s (now) ex. Olivia and Jordan soon get together too, so whenever they all hang out, it was so weird to me. However, that being said, this book acknowledges the messiness and grows from it. This whole situation puts into perspective how Penny has always viewed her life.

I really liked the character dynamics in this book because they felt realistic to me. It’s set in a small town, so Penny has gone to school with the same people her entire life. In middle school, she was teased and had only one friend, another girl whom everyone else also found weird. You can tell how this affected her even now, years later, when she is popular.

Olivia is the most popular girl in school, and in a lot of ways, Penny has just gone along with whatever she’s done because she’d rather be the one on top, even if that means she’s the one doing mean things. Their relationship, which is complex to say the least, has a strange dynamic because, in the end, Penny was just glad she finally wasn’t the one being teased. She’d rather be popular and superficial and not at all her own person if that meant that she had “good” friends. Throughout this book, however, Penny comes to realize how being Olivia’s best friend doesn’t have to be her entire personality: she can be her own person and still be happy.

Penny’s need for validation also affected her opinions of Kai because she’s always thought he was rude and too carefree. They bickered constantly, in a way that everyone thought they liked each other and were trying to hide it. This dynamic felt very natural to me; if we’re being honestly, hate-to-love in young adult contemporary can feel so forced and unrealistic at times. Here, though, I understood Penny’s dislike of Kai because she just can’t understand someone who doesn’t care about other people’s opinions when other people’s opinions are all that she thinks about. This also was more dislike-to-love than anything because while they argued a lot, there was no real vitriol.

Penny and Kai’s dislike of each other added to the fun of their fake dating. Fake dating already usually has funny scenes, when the couple has to convince everyone else, but I really liked their dialogue. Some of their scenes together were so cute too! Also, I just had a lot of fun reading this book! There were some really funny scenes, and I couldn’t stop smiling at some points. The writing was really good, so I’m excited to read more from this author.

I honestly have more to say about how all of this (Penny’s need for validation, the fake dating, the dislike-to-love) ties together, but it involves spoiling the ending so I’ll hold off. I’ll just say that I really liked Penny’s character development. She’s spent years holding Olivia’s approval, so when she suddenly doesn’t have it again, she chases after it. However, throughout the book, she realizes how fake their relationship was and how that led her to not have good relationships with other people, like Kai and their other friends or with Sarah, the “weird” girl who was her only real friend for years when they were younger. This book made this character growth feel very natural, which I really liked.

Overall, Heartbreakers and Fakers was a fun fake-dating story that also had really good character development. I really liked the complexity of the character dynamics, and how they grew from the messy situations. If you liked Emily Wibbroka and Austin Siegemund’s books or Emma Lord’s novels, I definitely think you should check out Heartbreakers and Fakers!

<b> "And then I saw you reading, and you smiled at me, and it was that little smile that got me through it all. I was like, <i>this girl gets it</i>." </b>

<img src="https://media.giphy.com/media/xT9KVFTRFSds7hG4Y8/giphy.gif"/>

Oh, you want to know the tea? I gotchu, sis. So Penny and Olivia and BF4E. Penny has been in love with Jordan for years. Like life long debilitating crush. He finally asked Penny to be his girlfriend. Jordan and Kai = bromance. Kai is one of the most annoying people on the planet. Kai is ALSO Olivia's boyfriend. Yikes. First night of summer. First party and Penny wakes up buzzing with fear that something is wrong. And she is right. She kissed KAI TANAKA. Kai, her long time nemesis. Kai, her besties boyfriend.
<img src="https://media.giphy.com/media/KwUKU198KlWJW/giphy.gif"/>

There's a theory among the friends, that Kai and Penny are secretly into each other or something. Like Han and Lei vibes.
<img src="https://media.giphy.com/media/Gpf8UJXH5Q3CM/giphy.gif"/>

Penny's not feeling it. But people believe it. And everyone forgives a good love story, right? So...How are Kai and Penny going to get Olivia and Jordan back? By pretending to date to make them jealous. Classic freaking idiot kid behavior.

I LOVED Heartbreakers and Fakers! YA rom-com with max com. Penny and Olivia's pet names for each other are comical. "You're the dollop of whipped cream in my PSL." SO LOL! And Kai's nicknames for Penny "hey, lemon poppy seed muffin". Okay. Snort! Kai is funny. He's got jokes. There are two scenes that are steal-your-breath-precious!
<img src="https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7bu2rAyeZ8U5oQSc/giphy.gif"/>

And wait. It's not all rainbows and butterflies. There is massive betrayal, manipulation, and toxic friendships. Secrets and lies! Oh, my!

Cameron Lund! This was such a FUN read! If you need few hours of escapism...Heartbreakers and Fakers is what you need, dear reader. Perfect for fans of Emma Lord and Rachel Lynn Solomon.

READ IF YOU LIKE:
-fake dating
-enemies to lovers (it's an eternal flame)
-self discovery
-puns & jokes
-lots of good music (Khalid, Lana Del Rey, AC/DC)
-#IsThisAKissingBook: uh...blinks a couple times...duh.
-Disneyland! (I know that weirdly long line for Peter Pan)

<b> "I think that's whats so great about love: it's something worth putting in the extra effort for." </b>

All the thanks to Penguin Young Readers for an advanced copy!

Song: As I Am by Justin Beiber ft. Khalid