2.5 stars rounded up- Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I really wanted to love it because I love the fake dating premise. But something felt a little off the whole time I was reading. I made it a little over 1/3 and couldn’t bring myself to finish because this book just wasn’t working for me.

What I liked:
I really did like Jamie’s character and wanted more of Jamie and Laurie’s banter much sooner because it’s great and well done. I would have been much more drawn in had this been more of a focus throughout. I also liked that the characters are all lawyers and there is some roundness to both Laurie and Jamie’s characters. I also liked Emily’s character as a bear friend.

What didn’t work for me:
I couldn’t connect with Laurie because I found it extremely unbelievable that a top lawyer as smart and observant as her would be so oblivious to what’s happening in her own relationship. Or that such a strong character would be so one dimensionally self-blaming when her relationship doesn’t work?

The first 20% of the book is her groveling about her ex and thinking she can win him back, and we don’t know enough about him as readers to care why even? Like what makes him great? Obviously an 18 year relationship is something to grieve, but it just felt very unrealistic due to how over the top some of those scenes are without really knowing the characters enough yet. Their relationship is also not the main romance in the book (as advertised) so I felt the pace needed to pick up in general. I think this book could have really benefitted from having the breakup off the page before the book starts - it would have made the pace more engaging.

Ultimately this was so slow to get to the plot line I actually cared about that I found myself no longer interested in any character’s story at all.

I can’t say I’d recommend this personally. I prefer other fake dating trope books a lot more. I’d recommend The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory or Take A Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert instead for a fake dating book.

I do hope other readers love this more than I did, however!

Laurie comes home and finds her boyfriend of 18 years wanting to break up. She thought it was because he didn't want to have a baby with her. She's wanted a baby for a while, but put it off for Dan. So they end up breaking up. She thinks Dan just needs a break and will come back to her. Dan meets up with her two months later to tell her that he's met someone else, and she's pregnant with his child. Laurie is super upset, because she feels he robbed her of parenthood. Laurie works at the same company as Dan. So it makes it hard for her to go back to work. Once back rumors were going around the office.

She gets stuck in an elevator with Jamie. He's a playboy around the office. She learns he is trying to get a promotion, but their boss wants him to clean up his image. They decide to fake date, so the rumors about Dan will get off her back, and to make Dan jealous, also to help Jamie can clean up his image so he can get his promotion.

However can they keep faking it, or do real emotions bloom? Can Laurie get over Dan? Can she learn to trust another man after what she went through with Dan?

Mhairi! McFarlane! Does! It! AGAIN!

To be honest, I was a little worried when I read the description that If I Never Met You was that it was going to quickly turn into a gimmicky story of a duo's hijinks posting their fake relationship on social media. And while the burgeoning romance between Laurie and Jamie was way more organic and adorable than the teaser had led on, the novel had far more depth than that.

What I particularly loved about If I Never Met You is the fact that it's not primarily a romance in a traditional sense; if anything, it's the story of a breakup and the long process to recover afterwards and be ready to love again and more fiercely in the future. In a way, it reminded me of the film 500 Days of Summer, especially in the parts where Laurie went back and actually looked at her relationship with Dan through honest eyes. I thought those observations throughout the book were lovely and thoughtful.

Anyway, brb inhaling every novel Mhairi McFarlane has ever written.

It's been a while since I've moved a book to my DNF list. I had a hard time getting into this read and found it even harder to connect with the main character. Perhaps this would be a better read for someone else, just not me.

I prefer Own Voices stories, but this was a really cute slow burn romance! I definitely recommend it.

wow!! what a great read. This is my first book with Mhairi Mcfarlane. I can't wait for her next book. Who doesn't like a fake relationship?

If faking love is this easy... how do you know when it’s real?

When her partner of over a decade suddenly ends things, Laurie is left reeling—not only because they work at the same law firm and she has to see him every day. Her once perfect life is in shambles and the thought of dating again in the age of Tinder is nothing short of horrifying. When news of her ex’s pregnant girlfriend hits the office grapevine, taking the humiliation lying down is not an option. Then a chance encounter in a broken-down elevator with the office playboy opens up a new possibility.

Jamie Carter doesn’t believe in love, but he needs a respectable, steady girlfriend to impress their bosses. Laurie wants a hot new man to give the rumor mill something else to talk about. It’s the perfect proposition: a fauxmance played out on social media, with strategically staged photographs and a specific end date in mind. With the plan hatched, Laurie and Jamie begin to flaunt their new couple status, to the astonishment—and jealousy—of their friends and colleagues. But there’s a fine line between pretending to be in love and actually falling for your charming, handsome fake boyfriend...

Never read a Mhairi McFarlane book before so I was anxious to start this one. To be fair it was funny. The banter between characters had me chuckling throughout. However, I felt like it dragged in some areas. This book took too long to heat up. Don’t get me wrong I love sweet stories. Amy Harmon pens some amazing books with little/ to no sex scene you don’t miss. This one fell a little flat for me. But I did enjoy it and overall why I rated it at 3.5 Stars. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher’s who provided this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Adorable rom-com that I enjoyed reading. A witty story about getting over a broken heart and finding true love. Laurie is devastated when her partner breaks up with her, and then she finds out that her ex's girlfriend is pregnant. What is Laurie to do? She creates a fake romance with the resident office playboy. Somewhere along the line Laurie isn't faking anymore. The storyline moves along and I liked how I got sucked into the story.

This was a sweet, slow paced rom com. Good dialogue between the characters. The book lost me a bit when the male lead had two previous issues where a woman lied and accused him of inappropriate behavior. In the Me Too Era it just didn’t sit right with me and I couldn’t move past it to enjoy the ending.

If I Never Met You is what I expect of a rom-com within this trope. There's a bit of humor sprinkling throughout while Laurie finds herself after an 18 year long relationship goes south. Laurie is propositioned by Jamie, another coworker, to fake an office romance as a quid pro quo.

Laurie is the heroine I want to get her HEA. She's independent and becomes motivated to no longer be a doormat in the most intimate relationships one can have, whether it's with "friends", partners, or parents. It's never too late to stand up for yourself. This could easily make a cute movie.

I do wish there was a little bit more originality in the story as it felt predictable but it was overall an enjoyable read. *Mature Language*

Thank you, HarperCollins and NetGalley for the advanced copy! All thoughts in this review are my own.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fake dating is a premise that I can never get over. I love every take on it and this one was done especially well. I am late to the game talking about this book, but it was one I really enjoyed. The characters had moments where they shined. I remembered there was one moment that brought it done for me, but I can't quite remember what that was currently. Hence why it is getting four stars instead of five.

I love the cover for this book and the blurb was just what I was looking for in a book. I love a good slow burn and the fake relationship.

Jamie and Laurie decide they can help each other out. Laurie can help Jamie look good to his company he’s trying to make partner at. He can help Laurie make her ex jealous. She has to work with her ex and after being together for a long time he decides he’s done with their life together.

I enjoyed this book so much. I laughed a lot and and my heart broke for the characters. Mhairi McFarlane pulled me into this book and I loved every minute of it.

Loved this rom-com! The quirky British humor, the gender politics underlying to story, the race identity issues. Loved it all. Read it basically in one night! Would definitely recommend!

***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

I love anything by Mhairi McFarlane and this was no exception.

I expected this book to be quite different from the one that I read, and I struggled with these differences, and didn't end up liking it as much as I hope.

The blurb isn't inaccurate, but the balance of the story fell more to the end of Laurie's last relationship than I expected, delaying the start of the fauxmance story arc. For me, it made the book feel off-balance, and I found myself wishing that the two elements dovetailed more, with the new romance stuttering into motion before all of the bombs finished dropping from the last relationship.

I found Laurie's response to her breakup to be very alienating. Yes, we are all miserable wrecks when we get dumped, but unless that's the central theme of the book, I don't need to bear witness to it.

I also found it uncomfortable how the character fixated on her age and her apparent expiry date as a romantic prospect. She's in her mid-thirties but she spoke about herself as if she was halfway through menopause.

The book made efforts here and there to be feminist, and to celebrate female friendships, but there was a lot of lady-venom and competition on the page that didn't feel in keeping with the strength and sass the author seemed to want her character to embody.

Content warnings for cheating and for sexual predators. There was a throwaway pedophile storyline that just came out of nowhere and was unnecessary to the plot.

Even within the main romantic arc, there were elements that really rubbed me the wrong way: for example Jamie having multiple women make accusations about him, and Laurie deciding not to believe these women's stories. I get that the author was going for a "his reputation isn't fair" vibe – but this came at the cost of believing women. It would have sat better if this reputation was among men, or based only on moments that Laurie witnessed and directly misunderstood.

I also think this is a good example of how a book cover can lead me to assumptions about the identity of the writer. Because the cover illustration features a woman of colour, I assumed that the author would be a woman of colour as well, and I had been looking forward to reading through a lens very different from my own. But as I was reading, this just didn't ring true, and from the author photo, I'm guessing she's white.

My unqualified white-person take* on these elements in the text is that the author did an okay job of integrating experiences of micro-aggression that Laurie would experience as a person-of-color... but there were also moments that felt uncomfortable and maybe not the author's place to say. For example a white hairdresser essentially fangirling over Laurie's hair and saying it's her favourite kind of hair felt like it was trying to be inclusive but leaned a little toward fetishie.

It makes me leery that a cover by a white author highlight's a non-white character's race, and essentially takes that shelf space away from an own-voices book. It's a really hard line to walk, as I want to read more books across the board that decentralize white people. But I think we need to be very careful about what we signal as core elements of the story. While I love that authors of all background are painting a more diverse world, I wish the cover designers had found a way to not use Laurie's race as a selling-point, for example by sticking to silhouette's line work, or typeography.

There were characters and friendships in this book that I did find cute and fun, but there were many other elements that felt off-pitch and diminutive and made me mildly uncomfortable with this book.

* seeking out own-voices reviews once I finish up here

This was by far one of my favorite romance reads in 2020.

Witty, and heart warming I have recommended it to everyone I know.

The author is now on my must read list moving forward!

Mhairi McFarlane is now becoming one of my favorite author.
If I Never Met You will make you realize perfect life is never as expected. And that’s how Laurie soon realize. Her life may be breaking up but she will realize it’s for the better. He never deserve her. She is wonderful and brilliant that she does not need a man. It may suck that she will keep on seeing him in the office but James comes up with an offer that can less the humiliation.
James is known for his cold attitude and player ways but you cannot deny he is sexy man that any woman would be lucky to be with him. But he is not up for relationship until he meets Laurie. At first, it was unexpected but as he got to know her, he soon realize that she is the one. He may mess up along the way because he is man but he definitely knows how to grovel to be with her. As he should be.

I loved these two characters. I loved their dynamic and seeing their relationship grow. I think it took far too long to get there or even have them really interact with each other, but once they did, I couldn't get enough!

I love the diversity and seeing older characters get another chance at love. While this wasn't my favorite book and I felt like some of the beginning just wasn't needed, I hope to read another book by this author in the future!

I have read other books by Mhairi McFarlane and recommend this one! I really enjoyed this book and have recommended it to others.

3 Stars / 2 Steam Fans

If I Never Met You started as a fascinating book about how life can change after a breakup of a relationship of eighteen years. Dan ends a relationship with Laurie because he gets bored but also leads her to believe that he just needs a break. Laurie pines over Dan for way too long throughout this storyline, and I didn't think the romance between Laurie and Jamie. I read my advance reader copy as I listened to the finished product, and I must say I was very disappointed with the complete story. The entire story is jammed packed with feminist, political, and social injustice issues that were just not needed.

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