A review by lizanneyoung
The Decoy Girlfriend by Lillie Vale

4.0

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

TROPES

📗 Fake Dating

📗 One Bed

📗 Dual POV

I always love stories that in some way feature actors as a main character. I can’t explain it, but it’s always a fun time for me, and The Decoy Girlfriend is no exception.

Looking like a famous actress has sometimes worked out in Freya’s favor, but now she’s doing it to prevent said famous actress from outing her as impersonating her on occasion. And, it helps that the entire task is to pretend to be famous actor Taft Bamber’s fake girlfriend, the world just doesn’t know it’s a PR romance. 

Freya and Taft’s chemistry is obvious from their first interaction, and it’s nice that neither of them rejects it outright. Sure, they push it off for a bit, but it’s because of their willingness to sacrifice something for themselves if it somehow helps the other person. Both are givers in that right, but as we follow them, they learn to put themselves first in different aspects, even if it takes a hot minute. 

Taft’s relationship with his former co-stars/friends is really heartbreaking. He puts so much of himself out there for them, from thinking about them and always being the person to reach out, and that’s not returned. It sucks for him that the former co-stars have preconceived notions about how their friendship should be because of Taft’s fame, but it sucks to realize you are doing more to serve a friendship than the other half is. 

Watching Freya struggle to write is relatable to the tenth degree. I’m certainly someone that hits a lot of roadblocks with my own writing, and watching her work through that gave me hope that I can too.