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A review by readwkit
This Time It's Real by Ann Liang
4.0
"When you care about someone, you want to be inconvenienced—you wouldn’t mind being inconvenienced by them every day for the rest of your life. That’s what love is. That’s all love really is."
This Time It's Real is a contemporary romance novel with a simple plot—Eliza is in trouble because her small, inconsequential lie has turned her life upside down. Enter Caz Song, who is going to help her fake her lie just a little longer. Her lie? That she has a lovely boyfriend whom she met in a very CDrama-esque set of events. The issue? She's become a overnight sensation for her fake love story. Now everyone wants a piece of her non-existent love life, and before Eliza can right her wrongs, her dream career is at stake.
Pulling in Caz Song to this hot mess would've been 10x easier if he wasn't a walking icon himself. He's a teen CDrama actor and model who just so happens to be her classmate. So when Caz and Eliza team up to mutually benefit from this Fake Dating Arrangement, chemistry lessons become pseudo-dates, and before Eliza can pull herself out, she realizes she's already in deep.
One thing I've always liked about Ann Liang's writing is that her books never limit themselves to the romance. Eliza's troubles involve a lot of other realistic concerns as well, like platonic friendship breakups and the strangeness that comes with being a student who is too Asian for her Western classmates and too Western for her Asian classmates. The anxiety and need to control every aspect of her life stems from past wounds, and it adds a layer of depth to her character. She becomes easy to root for even when she makes the wrong choice.
I would've personally preferred this book to be a little longer, just so that we could see Caz and Eliza as a fleshed out pair. The hospital scene should've been stretched out, because "running to the hospital in worry" is always going to be one of my favourite cliché romantic moments.
Either way, a quick, fun read!
This Time It's Real is a contemporary romance novel with a simple plot—Eliza is in trouble because her small, inconsequential lie has turned her life upside down. Enter Caz Song, who is going to help her fake her lie just a little longer. Her lie? That she has a lovely boyfriend whom she met in a very CDrama-esque set of events. The issue? She's become a overnight sensation for her fake love story. Now everyone wants a piece of her non-existent love life, and before Eliza can right her wrongs, her dream career is at stake.
Pulling in Caz Song to this hot mess would've been 10x easier if he wasn't a walking icon himself. He's a teen CDrama actor and model who just so happens to be her classmate. So when Caz and Eliza team up to mutually benefit from this Fake Dating Arrangement, chemistry lessons become pseudo-dates, and before Eliza can pull herself out, she realizes she's already in deep.
One thing I've always liked about Ann Liang's writing is that her books never limit themselves to the romance. Eliza's troubles involve a lot of other realistic concerns as well, like platonic friendship breakups and the strangeness that comes with being a student who is too Asian for her Western classmates and too Western for her Asian classmates. The anxiety and need to control every aspect of her life stems from past wounds, and it adds a layer of depth to her character. She becomes easy to root for even when she makes the wrong choice.
I would've personally preferred this book to be a little longer, just so that we could see Caz and Eliza as a fleshed out pair. The hospital scene should've been stretched out, because "running to the hospital in worry" is always going to be one of my favourite cliché romantic moments.
Either way, a quick, fun read!