A review by bookcheshirecat
This Time It's Real by Ann Liang

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

3.0

“And this, I think, is my ultimate fatal flaw. Missing people who don’t miss me back. Clinging on to strands of string that shouldn’t mean half as much as they do. It takes so little for me to love someone, yet so long for me to move on.” 

➽ This Time It's Real is about aspiring writer Eliza, who accidentally goes viral with an essay she made up! I liked the premise, as Eliza is in big trouble for writing an essay about a boyfriend she doesn't have - now people are invested in a relationship that she made up. Even worse, she's got the internship opportunity of a lifetime from a prestigious publisher. In order to keep up the charade, she fake dates a popular C-Drama actor from her school: the aloof, gorgeous Caz. As always, I loved the fact that this story is set in Beijing, it's great that the author is incorporating the setting into all of her books! I like reading stories that are set somewhere outside of the US!

➽ Eliza and her struggles with loneliness & feeling like she didn't belong were relatable. Her family has been moving around a lot due to her mother's job and she has gotten tired of always being the new girl. In between all the schools, it's hard to keep up friendships and the only person who always stayed was Zoe. Eliza struggles a lot with her self-worth as everyone ends up forgetting about her and moving on with her life, once she's gone. I really felt for her heartbreak and her loneliness. It's hard to feel at home if you're always moving and Eliza hasn't bothered to make new friends with anyone in Beijing. My favorite dynamic was between Eliza and her best friend Zoe. Eliza could always count on her, but she's beginning to fear that her friend is also forgetting her and getting to know cool new people. I always appreciate when books focus on how important friendships can be!

➽ However, the romance just didn't do it for me. I'm sad because I loved If You Could See the Sun and wanted to like another story by Ann Liang. One of my issues was that Caz remained shallow as most of his struggles and insecurities were only hinted at. I never fully got his character and it was hard to understand why he built up his aloof and perfect facade. I wished we had gotten a deeper insight into his acting career and found out why he struggles so much to always tough things out. I also didn't feel the romantic chemistry between Eliza and Caz. One reason was that Eliza's insecurities took over in almost every scene and there was so much miscommunication. She assumes a lot of things about Caz's intentions and her constant conviction that he was just acting grated on me. I don't know why the author put her in so many embarrassing situations, it made me cringe. I don't feel like Eliza and Caz gained a deep connection due to all of this. Eliza's self-sabotage was too much for me.

➽ The premise could have been executed better. I was hoping to see more of Eliza's internship and the impact of dating someone famous! I also hoped her finding some friends outside of Caz would have been a bigger plot point. The ending was too rushed and used some tropes I don't like.
Why did we have a dramatic scene with Eliza thinking Caz is dead??
I was also disappointed that Eliza didn't really face consequences for her actions, I don't think she learned from her mistakes as much as she could have.
The ending is ambiguous, as Eliza plans to write an essay to come clean, so we never see the fallout of her lies. That would have been so interesting to explore in the end! We also had the opportunity for her to face some consequences in the second half of the book, but Eliza kept up the lie. I thought it was disappointing that she sent Caz's management team after the writer of the thinkpiece just to save herself. It turned out to be a stalker, but it literally could have just been a person not agreeing with her. She was willing to expose whoever it was without knowing first.
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