e-Audio, 08:03:22
Narrated by: Joshua Chang
Release Date: May 16, 2023
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: April 13-16, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: PRH App
TW: Death of a Parent, Grief, Classism, Alcoholism, Cancer, Toxic Friendship, Homophobia,
For Readers Interested In: Realistic Fiction, Romance, LGBTQ+ (Gay), Food/Baking, Racial/Ethnic Diversity, YAHeartstopper meets Crazy Rich Asians in this heartfelt, joyful paperback original rom-com that follows an aspiring chef who discovers the recipe for love is more complicated than it seems when he starts fake-dating a handsome new customer.
Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs—in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn.
Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons.
In Theo’s glittering world of pomp, privilege, and crazy rich drama, their romance is supposed to be just pretend . . . but Dylan finds himself falling for Theo. For real. Then Theo’s relatives reveal their true colors—but with the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being sidetracked by rich-people problems.
Can Dylan save his family’s business and follow his heart—or will he fail to do both?
*MY THOUGHTS*
I don’t say it often, but when publishers compare books to those with huge success that have already come out, I despise it. I despise it because it’s never accurate. And then my expectations end up through the roof and most times the book barely breaks a 3 star from me. But this book? THIS BOOK?! I totes got the Heartstopper and Crazy Rich Asian vibes. And it paired so well together. Definitely one of my top rom coms of the year!
Ok so first off let’s talk about the best part….. The food! There’s both savory and sweets in this one so don’t go reading this when you’re hungry. I can admit I definitely had to get some Chinese take-out after I read it because I was so invested. It also made me desperate to try a mooncake. I understand it probably won’t be like the one in the book because of the freaking special ingredients, but can we all admit that we were all drooling by the time they made it? No? Was that just me? Whatever. Everything they made sounded amazing and now thinking about it I want dumplings all over again.
The next thing was the romance and the tropes. Ok so I’m a HUGE fan of fake dating already, but it just hits different when it’s fake dating to a wedding. This specific trope is my absolute fave, so imagine my surprise when it popped up in the book. Y’all know I read the synopsis one time, like when I just find it, and I don’t even read it all the way through. Just the Nikki buzz words. So months later, I had no idea what this was even about. BUT on the flipside tho, it also had one of my least fave tropes, millionaire/billionaire boyfriend. Why is this my least fave? Because they be wanting to spoil their partner and their partner always does the same thing, acts like they can’t take it. WHY NOT?! I could never be a heroine lolol
The romance itself was very cute tho. It was like a really fast, instalove kind of deal tho. And contrary to what I normally think of instalove, I LOVED that part. Maybe I’ve just read too much adult romance lately, but they’ve all been like long drawn out slow burns. Idk, maybe you’ve heard me say this here before a time or two, but I HATE THEM. They never get together until like 70% left in the story and even then they still have a freaking third act break up. Thankfully this one didn’t have that. Their attraction was immediate, they had a really awkward meet cute, and they still prevailed.
The only reason this wasn’t perfect was the pacing. Everything happened so fast. It was always like “BOOM BOOM BOOM!” And while I liked that for the instalove, the rest of everything else suffered. Everthing was resolved quickly so I didn’t feel like there was really a conflict and I never really knew the characters besides the ones that kept popping up.
The narrator was great. I never really had a complaint about them. I did check and they are an Own Voices narrator and I love that. They have really been a hit for me lately. Their inflections are right and there are no forced accents or dialects. And this narrator does that for Fake Dates.
I really enjoyed this book and I hope y’all will too! Not only is the cover cute, but so is the inside. And yes the corgi is definitely a character. I think the only thing that could have made this better would be if Lee gave the dog a chapter from it’s POV. Hopefully that’ll be something to look forward to lol
Overall, I give this
