Rules For Fake Girlfriends by Raegan Revord (2025)
First let me say that for a debut YA novel from a very young author, this is a remarkably accomplished, ambitious first effort.
In terms of contemporary romance, it's obvious that author Raegan Revord loves and cherishes all the tropes that have been seemingly carved in stone over the years. (You can tell from the chapter headings that announce these many expected, familiar plot turns that by now readers (and filmgoers) know by heart.)
Much to her widowed dad's worry and disappointment, college freshman Avery puts off her enrollment in Columbia to spend a year at a British seaside college attended by her late beloved mother. Her primary reason - to follow the scavenger hunt clues her mother left for her scattered all around the campus and surrounding countryside. Not even off the train yet, she's managed to fall into a queer fake-dating relationship with live-wire, vivacious Charlie, who's trying to make her own recently ex-girlfriend jealous.
Avery collects a small coterie of friends, but the fake dating (as we all knew it would) turns into something much more and collides with sudden emotional complications that upends the young freshman's life choices.
A lot's going on in this book for a fledgling author to take on at one time and author Revord does fall into the inevitable pitfalls of overwriting and repetitious prose. The scavenger hunt, no doubt meant to provide heartfelt moments along the way, struck me as vague, far fetched and not well thought out. And toward the final third, it mostly falls to the wayside when far more pressing issues take hold of Avery (such as her up-and-down Charlie romance, her estrangement from her longtime best friend and worries about her father's now solitary life.).
But I cannot fault the book's passion, enthusiasm and empathy for all its characters and I think other readers will too, even if the tropes are so familiar to one and all. Once started, I simply had to follow Avery's story to its conclusion, so that makes her creator, Raegan Revord an author to watch out for.
In terms of contemporary romance, it's obvious that author Raegan Revord loves and cherishes all the tropes that have been seemingly carved in stone over the years. (You can tell from the chapter headings that announce these many expected, familiar plot turns that by now readers (and filmgoers) know by heart.)
Much to her widowed dad's worry and disappointment, college freshman Avery puts off her enrollment in Columbia to spend a year at a British seaside college attended by her late beloved mother. Her primary reason - to follow the scavenger hunt clues her mother left for her scattered all around the campus and surrounding countryside. Not even off the train yet, she's managed to fall into a queer fake-dating relationship with live-wire, vivacious Charlie, who's trying to make her own recently ex-girlfriend jealous.
Avery collects a small coterie of friends, but the fake dating (as we all knew it would) turns into something much more and collides with sudden emotional complications that upends the young freshman's life choices.
A lot's going on in this book for a fledgling author to take on at one time and author Revord does fall into the inevitable pitfalls of overwriting and repetitious prose. The scavenger hunt, no doubt meant to provide heartfelt moments along the way, struck me as vague, far fetched and not well thought out. And toward the final third, it mostly falls to the wayside when far more pressing issues take hold of Avery (such as her up-and-down Charlie romance, her estrangement from her longtime best friend and worries about her father's now solitary life.).
But I cannot fault the book's passion, enthusiasm and empathy for all its characters and I think other readers will too, even if the tropes are so familiar to one and all. Once started, I simply had to follow Avery's story to its conclusion, so that makes her creator, Raegan Revord an author to watch out for.
3 stars (***).
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