I loved the idea of this book - a Bachelor-style dating game with a radio personality sharing her experience with listeners. So cute. But unfortunately I never really clicked with our main characters or felt a spark in their relationship. The love connection was both too slow on Everly's end and immediate for Chris. I needed more pining, I needed more fun.

Following a bad breakup, radio producer Everly inadvertently spills the gruesome details on-air to her best friend/radio host. Callers are soon dialing-in to offer their support and some are even offering to date Everly. This sparks an idea: What if Everly has her own reality TV-like experience where she dates a handful of guys and shares the experience through on-air recaps? In addition to the dating premise, Everly creates a list of 10 rules to follow now that she's 30. These play a role in how she approaches the dating game and life in general (for example, trying something new once a month).

"Ten Rules for Faking It" was a quick, well-written novel. There were moments that were really enjoyable (such as when Chris helps Everly evaluate her potential suitors) and I loved the idea of her Bachelor dating experience. I also really appreciated how Sophie Sullivan handled Everly's anxieties.

I was rooting for Everly's growth on her own, but ultimately, "Ten Rules for Faking It" never met my expectations of how I thought it would play out.

This book is so delightfully funny and cute which is why I guess it's called ROM Com.
There were just some places in this book that I simply couldn't help myself from laughing out loud that is.
Everyone has their good days and bad days especially me.
I loved this new voice in the ROM com world.
She's done an excellent job on bringing her characters to life and I loved the humorous side of this book as well.
You'll love this book and be rooting for the characters and at the same time while life dishes out some unexpected and hilarious happenings.
I will be looking forward to reading more by this new to me author.
My thanks for a copy of this book.
I was NOT required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you so much @SMPRomance & @NetGalley for giving me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | December 2020)

SYNOPSIS | Catching your boyfriend cheating on you with his assistant isn't the greatest, but it's even worse when it happens on your birthday AND it gets accidentally broadcast on radio. Everly is not having a good time and she doesn't expect the rallying support from their listeners. She & her boss (Chris) decide to use this as a marketing opportunity to try & save the radio station by setting up a Bachelorette-style dating extravaganza.

WHAT I LIKED:
- appreciated the rep for social anxiety

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- didn't root for the romance. The chemistry was just not sizzling for me and it was all too instalove.
- Chris's POV were overly complimentary of Evelyn to the point of being obsessive
- i wasn't invested in the storylines outside of the romance
- that Everly referred to herself as a "spaz"

Ten Rules for Faking It is a fun contemporary workplace romance. I loved the unique hook of the radio dating show. Each character had a lot of character growth and development throughout the novel. I really appreciated the anxiety representation and the author realistically portrayed Everly's inner struggle. This one is definitely a slow burn, even to the point where I was wondering if the two main characters were going to end up together. Fans of Sophie Kinsella will enjoy this one

I like the premise of this story. A woman who has high anxiety and she finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her, so she goes on a mini bachelorette type game for her radio station. But her boss has been in love with her the entire time.
I enjoyed the anxiety rep and the normalizing getting therapy as well as being aware of what is “good” anxiety moments and which ones are “bad”.
However, the romance was lacking for me. I didn’t care if Everly and Chris got together or not. I also did not root for her and any of the guys she went out with for the her radio station. All in all this was fine.
Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

This was a delightfully sweet and heartfelt book about Everly, a woman with severe anxiety who works for a radio station. On her birthday, she walks in on her boyfriend with another woman. When she tells her co-worker and friend her woes live on air, she is mortified and worried her boss, Chris, will fire her. Instead, a mini radio version of the Bachelorette is created where she goes on two dates a week until she finds the one. What happens when she realizes the one might be in front of her all along?
Right off the bat, I appreciate how much social anxiety comes into play here. It's like the author really understands introverts and severe anxiety. Everly (not my favorite name but it works) gets embarrassed easily and is constantly taken out of her comfort zone throughout this book and I could feel her exhaustion. As someone with social anxiety, I could really relate to her feelings and constant second-guessing of everything. I really liked the friendship between her and Stacy because she took the time to respect her limitations but gently nudge her into happiness. Chris is a great but flawed love interest who seems cold at first but thaws out pretty quickly. I also loved how much he respected her comfort levels in setting up everything for the bachelorette and constantly making sure she is okay. As they get closer as friends, it feels genuine and enjoyable to read. Chris is there for her she needs him and understands how to help with panic attacks. Their attraction to each other is slow and simmering and it makes the reader want to devour the story to see how and when they finally give into their feelings. There is plenty of conflict, almosts, and missed opportunities that make you groan and wishing for them to get their act together already. I really liked the bachelorette aspect of the book as it brought laughs to the story. Chris's father was terrible but his brothers were funny, especially when teasing him about anything and everything. Everly's parents had issues and I felt sorry that she had to deal with that added stress. This book isn't a full five stars because while I thoroughly enjoyed Everly and Chris getting together, things sort of fizzled by the end. No real epilogue to see how they were doing in a few years so that was also disappointing. Still, I would recommend this for romcom readers as it's a lot of fun and is very sweet.

I truly adored this book. This was my first book by Sophie Sullivan, but I certainly hope she writes more in the future because I will read them! I found this book refreshing, drama free, and just an overall cute story.

Everly is having an AWFUL day - it's her birthday and she decides to go to her boyfriend's house to take him breakfast. Well, she finds him in bed with his assistant so that sort of starts the bad vibes. Then when she gets to work at the radio station, her best friend and DJ starts to sing "happy birthday" to her, but Everly loses it and goes on a rant about why this is not a good birthday - with spilling the details of what she found her ex-boyfriend doing that morning. And as luck would have it, the radio was live. So everyone in their area heard her humiliating story.

The station's manager had been looking for ways to increase listeners and profits so he came up with the idea that Everly could do sort of a "bachelorette" type deal by dating several listeners and eventually narrowing it down to just one. What follows is comical, sweet, and quite entertaining.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions stated above are mine without biases.

I read the final chapters several times and other readers will probably do the same. This is the wonderful romantic story and it was a joy getting Chris’ POV. He is such a loving, thoughtful book boyfriend. I like Everly but initially I had a difficult time understanding her crippling anxiety. I never focused on anxiety and its impact so I am glad I read this book as it shreds a light on this issue. I highly recommend this book especially during this period in time.

If you enjoy a sweet hallmark version of the bachelor then this book is for you. Overall I enjoyed the story and appreciated having a main character who struggles with anxiety. I did find it a little hard to believe that a person with that bad of anxiety would be willing to do the dates no matter how much she wanted to save her program. I also found the chemistry lackluster but cute enough.

Quick easy rated G romance.

Ten Rules for Faking It was a breath of fresh air as far as realistic leading ladies goes! I loved the representation of a character with extreme anxiety, and that she found just the right guy for her who saw past her struggles to who she really is. The pacing was slower on the romance front, but it definitely worked for the sceneario here for me. It is a book that I would recommend to anyone that enjoys The Bachelor television show and is wanting a cleaner contemporary romance with a fresh twist.

I enjoyed the full cast of characters for this book! Everly was someone that I just wanted to stand behind and be her cheerleader to help her confront her anxiety issues head on. However, I do wish that there would have been more about her seeking help through therapy for her issues, and not just her relying on her self coping mechanisms. But I was very proud of her by the end and the work she did to learn to speak up for herself. Chris was such a good guy. He was so patient with Everly and really had genuine intentions with her. I enjoyed their slow burn attraction and sparks of undeniable chemistry, even when she was the Bachelorette in her own dating game. Stacey was the perfect BFF. She and Everly were a good pair and I would love to read more about her if she ever had her own book written about her! And I must say that I couldn't get enough of Noah, Chris' brother!

Thank you to St.Martin's press or my copy of Ten Rules For Faking It in exchange for my honest review.

The setup for this book is cute enough: Everly walks in on her boyfriend and then walks right back out and goes to work, where tells her DJ friend/coworker about what she just saw.

The problem? They’re live on the air, and her private rant is not so private.

Enter Chris, the boss, with a scheme for her to date some of the guys who are calling the station asking about Everly.

But of course, Everly is beginning to fall for Chris.

Overall, this book was cute, but bland and predictable. If you’re looking for typical romcom shenanigans, this book will be perfect for you.

This wasn't the book for me. I did my best to finish it, but I almost DNFed several times. What I liked:
- mental health rep: Everly has severe social anxiety and I appreciated how the book depicted the myriad ways social anxiety impacted her life. The excellent portrayal of living with anxiety & panic attack's were the highlight of the book and is what kept me reading.
- some of the discussions about balance in life: Everly wants to take risks & be open, but is also deeply anxious and afraid of being hurt.

Unfortunately, the romance was the biggest thing that did not work for me, and since this is a romance novel, that makes it hard to stay invested in the book. The romantic build up & relationship with Chris didn't make sense to me. Where did it come from? There was no tension or sparks between the two, and I ended up not caring at all. I generally don't do well with instalove stories, so if that is not an issue for you, then you will enjoy this book a lot more.

The burn was slowwwwww but that would be my only complaint! I liked the characters and the story was great! It was well written and entertaining. Overall a good book!

TW - anxiety

What a cute book!!

#swoon worthy Chris has me all the time.

I loved the premise of a bachelor type dating scenario.

I highly recommended picking this one up. No Steam unfortunately but it didn’t make the book unenjoyable.

I think my own anxiety made me very uncomfortable in certain points of this book - so if your prone to books effecting your anxiety when they talk about anxiety you might want to go in knowing it’s a major theme.

3.5 stars

Ten Rules for Faking It is a very SLOW burn contemporary romance where Bachelorette-style dating meets an introverted anxiety-ridden and birthday hating bachelorette.

Everly Dean has the worst luck when it comes to birthdays. They have always and without fail been some of the worst days of her life and her thirtieth is no exception. After walking in on her current boyfriend in flegrante delicto with his assistant, and subsequently dropping coffee and doughnuts on herself in an attempt to flee, her outgoing radio host BFF tries to sing her happy birthday. But Everly halts all birthday singing with a torrent of her horrible morning events pours out of her mouth... and it just so happens on the air live! Cue Everly's extreme social anxiety and what are the makings of her thirtieth being the pinnacle of bad birthdays. She goes home expecting to be fired. But radio listeners pour comments online and leave messages in support of Everly having been treated so poorly by her now ex-boyfriend. The station manager, Chris manages to create a Bachelorette dating contest for Everly that helps the station and also inadvertently helps her work on her anxiety issues. Everly has decided that enough is enough and wants to change her life so she's not living around her anxiety but live her life and coming to terms and dealing with her anxiety while also experiencing new things. As she starts to explore the world beyond the narrow box she's pigeoned herself into, she comes to discover more about herself and what she truly wants.

This was a VERY slow burn with no explicit anything (I think a kiss finally happened at like 85%). Ten Rules was a good rep for anxiety disorder with a very realistic paradigm. But, in the end, I did get pretty frustrated with our female protagonist. I have little patience and it felt like it took all of mine just to get to the end. While I felt Chris grew and changed, Everly often did the emotional two-step. That, and we got a lot of her internal dialogue that vacillated so much it kind of detracted from the slowly building relationship with Everly and Chris.

FYI: This is a clean read for those that have an issue wither way with that.

All in all, Ten Rules for Faking It was a cute and sweet little love story, it just took a bit more than I had to give as far as patience right now. I will be looking out for more by Sophie Suliivan in the future.

*ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Ten Rules for Faking It is a standalone contemporary romance. This was the first book I’ve read by this author. While it wasn’t my favorite I’ll definitely read more books by her in the future. Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for my honest review.  
 
** 3 THINGS I LIKED 
• How real Everly the main Character was 
• Cute story 
• Great secondary characters 
 
** 3 THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE 
• VERY slow burn 
• A little wordy, could have easily been cut down.  
• Predictable story (feel like this has been done numerous times) 
 
Even though this fell a little flat for me please don’t let my review discourage you from reading it. Pick it up if it’s on your radar.

This book was so soft and sweet! I love a slow burn romance and this did not disappoint. The anxiety representation is really well done and I can see students finding solidarity in that representation. I felt seen as well. Every and Chris are super sweet and I loved how soft they were with each other!!

radio show meets bachelorette

everly, a radio producer, accidentally spills her bad breakup details all over a broadcasting radio show and with the public so interested, chris, her boss, creates this plan of her going on dates and choosing the guy for her - basically a story of her moving beyond her comfort zone.

so the thing i honestly liked most about this book was the social anxiety rep, as it’s something personal to me and it’s not really shown/discussed a lot in forms of media so i related to a lot of what she felt throughout the book. i don’t “people” well at all either so watching her cope and grow into a more comfortable and less ashamed person of that, even if just a little, was important.

everly and chris were both pretty likable characters, i didn’t feel that connected to chris but both had an understandably standard arc. it was honestly the side characters that i loved more - stacey especially. her personality is so unlike me with her outgoing, extroverted nature but she was funny and sassy and vulnerable and i liked her. there were really weird/questionable moments like her at the birthday party where she just forgot to warn everly of something she hates. both everly and stacey had issues opening up they just manifested it differently too. one thing though was how everly and chris both kind of just became almost immature and single-minded in the second half of the book so i felt this giant detachment from them - esp their scenes where they sort of lashed out or disregarded stacey and noah. everly’s reaction to chris’ divorce also kind of irked me, like i got her reaction but then she just kept bringing it up as an excuse everytime even after she used it as motivation to confront her parents.

so the romance: boss/employee, friends to lovers, fake dating-ish with the other guys. uhm so everly and chris seemed almost insta-love (but not because they’ve been working together). it was basically him just pining for her even though he barely spoke to her (so more strange lust). she even says that she hadn’t thought he liked her because he never showed attention but in his early chapters, he’s basically falling over her and fully amazed by her... it grew on me more as they became (fast) friends but i feel like that’s all i felt them as. stacey and everly honestly had more chemistry in my opinion. i didn’t feel any pull to have chris and everly finally be together.

another thing was the pacing of the book, it was easy to read but i felt like it could’ve been cut in half and so much shorter. it was slowburn unnecessarily to me, the big reveal could’ve happened earlier.

overall: it was an easy read and i liked the mental illness rep and healthy relationship (family and platonic especially) realizations/developments.

***thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for this ARC in exchange my honest review.

This book was so good! Thank you @Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review. This was the last book I read over Christmas break and honestly i was on a bit of a book reading binge of mediocre books so I had low expectations of this one. Fast forward to finishing this one at 3am the night before returning to school because I just had to know how it ends!

I loved Everly’s character. I identified with her so much throughout the story as she battled with her anxiety and powered through it even when it felt impossible. Chris was amazing how he naturally did things to make her feel more comfortable without Everly needing to ask. He was truly putting himself in her shoes and winning her heart in the process. I was so sad for her that he wasn’t sharing his feelings with her throughout the story because they are such a perfect match! I love the anxiety representation in this story and the slow burn that built through their friendship growing as well as their chemistry. I highly recommend this read for all my romance lovers and anxiety warriors - we deserve someone as awesome as Chris!

TW: severe anxiety/social anxiety, overstimulating situations, on-page panic attacks

This was a sweet, swoon worthy slow burn romance (no sexy times) showing the growing friends to more relationship of a woman with severe anxiety just trying to cope everyday and a man who acknowledges her struggles, doesn’t try to “cure”/change her, and is incredibly supportive in all her endeavors!

I am blown away by the, in my opinion, respectful accuracy of the anxiety representation! The overall slower pacing of the story suits the MC’s on page struggles with anxiety, showing us and making us feel her daily struggles to go to work and handle social interactions (even with friends and family), and how truly exhausting her brain can be when she overthinks every situation and scenario. We see her handle situations that puts her out of her comfort zone, situations that both she chooses to enter and situations that others force her into because that don’t understand “the big deal” that is to her. I struggle with anxiety and found myself amongst these pages and felt exhausted for her after some of the more trying situations.

Other than seeing the struggles of her anxiety, we also see the unyielding support she receives from her best friend and love interest! Both relationships, while they don’t fully understand how her anxiety makes her feel, they never make her feel “less than” for having anxiety. They gently push her to chase her dreams and get out of her comfort zone, but entirely on her terms. They constantly check on her well being and make accommodations to help her get through the day. Both relationships were truly special and beautiful to watch unfold!

I have nothing but good things to say for this story and this author. Bravo to the author for creating such a relatable heroine without it feeling heavy or exaggerated. I have already recommended this story to several people and will continue to do so! I believe this story, while enjoyable as a romance, will also definitely help readers who don’t have anxiety understand what the daily struggle is like and hopefully become more empathetic to anyone they know who suffers from it.