Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - How to Fake it in Hollywood

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

How to Fake it in Hollywood by Ava Wilder

40 reviews

kyeruhh's review against another edition

medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I ate this up until abt half way through and then I fell off for a bit as the story seemed to slow. Ethan wasn’t my favorite MMC but I did like the resolution to his character arc. He just seemed a bit flat. I liked Grey as well as the side characters though.

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kingsnail's review

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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myhandmadehell's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is not a book about celebrity romance. This is not a cute romcom about faking a relationship.

This is a book about alcoholism.

Let me be more specific: this book is one long trigger for anyone who has been in a relationship with an alcoholic.

This is a book about watching two people build something beautiful, sexy, fun, and meaningful, and then watching one person’s alcoholism and another person’s enablement absolutely destroy it. It is so destroyed that the HEA is almost impossible to believe.

So fair warning on that, I guess.

But let me tell you how brilliantly Ava Wilder writes it. Grey is instantly lovable, relatable, and fun to watch. Wilder shows, rather than tells, how Grey has her walls up, and slowly, very very slowly, demonstrates why. Why Grey holds back from Ethan and almost everyone else. Why she is unsure, why she is aloof. Although there is a distinct age gap between them (of 11 years), Grey is simultaneously naive and world-weary. It’s a beautiful blend of characteristics that makes her feel as real and complex as an actual human.

But the star of the show is really Ethan’s POV. Somehow never pushing him all the way into “bad guy” territory, Ethan’s internal monologue perfectly and beautifully shows us how alcoholics think, how they justify their decisions, how their self-loathing guides their decisions, how they let their addiction take the reins while believing they still have control. You almost don’t even recognize it at first. He just seems like a classic “don’t get too close, I’m bad for you” bad boy MMC, but as you read on you notice the nuances, the slight deviations from reality, the gentle nudges of dialogue and description that feel like it’s the addiction speaking instead of him.

And his alcoholism, coupled with Grey’s willingness to ignore red flags, make for a truly catastrophic third act breakup. I mean legitimately devastating. I almost stopped reading 90% of the way into this book just because it hurt so bad to read. This book *hurts* to read.

The glitz and glamour of their lifestyles takes a major backseat to this primary conflict, one which takes too little time to resolve, where the pain and difficulty and challenge happen off-page. This book might have better served as NOT a romance, perhaps, but a devastatingly cautionary tale of the role addiction plays in relationships.

Beautifully written, but deeply disturbing and sad, I gave this four stars, losing a star because I simply cannot believe two people could survive this and end up happily. I’m hopeful that this could happen for anyone in a similar situation, but it is, unfortunately, so unlikely as to be true fantasy by the end.

The spice scenes were extraordinary, very spicy, and the chemistry between Ethan and Grey absolutely crackles.

In my head, Ethan was played by Chris Pine. Grey was played by Blake Lively.

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kaydeedickins's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful lighthearted sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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chloelj27's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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dkgreads's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Why do I keep picking books that I think will be light, fluffy, and fun, only to be blindsided by plots that feed my heart through an emotional wood chipper? Don’t get me wrong, part of this were delightful, but it was way more emotional than I expected it to be.

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