I really didn't know what to expect from this as I liked Strobos' previous book but wasn't a really big big fan of it.
In fact, the beginning felt so slow I really struggled to keep going, I really didn't like like any character in the book until maybe the last 30% of the book, and I felt a lack of chemistry and connection between the two friends for most of the book.
However, it was overall, a cute fake dating and friends to lovers book and I definitely enjoyed it more than the first one.

This is an absolutely adorable friends-to-fake lovers-HEA trope that I LOVE! Penelope was such a relatable character and I loved that not everything in her life was cookie-cutter happiness. Strobos is great at character development, showing how aspiring writers face and deal with rejection.

4/5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Strawbundle Publishing for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Penelope and Rory are best friends. Enter Rory's attempts to dissuade his client's wife from hitting on him and Penelope's attempts to prove that she's over the love she professed for her childhood best friend and there's only one solution. They fake date each other. It's the perfect set-up. Penelope will get much needed material for the rom-com she's writing, Rory will be safe at work functions, Penelope won't have to suffer around her childhood friend's new girlfriend. Perfect. And no one will ever ever get hurt because they're best friends and definitely not into one another. Until things start to get complicated. Enter late night dancing, a rainy, dreadful trip to Fire Island, and sparks every time they touch. Will Rory and Penelope be able to stick to their deal?

Let's start with this, I would sell my soul for any good best friends to lovers couple. SELL MY SOUL I TELL YOU. And Rory and Penelope deliver wonderfully!!! There is a reason that best friends to lovers is the best trope ever (not up for discussion, this is fact). They KNOW each other, they already CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER, there isn't any awkward, bumbling incidents where they try to get to know each other or figure things out about one another, that's already long long long out of the way. Add to that they adorable way that EVERYONE ELSE already sees what is abundantly clear and then they start to realize it on their own? Perfection. Rory and Penelope deliver this generously!! Rory is amazing to (and for!!) Penelope, he is SO SUPPORTIVE, which she needs quadruple while she tries to get her novel published, caring, loving, adorable, amazing. I'm obsessed!! Penelope is an awesome, incredibly well-developed character. I love that she has this whole life and career and it's a little off the beaten path but she's going to make it work for her!! I was rooting for her the whole time.

We get a little bit of drama with ex-girlfriends and childhood friends and navigating difficult family situations, but nothing feels unnecessary or dramatic just for the sake of being dramatic. I really appreciated that the main drama wasn't just necessarily a "miscommunication" like we see so often.

If you like: fake-dating, best friends to lovers, slow burn (LIKE SLOW SLOW SLOW), one bed, fade to black, then this is an amazing, well developed read. It's a little long but I loved it because I was relishing every second I got with Rory and Penelope!

"I'm looking forward to a life of magic and mundane with you."

Thanks to Netgalley and Strawbundle Publishing for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. This copy in no way influences my opinions or review.

Normally I love the fake relationship trope. Unfortunately here it didn't work for me. I had a difficult time connecting with the main character, and her love interest. The writing style was at times confusing for me, the inner dialogues repetitive, and I missed the cute banter.

This book has absolutely outdone itself! One thing I loved about Kathy Strobos' last book, Partner Pursuit, is that the main character's career doesn't fall to the background for the sake of the romance, and this wasn't any different in that sense! I seriously love how Kathy focuses on Penelope's aspirations and goals, while seamlessly blending in the romance into her story. Rory was also such an endearing character, and the perfect complement to Penelope's character. My one wish was that we got more groveling from Rory at the end! Maybe just because I'm a sucker for a dramatic reunion, but I wish Rory really went through the trenches to get Penelope back haha. With that being said, I LOVE that she included an epilogue in this one!! I have such a soft spot for epilogues and she delivered. This is a little premature, but I absolutely cannot wait for Kathy's next work, about Miranda's journey! The little sneak peek of the first few chapters already makes me want to have Caper Crush in my hands right now.

I received this book via NetGalley for my honest review.

This book was a bit of a rollercoaster emotionally. While it did have some tropes I’m usually not a fan of I did really enjoy it! There were moments that felt a little bogged down and I found myself speed reading through, or found myself flicking over to some form of entertainment so I can’t give it a full 4 stars. This is definitely something I would recommend reading, but probably wouldn’t read twice. I give it 3.5 stars.

Great friends to lovers romance dealing with rejection loss and opening up to love again. A great read Thanks netgalley.

3.5 stars rounded upto 4!

Fake dating is one of my favourite tropes in romance. This is a very sweet and entertaining book and I loved that the main character is a writer. It was nice seeing Penelope learn to give love a chance. Not a fan of the slow-burn though, and friends-to-lovers, the other trope in here, isn't my favourite.

i really enjoyed getting to read this book early. it was so much fun and such a sweet little romance. it made me feel good and that's something i really enjoy in my books. a lovely escape!

The concept of friends pretending to be dating is a good start but with a twist. Through in an old crush, an ex girlfriend who doesn't like being an ex.
Dare penelope risk her feelings and the friendship to make the pretend relationship a real relationship.
Unusual jobs and pressure from friends and family to be more conventional. A few more bumps leaves you up to the last page crossing your fingers for a happy ending.

Adorably romantic fake dating trope. I found the story rather quaint. I would say it is a great premise since who doesn’t love fake dating someone and finally realizing you’re SEEING. a friend you never SAW before?!

This is a beautiful friends to lovers story which really tugged at your heartstrings as our main characters battled with their own insecurities and background, and falling in love with each other whilst also battling this so as not to wreck their friendship. My only complaint was the ending felt rushed, especially as the book had been quite long, so it felt as though it deserved more than a couple pages

Overall a cute rom com. A fake dating story where they are friends prior. I wasn’t as connected to the characters as I wanted to, but it was a cute story.

I received this ARC through #netgalley and I am voluntarily reviewing this book

This was very cute friends to lovers and fake dating romcom!! It followed classic Katy Strobos formula and I really enjoyed it. Penelope was my favourite character in the book. She was really charismatic and witty. Also I really enjoyed the romance between Rory and Penelope.

Is This For Real is a cutesy, fake dating romcom. Since fake dating is one of my favourite tropes, I was looking forward to reading this and I enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a fun, lighthearted read that I devoured pretty quickly. The writing style was simple and easy to understand and the humor was also done pretty well. I loved Penelope and Rory together, when they were fake-dating and when they actually became a couple. They were friends first but I could see that they had chemistry.

While I did feel that there was a lot of telling rather than showing, overall, this was a pretty great read and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

A light and funny romance that explores two friends Penelope and Rory that agree to fake date to avoid the questions about their personal life. Although I do like the friends to lovers trope as well as fake dating, I couldn't fully engage with the characters. Despite this, it was an easy, cute and predictable read.

She is almost thirty and trying to be a published writer . She is doing odd jobs to survive . I love her passion for creating miniatures . She has to see and old friend who told him she loved him and he said he didn' t so she asks from her best friend to pretent to date so he will need a date for a party at work . What start as fake with time it feels real for her and she is trying real hard not to lose him .
I received this book from net galley and the publisher as an ARC. Thank you! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

2⭐️

Tropes;
Friends to Lovers
Fake Dating
Slow Burn
One Bed Trope
Fade to Black

This book follows Penelope, a struggling author, and her best friend Rory. They have been friends since college although throughout their friendship Penelope has had an on and off crush on him.

Rory reveals to Penelope that a colleague’s wife keeps hitting on him at work events so suggests she be his fake girlfriend. Penelope agrees to fake date so she can use this experience as research for the romance book she is currently writing.

This book had so many great tropes so I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite meet my expectations.

The book had quite a slow start for me. I found the heroine kind of boring and I couldn’t really connect with her all that much.

As she’s a struggling writer, she has been getting a lot of rejections from agents and publishers. I did sympathise with her the first time it was mentioned but then she kept bringing it up and kept getting more rejections to the point that it just felt very repetitive and annoying.

I feel like I can’t even comment much on Rory. He was also pretty boring and there wasn’t much banter between the two main characters, which is what I expect to see when reading a romance about friends to lovers.

I honestly don’t think that the characters had that much romantic or sexual chemistry and when they finally got together, my view of their relationship didn’t change. They were boring as friends and boring as a couple.

Unfortunately this book was just not it for me.

Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

“Is This For Real” by Kathy Strobos is the second in a series. However, I didn’t realize that - although I have previous read the first book (Partner Pursuit) - so this book is a full stand-alone. In this book, the reader follows published romance writer-wanna-be Penelope - who also has side-gigs helping out at a family friend’s sporting store, creating and selling miniatures, pet sitting, and running a blog.

The pros - one thing I like about Ms. Strobos’s books is that they are really set in NYC - not just “we walked around Central Park” but specific routes, stores, and museums passed. That helps make this book for this reader a bit more solid and “real.” I also like how Ms. Strobos included a wanna-be-writer and shares the general writing experience with the reader. Also, Ms. Strobos’s writing style is fun and enjoyable. And any time an author has a fake-dating trope, while the outcome is predictable, it’s usually a fun ride and this book was no exception.

With all that praise, my one problem was that this book seemed a bit all over the place - fake date for this reason (okay, gotcha), then this happens, then this is brought up and this happens, then this, oh and flashback to this thing … while everything moved in a forward direction, at times this book felt too much like so much was happening because, well, it could happen. Maybe that was on purpose, but it didn't work cohesively for me. Also, while I liked Penelope and her writing struggles, she felt a bit flat at times - and ditto for Rory, her fake date and the male main character.

Let me note- I really wanted to enjoy this book more! I would read another book by Ms. Strobos (since I did enjoy her previous book), especially if it covered Zelda (Penelope’s room mate) who seems like a firecracker and a half. Also, I like how Ms. Strobos mentions in the author’s notes how she researches different cities and professions.

This is a cute story of Rory and Penelope as they navigate fake dating, he in order to evade the advances of his boss's wife, and she in a bid to get material for a romcom she's writing.
Overall, the story was wholesome (the part that I have read anyway). I loved the comedy: the writer has an impeccable sense of humor that shines through.
However, I could not connect to the characters, and having a hard time with it, so I'm dnf'ing. I felt that sometimes the writing was a tad stilted and the characters' thought processes felt disconnected.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions are my own.