It took awhile to get into this novel, which is rough to say considering how short it is. I finally understood the dual chapters between Gibson and Shelby by about 10% in, but still don't quite understand the need for Cammie's letters at the beginning and the end. Without really getting her POV (other than the letters) this book felt like it had no real purpose to me. What does she con Gibson out of even? What ends up happening to Shelby and the loans? I feel very unsatisfied overall at the end of this and am unsure what the point of the story even was.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Having just read Emma Cline’s upcoming book, The Guest, I had high expectations for Zoe Whittall’s The Fake, which (sorry to say) paled in comparison. The Fake, unlike Cammie to these characters, was unalluring. I wasn’t even interested in Cammie—I wasn’t interested in any of them. Shelby and Gibson are decent people, but that seems to be their only personality trait: that they’re nice. On the page, they read as boring, naïve. I understand that this is the point—the fact that they are unremarkable and forgiving makes them the perfect victims for a con artist—but I don’t want to read an entire novel about boring people living their boring lives, you know? Cammie also didn’t convince me as the magnetic, free spirit grifter character. She came across as a cringy millennial; just a basic “extroverted” hot girl archetype. It doesn’t feel like there was any deep character work going on here (one too many tropes). I don’t think that this book says anything original about con artists, or even divorce or grief; the most radical element—the only plot point that I did not necessarily predict—is that the main characters try to stage an intervention for Cammie (i.e. rehabilitate her rather than reprimand her), which doesn’t even work. I agree with the review that says this feels like an outline rather than a fully-realized novel. A lot of scenes felt like they weren’t doing much, or just repeating what was accomplished in previous scenes. Despite its short length, it took me weeks to get through, because I just wasn’t interested enough. Very nice cover though. Also, I need to get this off my chest: IKEA is always stylized in all-caps.

The Fake by Zoe Whittall

After the death of her wife, Shelby is suffering from prolonged grief. She’s increasingly isolated, irritated by her family’s stoicism and her friends’ reliance on the toxic positivity of self-help culture. Then, in a grief support group, she meets Cammie, who gives her permission to express her most hopeless, hideous feelings. Cammie is charismatic and unlike anyone Shelby has ever met. She’s also recovering from cancer and going through several other calamities. Shelby puts all her energy into helping Cammie thrive—until her intuition tells her that something isn’t right.

Gibson is fresh from divorce, almost forty, and deeply depressed. Then he falls in love with Cammie. Not only is he having the best sex of his life with a woman so attractive he’s stunned she even glanced his way, but he feels truly known for the first time in his life. But Gibson’s friends are wary of Cammie, and eventually he, too, has to admit that all the drama in Cammie’s life can feel a bit over the top.

When Gibson and Shelby meet, they realize Cammie’s stories don’t always add up. In fact, they’re far from the truth. But what kind of a person would lie about having cancer? And what does it say about Shelby and Gibson that they fell for it? From the author of The Best Kind of People and The Spectacular comes a sharp, emotional novel about lies, liars, and the people who love them.

I always love a story that centers around a con artist. That’s what drew me to this book in the first place. I just the main characters were a little stronger and I wanted to shake them several times as I read the book!

March 21

I admit, I went into this book a bit skeptical, but I really loved it. The story is mainly told through alternating perspectives: Shelby who has recently lost her wife and is already anxiety-prone and Gibson who is a bit unmoored as he goes through a divorce.

They've each met Cammie, a younger, free spirited woman barrels into their lives giving them exactly what they need. And that is because she’s manipulative scammer who simply mirrors back what they each need. Through both sides we begin to see how Cammie distorts the truth for both of them. Until the lies become undeniable.

I enjoyed the way there were nuggets of future reflection woven in as Shelby and Gibson realize they’re being lied to and see the red flags and willingly ignore and excuse them. One reason I wasn’t sure if I’d like the book is because it seems very on trend to tell scammer and con artist takes, but what worked exceptionally well for me in this novel was how we see the flip side and get the point of view of the ones being manipulated.

Even after all of the chaos Cammie causes those around her continue to care about her and want to help her. The story isn’t high stakes in that she’s not grifting millions of dollars but still causing great harm to her marks who are every day people.

I look forward to reading professional reviews for this book because I think the author has made a marvelous character study of how easy it is for a lonely or vulnerable person to seek solace in someone with nefarious intentions.

When two lonely souls both get taken in by larger than life Cammie, their lives change, but is it for the better?

Shelby has just lost her wife and her anxieties are at an all time high, but when she meets Cammie in her grief support group they soon hit it off. Shelby has found someone that shares her grief. Finding out that Cammie has lost her job and has just finished treatment for cancer, Shelby opens her heart and home to Cammie.

Gibson is nearing forty and has just recently divorced, when he meets Cammie at a bar, he can’t believe his good fortune and they are quickly in a relationship. A relationship that has his head in the clouds missing things he shouldn’t.

As time goes on, both Gibson and Shelby start to question things about Cammie, two and two aren’t equaling four. When they meet and put their heads together things really look whack, but could Cammie really be a manipulative scammer?

This book had a heartbreaking quality about two broken people searching for healing and one that in some ways helps in their healing and in others adds to their brokenness. I was really rooting for Shelby and Gipson, but the ending left me less than satisfied. Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Thank you #Netgalley!

Wow! This was such a quick read as you quickly became intrigued with the main characters of the story, Cammie, Shelby and Gibson, who all eventually become entangled in a series of lies. Shelby recently lost her wife and joined a grief support group where she meets Cammie. Cammie takes Shelby under her wing to help her leave the house and live life. Cammie also connects with Gibson at the bar she works at and begins to date him rather quickly. Each relationship progresses extremely fast and both Shelby and Gibson become intrigued and will do anything for Cammie. Unfortunately that was Cammie's goal and takes advantage of these relationships. So many twists and the end left me frustrated!

The Fake by Zoe Whittall follows two main characters as their lives become intertwined with a con artist. Shelby and Gibson are absolutely enamored with Cammie, both as a friend and a lover respectively. But she has her ways to slowly get what she wants and take advantage of their trust. The synopsis of this book is comprehensive, but the book doesn't really give you much beyond what it says.
I wish this book was fleshed out more. I wish it was more of a secret that Cammie is a pathological liar and that the reader was taken along for the journey, the same way that the characters were. But "con artist" and "pathological liar" are listed easily to see in the synopsis of this book, hence giving away any element of surprise this book could hope to give.
Overall, I did like the story, I just wish there was more suspense and more showing instead of telling tactics. I wish there was more to feel rather than what the book told me to feel.
So it was a good story, I just wish it had more to it.

I really loved reading The Fake! It was an unusual story that kept my interest, and I hope to discuss with friends soon!

I really liked the Fake and the different perspectives presented in the book. I felt that the writing was fast-paced and kept me interested. I like that more novels are discussing scamming and the effects it has on people.

A wild ride that tells the story of grifter gone wild and the havoc that ensues when she crosses paths with a woman grieving a death and a man reeling from a divorce. Well written-this story will grab you from the first word!

A very quick read. Sparse and stunning with a shocking ending. I spent 90 percent of this book intensely disliking Cammie and ended up crying for her.. Thank You to NetGalley and Random House publishing for an advanced copy.

Book will be released on March 21

This story was so heartbreaking and made me so angry. Imagine taking advantage of the brokenhearted the way Callie did! She took advantage of people in mourning, one the death of a spouse and the other the death of a marriage. She took unsuspecting people's emotional needs, played with them and used them for her own gain. You may think that it could never happen to you but I recently read in the newspaper about that exact thing that happened here in Toronto, a man scammed over one-hundred women online.

This book was fascinating and it was interesting how after everything she has done that is legally and morally wrong, Cammi ends up saving Gibson and Shelby. I liked that we get all three points of view as I felt like I was able to get inside each character's head. I loved that the book took place in Toronto as I have lived here all my life. It was fun reading about neighbourhoods, streets and stores that I am familiar with. This was a short read and I enjoyed it so much that I read it in a single sitting. This book was different, I thought the ending was surprising and I adore books that can shock me.

3.5/4

I am always drawn to stories about con artists and this one sounded so interesting. Following along with Shelby and Gibson as they’re simultaneously being scammed by Cammie was alternately fascinating and sad. Shelby is grieving over the loss of her wife and Gibson is mourning his divorce so both are struggling in a major way and while watching them both get conned made for an interesting read it was kind of depressing too. They both seemed like genuinely good people even if they were naive and too trusting. But this was still an engaging and fast paced listen and narrators Steve Campbell, Reena Dutt and Emma Galvin were all fantastic. The ending was a little too open for me but it dead feel like a realistic conclusion, I just wanted a tiny bit more closure. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

After the death of her wife, Shelby is really struggling but finally heads to a grief support group where she meets Sammie. Meanwhile, after his divorce, Gibson doesn’t expect to meet someone when he meets Sammie at the bar. While at first everything seems amazing with Sammie, she is a great friend, a fantastic girlfriend, and both Shelby and Gibson both fall in love with her. Until they start to see the other side of Cammie…

Oh man, gotta love a good con artist story. Came was so textbook con artist, but of course we saw her go after people that were more susceptible to being conned. I felt like they figured out her con artist ways a little quickly, but it was a fairly short book. I also hated that they both allowed her to continue after figuring it out. This was a great read, and I am always so interested in how people can con others in this way.

Shelby is in bad shape. She’s trying to move forward after the sudden death of her wife, and finds herself with limited real support. Except…there’s this younger woman, Cammie, who goes to the same grief support group, and she seems to want to help Shelby. And then there’s Gibson. He was married for a long time but recently left his wife and met Cammie at a bar one night.
Shelby and Graham were interesting characters and portraits of people going through loss and change in their lives, perhaps skewing their judgement. I found Shelby’s story particularly heartbreaking and loved her description of her struggle to move forward: “if only she could figure out how to move the boulder of grief out of her path.” I didn’t find Gibson’s story/situation as sympathetic and thought there was a disconnect between his black/white attitude toward his work, marriage, etc., and the way he viewed Cammie.
I loved Ms. Whittall’s previous book, The Best Kind of People, but the story and characters in The Fake weren’t as compelling for me. Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read The Fake in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a good read if you're looking for how to deal with a con artist. It's basically told in a straight forward way without too many surprises for the reader along the way. You pretty much know what's going to happen in the whole book just by reading the synopsis. It was an okay read.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Yikes! This was good but drove me crazy with the scamming. I felt bad for Gibson but really bad for Shelby

A quick read, thanks to Netgalley for the free copy

Apparently this novel is loosely based on true events that actually happened to the author and presumably for that reason this reads more like an anecdote or documentarian account than a story meant to take us on a journey. There are never any twists, turns, or surprises. We’re basically told what happens in a fairly linear fashion. Structurally, we know from the beginning that Cammie is conning everyone so we are ahead of the story and just waiting for Gibson and Shelby to catch up. The book gets especially rocky in the second half when Gibson and Shelby finally compare notes and stage the intervention which unsurprisingly fails and the threat of escalation set up in the first chapter never materializes. It’s all a bit underwhelming. Sure we feel bad for these poor souls who were taken in by a sociopath at a vulnerable time in their lives but, again, because it is so obvious that Cammie is conning them we are never on the emotional journey with them. We never experience that moment of horror as the characters start to realize everything is a lie. Ultimately, this book is more is more of a “did you hear about that scary thing that happened” than an emotionally impactful experience.

This book was deeper than your average thriller and really eye-opening to the reality of pathological liars. It was difficult to see the way the characters were taken advantage of. Heavy topics that were so well written.

This was a short, quick read about a woman, Cammie, who is a scam artist. She ends up scamming both a man, Gibson, who she pretends to fall in love with, and Shelby, a friend. Overall the book was okay. I got through it quickly since I wanted to finish it but I wasn't super invested in it. There was no real plot development and the characters were not really fleshed out.

It was an okay read but not to my personal taste.