Love, Lies & Cherry Pie - Jackie Lau ⭐️⭐️⭐️🌶🌶
"A charming rom-com about a young woman’s desperate attempts to fend off her meddling mother…only to find that maybe mother does know best." I liked the concept of this more than the book itself. The mcs lacked chemistry (I didn't feel like I knew the mmc at all by the end of the book) and the fmc spent the.whole.book being a walking shoulder-chip. Some lovely family moments and a mischievous cat were my favorite parts. Thank you to @simonschusterca for the ARC.

I’m pretty conflicted on my review for this one.
I started off really loving it - I related a lot to Emily (though I’m now married with a child, this happened later in life). The pressure to live up to society’s standards is present in many of our lives.

I enjoyed both MCs separately, but I felt like together they lacked chemistry. When it got to the spicy scenes, I was sort of stunned that it was even happening - I didn’t feel much of a build up to them getting together physically, and it felt awkward to me.

Besides the romance (which is what it was meant to be), I actually really enjoyed the book, which is where my conflict is coming from!
I liked that Emily was a romance author, and some lines in the book were sort of “behind the scenes” of writing.

As a Canadian, I always want to support Canadian authors! I loved that this was set in Toronto, and the little relatable things (even something simple like calling it grade 3 instead of 3rd grade).

tropes:
🥸 fake dating
🙃 opposites attract
🐢 slow burn
🇨🇦 Canadian author + setting (Toronto)
💞 dual 1st person pov

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

This book was so freaking cute and entertaining!! I finished it in like three days and could not put it down. The book also takes place in Toronto (mostly) which was a lot of fun to read because there were so many references that I understood!

Also, I NEVER annotate but I ended up annotating the e-book and that was a lot of fun!

Some things I liked about the book:
🍒Emily was SO relatable sometimes!! Though I'm not sure that’s entirely a good thing because she is 33 while I’m not even 20…

🥧I loved Mark’s character, he was reserved at first but opened up more as he got closer to Emily in a natural way

🍒Emily’s relationship with her family and how she navigates the ups and downs of being in a big Asian family

🥧Ms. Muffins, she was the best part about this book!

🍒How Emily and Mark can be their true selves around each other without having to pretend to be someone else

🥧All the book/writing references and comments

🍒The fact that the book took place in Toronto!! I know I already mentioned this but I haven’t read a lot of books that take place in Toronto so this made me happy!

If you enjoy a light, fake-dating romance then you will definitely enjoy this book! Thank you Simon and Schuster and Jackie Lau for the e-ARC.

While Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie had moments of humour and tackled the realities of being in your 30’s in the present day, there were integral elements of the story that left a lot to be desired, for me. My biggest issue with the novel was that the voice of the protagonist, Emily, was surprisingly immature for a 33 year old–she often reacted dramatically to quite minute and irrelevant happenings, and took a lot of sweeping statements about publishing very personally. Her banal thoughts really wore me down, honestly, and there was no character growth in that regard. I liked how the POV switched mid-way–I thought it was clever and a much needed reset.

I appreciated the representation of someone in their 30s who feels lost, is struggling financially, and feels the guilt that comes with the recognition of not achieving success as a child of immigrants. However, these themes weren’t tackled with much finesse and became repetitive.

The romance didn’t do it for me–I was unable to sense the chemistry between Emily and Mark. I recognize that this book makes reference to Pride & Prejudice, especially with how polarizing they treated one another at the start. Fake dating is one of my favourite tropes but I did not understand why Emily was acting so skittish around Mark when the ruse was her idea in the first place. By the time they got together, I didn’t care as I was not invested in the build up of their relationship.

The positives were all the characters, and this felt like a love letter to Toronto.

Thanks Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the e-ARC.

DNF'd @ 38%. This was very hard to get into. I tried several times to push myself to keep reading and this book just wasn't for me. It was choppy and the way the main character just constantly info dumped was outputting. It just felt like I was reading random thoughts that came into the author's head while writing. Unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

i found this book really entertaining, the writing made it easy to fly through and loved that it was dual POV! i also liked that it seemed pretty reasonable why the main characters started fake dating and it didn't just happen out of nowhere which i feel like can happen with this trope. their fake dates were cute, i just think at times i found it hard to connect with the characters. i wanted them to build a bit more chemistry before becoming a couple so i feel like i wasn't as invested in them getting together. the mother daughter relationship definitely had me feeling all the emotions, and unexpectedly became one of my favourite parts of reading this book. overall, this was a quick and fun read!

thank you Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this arc!

3.5/5
[This is an unbiased & voluntary review]. I think this book was fun and really cute! I find that I appreciate the dynamic of Mark & Emily, even if the slow burn got to me realllll good. Small detail of personal preference but I just loved the small influence their friends had by just popping into the story, not realizing they actually pushed their relationship to grow into something more significant. I also loved the fact it is Toronto based since I'm in Toronto, and on top of the fact that we have a lot of mutual cultural references. Overall a nice read for the spring, and big thank you to Simon & Schuster for the copy!

I’m really glad that part 2 introduces Mark's POV, because by that point in the book I was starting to find Emily a bit exhausting. She’s very, very dramatic. This is not a problem, it’s just a lot when there’s no other narrator to temper her manic-ness. This is a book of bad first impressions, multi-generational immigrant families not understanding each other, and finding a way through life that works for you. It’s about learning to understand your family and yourself, and finding your own identity, and learning that love can sometimes come out of nowhere. If you’ve seen Disney’s Red - it gives that vibes, but it Red was an adult romcom about May’s dating life. My favourite scene was when Mark, our introverted MMC was not only willing to but made the offer, to change their date plans at the last minute to accommodate Emily’s writing!! <3 <3 <3 This was a sweet read.

Definitely have some snacks on hand when you crack this book open because it will make you hungry! This book was a delight from start to finish and I did not want to put it down. Sometimes in rom-coms the main characters lean towards the annoyingw but Jackie Lau lets her characters be complex with fears, insecurities, and more than one harebrained idea but in the midst of it all you still care for them. I especially enjoyed the sister dynamics. Lau makes her characters endearing by having them confront their fears to become better versions of themselves.

The quotes at the start of each chapter were wonderful and more than once made me laugh. I want every book I read to have paraphrased quotes at the beginning of each chapter. They are so amusing.

A fun element was having both main characters be readers and aware of the annoying tropes that can be present in rom-com books and *gasps* not doing them. It was so refreshing I wanted to cheer out loud.

Five-star read, it's light, funny, and foodie-approved.

My only gripe, and it's minor, was having the female main character commenting on the food they eat and how many carbs they've eaten that day. I don't think it's needed, especially in a book that is mouth-watering in its description of food.

Emily is in her early thirties and is single. Coming from a family where her four sisters are all married, leads to the family pressure that Emily is running out of time. Enter Mark - he’s single, has a good job, comes from a good family, and is seated ext to Emily at her sister’s wedding. Emily’s mother is determined to find someone for Emily, leading to an interesting fake dating scenario amongst two people who dislike each other.

I really enjoyed this story - it kept me entertained despite being a little slow at the start. There were some very sweet, funny, and meaningful moments in the book. I also loved the Canadian aspects of this book - it’s set in Toronto.

Thank you Simon & Shuster and Netgalley for an ARC of this book. Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie releases May 7.

Unfortunately this one wasn’t for me.

I read 40% of this book before I decided to DNF it. I did resonate with the family dynamics and pressures of having to get married but I just didn’t connect with the characters. I couldn’t care less about Emily going out with Mark…. I didn’t care to stick around and see if it got better because it just wasn’t capturing my attention.

DNFed at 25%

I really wanted to connect with this story. I liked the premise a lot, fake dating, yes please, and set in Toronto, Canada. But from the moment Emily was rather rude and a bit caustic to Mark at the wedding, it kind of soured me towards her character. I get that she was beyond annoyed with her mom’s actions, but it wasn’t Mark’s fault. And she kind of took it out on him. And the constant comments about how being in her 30s was old grated on my nerves a bit.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t a likeable enough character for me to go 58% of the book with just her POV. I wonder if my feelings towards the book would have been different if we had been given Mark’s POV from the outset. Knowing we were to get Mark's POV, I moved to the chapter where it happens hoping that it might draw me back into the story enough to have me go back and continue reading, but sadly it did not.

4-⭐⭐⭐⭐

"You can smile, you know."
"No, I can't. I'm highly allergic to smiling."

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie is an adult romcom following author and barista, Emily, who is tired of her mother's meddling. When she becomes fed up of her mother's latest attempt to get her in a relationship, Emily decides to offer her date, Mark, to help get both their parents off their backs with a good old fashioned fake dating situation. Yet as time goes and these fake dates start to feel real on Emily begins to wonder is maybe her mother was right about Mark...

This book a delightful quick and easy romcom to dive into. Emily is a classic millennial that was easy to relate to with her tight budget and success. She felt real to me and I enjoyed exploring her journey. Meanwhile, Mark is a go with the flow kind of guy who has a lot of surprises underneath his argyle sweater that has me grinning the entire time. Also, he has a cat!

This book is about a 1.5 spicy pepper out of 5 spicy pepper. It is definitely a more slow burn romance as Emily wants nothing to do with Mark in the beginning. I loved the build up of the romance as I started to see Mark in a new light as Emily did and it had me smiling and giggling along the journey.

"From this baffling exchange, there are several possible conclusions. First, this man is absolutely gone for me and it has impaired his good judgement..."

The story itself is very light as Emily handles deadlines, stresses of work, publication, and familial expectations. The family drama shook things up but there were these little surprises sprinkled throughout that just added new perspective to the story and drew me in. I will say there is nothing specific that stood out but the ride was smooth and I felt so at ease while reading. The ending is sweet and cherry on top (haha).

Thank you so much Atria books for this arc!

Thank you to Simon Schuster for an #arc in exchange for an honest review.

~ A charming rom-com about a young woman’s desperate attempts to fend off her meddling mother… only to find that maybe mother does know best. ~

🥧 The book releases on May 7th, make sure to check it out if you're a fan of the fake dating trope, or rom-coms in general.

This was a fun read! I especially loved that it was set in Toronto, and that, no matter where you come from, families and relationships are all the same: "ridiculous and beautiful".

3.5 stars
This book was definitely an enjoyable read! There were a lot of things that I liked about this book. The fmc Emily is super relatable (almost disturbingly so) and made you want to support her. Some of her actions I questioned for sure, but not enough to make her tiresome. The fact that she’s an author made this book feel very meta almost? I liked reading about the ins and outs of publishing. In general, I really liked Lau’s writing and I plan to read more of her books. The Toronto setting was a huge plus as well!

There were a few things that I didn’t like about this book as well. There were some parts that just felt really long or a bit unnecessary. I understood why they were written in, but the pacing did lose me in parts. I felt this more in the first fourth of the book. There felt like a lot of characters (Emily has a large family which was central to the plot), but some of the side characters I felt weren’t that relevant to the overall plot.

All in all though, I would recommend this book to someone that is looking for a cute, easy, fake dating book with a sprinkle of family drama (specifically from the Asian American perspective).

It took me nearly three-quarters of the way through this book before I started enjoying it. Emily Hung was very unlikable, especially in the opening scene, and throughout the entire story she makes terrible assumptions about people.

We eventually get Mark Chan’s perspective, but throughout the first half I had to wonder why this seemingly lovely person was putting up with terrible treatment from a prospective romantic partner.

There is a lot of positives that could have made a wonderful novel. It’s set in Toronto, it has interesting bits about the writing profession and the challenges of being from an immigrant / first generation family. Unfortunately, poor writing and editing choices shifted focus away from a more compelling story to this uneven book. 2.5/5

Unfortunately, this was not the book for me. I felt like it was all over the place and I didn’t really love the characters. I felt like we just got to know them on a surface level and I felt like what we knew about them kept being repeated. I also didn’t love the chemistry between Emily and Mark as it didn’t feel genuine to me. I loved how this book took place in Toronto and all the little nods to the city, but apart from that, the story fell flat for me.

2.75 ⭐

Book Review
Love Lies and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau

Thoughts and Tropes
Fake dating
Family drama
Miscommunication
Mother / daughter dynamics
First generation immigrants
Canadian content- Loved the References to Toronto
Meddling mother
Asian stereotypes ( high achiever, good academically, smart, studious, family oriented)
Comments about housing market and the cost of living made it relatable
Inside look into world of publishing( agents, submissions, royalties etc)
I did find that the intimacy scenes felt a bit rushed
Multiple POV
Family pressure, pressure to succeed
Imposter syndrome

Characters
Emily- published author, coffee barista, feels she isn’t living up to her parents expectations, at 33 she is unmarried and unattached

Mark- gives in to the set up, dabbles in painting,quiet

Ms Muffins- Margaret if you please

Secondary characters- sisters, nieces, dads, aunties, friends -Ashley, Andrew, roommate always adds to the authenticity of the MCs and their relationships outside of the one they have with eachother and gives readers a more well rounded narrative

Overall
A slow start (honestly wasnt sure I was connecting to the story for a minute there) and then the pace picks up and you end up with a sweet read (pun intended)

Thanks to @netgalley and @atria for my digital ARC in return for an honest review. Opinions expressed are my own

Loved all the Toronto representation. The fake dating was chef's kiss. It's giving Kim's Convenience vibes bc of the family expectations and drama.

I really wanted to love this one, as I saw a post marketing it as "Pride and Prejudice with fake dating" but it unfortunately fell short for me. I loved the P&P vibes and the fake dating trope, as well as the Bridget Jones vibes but the main FMC, Emily, got on my nerves. She complains A LOT about her family, the publishing industry, her housing situation, the fact that she's old (at thirty-three?!?) and it was too much for me.

There was a definite lack of chemistry between Emily and Mark too; I didn't care if they ended up together or not, because they didn't seem to want to end up together anyway. Mark's character was flat, we don't know much about him besides the fact that he has an adorable cat and a difficult relationship with his father (which we're told about as a reader but not shown).

I feel this had potential to be a really cute fake dating story but it focused too much on publishing complaints and the FMC's relationship with her mother, the actual relationship between Mark and Emily took a supporting role. It had some cute moments, but not enough to redeem it in my eyes.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for providing a copy in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.