The Fake Dating and the War have nothing to do with each other, which is the first thing I want to address. I’m not sure why exactly, but reading the title, I felt like there were two couples, both lying about being in a relationship, and one of them would come out as the winner, having fooled everyone, while the other would be deemed liars. However, it’s more about a work-related “war,” which is more collegial bickering and prompting each other to do their best through always being in contest with each other. This is also a cool dynamic, just not what the title implied. 😅

Tropes like the man falling for the woman first definitely come up here, if that’s something you’re looking out for. It’s very cute how caring Jake becomes as soon as something is up with Reema, even though he himself does not understand why he acts the way he does. This also means that, although this is advertised as an enemies-to-lovers romance, they are never really enemies in the first place. They act as if they hate each other, but they clearly don’t, never have, and never will. So it’s really more of an interesting friendship dynamic turned romantic in the right circumstances.

They are both very fleshed out, likable characters, though I have to admit the spotlight of the story is clearly on Reema. Following her to her sister’s wedding, getting to know her whole family and culture while only really ever meeting one brother and Jake’s mother once, is a noticeable difference. This leads me right into my next point: the book should not have ended when they officially came together. I would have really loved seeing their relationship bloom, Reema in turn getting to know Jake’s family better, them exploring what it means to be in a romantic relationship now, and how this changes their relationship at work, etc. I would have genuinely been curious about that, that’s how well the characters were written, and I am kind of salty that I was cut off like that as a reader.

There are rather few spicy scenes in the book, which was quite sad to me too, but you get an exclusive “deleted scene” when you subscribe to Kaur’s newsletter, which I don’t know how to feel about. Not the scene itself, but the practice of it. Again, this ties in with my last point: we have seen their friendship, we have seen their bickering, we have seen them have hot sex like once, but we are denied seeing their relationship really unfold further. The epilogue, thank god there is one, takes place about one year after everything else. And I really, really don’t know why. I would not have needed to read about a whole year between them (but I think I could have), but at least their real beginnings.

Final verdict: While I find the title misleading, Kaur wrote a very funny and cute love story about work competitors who both see and bring out the best in each other. They are never really enemies, but more like friends who should have become lovers sooner. They are so interestingly written that I would have loved to know more about their story, but as a reader, I was denied. The spicy scenes are long, but there are not many of them, and one you only get by subscribing to the author’s website (possible blackmailing? 😆). I love the diversity of the story, getting to know Indian culture in a not-at-all-on-the-nose way, and also how open the male MC is to all of that. It really made me interested in reading more books by the author and getting more informed about Indian culture, its stories, and rituals.

I really liked seeing both of the main characters being neurodiverse, even though with Savvy there is no official diagnoses with the stuff she tells about her past and things always going wrong, it has certain hints of ADHD and such. The male MC Darwin is official stated to have OCD but is also very autism coded, yet still successful in life mostly. It’s rare to see that much representation, and it makes up for an interesting relationship dynamic not seen in these kinda of books too often, or rather it could have had the potential for it. Darwin’s condition comes up often times and is one of the main focuses of the book, but then his symptoms just vanish in time, compelled by the power of love I assume, and he is suddenly capable of things he was not before. Sadly, that’s not how these things work in real life, which is why I almost want to take the point for representation back. But I guess in the end, it’s still two neurodiverse protagonists, and how often do we see that?

The next problem is the age gap. It’s not a problem in general, since that’s what the book is advertised for and for the most part of the book both protagonists are consenting adults(there are flashbacks where Savvy is having a crush on him at 16, but nothing happens with that, it’s just mentioned) but if Savvy would not mention all the time, how Darwin was her father best friend, we would not know he is older than her. Apart from a brief mention of silver fox vibes at the beginning and the end, no age related problems EVER come up in the book. They don’t fight over generational differences, nor his body or anatomical issues, and noone is really commenting on their relationship from the outside aside from one friend who is just angry for how things went between them in the past. Darwin comments sometimes on how he is “too old for her” but it’s never really addressed why that could be a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I would not have wanted for it to become a problem but having a conversation about for example Savvy knowing he probably will die before her and accepting it out of love, would have made her bound stronger and also kinda adhered to the expectations I had when going into an age-gap relationship novel. Basically Darwin acts as if he was a teenager almost, physically and mentally, you never really get the idea he is an over 40 years old guy. Might be a downer for people who were specifically looking for such a dynamic.

In general, I think everything in the book happens a bit fast, too fast. They had a thing before, so falling back into love might be easier than falling in love for the first time, granted. But everything just happens that fast, Darwin getting better, the renovations, the development in their relationship etc. It’s basically: Savvy gets back in Darwin’s life, a few chapters later he declares his love, another few chapters they both think and talk about marriage and children, then the renovations are done, and the epilogue comes around. I think about 3-4 months pass while all of that is happening in the book, but it does not feel like it at all, it feels like we as the readers skip a lot of development. Like Darwin mentions how Savvy has been starting ripping out the old flooring, but we never actually have a chapter of them working on something, like cleaning an area or fixing old tech. It’s implied that all of that is happening, but we don’t get it shown. Same with the relationship, it feels like a lot of development just happens off-screen, and we see them just be happy together, though especially these first times and almost everything is a first for Darwin, get lost. There is also this whole part about Darwin being a virgin, but for some reason still also being a sex expert? Like he never touched a woman, but when fingering his girlfriend for the first time, he knows what to do perfectly, but why? How? I’d get if he would learn, maybe even learn faster, showing off some positive sides of his disorder being obsessed over learning how to please his girlfriend, but we don’t get to see that. He is just good at sex all of a sudden, which is quite unrealistic. I think the whole book could have been fleshed out a bit more.

Final verdict:
I think this book has so much potential! It could be a great representation of neurodiversity, but it lacks in actually tackling the problems that comes with it and makes them just vanish in time. It could be a great entry in the age-gap trope, if it wouldn’t be for the fact that nothing age-gap related really ever comes into play in the story. Furthermore, it could be an interesting way to show how two people at two very different points in their lives help each other grow in ways they couldn’t have without each other. But we don’t really see the growing together part, it’s all just implied, and we see only the outcome of the work that must have somehow gone into it? I still think it’s a great, light read for anyone who does not care about something deeper. The writing style itself was very funny, I was able to fly through the pages and what I read, was nice but nothing more than that. I just wish I would have been able to read more, a more detailed story that could live up top it’s potential, which sadly just did not happen here.

• nice love story
• likable cast
• some sex scenen (not too many, not too spicey)
• weird very forced ending

This is not only the first book I read in some time but also the first romance book. Funny enough the only two romance books I think I ever read are hockey-romances which I got recommended xD So it might be a genre I personally am a bit uneducated in, keep that in mind when reading, maybe there are some more things a more educated reader of the genre would look out for which I don’t. But maybe, I’ll become more versed in it in the future 😉
Also, like in the last hockey-romance I have read, this book is part of a series! Which I knew but kinda ignored because from my VAST experience these kinds of books can be read on their own without much knowledge about what came before. Because they usually focus on a couple and their stories, which might not have even appeared or have not been focussed on much in prior books. I can’t say how much these two main character have come up in book one which was called sparkling hope, but I can say that aside from getting to know the main cast of friends better, it did not feel like I was missing anything. But again, without book one to draw information from, my review might be a bit different, focussing only on what happens in sparkling fear.

This story is about a football captain that never knew love, than found it and ran away from it as well as a ballerina who fell way too hard way too quickly and got her heartbroken. Just for the two of them to meet again at the most inconvenient of times, after the football captain’s best friend tragically died. While the captain, Charles, starts to have to deal with depression, panic attacks and alcohol abuse the ballerina called Leni, finally got away from her abusive mother, wanting to start a new life at a new university far away from where she came. It’s all about healing together, rekindling and defining what’s between them and finding out who they can be together.
It’s all in all a bittersweet love story, that feels real to some extent, like something that could have really happened to a friend, but then again fictional men are just so much nicer and more apologetic than the reals ones. I was kinda taken out of the immersion by some of the nicer stuff and realizations that are happening to the male character (with the help of therapy I might add, so it’s somewhat realistic) but he also has his fair share of dumb decisions that he has to make up for again. So it’s a back and forth, almost a slow burn romance between them, which I did really enjoy. There are some spicy scenes in this book, for people who want to know about it. But they are rather short, rather few in general and to me personally not what one would call smut. They are on the saver side for readers with a faint heart 😉

The ending disappointed me a bit because it really felt like the story was already finished and a happy ending could have been told, but then something needed to happen, so the book could go on for another few chapters. And it’s written in a way that is really predictable. Like there is an obstacle, coming out of nowhere, and you know it will be solved, it’s defently made up, nothing prior indicated it could be anything but. And as a reader you just skip through the chapters to get to where the problems get’s resolved, because you know it will. To me, it really was not necessary, it felt like for some reason the author needed the problems the two already worked their way through, to come up one last time and for that to happen, she needed to come up with something to bring them forth. But they really didn’t or if they really needed, she should have come up with something more convincing, so that the reader would really have to worry till the last second if it’s resolvable or not. That really taints the story in a way it would not have needed to be.
Another small point of critique I’d have is that the ratio of whose story got to be in the spotlight, in this book it is mainly on Charles. Leni has an abusive mother who calls her now and then, and she talks about it a few times, the mother even shows up once, but that’s about it. She does talk about her dad too, but not in the way Charles does. His dad comes up multiple times, we get to meet him and Charles sister fairly often, aswell as his friends, Coach, even his favorite bartender. The death of his friend, which is obviously the main theme of the book, of course plays a big part. And Leni really helps him to deal with all of that, he helps her to eat like two times and her problems just kinda vanish eventually, she does not even really has to do that much, it just never comes up again from certain point. And that feels a bit sad… could have maybe been a bit more like 50/50 or at least 50/40 or something, felt more like 80/20 in this case, which is something that just bothers me personally.

Final verdict

All in all I’d still recommend the book to people who like tropes like couples helping each other to heal, work through things, soothe panic attacks etc. And I really love that men going to therapy is nicely portrait in here, more stories should include stuff like that and as I said, it makes the nice things and the coming around of Charles way more believe than if he’d just come up with that and changed himself on his own. The story itself, which focuses much more on the male lead and his problems than the female lead, is very nice to read through and put a smile on my face often. Just the end kinda destroyed how good the book could have been for me personally. It even makes the epilogue, which is something I wish all romance books would give us, a bit meh. So I’d give the book 3 out of 5 Stars. It’s a good read, but could have been better with small changes.