A review by sharniandbooks
Fool Me Once by Ashley Winstead

2.0

 I think I am perhaps discovering that cheating in books is not for me?

I saw a few of my friends/people I follow rating this book highly, so I was excited to get into it. I liked the idea of following someone with a bit of a different job to a lot of other books (how many books have we all read where the main character was an author, librarian or worked in a book shop?) So I was excited to switch things up a bit as our main character in Fool Me Once is a communications director at an electric car company and is trying to get a clean energy bill rolling. Not a lot of books I have read have had this type of storyline, so that was something I was interested in (despite knowing nothing about how politics/bills work and being lost a little haha). But there were some great discussions about the people who are in positions of power such as this quote:

“I want a future where we’ve dismantled systemic sexism and racism and every other bias that keeps cis straight white men in charge of society and everyone else under their heels. I want innovation and competition and strong safety nets. I want to celebrate autonomy and recognize the fact that we’re all hopelessly bound together, whether we like it or not.” I paused. There was plenty more, but I tried to read the proverbial room. In my experience, telling older white men you wanted to level out their power didn’t often go over well. Neither did using the word cis.

There were lot's of points made throughout the book about the double standards when it comes to sexism. Some of this was to do with cheating (this book had a lot of it), such as a male Politian cheating on their spouse and no one batting an eye, but if a female did it, she would not be met with the same reaction. While I appreciate this discussion, as I said, there was quite a lot of cheating happening within the book, and I just don't think that is a storyline that I enjoy as it made it hard for me to root for the main character.

I do enjoy a messy main character, and Lee was certainly that, but I just couldn't fully get on board with her line of thinking when it came to the cheating. The main character also punched someone in the face because of something they said, and to be honest, I also don't love that. Let's not normalise punching people.

While this book was not for me, I hope it falls into the hands of those that will love it! So if you enjoy a book with a fun, messy main character, a second chance romance, and a woman standing up to old white men in power...this one is for you.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc for review.