Thank you #Netgalley!

Wow! This was such a quick read as you quickly became intrigued with the main characters of the story, Cammie, Shelby and Gibson, who all eventually become entangled in a series of lies. Shelby recently lost her wife and joined a grief support group where she meets Cammie. Cammie takes Shelby under her wing to help her leave the house and live life. Cammie also connects with Gibson at the bar she works at and begins to date him rather quickly. Each relationship progresses extremely fast and both Shelby and Gibson become intrigued and will do anything for Cammie. Unfortunately that was Cammie's goal and takes advantage of these relationships. So many twists and the end left me frustrated!

The Fake by Zoe Whittall follows two main characters as their lives become intertwined with a con artist. Shelby and Gibson are absolutely enamored with Cammie, both as a friend and a lover respectively. But she has her ways to slowly get what she wants and take advantage of their trust. The synopsis of this book is comprehensive, but the book doesn't really give you much beyond what it says.
I wish this book was fleshed out more. I wish it was more of a secret that Cammie is a pathological liar and that the reader was taken along for the journey, the same way that the characters were. But "con artist" and "pathological liar" are listed easily to see in the synopsis of this book, hence giving away any element of surprise this book could hope to give.
Overall, I did like the story, I just wish there was more suspense and more showing instead of telling tactics. I wish there was more to feel rather than what the book told me to feel.
So it was a good story, I just wish it had more to it.

I really loved reading The Fake! It was an unusual story that kept my interest, and I hope to discuss with friends soon!

I really liked the Fake and the different perspectives presented in the book. I felt that the writing was fast-paced and kept me interested. I like that more novels are discussing scamming and the effects it has on people.

A wild ride that tells the story of grifter gone wild and the havoc that ensues when she crosses paths with a woman grieving a death and a man reeling from a divorce. Well written-this story will grab you from the first word!

A very quick read. Sparse and stunning with a shocking ending. I spent 90 percent of this book intensely disliking Cammie and ended up crying for her.. Thank You to NetGalley and Random House publishing for an advanced copy.

Book will be released on March 21

This story was so heartbreaking and made me so angry. Imagine taking advantage of the brokenhearted the way Callie did! She took advantage of people in mourning, one the death of a spouse and the other the death of a marriage. She took unsuspecting people's emotional needs, played with them and used them for her own gain. You may think that it could never happen to you but I recently read in the newspaper about that exact thing that happened here in Toronto, a man scammed over one-hundred women online.

This book was fascinating and it was interesting how after everything she has done that is legally and morally wrong, Cammi ends up saving Gibson and Shelby. I liked that we get all three points of view as I felt like I was able to get inside each character's head. I loved that the book took place in Toronto as I have lived here all my life. It was fun reading about neighbourhoods, streets and stores that I am familiar with. This was a short read and I enjoyed it so much that I read it in a single sitting. This book was different, I thought the ending was surprising and I adore books that can shock me.

3.5/4

I am always drawn to stories about con artists and this one sounded so interesting. Following along with Shelby and Gibson as they’re simultaneously being scammed by Cammie was alternately fascinating and sad. Shelby is grieving over the loss of her wife and Gibson is mourning his divorce so both are struggling in a major way and while watching them both get conned made for an interesting read it was kind of depressing too. They both seemed like genuinely good people even if they were naive and too trusting. But this was still an engaging and fast paced listen and narrators Steve Campbell, Reena Dutt and Emma Galvin were all fantastic. The ending was a little too open for me but it dead feel like a realistic conclusion, I just wanted a tiny bit more closure. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

After the death of her wife, Shelby is really struggling but finally heads to a grief support group where she meets Sammie. Meanwhile, after his divorce, Gibson doesn’t expect to meet someone when he meets Sammie at the bar. While at first everything seems amazing with Sammie, she is a great friend, a fantastic girlfriend, and both Shelby and Gibson both fall in love with her. Until they start to see the other side of Cammie…

Oh man, gotta love a good con artist story. Came was so textbook con artist, but of course we saw her go after people that were more susceptible to being conned. I felt like they figured out her con artist ways a little quickly, but it was a fairly short book. I also hated that they both allowed her to continue after figuring it out. This was a great read, and I am always so interested in how people can con others in this way.

Shelby is in bad shape. She’s trying to move forward after the sudden death of her wife, and finds herself with limited real support. Except…there’s this younger woman, Cammie, who goes to the same grief support group, and she seems to want to help Shelby. And then there’s Gibson. He was married for a long time but recently left his wife and met Cammie at a bar one night.
Shelby and Graham were interesting characters and portraits of people going through loss and change in their lives, perhaps skewing their judgement. I found Shelby’s story particularly heartbreaking and loved her description of her struggle to move forward: “if only she could figure out how to move the boulder of grief out of her path.” I didn’t find Gibson’s story/situation as sympathetic and thought there was a disconnect between his black/white attitude toward his work, marriage, etc., and the way he viewed Cammie.
I loved Ms. Whittall’s previous book, The Best Kind of People, but the story and characters in The Fake weren’t as compelling for me. Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read The Fake in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a good read if you're looking for how to deal with a con artist. It's basically told in a straight forward way without too many surprises for the reader along the way. You pretty much know what's going to happen in the whole book just by reading the synopsis. It was an okay read.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Yikes! This was good but drove me crazy with the scamming. I felt bad for Gibson but really bad for Shelby

A quick read, thanks to Netgalley for the free copy

Apparently this novel is loosely based on true events that actually happened to the author and presumably for that reason this reads more like an anecdote or documentarian account than a story meant to take us on a journey. There are never any twists, turns, or surprises. We’re basically told what happens in a fairly linear fashion. Structurally, we know from the beginning that Cammie is conning everyone so we are ahead of the story and just waiting for Gibson and Shelby to catch up. The book gets especially rocky in the second half when Gibson and Shelby finally compare notes and stage the intervention which unsurprisingly fails and the threat of escalation set up in the first chapter never materializes. It’s all a bit underwhelming. Sure we feel bad for these poor souls who were taken in by a sociopath at a vulnerable time in their lives but, again, because it is so obvious that Cammie is conning them we are never on the emotional journey with them. We never experience that moment of horror as the characters start to realize everything is a lie. Ultimately, this book is more is more of a “did you hear about that scary thing that happened” than an emotionally impactful experience.

This book was deeper than your average thriller and really eye-opening to the reality of pathological liars. It was difficult to see the way the characters were taken advantage of. Heavy topics that were so well written.

This was a short, quick read about a woman, Cammie, who is a scam artist. She ends up scamming both a man, Gibson, who she pretends to fall in love with, and Shelby, a friend. Overall the book was okay. I got through it quickly since I wanted to finish it but I wasn't super invested in it. There was no real plot development and the characters were not really fleshed out.

It was an okay read but not to my personal taste.

This book was so weird! Gibson is a middle aged divorcee who meets a beautiful young woman named Cammie and instantly falls for her. Shelby is a woman grieving the loss of her wife, and she also meets Cammie at a grief support group.

The story is told from alternating chapters between Gibson and Shelby, bookended by notes from Cammie. The whole story was bizarre, with Cammie being a pathological liar and manipulator.

At the end it seems like she learned that from her family, and she continued to lie and manipulate her way through life, leaving a path of devastation behind her.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

two words: TWEE and TRITE. i rolled my eyes constantly. there's nothing new or interesting or even fun to read here - the book felt empty, almost like this was just an outline instead of a fully-realized story. no real character development and no real insights. writing wasn't great - very rupi-kaur-esque, where you're attempting to be "deep" but you just sound lame.

unless you're an avid consumer of those modern romcoms (you know the ones...), you should read something else.

thanks to random house publishing group for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Honestly, I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. It most definitely was a compelling and interesting read. I just felt like there wasn't much of a plot other than a girl scamming two people at once. There was no real story arc. The characters were interesting, the premise was also, but nothing really happens. It was just ok.

While I enjoyed having two characters worth rooting for and an interesting dynamic around personal responsibility and mental illness, "The Fake" really fell flat for me. The reader is aware from the back cover synopsis of "The Fake" that Cammie is a liar, and there isn't much else revealed about her character or the other characters to keep you motivated to read. There is no big "event". There are many literary fiction books I've loved that someone might describe as - "nothing happened" - but in that case, there is always beautiful poetic writing with insights about life and love that stick with you or there is wonderful character development - it's certainly a balance that is hard to strike. And unfortunately, this book didn't have those other elements to supplement a slow plotline.

An interesting take on a tale as old as time.

Cammie is a well seasoned con artist. This time she chooses two marks: the recently divorced and depressed Gibson, and the grieving anxiety prone widow Shelby.

I stuck through this one because I have an unending desire to see con’s meet their match. I was also somewhat charmed and disarmed by Cammie. Her initial remarks in the first section of the story sets up a journey of doubt for the reader. But as the tale enfolds it’s clear how easy manipulation is for Cammie. Gibson and Shelby are eaten up by guilt and rage as they battle their emotions over this person they’ve come to know as a friend or lover.

A quick read on how sorrow is powerful, debilitating, and necessary.