How to Fake it in Hollywood by Ava Wilder

e-Audio, 10:36:50
Narrated by: Therese Plummer & Andrew Eiden
Release Date: June 14, 2022
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: June 29-30, 2022
Stand-alone
Source: Library’s Libby
TW: Drug abuse, Alcohol abuse, Death
For Readers Interested In: Fake Dating, Romance, Celebrities, Age Gap

     A talented Hollywood starlet and a reclusive A-lister enter into a fake relationship . . . and discover that their feelings might be more than a PR stunt in this sexy debut for fans of Beach Read and The Unhoneymooners.

Grey Brooks is on a mission to keep her career afloat now that the end of her long-running teen soap has her (unsuccessfully) pounding the pavement again. With a life-changing role on the line, she’s finally desperate enough to agree to her publicist’s scheme… faking a love affair with a disgraced Hollywood heartthrob who needs the publicity, but for very different reasons.

Ethan Atkins just wants to be left alone. Between his high-profile divorce, his struggles with drinking, and his grief over the death of his longtime creative partner and best friend, he’s slowly let himself fade into the background. But if he ever wants to produce the last movie he and his partner wrote together, Ethan needs to clean up his reputation and step back into the spotlight. A gossip-inducing affair with a gorgeous actress might be just the ticket, even if it’s the last thing he wants to do.

Though their juicy public relationship is less than perfect behind the scenes, it doesn’t take long before Grey and Ethan’s sizzling chemistry starts to feel like more than just an act. But after decades in a ruthless industry that requires bulletproof emotional armor to survive, are they too used to faking it to open themselves up to the real thing?

*MY THOUGHTS*

This wasn’t really on my radar….. Until I started seeing so many people talking about it. And then of course, I had to find out about it too. I will say this tho…. I will no longer be using Goodreads as my main book tracking app/site. I had no idea this had one of my biggest triggers in it.

Like I said this has one of my biggest triggers in it. Drug abuse. I’ve said why time and time again, and i don’t want to say it again. And because there’s no clear space on Goodreads for TW/CW, most people have put them on their review (which I don’t read until I’ve written my own so there’s no way I can be influenced on what I think about it ), or they might place a spoiler alert on it. Which doesn’t work for someone like me. I don’t like spoilers or any kind, so I would never click on that. Because of that, I missed them entirely. Normally when people say this is heavy or whatever, I would check on Storygraph, but for whatever reason I never thought it would be THIS. So I didn’t. And it cost me. I found myself anxious and stressed about their recovery and so so sad for the people they left behind. It took me a good while to remove myself from the situation and remember that it was a book and not what happened to my uncle and cousin. Once I realized I was spiraling, I realized it was my fault. I shouldn’t have let my guard down and assumed that it meant sad in another way. But then I also thought it was the author’s fault for not including a TW page. Obviously I was still spiraling but whatever lol

Other than that, I thought it was ok. Y’all know fake dating is my jam. It’s actually the reason I wanted to read this. I saw that people were saying it was heavy, but because it was fake dating, I was thinking heavy was concerning the dating part. (Definitely not.) The romance was cute also. It started off with what I thought was some elements of enemies to lovers, but now on the other side of this, it seemed like the fighting only started when they were still fighting their addiction. But once they finally got it together, it worked. And I was happy for them. They turned out to be what the other needed. Not savior wise, but really like they needed each other. It was sad and heartbreaking and not at all what I thought I was going to get from the cover.

Though I enjoyed this one and the angst, I could have done without the triggers. I now know better than to trust the cover and the just assuming triggers. Definitely something I will think about more when I think of picking up another book by Wilder. Solid debut, but I will be more wary of their next one.

Overall, I give this