If you’re looking for a book with a strong feminist message, then look no further. This book can be very empowering for women looking for a way to find their voice.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links, see disclosures for more detail.
About the Book:
In this hilarious and heartbreaking US debut novel perfect for fans of Fleabag, a woman struggling to move on after a traumatic relationship pretends to be “the perfect girl” in an act of vengeance that goes awry when she finds herself emotionally compromised.
He said he was looking for a ‘partner in crime’ which everyone knows is shorthand for ‘a woman who isn’t real’.
April is kind, pretty, and relatively normal – yet she can’t seem to get past date five. Every time she thinks she’s found someone to trust, they reveal themselves to be awful, leaving her heartbroken. And angry. Until she realizes that what men are really looking for is Gretel.
Gretel is perfect – beautiful but low maintenance, sweet but never clingy, sexy but not a slut. She’s a Regular Everyday Manic Pixie Dream Girl Next Door With No Problems.
When April starts pretending to be Gretel, dating becomes much more fun – especially once she reels in the unsuspecting Joshua. Finally, April is the one in control, but can she control her own feelings? And as she and Joshua grow closer, how long will she be able to keep pretending?
My Thoughts:
I gave this book 3/5 stars
Starting off, I need to put a trigger warning. If you have difficulty reading about sexual assault/rape, then this is absolutely not the book for you. I have not personally experienced this myself, but many parts of this book are so raw and real that it made me uncomfortable and in pain for those who have.
Overall, there are many things about this book I liked and yet again many that I didn’t like. I have never read a book by Holly Bourne before, this was an interesting introduction to her works and I’d like to see what else she writes.
I ached for all that April had gone through in her past and was really rooting for her to get help and learn how to move forward in her pain. I loved the boxing group she joined and easily those were the best parts of the book for me. Her relationship with her flatmate and her co-workers was great and I liked learning about her job.
What I didn’t care for: Someone needed to take April by the hand and tell her bluntly that she needed to see a therapist. I felt like her friends and co-workers were mostly enabling her to remain mired in her trauma and not learn how to put some of those broken pieces back together again. This book is a feminist rant at times, sometimes going on for pages and pages about how terrible and awful and irredeemable men are. This was occasionally humorous and I did nod in agreement with some of her assessments. But some of the problems that April had with men needed to be put squarely back upon April herself (thus therapy)–namely her poor choices in partners and being completely unable to advocate for herself, her needs, and her boundaries (of which she had pretty much none). After countless times of the descriptions of her being uncomfortable/unfulfilled/angered/sorrowful/etc. with her sexual encounters, she still stayed the night (albeit going to cry in the bathroom half the night). Why? Why not just draw the line and leave and say “no thank you, this isn’t working for me.” To on one hand condemn the behavior of the men and yet on the other hand pretend to tolerate it is so hypocritical.
By the end, April does make some progress, but even at that point, she still has a nearly entirely negative view of men overall. And as I’ve been married for 24 years to a great guy and am raising a 22 year old son who cares for and respects women, I can’t jump on board with this “all men are assholes” bandwagon. Are there awful men out there? Of course! But this book paints much to wide a swath of the horror without a decent amount of balance.
This book has a great deal of food for thought and discussion, and I hope that it can open doors for women to learn about being more forthright and honest in relationships rather than pretending that everything is “fiiiiinnnne” despite feeling the absolute opposite.
Follow Holly Bourne:
Holly Bourne is a bestselling UK-based YA and Adult Fiction author and is an Ambassador for Women’s Aid. In 2019, she was an Author of the Day at the London Book Fair, and was named by Elle Magazine’s weekly podcast as one of “Six Female Authors Changing the Conversation in 2019”. Pretending is her US debut.
Author website: https://hollybourne.co.uk/
Twitter: @holly_bourneYA
Instagram: @hollybourneya
Facebook: @Holly.BourneYA
