Alivia is a beauty blogger whose best friend Dan has just gotten married. And because he's a professional athlete, all eyes were on his wedding. When spectators think they see a spark between Dan and Alivia, the celebrity news world blows up. Desperate for this not to affect her best friend's marriage, Alivia begins to fake date a fellow influencer, Moe. But as she's getting to know him, she quickly falls for his assistant, Travis.

I had a few problems with this book, and the first is just that there were a lot of errors in the copy I read. I'm hoping in the final edition they'll be updated and fixed. And if not, hopefully the errors don't bother people the way they bothered me.

Second, the story itself was fine. I didn't particularly love our main character Alivia. But I did like the Moe and Travis characters, as well as Alivia's best friend Victoria. I'm finding I don't really enjoy the fake dating tropes and this one was no exception, sadly. I also felt that a lot of this book repeated itself, and could've used another round of editing to make it flow better. I felt that the author hinted at feelings between Dan and Alivia throughout and that ended up feeling a bit unresolved for me - as did Dan's character as a whole. Lastly, I think that the "problem" that Alivia and Travis had to overcome didn't really feel like much of a hurdle as in a typical romance - is that better or worse? I'm not certain but it just left me with a bit of an eye roll when I came to it.

All in all, though I enjoyed this book, I think there are others with this trope that are done better that I'd recommend first.

This book was talked about in episode 21 of Reading Through Life podcast - 12 Books to Put On Your Radar, published on Jan 12, 2022.

Easy read I really enjoyed this book very much and would definitely recommend. I enjoy the main character very much!

“You’re stunning, you’re always stunning.” - Travis

★★★.5/5
🌶/5

Blurb In My Own Words:
Alivia Fae is a beauty influencer who has been best friends with Dan, a professional baseball player, since they were children. At Dan’s wedding send off, Alivia who is the best woman, accidently get bubble solution in her eye and the paparazzi has a field day. All over social media the next day, Alivia is being accused of being a homewrecker and that she was trying to steal Dan’s attention away from his wife on her big day. So, Alivia comes up with a great idea to create a distraction to offset the negative press: operation find Alivia a date!

Review:
I was really impressed with this story! I haven’t felt butterflies reading about a book boyfriend in a long time and I’m glad this debut novel was able to make me feel giddy again! And the fact that it written by a black woman and all the characters in the story are black as well, chefs kiss! This story is very fun and fast pace and will keep you laughing and entertained until the end. But can we talk about Travis!!! He made this story ten times better. He was attentive, caring, loving, and remembered everything about Alivia from the start. Travis always wanted what was best for Alivia and didn’t want her to do anything she wasn’t comfortable with. Travis is the perfect definition of book boyfriend.
My only issue with this book is that I felt like it over explained black issues all throughout the book. I didn’t understand why the author over explained issues, like the makeup industry not cratering to black people, during this book even though all the characters in the book are black. There weren’t any non-black characters in the story, and it felt odd that you would over explain these issues to a group of people that live it every day. I didn’t mind the social issue topics being in the book, but it just felt like over kill and it didn’t flow at times. Other than that, the story is a fun easy read!

Tropes:
- Fake - Fake Dating
- Slow Burn

***Received ARC for honest review***

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to have access to an eARC for this book in return for an honest review.

Apologies for taking so long with the feedback.

This was a fun rom-com book that I thought was everything that I needed it was fun light hearted and down to earth the two main love intreasts was fun to get to know and I enjoyed this book overall.

I usually don't love a fake dating trope especially when it's clear the outcome is going to be painfully public when it blows up. But I enjoyed this one. I loved the diversity talk with make-up, hair and products for another ethnicity. Dan is a bitch and I don't feel like he was remedied by the end. Donna played the classic go after the women and the dirtbag who allowed the rumours or not made things better. All in all an enjoyable story full of drama and feels

Rating: 2/5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review!

This book follows Alivia, a social media influencer who chooses a date based off of an online poll in an effort to control the narrative of the gossip surrounding her. As she fake-dates Moe, she grows closer instead to his assistant, Travis.

Though the premise of this book was interesting, given that most of us are obsessed with the Internet, I'm not sure this book was as great as it could have been. The celebrity news shows, influencer responses, and other facets of the online world were often unrealistic in comparison to the real world. While this could have been overlooked, I felt like I didn't really connect with any of the characters, and often found some events moving really fast and some of the relationships confusing.

If you're looking for an easy read with insta-love, pick up this book. Overall, I'd give it 2 stars.

Social media can be a great tool for careers. It can also be someone’s worst enemy. Alivia agrees to a fake relationship in order to salvage her influencer career, but she learns more valuable lessons along the way. She learns to stand up,for herself, set boundaries with her brother and her best friend. I liked that she was constantly trying to stay ahead and not get too bogged down with life reversals. I thought her friendship with Dan was very one sided. My favorite character turned out to be Moe. I liked his energy.

Rating:
2.5 stars

I have mixed feelings towards this book. It was a quick read dealing with friendship, influencers and fake dating. I loved Alivia's character, even though I didn't like how she handled her problems with her best friend. I didn't feel any connection with any of the other characters. As a whole this wasn't bad for a debut novel.

I give all the stars to this book right here. I received a Kindle ebook version of this book in response to my honest review. So here it is.

Two friends. Best friends. One wedding. His wedding.

Alivia and Dan have been best friends for years. Dan is a sports celebrity so he is constantly in the spotlight and Alivia is a Beauty Influencer. Alivia attended Dan and his wife to be Donna's wedding and had a bubble mishap which ended up reverting all the attention on to her at the end of the wedding instead of the "happily" married couple. Well the paparazzi twist it into saying Alivia did it out of jealousy and because the two were so close spread lies about them being "more than friends". The CEN (celebrity entertainment network) spin the story in so many ways that Alivia felt it was necessary to make a poll on her page for her fans to choose between three different men to date. Little did they know it was all a rouse to deter the beliefs of her and Dan.

The fans decide on Moe Gava who is a total douche bag. But, his assistant is none too bad. His assistant Travis is the one who set it all up and he seems to be falling for Alivia. After a few months Dan becomes jealous of Moe and Alivia's "relationship".

So will she really date Moe or fall in love with his assistant Travis? And, what about Dan?!

This book is full of all sorts of tropes but one being "fake dating" to real dating?!?! You find out for yourself. I promise you will not want to put this book down until the end and even then you'll want more to the story!

This was a DNF for me at 25%.

I usually enjoy books about influencers and I read a lot of romance, but this book just didn't grip me. The writing and characters felt dull to me and I was not invested. Sorry to say, but I would not recommend.

I really enjoyed reading this book and i found myself laughing on numerous occasions, however i did not like the ending of the book and that is why it is scored lower than i would have liked to score it.

The book was fast paced and the storyline fell into place beautifully, there was not too much background which personally, i really like.

This book had a balance of drama and excitement and light hearted content - a nice, easy read.

Influenced Love is about a beauty blogger that agrees to fake date a fitness blogger and then she ends up falling for his manager. Very cutesy yet boring in parts. This story wasn't very memorable for me.

It was fun, but honestly, I am glad it is over.
I really disliked the influencer part, while I am not a content creator myself I follow enough people to know that i they tied to call 2 sentences and an application a review of a product, I would be angry.
The romance was weird, the fake dating is like fake-fake dating, and the "do they, don't they love each other" with her best friend was completely unnecessary.

I thought this was a cute rom-com talking about the rise of YouTube creators and the fame that they have established themselves with. It was nice to see the dichotomy between acceptable and non-acceptable lies. The use of fake dating as a means of publicity is often used in Hollywood, but to see it applied in a creator driven platform as YouTube is nice to see caught in the pages of this story. Highly recommend!

📚Book review📚

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the arc in exchange for a review!
A DNF for me.
It didntt hold my attention as I thought it would. The premise was great but I didn’t love the story.

Let's talk about this book. It's difficult to review this one because I didn't love it neither did I hate it with all my being.
It was a light breezy read, with our main protagonist navigating through her love life, her fake dates with another fitness influencer and balancing her relationship with her married best friend Dan.
The protagonist was a nice refreshing character, a perfect embodiment of today's woman. Strong, high value and considerate but I wish her character had developed more because she felt quite 2 dimensional. Some problems that she faced felt a bit too unrealistic and self created and her fake relationship with Moe Gava wasn't enjoyable.
The author crammed in alot of tropes in this book, from faking dating to best friends yearning for each other, which btw didn't serve any purpose because the author kept building it up with the best friend giving the protagonist bizarre thoughtful looks only to amount to nothing. Because never did he once explore those feelings or profess his love. So I honestly didnt know why this was mentioned and hinted at so many times.
Then there was the famous fake dating trope, I have read plenty of those but unfortunately this wasn't done well. The fitness influencer, Moe Gava's character never grew much, it was impressed on us that he did infact change with the passage of the novel but really I couldn't point out any difference in him except for the fact that he started reciting his poetry in public and somewhat being ready to settle down.
The best friend storyline was really boring because what in the world was that??? We kept getting hints that he was interested for him to never even divulge this secret, LIKE EVER.
This storyline was only used as an excuse to pave the path for the trope fake dating.
Then there was the perfect guy, Travis, sure he was nice but did I get obsessed with him? NOOO..
In short I couldn't connect with any character.

I do appreciate that the characters were very diverse and kind of enjoyed that it was true to our times, centering around influencers.

Oh and I almost forgot what the hell was the author's obsession with the phrases, tucking in her lips, scrunching her face. I mean it was used so many times like in every single line because apparently the characters were only capable of these two facial expressions.
I think initially I thought I kind of liked it but
while writing this review I realised that nope I definitely didn't like it and wouldn't recommend it one bit.

PTBR REVIEW:
Tem um episódio de Black Mirror que é exatamente sobre como nossas redes sociais podem acabar controlando nossas vidas e decisões. E, claro, é um episódio dramático, tendendo para o lado ruim da coisa. Em Influenced Love, embora a premissa seja similar, a história vai por um lado mais leve – e que me fez pensar, quão longe estamos da realidade do episódio Nosedive? Porque eu poderia facilmente imaginar uma influencer fazendo as coisas que Alivia faz, na vida real.

Eu não sabia bem o que esperar dessa história, mas acabei gostando mais até do que imaginei que iria.

Alivia é estranha, mas de um jeito que a torna um tanto genuína (dizer coisas aleatórias para preencher o silêncio, quem nunca?).

Para um debut, é um bom livro. Talvez não um que vá te marcar por muito tempo após a leitura, mas uma distração gostosinha, sem dúvida.

EN REVIEW (translated from the one above)
There's a Black Mirror episode that's exactly about how our social media may end up taking control of our lives and decisions. And, yeah, it takes a turn for the dramatic and dark side as it's usual for the show. In Influenced Love, although the idea is somewhat similar, the story is less dense – though it still made me think: how far from the Nosedive episode are we? Cause I could see an influencer making a pull to chose a date and save her reputation.

I didn't know exactly what to expect with this story, but I guess I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Alivia is a bit odd, but in a way that make her seem real (I mean, saying random things to fill a silence? Yeah, that seems about right).

For a debut, it's a good book. Maybe not one that will linger for long, but a welcome distraction indeed.

Rating: 3/5

Not for me I'm afraid.
Which is a shame as the premise was fun but... It fell flat.

At first, because of the writing style, I thought this was going to be YA. It's not.
The dialogue felt unnatural, the plot was predictable with no real conflict or stakes and the characters lacked depth or growth.

I really wanted to feel something for Alivia but she just irritated me. Her reaction to loosing her lifelong friend was 'I can find new friends'?! And the only thing she seemed to really care about was her hair...

I ended up skimming the last third.
Sorry...

*I received this advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.*

I enjoyed Influenced Love and appreciated it for what it was: light and Engaging. It's one of those books that you enjoy, but forget the story line pretty quickly. I'm not mad about it. The writing was well done and quick paced. The story was surface level. I do wish there had been more depth to Travis and Liv's relationship. I also wish that Liv's dream of her own products had been wrapped up. It's pretty unclear. I feel like if this book had a lot of places that needed to dive just a little bit deeper. It could have been 50 to 75 pages longer and felt more complete. All in all not a bad reading experience though.

I really liked this book, but can't quite give it 5 stars, so it's a 4 1/2 rating from me.

Influenced Love is absolutely worth reading. I love the main character, Alicia, and I love how her relationships with Travis and Moe develop. The writing is great, and I got sucked into the story right away.
I thought Alivia's brother should be cut from the story, since he didn't really add anything. I think the author maybe added him to make a couple of points:
a) how Alivia gets stronger and starts to stand up for herself
b) as an example of personal growth (brother owning his actions, Alivia speaking up), of forgiving mistakes, giving second chances, and learning from mistakes.
While I appreciate the underlying message, these themes are all included in the storylines of the main characters, so the parts with the brother seem superfluous.
The other reason for deducting 1/2 star was the last 15-ish % felt too rushed, with too many things, that had slowly (and with finesse) been building, getting resolved too fast and lacking that same finesse.

Overall, I give it 4 1/2 stars for a very original plot, great main characters, fantastic writing of the Alivia/Travis story, an entertaining and truly enjoyable read. I recommend this, and look forward to reading more by the author.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the eARC.