I feel awful for doing this, but this is a dnf.
I've read one of the author's books before, which I loved. However, this one is doing nothing for me. I paused it at some point, and came back to it several days later to continue reading. I read a further 10% before giving in.
I don't know what to say, except that it was very mellow. Too mellow for my taste.

Alexandria “Lexi” Danby, track star and college student, thought she had her life all figured out. Until the sudden death of her father upended everything, leaving Lexi without her scholarship, her mother depressed, and their family in debt. Now, years later, Lexi is struggling through life, working at the same job she had as a teen and waitressing (poorly) to pay for her few remaining college classes and keep her and her mother afloat. When Lexi’s former classmates unexpectedly show up at her restaurant while she is waitressing, Lexi feels ashamed of the direction her life has taken. Desperate to save face, she’s surprised to receive help from another customer, the handsome Will Grand who pretends to be Lexi’s devoted boyfriend. What starts as a quick fake dating scheme rapidly escalates into a fake engagement due to social media and Will’s prominence in the community. The only wrinkle, Lexi and Will are actually interested in each other and decide to really date while pretending to be engaged. As their lives become more intertwined, jobs, family pressures, and their own insecurities start to complicate their already complicated relationship. Lexi and Will will need to lean each other or their fake engagement may end in a very real breakup.

Sophie Sullivan’s Can’t Help Falling in Love is a real treat! Like cotton candy for the heart, it’s light, fluffy, and sweet. Lexi and Will are characters you can’t help but root for. They’re kind, generous, loyal, and love their families. They fit together perfectly right from their meet cute at the restaurant. Both are great people who deserve great things and a great connection with someone special. The family and friend dynamics were so important to the storyline, and were realistic and engaging. The interactions amongst the characters, main and side, were heartwarming and fun. They just exude happy energy. I love a good fake dating plot and Sullivan has added a cute little twist that gives the trope an extra special zip. Can’t Help Falling in Love is low angst with the drama help to a minimum. A lighthearted romp about falling in love when you didn’t really mean to.

What a delightfully charming fake dating romance!

This was so cute & fun! This definitely gave Cinderella vibes. Lexi and Will were so adorable. I loved them. They had an instant connection that didn't come off as cheesy. Will was charming and Lexi was super likable. They had good chemistry and the romantic relationship had plenty of swoon worthy moments.

I thought the fake engagement was a fun plot. I also liked the shenanigans. It kept me entertained.

An adorable fake dating romcom filled with heart and humor. Will make readers fall in love!

Spicy books are my true love. That being said, if I recommend a “sweet” (aka closed door aka fade to black aka there’s no outright 🌶️) romance, you better believe it is QUALITY. Sophie Sullivan has done it again! The way she crafts kissing scenes is totally swoon worthy! This book is about so much more than a fake engagement - it’s truly about how to face the fear that grief plants when we lose someone we love. About how to start diving into love knowing that one day our person could be taken from us without warning, and we would have to go on. The execution of this theme is incredibly well done, and woven into the plot without being too melancholy. Sullivan’s sentence crafting is immersive and left me longing for the scenery and antics amongst Will and Lexi’s friends. I wholeheartedly recommend this one!

Thank you to @NetGalley and the publisher for the e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.
Can't Help Falling in Love is a heart warming read that is perfect for the fall season! Lexi is down on her luck and hoping to catch a break. Will is an eligible bachelor that wants his mother to stop match making. In a meet cute situation, Lexi and Will find themselves together and mistakingly engaged! While pretending their engagement, they eventually cannot pretend their feelings for one another.
I really enjoyed this book, and definitely would recommend it for anyone looking for a nice, heartwarming read.

Fake dating, Seattle in autumn, the fall vibes are just immaculate. Once I picked this up, I couldn't put it down. This is definitely the perfect fall romance.

Can't Help Falling in Love is a charming rom com! Will and Lexi are fun characters, it's a fake dating to falling in love trope. There are lots of ups and downs along the way, but I loved that it ended with a happily ever after. It's a perfect easy read for fall!

Thank you so much NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the arc!

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

This was a cute read. The plot was interesting and kept me engaged (no pun intended). I liked the characters so much that I just had to know what happened!
I did find the insta love trope to be very on the nose. It was almost too unrealistic for my taste. However, the fake dating <spoiler>- or real dating I guess since they are fake engaged but are still seeing each other in actuality -</spoiler> was done well and lived up to my expectations.
I found FMC Lexi to be kind of annoying at times. She was always so self depricating and MMC Will always had to reassure her that no, she's great, she's EVERYTHING, not nothing (seriously, he tells her this A LOT). I feel like every response he gave her to whatever she said was some uplifting quote and it made me want to gag but also love that he saw her worth.
I absolutely hated Will's parents and would have 100% socked them in the face if they made those kinds of comments to my fiance. I also thought some characters were just so unnecessary and added nothing to the story (*cough* Brett and Carolyn *cough*). We could've had the same minor things play out without their characters.
Having two different storylines - one for Will, one for Lexi - was interesting. It broke the story up and made it feel unique. I especially appreciated how the author handles mental health and shows the ebbs and flows of depression by including scenes with Lexi's mom Gwen. Showing her home life added depth to Lexi's character. Having these two storylines also solidified just how different Lexi and Will's lives are.
Overall, cute read. A romance with some depth that includes family drama, fake dating, and insta love. Highly recommend to my romance lovers!

I liked it. But it felt so slow and hard to get into. It was a typical romance but not enough to keep my attention. Would recommend for people who are interested in started reading for a hobby,

To help her save face in front of high school friends she meets while waitressing at a restaurant, Will tells them Lexi is his girlfriend. One little white lie couldn't hurt, could it? But then one of the women invites them to a party, where a picture is taken and posted on social media. And the poster overheard Will telling a too insistant woman flirting with him that Lexi was his fiancée... But as Will is the heir to a major company, they have to play along with the fake engagement - doing otherwise would be social suicide.
This is a fake dating to fake engagement romance. It was ok. I prefer first person POV in a romance, with alternating POVs from the MCs. By 3%, I was already tired of the author trying to push on us the fact that the FMC is special, quirky and clumsy. We get it. You can't make that her entire personality. Somewhere along the road we even get a "She was different from any of the other women he'd dated." (and that's a straight quote from the book. Really not a fan). The FMC lacked maturity, although I did like the MMC. It was too insta-lovey (although the meet cute was cute), and there was a lack of chemistry. And don't get me started on the extremely stupid third act break up. This was not my favorite by this author. I absolutely adored their other books, especially Ten Rules for Faking It and Love, Naturally)
I received an advance review copy of this book for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was excited to get approved for Can't Help Falling since the synopsis sounded fun and lighthearted. At first I was wondering how you can get roped into a fake engagement but Sophie Sullivan did a great job of plotting how the problem just kept growing and became inescapable.

Will is the epitome of a perfect book boyfriend and really enjoyed his perspective of the book. I felt Sullivan did a great job of painting the fall setting and vibes including apple picking as a date! I also thought the side characters were amazing in this story, especially Will's sister Kyra and Maise.

However, after a while I found Lexi slightly annoying and repetitive. So much so, that I lost some interest in the book and wasn't looking forward to picking it up like I had been in the beginning. I'm also not a fan of the insta love trope and this felt more like that trope for me. I did like the ending but over all this was a 3.5/5 star read for me.

Fake fiancé / fake dating
Insta love
Dual POV
Fall Vibes

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this book in exchange of an honest review.

I enjoyed this fake relationship, slow burn, closed door romance. Set in Seattle in the fall, it has a bit of a Cinderella vibe, but instead of a wicked stepmother and stepsisters, Lexi has a mother who has been mired in profound grief and depression after losing her soulmate three years before. After her father died, Lexi quit college just a few credits shy of graduation and has been working 2 jobs while taking care of her agoraphobic mom and paying off her father’s debts. On the day that two of her high school friends show up at the restaurant where she does a poor job of waitressing, seeming to be celebrating the success that has eluded Lexi, she sits down at Will’s table to hide. Since Will’s been flirting with her his entire meal, he welcomes the intrusion and plays along when she says that she’s there with “her boyfriend.” When they’re both invited to a party by one of the friends, they’re introduced as being engaged and the lie gets picked up on social media, thanks to Will’s status as one of Seattle’s most eligible business leaders. Of course, as so often happens with this trope, he wants his status-conscious mother to stop her matchmaking, and Lexi doesn’t want to admit what she perceives as her failure to thrive.

So, although there’s no new ground broken here, it’s just a lovely book with a perfect book boyfriend - handsome, kind, successful, and a man who sees the best in Lexi, propping her up when she doesn’t believe in herself. Other than Will’s classist parents, everyone else is delightful, from Lexi’s best friend Maisie to Will’s supportive and friendly sisters and best friend, Ethan. If you’re looking for a sweet romance low on the angst, check this one out. Recommended.

This was a very cute and charming rom com! Will and Lexi are such lovable characters and it was fun seeing them fall in love! There are lots of ups and downs along the way, but I loved that it ended with a happily ever after.

Thank you so much NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the arc!

I absolutely loved this book! The meet cute was adorable and it helped kick start the book in the perfect way. I felt like I truly connected with all of the characters in this book. It was heart felt, sweet, and swoon worthy. I truly felt like I could feel the love that Will had for Lexi!

I have yet to meet a Sophie Sullivan book that I do not like. This book was wonderful and adorable and fun, but also dealt with some heavy topics.

I highly recommend giving this one a shot if you like romcoms, fake dating, or the guy falls first tropes.

TW for death of a parent (past but mentioned a lot).

Fine! A cute and cliche super light read. I think what I enjoyed most about this book was all the fun and coy autumn vibes, I wish I had saved it to read for october! Other than that it was about what you'd expect for a light romcom, but certainly not the best to do it. I would have loved a little more character development and maybe a little more plot development, but overall you'll get what you came for when you pick up this book!

This is a perfect fall romance and being set in the PNW didn’t hurt one bit! One of the the best fake dating/engagements I’ve read!

Definitely a cute rom com but nothing that really kept pulling me in to keep reading. I do love a fake engagement / marriage of convenience trope and it was done well in this. Great growth with Lexi that was also relatable, as an adult who feels ' behind' sometimes, and the growth with her mom was really sweet as well. Banter between the couple was cute! It was a nice, easy overall read but nothing super special about it or will stick out to me from other rom coms. Love the fall theme though.

Thank you to Net Galley and Sophie Sullivan for the chance to read this book early. I loved this book and both main characters. The fall setting in Seattle is great and the author makes sure to throw in a bunch of fall themed activities for the characters to do which is something I always plan to do every fall but I usually just stick to getting a PSL. The love story was cute and relatable. I love the tropes of mistaken identity and fake dating. Overall I enjoyed reading this book.

A charming, cozy fall rom-com read that you could easily see playing out as a movie. I’ve really enjoyed each read I’ve tried by Sophie Sullivan, so when I saw she had a new romcom set in my favorite season (fall) and featuring a fake relationship trope I knew this was for me.

This was a fun, easy read that will grab you for the afternoon. Lexi and Will have an awkward meet cute, Will is charmed by Lexi and they somehow find themselves going from a fake relationship to a fake engagement in a blink. For various reasons the two decide to continue the ruse. But nothing is simple when meddling family and friends get involved. Classic romcom fare ensues.

In addition to the cute romcom vibes, Sophie’s books typically deliver a thoughtful side to other issues as well. In this case the story also tackled long term grief and the loss of a close loved one. It was nicely balanced in a way that felt true to the grief element while still maintaining a light enough vibe for this type of story.

I enjoyed the story and characters (mains and secondary), a fun world to get swept up in for the afternoon. I look forward to more from this author. Thank you to St Martins Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy.