Real Fake Love by Pippa GrantMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I feel like this book is almost a love story for the stereotypical romance reader everywhere. No, wait, before you go running away... IT'S NOT A CLICHÉ! This isn't just your average very sad, lonely girl meets boy and falls in love story. I mean, it borrows things from that concept but doesn't every romance do that in a way?
Real Fake Love brings us back to the Copper Valley Fireballs (hellllllloooooo baseball!!!), namely one Luca Rossi who's sworn off love, marriage and commitments altogether - and how one very determined (if a touch lonely) romance writer named Henrietta Bacon becomes the reason he learns how to love when he's supposed to be teaching her how to deny love.
Luca's not the best player, he's not horrible obviously because he's in the major leagues, but he's not swinging his bat in the all star game every year. He's also been traded a whole bunch of times and now to the worst team in the league. The man has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, and really, his well meaning Nonna is totally right. He just needs to be loved and supported. But first he wants to help the Fireballs make a huge comeback and how can he do that when he's under threat of a curse that the consequences of would shake any commitment-phobe to their core? That's where Henri and the most ridiculously lazy cat, Dogzilla, come into play.
And Henri! I feel like Henri is this conglomeration of Pippa's hilarity and wackiness and all of the romance readers out there who fall in love with love at every turn. Hey, who hasn't fallen for the wrong person? Or had a broken engagement or two? There's something so very hopeful about Henri, so optimistic in the face of everything that combats Luca's pessimism at every turn. There were so many moments where that sad, lonely part of me resonated with Henri's desire to be loved.
“Love itself isn’t wrong.” I tuck my hands under my head and stare up at the soft darkness. “But you need to quit loving people who don’t love you back.”
“What if no one ever loves me back?” she whispers.
Tears - she broke me! BROKE ME!!!!! Because she's usually so happy! She seems to embrace her quirks - and no matter what she has this never ending belief in the beauty, and necessity, of love but there were moments in this story that I watched all the little doubts I've always had play out on the page and it made me love Henri even more. I thought I loved the incredible Mackenzie who was wacky and weird and just sooooo much fun, but I always love the heroines who are just super smart and super quirky (*ahem*Felicity fits this bill too!)
Their roller coaster of crazy love story is brought to you with special appearances by... the Copper Valley Fireballs players (and the Thrusters!!!!!!!!), the Lady Fireballs, a team fanbase attempting to choose a mascot, a pooch with a fabulous collar, a clothes wearing lazy bones cat, a rainbow haired social media star, an inconvenient mother, a foul mouthed pirate parrot, and enough emotional and mental torture in the form of comparing lives instead of being uniquely yourself to make you want to wrap everyone up in blankets.
Here - you should have some of my...
Favourite Lines -
“You say potato, I say Lamborghini."
“Do you want to live, or do you want the stairs to eat you?”
“Left!” he yells. “Your other left!”
“I’m a writer, not a truck driver!”
Love is my superpower.
It’s my blessing and my curse.
Because every time I fall in love, I’m not good enough.
I’m never good enough.
And it freaking hurts.
“What is that?”
“She’s my cat.”
“I can see that, but what’s she wearing?”
“She felt like a unicorn today.”
“I can hear you thinking, and your language is atrocious today.”
“I make things up for a living, so if I say it’s a thing, it’s a thing!”
Teaching her how to not fall in love feels like teaching a rainbow how to not sparkle.
An unpredictable, chaotic, klutzy rainbow, but still a rainbow.
“Would yours involve a flaming asteroid made of toilets?”
Luca: Who named your cat?
Henri: Confucius.
Luca: Your…made-up character?
Henri: He’s very real in my head. And no, I don’t need to see a therapist. This is normal for writers.
“Do you also use magic truffle salt and water made with the tears of unicorns?”
My run-down castle with the queen who shines so bright that she makes it feel like Buckingham fucking Palace.
Fuckingham Palace.
Yeah. That’s what I’m renaming my home.
I write books.
Words are tools. And if I want to use the fuck word, I will use the fuck word.
Henri falls in love.
Not only with men, but with the world.
Every. Single. Day.
This book has everything that you would expect from a Pippa Grant story. You will laugh, you'll cry (usually while you're laughing but there are a few very emotional moments), and by then of this one you might even believe in love almost as much as Henri does. I can't wait to see more of the Fireballs - I mean, I'm dying for some Thrusters again, but it's summer time so I'm thankful for all the BASEBALL books because 2020 sucks and I've been denied for a while and this tiny season doesn't count.
Run out and one-click this baby today! You won't regret it!
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