This story follows leigh and her development during her midlife crisis (lets be honest). Is she a likeable character no? Is she relatable? Heck yes. You follow her as she makes some decisions and experiences life in general, and everything in this book somehow circles back to each other at the end. I think its beautiful to read the ending, even though some parts are left unread. Would i recommend? Yes, especially if you relate to a crisis lol

Thank you to netgalley and the author for sending me the book in exchange for an honest review

We were pretending is certainly a page turner. Slightly different than my typical read but still captivating. I was intrigued bt the concept and the characters in the book. Definitely an interesting read!

I am going to be honest and say that this story was a struggle for me. I don't think it has anything to do with the author, it was the story itself. I found it hard to wrap my head around smuggling mushrooms. I don't know why I struggled so much, I really tried to get into this book. I did manage to finish it to the end though.

I liked that fact that there were multiple genres in this book, from mystery to thriller, to friendship. That part really made the book interesting in the beginning, but again the middle and the end was difficult for me.

With that being said, I don't think this book is for everyone - but I will say that it is unique. I would be interested in reading more from this author, hopefully this book was just a fluke.

It was my first time reading this author. We were pretending took me a minuted to get into. However once I got into the storyline it was a surprising read

This book is like a long walk in the woods in that you never know what is going to be around the corner. Is this book about family? Yes. Is it about death? Yes. Is it about mushrooms? Yes. Is it about friendship? Yes. I don't know how it all works together but it just does.

We Were Pretending is not lacking when it comes to great ideas or story lines, but unfortunately for me, all of the varying components just did not come together in the end.

From the start, Hannah Green creates an atmosphere that sparks the mind and feeds it with nature and family, each theme pulling you in deeper as the story unfolds. For the first half of the book, I was intrigued; I wanted to keep reading and I wanted answers. The second half of the book does not live up to the first, at least not for me. Things start to become jumbled in the second half and no real attention is paid to any one particular subject line, making it all feel tossed together and rushed in the end.

There is potential here, and I would read more by this author, I just wish the author had focused a bit more on polishing up the connections of the story in the end.

Rating: 3 stars!

This book kinda felt like it was one giant circle.. and I finally got to the end and didnt really see the overarching point to what I read.. I was just annoyed at the main character the entire time.

Thank you NetGalley and Little A for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 2/5 stars

We Were Pretending is the sophomore novel by author Hannah Gersen, which tries to juggle many interesting concepts. Grief, family, friendship, nature, technology, mushrooms and more… Sounds like a lot? Unfortunately, it was, and despite many interesting ideas, the story as a whole became less than the sum of its parts for me.

The story:
Leigh Bowers is at a breakingpoint in her life. After being caught illegally administering Hecate’s Key—a medicinal mushroom that brings peace to terminally ill patients—Leigh has lost everything in her life; from her job to her family and reputation. She sees a chance at redemption in a chance meeting with an old childhood-friend, turned natural-health-guru. Jennifer and Leigh reconnect and strike up a bold plan together; flee to the Canadian forest, live off the grid, commune with nature, and harvest the rare palliative mushrooms to administer in the care of trauma-patients. But like the forest floor; beneath the outward beauty, something dark is growing beneath, waiting to emerge. '

What I liked:
We Were Pretending drew me in from the start with a strong sense of atmosphere and the introduction of a wide range of interesting topics. I flew through the first 40% in basically a single sitting, enchanted by the nature writing of the Canadian forests and intrigued by the promises being made. During that single sitting, the quality of the writing on a sentence level and the complex field of seeds being sown led me to believe I might have a 5-star read on my hands. When it came to the harvesting though; the book let me down.

What I didn’t like:
This book had the potential of about 3 separate wonderful novels inside it. It could’ve been a wonderful character-journey about a woman’s fascination with nature and mushrooms, stemming from her experiences with losing her mother to cancer. It could’ve been a tight, almost cult-like story about Leigh’s toxic friendship with her childhood best friend turned health-guru at an isolated commune. It could’ve been centered around their practice of using a combination of nature and modern technologies to treat trauma-patients, and focused on the different people Leigh meets along the way. It could’ve been so many things, just not all of them at once.
From about the half way point; the book branched out too widely and spread itself to thin. The pacing tanked and I found myself struggling to pick the book back up once I took a break.
Rather than trying to incorporate all these elements into one story, I would’ve personally preferred if the author had focused on one, to give it the page time and development it deserved.

Many thanks to Little A Publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

An intriguing tale that examined the confluence of technology, life, and death was We Were Pretending. When the subject of climate anxiety came up, the protagonist Leigh went through an existential crisis and experienced her own death and rebirth in the underworld. These concepts were reinforced by the usage of the names of the fungus, Hekate, and another underworld goddess, Demeter. Leigh learns about the underlying qualities, resiliency, and beauty of nature by the end of the story, which helps her get past her ordeal. Leigh discovers her true self and her place in the ecosystem of the world by realizing the interdependence and connectivity of the forest, which in turn supports her daughter, father, friends, and autonomy, and vice versa.

We Were Pretending is a story that focuses in the climate doom that is already happening and enhanced my anxiety regarding the subject. We are constantly watching how governments sign treaties to reduce toxic waste in all its possibilities and ends not achieving those goals and the population is kept ill informed and anxious about the subject. Those who have a good grasp on what is happening are also responsible for the bad times that will await our future generations because we do not do enough, as is the case of Leigh, the main character in the story. Too bad most of the breakthrough products that the author writes about are, to the best of common knowledge, only dreams. It's an instigating read with plenty of food for thought regarding what we are, what we want, and how we deal with our environment and our planet.
I thank Ms. Gersen, her publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.

We Were Pretending by Hannah Gersen was very well written. I loved Gersen’s writing style. Her descriptions were so vivid that I felt as though I were in the scenes with her characters.

Thank You NetGalley and Little A for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I didn't mind this book. There was a lot going on and I found it almost overwhelming. Perhaps this just isn't my genre of book. It certainly was unusual.

This book was an existential crisis bottled into a few hundred pages. It was uncomfortable at times, but when is an existential crisis not uncomfortable? I could never quite pinpoint what was going to happen next or where Hannah was taking the story.

I truly thought this book was going to follow Leigh’s obsession with her friend, Jenny, and how this obsession uproots her entire life. For about 80% of the book I kept biting my nails waiting for the “oh crap” moment.

The ending was satisfyingly a breath of release! It truly made me believe that things turn out all right - we can’t control everything or predict what’s next but we will be ok!


Thank you NetGalley and Hannah Gersen for providing me an advanced copy for my honest review!

Drugs and trees and friendship and technology....this book has everything.

It's good. That's how I felt afterwards. I feel like there were some questionable choices made by Leigh--fully knowing the repercussions, she still makes the (legal) wrong choice. Even after reuniting with a old friend/enemy, Leigh puts everything in her life in question...but then kind of doesn't do anything with it. It's the story of a mid-life crisis.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

An unusual novel that has just a bit too much going on. After losing so much for having trafficked Hecate's Key, Leigh is recruited to keep an eye on her old friend Jenny, who wants her to get involved in an off the grid mushroom farm of sorts. There's also AI. I was a big fan of Gerson's debut but this one was meh for me because it didn't seem to know what it wanted to be. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Over to others.

If you love books where nature is a main character (like I do) then this book is for you! The story follows main character Leigh through her work, life & relationships. The story has grief, and happiness, and the ever present adult need to run away into the woods and never look back. I enjoyed the writing, characters and the setting. The focus on nature & trees made the book dreamy and a little bit magical. Plus a sprinkle of some cool AI, sci-fi stuff. A perfect recipe for an enjoyable novel!

Favorite quote: This was the problem with being human, I thought. The sun inspires helpless optimism.

Overall it was an interesting book. Most concepts well explained and emotions of characters presented well. There were a few motivational actions not explained well for the characters and the ending was not to my liking.

We Were Pretending by Hannah Gersen is at it's core a drama about death, starting over, friendship and consequences. It's too close to real life for me. Trees and an illusive mushroom play a huge part here as well. I'm not really into domestic dramas divorcees, child custody and remarriage but I do like character studies which is what this book reminded me of. The synopsis is interesting and it has a nice eye-catching cover. The writing here was solid and the characters fully fleshed but it still won't be for everyone. Parts just didn't hold my attention. The direction the characters end up going in weren't really as engaging as I would've liked. I wanted more of a character arc for Leah. The expectation was that she'd find herself but that never did really happen. It had a good start though.

Unfortunately, this one didn't work with me.
Didn't appreciate the writing style and didn't care for the characters or the main storyline or their motivations.
Not for me.

There is quite a difference between the blurb for this book and the actual story, which I found a bit misleading. Had I known this was going to be so doom and gloom, I probably would not have read it. I expected more between Leigh and Jenny, especially since Leigh had such high admiration for Jenny, which I never fully understood why. Jenny never once came off as genuine and seemed like a fraud, which Jenny herself almost admits but Leigh still refuses to see that. I found the juxtaposition between nature and the AI technology Leigh was working on fascinating, but the tech seemed a little too fantastical. Although, I don't know what's secretly being developed, so maybe it's possible. Based on the blurb that lead me to read this, I would have preferred more focus on Leigh, Jenny, and nature, and less on the AI stuff.