Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance by Shellee Roberts

Publication Date: April 18, 2016.

Publisher: Entangled: Crush.

Genres: Young Adult, Romance, and Contemporary.

Rating: 

Selling points: Strong and vulnerable main character, fake dating, charming scenes.

Purchase here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Synopsis: Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains a kickass heroine, a boy so hot he’ll make you shiver, and a falling-in-love story fit for the big screen. You’ll want to settle in and have the popcorn ready.

After Mariely Hinojosa and Cabot Wheeler both break up with their significant others at the same party, Mariely sees a way to get even with both of their exes. Everyone knows that the best way to get over a breakup is a hookup—a fake hookup, that is. Three weeks, all fun, no strings, and definitely no heartbreak at the end.

But somewhere between the sweet hand-holding and melt-your-mind kisses, their fake relationship starts to feel less like an act and more like the real thing…but Mariely’s a free-spirited girl from the other side of the tracks, and Cabot’s the hot trust-fund guy from the Hills.

They’d never work for real…

Thank you Entangled Publishing for my advanced review copy of Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review; this does not affect my opinion. Any quotes mentioned below are taken from the ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

One (fake) hookup with a totally hot guy, no strings, all fun, here I come.

Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance is a young adult contemporary romance featuring Mariely Hinojosa and Cabot Wheeler. After a boathouse party, two breakups and heartbreak both Mariely and Cabot are the talks of their artistic high school Austin NextGen Academy. The solution to their problem is a hookup, a fake one, a fauxmance.

I enjoyed reading Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance by Shellee Roberts. It’s charming, witty and funny. It’s a perfect example of a good young adult novel. There are a lot of clichés in this book, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Actually, it’s what I really like. It has the typical fake dating trope where the characters slowly but surely start to fall in love with each other and the lines between what is fake and what is real, start to get blurry. It’s a delight to read about how Mariely and Cabot navigate through this journey and see what it is that makes them believe the other is still faking their feelings when they are so clearly not.

If there is one thing that bothered me a little in this book it is the dual point of view. The majority of chapters are in Mariely’s point of view, in the first person and those chapters are great. However, Cabot’s chapters are written in the third person which really threw me off. I would have preferred it if either the whole book was in Mariely’s point of view or if Cabot’s chapters were in the first person as well. That would have made the flow a lot better.

“Look Cabot, if we were on some crappy teen show, the casting sheet for you would read: tall, dark, perfect high school guy with mesmerizing blue eyes, Porsche driver. Mine would read: Hispanic girl from East Side with big dreams and not much else. I’m just saying, it makes it easier for me to sell this whole fauxmance thing if I know that in a tiny way, you’re flawed, too.”

Mariely breaks up with her boyfriend when she finds him kissing another boy at a party. She decides to do this fake hook up with Cabot on a whim, which is very unlike her. However, Mariely is a fierce and strong character and she is by far the best thing in this book. Yes, I love a good romance but strong yet flawed female characters are golden. Mariely is a scholarship student at Austin NextGen Academy, she is poor and often feels like that is what makes her so different from the other students. Mariely has a style that is very retro, I guess you could describe it somewhere between old Hollywood and the women from the 50s. I’d say her style is unique, sexy and something that makes her unlike any other girl at her school. Unfortunately, it’s also something Mariely is very self-conscious about. This leads me to the following, that both Mariely and Cabot can be seen as two very stereotypical characters. One is poor, the other rich, one is white and the other Hispanic. However, there is so much more to these characters than what first meets the eye. I truly enjoyed seeing how much we got to see that throughout the story.

I like that this is how he thinks of me, that I’m that kind of strong, fearless. I like that he doesn’t know how weak and scared I can be. That’s what makes this fauxmance ideal, that we won’t ever have to see each other’s flaws. To me he’ll always be the gorgeous, kind, earnest guy who makes my heart flutter. To him, I’ll be the va-va-voom girl, with a little mystery and a lot of moxie.

Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance is a book perfect for everyone who loves a light and sweet story about a girl and a boy trying to navigate through high school and these strange feelings associated with falling in love. There is diversity, authenticity and two people who slowly and surely grow to take a chance on something that could be awesome. As we all know, even though things start as something fake, they may not always end that way.