I finished Faking It by Jennifer Crusie and it was everything I needed it to be. Fast paced dialogue, zany characters, an excellent cast of characters, and just enough poor babys. I love the bad sex, or rather I should call it uncompleted sex. Crusie does this often in her books and I am always here for it. There are a few things in the story that are a bit dated, but overall holds up well.

Grade: A
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Several of the Smexy ladies have read Intercepted by Alexa Martin and really enjoyed it, so I wanted to hop on that train. I want to report that I did not love it. And here why. My notes might be spoilery, so here’s your first warning.

The Kristen Ashley vibe was STRONG in this book. Imagine your favorite KA hero playing professional football and you will get this novel. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it might be a thing for some readers. Martin mentions her love of KA in the acknowledgments and I picked it up in the writing almost immediately. Another smexy lady noticed it too. There is even a scene that felt classic KA, where Gavin looks at Marlee’s dad and says something like -now she gets it.

Things I liked:
Marlee is funny and has a lot of witty dialogue. She uses hashtags a lot. Some are very silly and it worked for me. I did like her with Gavin, but more on that later.

I LOVED seeing a diverse cast of characters, especially in the sports world. Too often sports books are too white.

Things I didn’t like:

The majority of the other women on the football wives club were terrible. They felt very one dimensional. I saw at least one review comment on the positive female friendships and I would disagree, well at least on some levels. It’s great to build positive female friendships, but when all the other women in the book are depicted as “bitches” it kind of negates it for me. The word bitch is used 45 times. I didn’t look at each of them, but I feel strongly that the majority were used to call other another woman a bitch. I am not here for this. Sometimes women are the worst. Sometimes they aren’t. In my opinion, there wasn’t enough nuance. We don’t have to tear some women down in order to let others shine.

The backstory felt like it was missing. Marlee and Gavin met four years ago in Chicago and slept together. She even lost her necklace and he returns it when they reconnect. But there was very little information given about their initial meeting. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know how Gavin had been pining for her all these years. The book is told solely from Marlee’s POV so I think the backstory would have helped me believe in their story more. Marlee and Gavin also upgraded to boy/girlfriend after a week of being friends/dating and having had sex once. This felt really fast, especially without knowing their previous connection.

Marlee’s ex, Chris was TRASH and got too much page time.

I thought there wasn’t enough groveling. Gavin makes some assumptions and is a complete douche to Marlee. And he got off way too easy.

Spoiler alert/Content warning
Not one, but TWO acts of violence against the heroine. This is not a suspense book. I know bad things happen and I was willing to accept that one bad thing happened. But when the second act of violence was perpetrated against the heroine, it felt gratuitous and to serve solely as making the hero the savior. I am not ever here for this.

In short, I didn’t love it. I had a lot of problems with it and it is unlikely I will read the next one. It had a reality show feel to it and that is not what I am looking for in a book. I think others will enjoy it though and that is great.

Grade: D
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