If you are a romcom fan, you will enjoy Megan Murphy's latest book. Fake It Like You Mean It was an enjoyable listen.

This book broke me!! This book hit a little to close to house got me. Both my grandmothers had dementia. This book was beautiful in so many ways, some parts were harder to listen too. I’m so happy I got the chance to listen to this book!

Elle's grandmother, Lovie, raised her. Now Lovie has Alzheimer's and needs fulltime care. Elle moves back in with Lovie to help. She hires Angel Care to send nurses to help as well. Adam is the person sent. They clash from the beginning. But Lovie thinks they're her and her husband when young. They don't want to cause Lovie distress, so they fake it.

This was a really cute "enemies to friends" novel. Rallying together for Lovie's care and well-being. I very much appreciated what it taught about Alzheimer's throughout the book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Fake It Like You Mean It is a heartfelt and captivating romance that explores the delicate balance between forbidden attraction and unexpected connection. At its core, it's a story about two kind-hearted individuals who, despite their initial differences, find themselves drawn together. The novel delicately addresses the challenges of dementia, highlighting the profound impact of the disease. Though it tackles these weighty topics, the story remains incredibly charming and beautifully written, blending emotional depth with moments of sweetness.

This is a gem of a book. It has all the feels.

Elle was raised by her grandmother, Lovie, when her parents die in a car crash. Lovie has alzheimers. Elle gets a call saying she is worse and needs too go to a long term care facility. She goes home to find a hot guy in her bed, who is actually her grandmother's nurse.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Dreamscape Media for an audio ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun and heartwarming fake-dating romance with just the right amount of emotional depth.

The story follows Elle, who finds herself stuck with a fake boyfriend as a part of a tricky situation involving Elle's grandmother, Lovie, who has Alzheimer's. Enter Adam, the attractive nurse helping to care for her grandmother. Sparks do not initially fly, but the attraction is there.. and grows. What starts as a simple arrangement quickly becomes complicated as their fake relationship starts to feel a little too real.

The dynamic between Elle and Adam feels natural and engaging. Elle is a relatable and charming protagonist, and their slow-burn romance is full of tension, humor, and those small, meaningful moments that make fake-dating tropes so irresistible.

Elle's love and devotion to Lovie adds a layer of emotional depth to the story, grounding it in real-life struggles with the loss of who Lovie once was. Watching Elle balance her feelings of helplessness and determination to cherish every moment with Lovie was really special.

This book had a good balance of humor, chemistry, and emotion that tugs at your heartstrings. If you love fake-dating stories with plenty of banter, tension, and a meaningful emotional core, this book is definitely worth picking up!

Elle has a podcast where she interviews people on the L train. Her grandmother also has dementia and needs around the clock care. Adam is her grandmother's nurse who takes care of her around the clock.
This book has a lot more of an emotional moving aspect than a typical romance and that is beautiful to see. I enjoyed the grandma's rules and there were several sweet moments involving her. On the othed.hand I had some issues with the main character especially how she interacted the MMC. She seemed overly hostile with him for no reason. The enemies portion of this book felt really forced. While she did eventually grow to like him I felt her grumpiness was not warrented.

I was lucky enough to listen to the audio of this book, which was narrated fantastically, while I read along with my ebook. Elle returns back to her hometown when her grandmother's Alzheimers progresses. When she mistakes Elle and her live-in nurse, Adam, as being in love, the two decide to fake it to keep the peace. We all know what happens with fake dating right? I loved the relationship between these two! And the Alzhemiers story added an extra emotional element to the story considering how deeply both characters cared for the patient. This was a sweet book and it's a debut! I can't wait to see what the author pens next.

I'm not really sure where to rate this. Overall, it's an okay read but pieces of it didn't sit right with me. As someone who has delt with being a caregiver for an Alzheimer's patient, the representation here felt true but also made for a confusing and heavy backdrop for a rom-com. I also didn't love the power dynamic of the MMC being the nurse and FMC being a family member (let alone the ethics of it). I think had the author removed the very forced tropes and pushed this into women's fiction with romance, it would have been a much more cohesive plot. They could have had an organic relationship and resolved the patient/nurse conflict much earlier and developed the FMC's emotional journey of being a caregiver...it would have been a powerful read instead of "I'm in therapy, love me" that ended up happening.

I'm sure lots of people will like this book but it was just a few too many "off" elements for me, personally. I did receive this title as an ARC and attest that I am leaving my review honestly and voluntarily.

Thank you NetGalley and Alcove Press for the eARC and Dreamscape Media for the ALC

This was my first Megan Murphy novel and I really enjoyed it. The subject is a tough one but she was able to add some lightheardness and humor to the story.

Elle's grandmother Lovie raised her and she is navigating losing her due to advancing Alzheimers. Elle is also in the process of finding herself while navigating losing her grandmother as she knows her. She of course, finds love along the way.

I would give this 3.5-4 stars

Cute and quick read with lots of banter between the main characters. Wasn’t really sure why the main character had a beef with the male lead and so it made her appear a bit petty. As we went along in the story, we get to know Lovey the g grandmother, who is dealing with Alzheimer’s and she has all of this wisdom that L is sharing with the reader and that’s probably the most endearing part of the story. The debut novel for this author and so I want to say kudos to her for for achievement however, if this is probably going to be an enemies to lovers story that doesn’t stand out necessarily that well from the rest of this genre,

Elle's grandmother has Alzheimers disease and Adam is the live-in nurse/caretaker. Elle comes back to stay with her grandmother and isn't expecting hunky Adam to be there. She resists his help/work, but I think mostly out of guilt of not having spent much time, recently, with her ailing grandmother. I had higher hopes for this storyline, but found Elle to be very self-centered and difficult.
Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

Thanks, Dreamscape Media, for this ALC!

This audio made me feel all the things. I laughed out loud, I teared up, I felt giddy from the banter between Adam and Elle.

Elle was raised by her grandmother who has now been diagnosed with Alzheimer's that is quickly progressing and needs around the clock care. When Elle drops everything to go live with her, she quickly finds out she is not alone. Adam is a live-in nurse, also there to take care of Lovie.

Lovie starts to think Elle is a younger version of herself, and Adam is her late husband Bobby. Playing along to keep tensions low, Adam and Elle start to build a real emotional connection.

The forced proximity and hate-to-love tropes were so good and I loved Elle's and Adam's personalities. The emotional and heart-breaking interactions Elle experienced with Lovie with Adam there to support her provided the depth, feeling and vulnerability I crave from a romance plot.

Loved this narration and would listen again!

What a delightful listen. Elle is a successful podcaster and goes home to take care of her grandmother Lovey who is suffering from Alzhiemhers and finds nurse Adam asleep in her bed. When Lovey sees the two of them together, she mistakes them for a younger version of herself and her husband Bobby so they have to pretend to be a happy couple. This is more than classic case of fake relationship and forced proximity. Adam helps Elle deal with all the emotions of Elle being a caregiver of someone with Alzhiemers and the trials and tribulations involved.

I was drawn to this story because of the alzheimers background story. The story started off strong, I loved the introduction with Elle interviewing the lady on the train. Then it went downhill fast. The language was unnecessary (so many f bombs), and the whole vibrator scene was as kids these day say cringe. I dnf at 27%.

2.5 ⭐️

I have decidedly mixed feelings about this one… the story was cute, the tension between Adam and Elle was good, and the approach to representing some of the struggles to caring for an Alzheimer’s family member were well represented. However, as someone who works in healthcare, I could not get over some of the highly inappropriate and unethical aspects of this story. For one, Adam is the full time home health nurse for Lovie, so why is he buying expensive alarm systems on his own dime and installing them in his patients home? Why is he instigating a romantic relationship with the granddaughter of his patient whom he resides with while his agency is employed by her and they are essentially living together? Why does Adam not report a conflict of interest for MONTHS to his employer, and why is his employer relatively unfazed upon discovering he has been romantic with a clients granddaughter while in home taking care of the client?

I fully understand that, as a work of fiction, liberties are taken to a piece of work that may not accurately represent the real world, but this lended toward unethical behavior in healthcare. I don’t doubt that falling for a patient or a patients family member happens, but when I picked this book up, I expected a fair bit of tension and desire to be together despite it being forbidden in a sense. I understand what began as fake dating in front of Lovie who has mistaken Elle and Adam for her younger self and her husband began innocently to appease Lovie in her fragile mental state grew into real feelings. However, I would have expected that prior to moving forward, or after deciding to begin a real romantic relationship, the professional relationship would have ended due to a conflict of interest. I know there are books out there with grumpy boss or billionaire boss themes and so on, but it hits different for me when those relationships are related to health care and medical ethics.

If you can move past the medical ethics issue, this book may be for you. The struggle Elle goes through with learning to care for a grandmother who doesn’t remember her, and a woman whose personality is so different from the woman who raised her, is very true to form. As a loved one, it’s hard to not remind them of who they were or try to correct their delusions or misinformation when you know the truth, but the truth may hurt them. I liked how Elle took the opportunity to honor the memory of her grandmother and find a way to raise awareness and support for Alzheimer’s in her work through her podcast.

The writing went back and forth for me. The little “words of wisdom” from Lovie that were sprinkled throughout the story were very sweet, however moments like asking someone if they want to “Netflix and chill” made me cringe.

As you can see, my feelings truly are mixed. If the synopsis sounds interesting to you, give it a try, you may find your opinion differs from mine. That’s was great about reading, even though we all read the same book, we each get something different out of it.
—
💜 Debut novel
💜 Fake dating
💜 Forced proximity & forbidden romance
💜 “Workplace” relationship
💜 Alzheimer’s awareness
💜 Caring for a family member
💜 Home healthcare
💜 Podcast
—
Story by Megan Murphy: 2.5 ⭐️
Narrated by Alex Picard: 3.5 ⭐️
—
Thank you Dreamscape Media & NetGalley for this complimentary ALC - all thoughts are my own! 📚
Publishers release date 3/18/2025

This was my first Megan Murphy novel and I really enjoyed it. She did a good job diving into a tough subject while also keeping the story fairly light and funny.

Elle’s grandmother Lovie has always taken care of her, as long as she can remember. But remembering is just the problem. With Lovie’s Alzheimer’s progressing fast, it’s Elle’s turn to step up.

Leaving Chicago behind, the last thing she expects when she walks through the door of her childhood home is Adam Wheeler—in her bed. Live-in nurse and pain in the ass, Adam is here to do his job. Eat, sleep, nurse, repeat.

Thrown together to care for Lovie, tensions rise and lines are drawn, but there’s a bigger problem: in her Alzheimer’s riddled mind, Lovie’s convinced that Elle and Adam are madly in love.

Certain she’ll forget by morning, Elle and Adam play along. The only snag? She doesn’t.

Lovie is the only person who thinks this fake dating scheme is real…so why is Elle fantasizing about Adam when he’s not around? And why is it getting harder to pretend?

Thanks to Dreamscape for this advanced copy!! I wrote this book so I am INCREDIBLY biased (arguably the most biased), but Alex Picard knocked the narration out of the park. She treated my characters with so much love and respect. I got butterflies listening to Elle and Adam's banter, and her Lovie was spot on.

Infinity stars forever.

I wanted to love this book because enemies to lovers is my favorite trope, and I have a soft spot for books that reference Alzheimer's. I knew this was going to be a heavier read, but I didn't feel this author handled this topic with care.

The mfc Elle was horrible! She was completely self-centered, clumsy, rude, and for being a people person, she lacked people skills. She kept telling the mmc he wasn't needed in the care of her Grandma, but when left alone, she would lose her. He ordered her a security system, and she scolded him for not using her influencer code even though she could have ordered it herself. She was so rude to the nurse(mmc) she hired(sparking what was suppose to be an enemies to lovers plot but instead felt extremely forced and unnecessary) when she came in late at night to find him in her grandma's home. Your grandma has Alzheimers you thought she was home alone??

I think because I didn't like the mfc, it made it hard for me to see the emotion for her grandmother and to feel a connection between the two main characters. Honestly, I dnf at 52% because the humor felt misplaced, the romance felt forced, the mfc was rude, and this whole situation felt off.

Fake it Like You Mean It Honest ARC Audiobook Review:

Elie’s grandmother Lovie has always taken care of her. She is a large part of Elie’s life. Unfortunately, Lovie is in advanced stages of Alzheimer’s and does not remember how she knows Elie. Lovie thinks that maybe Elie is a younger version of Lovie, not realizing that is who SHE is. With that, Lovie believes that the home care nurse, Adam, who Elie was bickering with is her own late husband, Bobby.

In an attempt to help ease Lovie’s discomfort with her progression of Alzheimer’s, Elie and Adam pretend to be the couple Lovie believes they are.

Having had a grandparent with Alzheimer’s, this story reminds me of how I felt as a granddaughter, witnessing the progression.

The banter between Elie and Adam is perfection. Emotions begin to escalate as Lovie’s Alzheimer’s advances.

Beautifully written and poignant, this novel is definitely one to add to your TBR! It pulled on my heartstrings and had me rooting for Eliie and Adam.

⭐️Fake Dating
⭐️Enemies to Lovers
⭐️Great Banter
⭐️Slow Burn

Thank you for sharing this ARC with me!