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A review by opalmars
The Girlfriend Act by Safa Ahmed
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
I can just safely say that this book was not for me. 😬🫠 Reading this just reminded me of how painfully asexual I am lol.
So, this story is insanely cliché, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but, in this case, it just didn’t work for me. The romance is straight out of wattpad: girl who wants to be a famous actress ends up fake-dating her childhood celebrity crush for press, and guess what? They fall in love for real ooooooohhhh. They also have a rivals-to-lovers arc in there. Also, she ends up becoming famous and having a pretty good start to her acting career. It literally reads like those wish-fulfillment wattpad stories about Y/N 😅.
Once again, I could’ve dealt with this, but, overall, it just didn’t work for me, mainly because… I didn’t care at all about the romance. 🥲🥲🥲 I WANTED TO LOVE THIS SO BADDDDDD!!! And everybody else loved it, so I genuinely thought this’d be super cute! But I just… didn’t *feel* Farah and Zayan’s bond, you know? 😭💔
Farah was simping for Zayan from the very start, which makes sense, because she’s been obsessed with him for years, at that point. However, from the very beginning, Zayan was rude and presumptuous, and Farah barely even gave him a hard time. Idk man, I just wanted to see her standing up for herself! Don’t let this rude rich guy talk to you like that, queen! 😤 Anyways. 😪 Farah ended up accepting to fake-date Zayan reeeeally fast. I would’ve liked to see her thinking and agonizing about such a life-changing decision a bit more, but whatever.
Farah and Zayan get closer as they’re fake-dating. We quickly realize that Farah’s problem with fake-dating a guy she’s “enemies” with isn’t that it’s hard to pretend to like him. Farah’s issue is that she’s so attracted to Zayan already that she’s scared that she’ll fall in love with him… 🧍🏻 Afff… Listen, I get it, and *it makes sense*, because he was her celebrity crush. HOWEVERRRR I just didn’t have a lot of fun reading that. 🥲
Farah tells Zayan friendship between them might be hard because she finds him super attractive, and Zayan also admits he’s very attracted to Farah. I’m sorryyyyyyy 😫😭 but it just wasn’t FUN to read about 2 people who were attracted to each other to the point of NOT being able to be friends because they thought closeness would tempt them, and they didn’t want that lol. 🥴💀 Also – and maybe this is just me being too asexual –, is it really that hard to be friends with a pretty person? I was genuinely so confused. 😅
Additionally, I have to say: I didn’t really FEEL any of their connection. When they admitted their attraction to each other, they were barely even friends, in my opinion. When they started saying they love each other I was frankly just staring blankly at the page. I didn’t feel anything about their romance throughout this entire book, if I’m being honest.
Anyways. Their attraction to each other obviously keeps growing. Zayan keeps spewing the most elaborate compliments to Farah, and they felt kinda forced (idk, I just thought no teenage boy would be saying “You’re making it hard to breathe around you.”; “I’m not sure I even have the right words to tell you how brilliant you are”; “You’re enchanting.”; “My dreams include loving you for eternity” to a girl he’s friends with and only met like, a month and a half ago lol. Maybe I’m just too jaded, though).
The part that really got to me, however, was that they fell soooo deeply in love (to the point that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together) after only knowing each other for *2 MONTHS*. 💀💀💀💀💀💀 The straights are wildingggggg omgggg what do you MEANNNN you’re deciding you’ll be together forever after knowing each other just for some weeks?? 🥴And in the end when Farah finds out Zayan wants to propose to her, even though they’ve only been dating for ***1 YEAR***????? BROOOOO LMFAOOOOO y’all are TEENAGERS!!!!!! 😭😭😭 AND!!! You didn’t even spend this year together! I’m not trying to say long distance relationships don’t work, btw, I’m just saying that these 2 TEENAGERS haven’t even been physically in the same space for like… any amount of time, yet they’re getting married???? INSANITYYYYY bro I’m definitely not straight enough for this shit 🥴🥴🥴.
All of this to say that the romance didn’t work for me, which is unfortunate, because not only is it that main thing in this *romance* book, obviously, but also because everyone else seemed to love it, so I believed I would, too. 😭💔
Regarding the rest of the book:
➤ Her friendship with the Tragedies moved too quickly and wasn’t properly developed. She met these random people 2 days ago and already trusts them so much?? Okay… 🙄
➤ It was interesting to see Farah dealing with impostor syndrome (although, let’s be real, sometimes it was warranted, because she didn’t even audition for the Heer Ranjha play; she was just offered the main role because of her fake relationship with Zayan lol). Her acting career was kinda cool to follow, but it also lowkey read as wish-fulfillment, as I already mentioned at the start.
➤ Racism and colourism were really well integrated into the story, and I liked seeing different facets of it, through different characters who have different experiences. The ending where they “defeated the bad guys” was kinda lame, but overall I enjoyed the way these issues were woven into the story.
➤ Laiba (Zayan’s ex) was really nice, and I wish we’d seen more of her.
➤ I appreciate that this is a YA book about university-aged characters.
➤ If I had a nickel for every time Farah overheard an important conversation between other people, I’d have several nickels (like, at least 3, maybe 4 or 5, idk, I lost count lol).
➤ Zayan was kinda childish and dumb at times, ngl. Like, what do you mean you’re gonna ignore Farah for days on end (negatively affecting their press-relationship and also their play) just because you’re salty she didn’t invite you to hang out with the Tragedies (after YOU SAID you’re not really friends with them)???? 🙄🙄🙄 And you’re just gonna throw your fake-dating contract on the ground in front of paparazzi and then act SHOCKED people found out about the contract??? DUMBASS 😭.
➤ I liked the Pakistani rep, and enjoyed that Farah was so close to her country’s culture.
Overall: this book wasn’t for me, but it could be for you, if the things I mentioned aren’t a problem to you.
So, this story is insanely cliché, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but, in this case, it just didn’t work for me. The romance is straight out of wattpad: girl who wants to be a famous actress ends up fake-dating her childhood celebrity crush for press, and guess what? They fall in love for real ooooooohhhh. They also have a rivals-to-lovers arc in there. Also, she ends up becoming famous and having a pretty good start to her acting career. It literally reads like those wish-fulfillment wattpad stories about Y/N 😅.
Once again, I could’ve dealt with this, but, overall, it just didn’t work for me, mainly because… I didn’t care at all about the romance. 🥲🥲🥲 I WANTED TO LOVE THIS SO BADDDDDD!!! And everybody else loved it, so I genuinely thought this’d be super cute! But I just… didn’t *feel* Farah and Zayan’s bond, you know? 😭💔
Farah was simping for Zayan from the very start, which makes sense, because she’s been obsessed with him for years, at that point. However, from the very beginning, Zayan was rude and presumptuous, and Farah barely even gave him a hard time. Idk man, I just wanted to see her standing up for herself! Don’t let this rude rich guy talk to you like that, queen! 😤 Anyways. 😪 Farah ended up accepting to fake-date Zayan reeeeally fast. I would’ve liked to see her thinking and agonizing about such a life-changing decision a bit more, but whatever.
Farah and Zayan get closer as they’re fake-dating. We quickly realize that Farah’s problem with fake-dating a guy she’s “enemies” with isn’t that it’s hard to pretend to like him. Farah’s issue is that she’s so attracted to Zayan already that she’s scared that she’ll fall in love with him… 🧍🏻 Afff… Listen, I get it, and *it makes sense*, because he was her celebrity crush. HOWEVERRRR I just didn’t have a lot of fun reading that. 🥲
Farah tells Zayan friendship between them might be hard because she finds him super attractive, and Zayan also admits he’s very attracted to Farah. I’m sorryyyyyyy 😫😭 but it just wasn’t FUN to read about 2 people who were attracted to each other to the point of NOT being able to be friends because they thought closeness would tempt them, and they didn’t want that lol. 🥴💀 Also – and maybe this is just me being too asexual –, is it really that hard to be friends with a pretty person? I was genuinely so confused. 😅
Additionally, I have to say: I didn’t really FEEL any of their connection. When they admitted their attraction to each other, they were barely even friends, in my opinion. When they started saying they love each other I was frankly just staring blankly at the page. I didn’t feel anything about their romance throughout this entire book, if I’m being honest.
Anyways. Their attraction to each other obviously keeps growing. Zayan keeps spewing the most elaborate compliments to Farah, and they felt kinda forced (idk, I just thought no teenage boy would be saying “You’re making it hard to breathe around you.”; “I’m not sure I even have the right words to tell you how brilliant you are”; “You’re enchanting.”; “My dreams include loving you for eternity” to a girl he’s friends with and only met like, a month and a half ago lol. Maybe I’m just too jaded, though).
The part that really got to me, however, was that they fell soooo deeply in love (to the point that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together) after only knowing each other for *2 MONTHS*. 💀💀💀💀💀💀 The straights are wildingggggg omgggg what do you MEANNNN you’re deciding you’ll be together forever after knowing each other just for some weeks?? 🥴
All of this to say that the romance didn’t work for me, which is unfortunate, because not only is it that main thing in this *romance* book, obviously, but also because everyone else seemed to love it, so I believed I would, too. 😭💔
Regarding the rest of the book:
➤ Her friendship with the Tragedies moved too quickly and wasn’t properly developed. She met these random people 2 days ago and already trusts them so much?? Okay… 🙄
➤ It was interesting to see Farah dealing with impostor syndrome (although, let’s be real, sometimes it was warranted, because she didn’t even audition for the Heer Ranjha play; she was just offered the main role because of her fake relationship with Zayan lol). Her acting career was kinda cool to follow, but it also lowkey read as wish-fulfillment, as I already mentioned at the start.
➤ Racism and colourism were really well integrated into the story, and I liked seeing different facets of it, through different characters who have different experiences. The ending where they “defeated the bad guys” was kinda lame, but overall I enjoyed the way these issues were woven into the story.
➤ Laiba (Zayan’s ex) was really nice, and I wish we’d seen more of her.
➤ I appreciate that this is a YA book about university-aged characters.
➤ If I had a nickel for every time Farah overheard an important conversation between other people, I’d have several nickels (like, at least 3, maybe 4 or 5, idk, I lost count lol).
➤ Zayan was kinda childish and dumb at times, ngl. Like, what do you mean you’re gonna ignore Farah for days on end (negatively affecting their press-relationship and also their play) just because you’re salty she didn’t invite you to hang out with the Tragedies (after YOU SAID you’re not really friends with them)???? 🙄🙄🙄 And you’re just gonna throw your fake-dating contract on the ground in front of paparazzi and then act SHOCKED people found out about the contract??? DUMBASS 😭.
➤ I liked the Pakistani rep, and enjoyed that Farah was so close to her country’s culture.
Overall: this book wasn’t for me, but it could be for you, if the things I mentioned aren’t a problem to you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Racial slurs