This was a cute, quick read! It had plenty of YA tropes to keep you sucked in and wanting more. It wasn't the most in depth and emotional, but to me it was the perfect "spend an afternoon reading by the pool" type book! Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC!

This was such a fun read about frenemies-to-more and throw in a little fake dating. I liked that this had multiple tropes and the dual pov.

The ending felt a little rushed, but other than that, I thought this was a cute read.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I loved Jenn P. Nguyen’s debut novel, The Way to Game the Walk of Shame. That’s why it’s really disappointing that Fake It Till You Break It didn’t win me over at all.

Initially, I liked the concept – the fact that these Mia and Jake grew up with each other and knew every little thing about one another, but hated one another. This is the perfect place to start a hate-to-love fake-dating scheme. And it works, for a while. Their surprise when they realize how easy it would be to fall in love with each other and actually be with each other was super realistic and I loved it.

That being said, when things inevitably go downhill and that first fallout occurs, what makes them work so well is also what breaks them – their knowledge of each other and their understanding of one another’s weakness – perfection. BUT, what comes later, the arguments, the immaturity, the absolute cheesiness, turned me off the book. I know, this is a teen book, so it’s written for a teen audience. However, there are so many moments that felt unrealistic, or too verbose, or just too much?? And that kept pulling me out of the story. This felt unfinished and unpolished. I know it was an ARC, but it just didn’t gel with me.

As a whole, would I pick up another Jenn P. Nguyen book? Yes, 100% yes. I love her characters and I love how she builds relationships. This one just fell a bit short.

Plot: 3/5
Characters: 4/5
World Building: 2/5
Writing: 2/5
Pacing: 2/5
Overall: 2.5/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.58/5

eARC gifted via NetGalley by Swoon Reads via Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group via Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

This one was right up my alley! Anything remotely resembling a YA romcom like Jenny Han, Maurene Goo, Sarah Dessen, Kasie West and I am here for it! Love this author and have to stalk her previous books now!

I love this. A well written and funny friends to lovers and pretending dating story is always a favorite, this was so well done, I loved the characters and wanted more.

Fans of To All The Boys I've Loved Before will adore this YA fake dating story! Mia and Jake are so sick of their parents trying to micro manage their relationships and they decide to finally give in and pretend to date. This is such a fun plot where you can't help but root for these characters to get together. This provides a fluffy, happy contemporary for teen readers who are looking for an escape.

Cute book with my favorite trope and yours, fake dating. Love that they were trying to get their parents off their backs and, as always, love when fake dating turns into more.

This was acute YA "hate-love" story. I didn't have strong feelings about it either way. It kept my attention and I didn't detest the characters by the end which is often the case with romance books set in high school. It was a good fluff read .

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Now I know two stars looks harsh, but let me state right out that I did not think this book was bad or offensive or anything. I thought this book was okay, which according to GR is a 2 star read.

The concept of Fake It Till You Break It is great. I love the twist on the fake dating trope here: to make their moms stop shipping them, Mia and Jake decide to fake date before imploding their relationship. This could have been an amazing hate-to-love/fake dating combo, but it unfortunately fell a bit flat. As I said, it's not bad, but it's expected in every single note.

This book would have worked better if the dislike between Mia and Jake felt believable at the start. The problem is that they're established as having been close childhood friends AND as both having been each other's first crush, but there's absolutely no explanation for why the two of them started disliking one another. Without understanding the change in their relationship from positive to negative, it's hard to see their initial distaste as anything but a half-assed plot point.

Overall, this book is a decent read. It's pleasantly fast-paced, a good thing to pick up if you're trying to quickly meet a reading goal. It will give you exactly what you expect from beginning to end with no surprises or emotional complexities. Sometimes it's nice to read a book like that, so I'd recommend it if that's what you're in the mood for or if you're not that familiar with the genre yet.

Let me start this review with a quick disclaimer on my reading tastes. There are a few tropes I will never, ever, ever get enough off. Those are enemies-to-lovers (in which “enemies” can mean anything on the spectrum from “You annoy me greatly and I can’t stand you” until “we are doomed to be on opposite ends of this deadly war and I may have to kill you”, but I digress) and fake dating. I will read variations of these tropes until I’m old and grey and telling anyone who will hear me that I ship it. So naturally, when I read the premise of Fake It Till You Break It, I was hooked because it combines my two favorite tropes. I mean, it was meant to be!

Mia and Jake go way back. Their mothers are best friends and have been shipping the two of them together for as long as they can remember. And they are both beyond fed up with it because they don’t even like eachother (ha, so they think). So they come up with the perfect plan: fake date for a while, convince their mothers they are together, and then break up in the most horrible way so they will never be forced together again. Bulletproof plan, right? Totally, and you know I’m a sucker for these kinds of crazy plans!

Weirdly though, what I loved most about this story is that it didn’t feel like an enemies-to-lovers story. I mean, it’s enemies-to-lovers for Mia and Jake, because they are convinced they hate eachother, but honestly reading this book I felt more like the moms. Even when these two are fighting and bantering with eachother (and the banter is so, so good), it’s obvious that they do care about eachother. So really, it’s just waiting for the two of them to catch on. And they do so in cute and adorable ways, meaning this book is just a fun, adorable ride from start to finish.

What else did I like about this story? The moms, for a start. Sure, if I was their kid I would be hella annoyed with their antics as well, but they come from good intentions as they just want to unite their families to become the family they already know they are (no pressure, right?). Though not perfect, they are hilarious and heartwarming to watch. I also love the big focus on family overall, since there is also a big storyline between Jake and his mom and his brother. And I must confess, I also loooved all the kdrama references. Mia’s a huge kdrama fan and hearing her gush about My Love From The Star made me want to rewatch that ASAP, because I agree with Mia and already miss that alien hotness (and here I go, digressing again).

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. There were a few downsides, such as the rather forgettable friends (their names, I have no idea anymore…) and a love triangle that mayyybe could have been left out, but all in all I highly enjoyed this book and recommend it to all fans of the enemies-to-lovers trope, fake dating trope and kdrama antics.

I received a copy of this arc from NetGalley for an honest review. A cute love story that all teens will love and connect with.

ARC from Netgalley

Having read and loved Jenn Nguyen’s previous book, The Way to Game the Walk of Shame, picking up Fake It Till You Break It was a no brainer for me. But I’m afraid my expectations were too high. Mia and Jake were likable enough, but there was nothing extraordinary about them or their story. I will say the funnest part of this book is that it was so obvious they were a couple waiting to happen. There was one scenario in the book where they were out to eat, and Jake was passing Mia condiments before she could even ask. That was how well they knew each other. I also think the fact that their mother’s wanted them together was adorable. Isn’t it every set of best friend’s dreams for their children to marry each other? It wasn’t enough to make the story stand out, but it’s a great way to pass the afternoon if you’re looking for a quick read that will give you some smiles.

By all accounts this one should have been a solid win for me but it just fell flat. I found all the characters to be unlikable and while I didn finish the book it was a struggle and in the end it was just ok

This book takes readers on an enjoyable YA trip with a favorite trope - fake dating to real love! These sweet teens grew up together and their moms always wanted them to end up together, but they ‘can’t stand each other’. Sure, guys!! You know what happens when they pretend to date with plans to have a dramatic break up to get their moms over it. This fun fluff does more than you expect, a must for YA lovers. It’s a delight!

Nope. So many good contemporary picks out there that this particular one won't make my cut. Loved the idea, thought the delivery could have used a little more work before publication, particularly in terms of character development and realistic diologue. Sometimes it seemed that the author tried too hard to create snappy, comic banter - there was SO MUCH of it that the humor eventually lost punch. Would rather go with a Kasie West or a Erin McCahan offering that is funny while still providing emotional depth.

I love everything about Jenn P. Nguyen’s books.
Great writing and all around a good, solid story you don’t want to put down.
Can’t wait for Jenn’s next book!

>3.5 stars
>Cute. 
>Amazing food. 
>Dual POVs
>Over the unnecessary, ”I eat like a pig, I must exercise” type comments and mentality all the way through. Frustrating as all hell, especially when Mia plays it up when flirting to fish for compliments. Realistic, but it never gets pushed back as a bad thing, which is the exact opposite of helpful to combat this nonsense and torpedoed my enjoyment every time.
>At first they were so good at being at each other’s throat, I had a hard time rooting for them to get together. 
>Then things got all cute and broken and I was won over. 
>Feel like Jake had his moment & his resolution, but we never got to see Mia succeed, besides getting the guy but that’s a hallow victory for me. 
>Moms pushing kids together are creepy, IMHO. Once we got to know them better, as women and not just moms, they were sweet BFFs. I love their character progression and plans at the end.

I have mixed feelings about Fake It Till You Break It. At some parts, it's fun and cute, but most of the time while reading it I just felt annoyed.

Here are some of the things that I liked about it:

-- There are definitely some cute parts (like the ending!), and there was some funny, entertaining banter between the main characters.
-- There's a nice friendship dynamic between Jake and Rose
-- There are lots of Harry Potter references (this may or may not be a pro for all readers, but I enjoyed them.)
-- There's a tiny house! (I love tiny houses.)

And here are the things that I didn't like:

-- It was just so strange and annoying how over-involved the moms in the book were in their kids' love lives. Their motivations are kind of explored later in the book, but it just made me really mad how invested they were and it was kind of painful to read. There are some points where Mia's mom is just being flat-out mean just because Mia is interested in someone other than Jake.
-- Both of the main characters are pretty annoying as well,
-- So much of the book just made me cringe so hard. (For example, there is an instance where the word "hottie" is used.)
-- Is it just me, or is it kinda weird that Mia and Jake know each other SO well even though they've hated each other since childhood? I mean, I know their moms make them hang out, but don't you think they wouldn't talk to each other if they hated each other's guts?
-- I'm so over that trope of the two characters who are SO obvious about crushing on each other but are both utterly oblivious to how much the other person likes them.
-- Sometimes the characters say things that just don't make sense—either because the characters them selves are being stupid or just because the writing is unclear.
-- In general, the diction and writing seemed a little sloppy—for example, there were a lot of times where the same word was used over and over and it made the writing seem awkward. (Maybe this was just because I had an advance copy, and this could be fixed in the final?)
-- I didn't feel like the dual POV was done very well—I sometimes forgot which character was speaking.
-- I wanted to see more interactions between Mia and her friend Aly. The reader is told that they're friends, but that's never really shown and they barely spend any time together. I didn't feel like I had a sense of their relationship.
-- There's kind of some cheating? It's not really clear, but whether or not it actually qualified as cheating, Mia was still totally a jerk to Ben regardless.

Overall, I felt like the bad outweighed the good in the case of Fake It Till You Break It, but I'm sure some readers will find it to be cute and enjoyable—just not me.

2.5 stars

Fake relationship trope! Enemies-to-lovers trope!

Anyway, here we have a couple of teenagers who have known each other their whole lives and just want to get their moms off their backs. Despite hating each other, they figure if they can stage a relationship and a breakup, they can do the whole "see, we tried" routine, and that'll be the end of that.

But we all know that they are wrong. Mother does know best sometimes. (And there's a reference to another Disney favourite of mine...)

Right out of the gates, I was amused and could connect with Mia. In the first two pages, I'd already highlighted dialogue that sounded a lot like conversations I'd recently had with my mother. Behold...

----"If you're not in the car in two minutes, I'm leaving without you."
----She gaped at me, both hands on her hips. "Excuse me, who exactly is the parent around here?"
----"Something I wonder all the time," I muttered under my breath.

Except that I don't mutter that. I tell my mom straight out. And honestly, I did threaten to kick her out of the car this past weekend so she could walk the 100+ miles from Nottinghamshire back down to London.

Our couple in question consisted of neighbours Mia and Jake. Mia was snarky and earnest, dreaming of a life onstage. On the other hand, Jake was hardworking and studious, just your everyday hot nerd, aka my kryptonite. I love bickering between couples before they realise there's something else going on between them, and we got plenty of that in this book. Everyone else could see something between them except them.

That being said, sometimes it felt a bit too forced; I feel like the book could have done with a round or two more of edits to smooth out some of the scenes, make them more natural. Jake was also super determined to get Mia and Finn out of his life, and I didn't completely understand why it was so imperative. There were also some things that didn't make sense to me. For example, I know teenagers drink, but it seemed odd that Mia and Jake would be able to just grab glasses of champagne or cognac in public without anyone saying anything.

Oh, and I love this cover. I just wanted to mention that. It's flirty and fun, and the coral background is just right.

This was a fairly light-hearted YA romance. Despite some of the too obvious writing, Fake It Till You Break It was still a fun read if you like the tropes like I do. You should also read The Way to Game the Walk of Shame , Jenn's debut, which I loved.

Mia and Jake have known each other forever. They live almost next to each other and grown up together. This all because their mothers are best friends. So, you might think they are the best of friends too? Nah, not so much. Now they are teens they can't stand even being in the same room for too long. Sad news for their mothers, as they think they would be the perfect couple and do everything to get them together.

Their mom's drag them along to Sunday afternoon dim sum, dinners at each other's places, and car rides to school, But Mia and Jake they want their lives back and want to have freedom to choose who they want to date. After Mia's mom turns away one of Mia's date, Mia and Jake come up with a plan. They are starting to pretend to everyone that they are dating. Then they will stage a grande finale breakup so they never have to hear ever again that they will be the perfect couple. They keep up appearrances and it goes well, untill one think start to mess things up; they fall in love for real..!!

Fake It Till You Break It is a perfect book choice for everyone who loves a contemporary romcom story.
Altough it didn't have much depth it was very entertaining. Both main characters are very cute; Mia is funny and bold and dreams of being on stage and I love how in the end she gets the chance to make her dream come true. Jake was just very thoughtfull and sweet, especially when they start their fake-dating. The plot was sometimes a bit slow and it lacked real exciting page turners, but this book must have it from it's cute romantic fluffy-ness and a good happy end. And that is just what you get with this one!