Love at First Like

by Hannah Orenstein

[bookperson]

This was sooooo bad! Spoilers are not hidden because I don't think anyone should read this book, at least not unironically.

So, nobody is okay with lying pieces of shit and we all can agree that relationships are about communication? Okay.

So, what's going on with this book?
We enter a scene where our heroine (Eliza), the owner of a jewlery business, finds via instagram that her ex is engaged (we hever see or hear from him again). She's jealous and goes into her store to try on wedding rings, snaps a pic and accidentaly posts it on her IG with vague caption that can pass as her engagement announcement as well. Thus, all shenanigans begin. Sounds cute, right? WRONG!
Next morning she wakes up to new followers and sales, she thinks that she can "save her shop from closing" by finding prince charming and marrying him. Her friend sets up a big tinder "call"(???) to find her a boyfriend. Okay, sounds okay this far. BUT THEN
Then she finds this random guy (Blake) who's just chilling in this bar and jokingly says to him that all these guys are here to basically fake marry her. He's intrigued and also he's a part of the same industry - he sells watches. She sees potential in this arrangement. Fake marriage trope??? Sign me up! Again, it's not what you think.
Then Eliza and Blake go on a date and start a relationship. The only problem is THROUG ALL THEIR RELATIONSHIP SHE DOESN'T TELL HIM THAT SHE WANT TO MARRY HIM TO "SAVE HER SHOP". Until after he proposes FOR REAL. Their relationships is basically Eliza forcing Blake to make moves because she wants marriage FOR PROMOTION.
Then there is the second man, Raj, who is a bartender at the bar that they hold "competition" for future husband, Eliza tells him about her plan and that she's lying to Blake "BUT IT'S ONLY TO SAVE THE SHOP!!!". He becomes her friend (WHYYYYY) and starts to fall for her (WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY).
Then all goes to shit, but somehow she ends up with all the money and man and her secret is never revealed to the world.

This novel has no point, no problem. Eliza makescreates problemsfor herself and hurts others because of it. It's about if you're a good liar then you're golden and everything going to be alright. Heroine shows no remorse, novel has no stakes - the only one is that she'll lose her shop because rent goes up and she needs to make more money, but majority of sales described in the novel are digital! Noone even goes into the shop to buy something! Why she's so attached to this shop so much? I read this novel and I still don't understand.
Also the novel is written from the Eliza's perspectivу and she sees herself as a normal person who does normal things, all the scheming and lying are normal in her book. And her family and friends support her WTFFF??????
There is one scene where she's heartbroken because Blake dropped her sorry ass after she revealed that their relationship are based on lies, and Raj and Eliza's friendgroup show up to party with her to make her feel better after a breakup, put a crown on her head and all talk about their breakups (but only one's in which they were dropped). It was ~70% of the book and I thought that suddenly book suddenly became self aware and we, readers, see that it's not a romcom, but farce. NOPE. They all just share their "tragic" breakups and go home without any thought of it. And Eliza starts to romance Raj, whilst in her mind she wants Blake back to marry him and actively planning a wedding.

Heroes are one dimentional and sprinkled into the novel to be Eliza's hype-people, saying that she's right, perfect and does nothing wrong.
Heroine spends her time either scheming her next marketing move as a shop owner or scheming how to make Blake to propose to her while planning her wedding. She has no backstory, no qualities that make her good or bad besides this story, in which she's abad person and by the end of the story she doesn't change or care because everything went for her.

The villain wins in this one.