Another heart breaking but necessary read. Loved it! A different take on abuse and dating which will make you cry. Relatable characters and lovely moments. Great read that I fully recommend

I hate to admit it but I think I’m too old for this book. Where I’m sure others might find it engaging and reallyI found it a bit cynical. I’m not trying to say men are not at all like Holly Bourne writes they are but it didn’t make an entertaining read for me.

Why be yourself when you can be perfect?

April hates men. Whenever she thinks she's found someone she trusts, they turn out to be awful and she ends up getting her heart broken. She wishes she could be more like Gretel.
"Gretel" is what April thinks is the *perfect* woman. She's cool and aloof; your typical girl next door. She's what April thinks every man wants.
So April decides to become her. She sets up a new dating profile and soon meets the unsuspecting Joshua. Finally, April feels in control. It's almost like she's getting revenge on all the men who have treated her badly in the past.
But as their relationship progresses and they start to become closer, can April keep on pretending?

I'm glad I read a few other reviews before reading this book because otherwise, I would have expected a light-hearted rom-com, which it definitely isn't.

This book won't be for everyone, and some people may find it triggering (it talks openly about rape and the effect it can have on a person's life). April is a complex character, and it's clear she has been through a lot. I found it interesting to find out more about her job as a support worker for a charity. I also liked all the secondary characters, especially her flatmate.

The only thing I wasn't keen on was the ending. It wasn't what I was expecting, and I felt like it could have been stronger and sent a better message.

This is the first book I've read by this author, but I'd be interested in reading some of her other books.

The main character in the story is April - and on the surface this looks like a normal 'women's fiction' book - but this is not a tale of cupcakes, cushions and kittens - and should probably come with a trigger warning of the sexual abuse content. 

April's been 'unlucky in love' #crapphrase - but it soon becomes evident that there is a much darker element to this - and actually she was raped by a previous boyfriend. The description of rape and the aftermath is really moving - and thought provoking - it definitely made me stop and think.

Also, April works for a charity helpline - and so whilst she lives with the aftermath of what has happened to her all of the time, it's also ignited more by triggering emails from people - on both side of the 'abuse' fence. It really made me think about such charities too - and what great work they do with so little funding. 

Anyway - back to the book.  April decides that she is going to get 'revenge' on mankind by pretending to be 'Gretel' - the perfect girlfriend and the majority of the book follows this and her relationship with Joshua.

It is really well written - and the thread of the PTSD from her abuse whilst being fundamental - is only part of the storyline.  I really enjoyed April's relationships with her flatmate Megan and her workmates.  There was also the start of relationships with women she met at an unusual support group - and I really enjoyed reading about that - but it felt like they weren't really fleshed out during the book itself (but I hope April continued to build on their help and support after the book finished, in the fantasy world I create for characters once books have finished.............) 

Overall I really enjoyed this thought provoking book, another good one from Holly Bourne.

Trigger warning: sexual abuse.

I requested this title after reading The Places I’ve Cried in Public and seeing the highly anticipated Pretending all over my Twitter. I knew Holly Bourne wrote a lot of mental health and sexual abuse but I didn’t go into this book knowing the extent to the detail provided. April has suffered sexual abuse herself and also works at a clinic that provides help to those suffering from alcoholism and sexual abuse, amongst other things. I did have to skip a page myself.

The book opens with a rant about men. I was laughing by the end of chapter one. And that’s when I realised I’d love this book. Written in speeches, text messages, italicised thoughts, imaginary chapters of a dating guide and story. It never gets boring!

April doesn’t have good experience with men. She never has luck on first dates, so after one last unfortunate bad experience, she decides to change her approach. Gretel personifies what April thinks men want – this perfect fantasy who agrees with everything and likes everything. After many failed attempts at connecting with men, she decides to be Gretel, in actions, thoughts and even name. She puts on a performance. Gretel is her experiment – she has given up on finding a partner as herself so lets see how Gretel does. As expected, she starts to like Jason, the guy Gretel starts to date.

But this isn’t just a romance – in fact, the romance is only a small part of the plot. My favourite focus was the boxing classes April attends for women sufferers of sexual abuse – they hit things and exert their anger whilst supporting and talking to each other. Great interactions and I kind of wanted more!

Another favourite scene was when April met Jason’s friends and they made an inappropriate comment about rape. April breaks her performance as Gretel, deciding she can’t keep quite as every man wants their woman to be. Bourne writes a great balance between humour and serious topics! Her balance of April’s anger and sadness is heartbreaking.

As for Jason, he isn’t perfect. No-one is. He doesn’t sweep her off her feet and make her realise instantly not all men suck. So, yes I’d recommend this book. I do want to highlight the trigger warning, which was the only reason I didn’t rate this 5*.

Happy reading 🙂

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review

There is no doubt about it, Holly Bourne has solidified herself as one of my favourite authors. Pretending is her second adult book and boy does it pack a punch. April is a woman in her early thirties, tired of putting up with mediocre men and worn out from her job at a sexual advice charity. After yet another failed date, she decides she is going to get her revenge on men. She is going to pretend to be Gretel, the perfect no-fuss woman.

That premise may sound like a light-hearted comedy romp but don't be fooled. As with all of Bourne's stories, the focus here is solely on the main character dealing with her mental health and trauma from her past. There are huge trigger warnings for sexual assault, trauma but also for general sexist, entitled, borderline abusive behaviour from men. These things are captured so well that it's astonishing how unafraid Bourne is to write them down. It is both refreshing and heartbreaking to experience them in a story form and I will forever treasure this book because of that. I cannot stress the potential triggers enough though, as important as they are. I have no history of sexual assault (at least in the traditional sense) but this book made me reflect deeply on my previous relationship and ask some serious questions about what marks it might have left on me.

Putting that aside, this is just a stellar example of Bourne's writing skill. The characters might as well be real people, the pacing is perfect and the plot, though a basic slice of life on paper, is exactly the story that needs to be told. I have no doubts this will resonate with any woman at least a little bit, but it could also open some eyes for some men if you're willing to not take the prose as a personal attack. I desperately want the straight men in my life to read this, if only so they can finally appreciate the complexity and depth behind navigating relationships from a female point of view. The beauty of it as well is that a book of this kind could so easily feel like cheap pandering but it doesn't even come close because it rings so true.

Is this book perfect? No. I can see some people having issues with aspects of the plot, and this is by no means an easy read. But I love Pretending for daring to tell women their feelings are valid and to not shy away from the uglier truths. If a book can rip you apart and stitch you back together, not by pretending everything is okay but by promising it might be...that's a book we all need to exist.

Overall Rating: 4.5/5 stars

It takes real talent to write about trauma, while keeping the style light and funny. The main character, April, is angry and in pain and the book covers some tough issues in a frank, truthful style. At times it's a hard read, but alongside this, the book is warm and uplifting.

I loved this one! I went in unsure because of the blurb, but ended up being blown away. Excellent! The take on relationships from a female point of view was fascinating, even though I'm a guy...I oddly understood it all. What a delightful surprise of a book.

I’ve read several Holly Bourne books now, and while I enjoyed the first few (How Do You Like Me Now in particular was great), I’ve found the more recent ones to be quite laboured and not particularly enjoyable to read. It feels a bit like Holly Bourne has just found out that rape happens to women and thinks it makes a substitute for interesting characterisation or plot, and I don’t particularly want to read more books about how it completely ruins lives and turns women into hate-filled harpies.

Holly Bourne is known to many as the reigning Queen Of YA, but her status as one of Britain’s seminal writers was sealed with the realise of her adult debut in 2018. ‘How Do You Like Me Now?’ was an examination of societal expectations for women that was as perceptive as it was scathing and bitterly funny. The same can be said for ‘Pretending’, except this book feels even more piercing as Bourne hones in on modern dating. Namely on how shit and god-awful it can be. Protagonist April feels like an every-woman – kind, thoughtful, sweet and caring – yet for the majority of her adult dating life she’s been unable to make it past date 5. Having been let down countless times, and having heartbreaking utter betrayals of the worst order, she endeavours to ignore the dating advice of ‘being herself’. She’s done that and it’s gotten her nowhere. Instead, she decides to be perfect- or at least pretend to be. She alters her information on the dating apps and becomes Gretel – a woman who is perfect and the kind men will deserve and crave in a way they never feel about April.

Gretel is in control and self-assured when it comes to dating, so confident in herself that she’s unshakeable – quickly reeling in the unsuspected Joshua. Except what should have been casual dating quickly becomes more serious. Who is really in control here? And how long can the pretending continue?

This all plays out in such an addictively readable manner, we instantly become invested and desperate to know how everything will play out. Bourne masterfully negotiates and oversees proceedings, with a deceptive lightness of touch, regularly gut punching us with potent wonderings and justified righteous rage. The aching empathy we feel for April, reinforced for many of us fellow singletons by the fact it all feels so bitterly familiar, lasts long after reading.

This is a powerhouse of a novel, a modern classic and treatise of modern dating. The term ‘must-read’ gets banded around all-too frequently, but rarely does it apply as accurately as it does here.

April is a normal girl who wants to find someone to love and who will love her, for her. So why can’t she get past five dates? Deciding that it’s because she’s too “damaged” from a previous relationship she decides to create the perfect woman ‘Gretel’ and have her revenge on every man.

At lot of this book struck a chord with me and I think everybody reading this book can relate to at least one insecurity that we have about ourselves and dating. As the book progressed I felt more and more sad about what April was getting herself into and I was rooting for her to come out of it in a better place.

I don’t normally like to give any spoilers about the books I read but I feel that this one should come with a little heads up as it covers the topic of rape, specifically date rape and coercive control and some parts are difficult to read.

It is however also filled with humour highlighting the importance of having good friends and knowing your self worth no matter who has tried to knock you down.

A book worth reading!

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC

Sadly I didn’t finish this novel, maybe it just wasn’t for me right now and I will have another look at it in the future.
I could see what the author was trying to achieve with a very angry feminist opening. Having not read any of Holly Bourne’s previous books, I thought I might be reading a new feminist book along the lines if Caitlin Moran’s Howto be a Woman. It then segued into something that felt like a contemporary romance novel where the girl who’s great in every way just can’t find a guy. It felt clunky and uncomfortable, I think the subject matter is really important and I applaud the author for tackling it, but it just didn’t feel like a genuine story with three dimensional characters. It felt like they were just there to serve a purpose and get the author’s point across.

A really great novel about how women pretend to be someone else just to get a man to love them. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it touched on many sensitive subjects (there’s potential trigger too) and it rides the #metoo wave in a way that really makes you think about your past/ current relationships and what we women put up with just to “belong to the other side” where the “happily married” couples live.

From the title, I was afraid it was going to be another one of those faking-your-perfect-life-on-social-media stories - I’m really kind of done with that now. Thankfully, it wasn’t - the “pretending” April does in this book is of a far more face to face nature.

She decides - for reasons you’ll have to read it to find out - to act out a persona she thinks men want - Gretel, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Next Door Slut With No Problems. (Remember the Cool Girl? Kind of like that.) And guess what, it seems to work. But pretending to be someone you’re not is a high risk strategy...

April is a rape survivor - Holly Bourne handled this brilliantly - and her job with a sex and relationships advice charity further exposes her to harrowing stories on a regular basis. April’s pretty certain men are jerks - they keep proving it over and over again, after all. And she’s angry. And she’s right to be.

This is really about April’s journey towards recovery from trauma, which sounds dark and indeed is at times - there’s serious stuff going on here, but it’s equally a really fun - and hugely insightful - read, with believably human and complex characters.

Holly Bourne is a great writer- I’ve loved her books so far, her YA is brilliant especially, so I was excited to read Pretending. April is fed up of life and feeling burnt out by her job, yet she wants love. She creates Gretal, her alter ego who is tough and treats men how they’ve treated her, until she meets a man who challenges that. It isn’t just about the romance though. I love how the book dealt with April’s last and how her job affects her, as well as showcasing the love and support she has around her. A great modern story.

I think this book could have come with a trigger warning, because of the topics covered within.

All things considered, it was really well written, covering a whole range of emotions and experiences. I laughed a lot and I shed many a tear reading this book.

It was relatable in the sense that everyone always seems to be thinking a million things at once. And that not everyone is as you'd expect them to be.

This book was SO disappointing! I'm usually such a big Holly Bourne book but this one totally missed the mark for me.

This book does deal with some really important issues, mainly to do with rape. Which is great, and very much needed. It's important this book discusses this topic so frankly. I'm sure it would help a lot of women.

However, tone of this book was really different from her earlier books. It wasn't funny or witty. It was very angry and moany. Obviously the main character has gone through some difficult times, but the entire book was very downbeat, which made it hard to read.

I thought the plot was kind of lacking. As I've already said the topics this book covered were important, but it just felt very repetitive and wasn't all that interesting to read.

I did however, like how this book discusses what it's like to work in a charity, on a help advice line. It was interesting and I learnt a lot about that type of job.

But the rest of the book just felt flat for me. I also really did not agree with the ending. I obviously can't say to much without it being spoilers but it wasn't okay in my opinion, it definitely sent out the wrong message.

So overall, this book is important and I think certain people at certain points of their life will enjoy this book, but for me, I was really disappointed by it and it was no where near as good as her previous books

TW: open discussions around rape

Holly Bourne’s latest takes some familiar themes in this but with our focus very much on adult characters some of the issues are a little more triggering.
Alice, our main character, is definitely a character you will come to understand - whatever you actually think about her. Her work for a support charity means she is regularly seeing the worst of people. She, herself, has been raped by an ex-boyfriend and it’s evident that her experience continues to impact upon her. Alice is fed up with boyfriends lasting a few dates and then dumping her because she doesn’t measure up to their expectations. She wants to be loved for herself, and so comes up with a plan.
Determined to make men pay for their privilege, Alice decides she is going to act in the way she believes men will find appealing. It seems to be an act of disassociation and when she comes up with the idea to pretend to be someone else I felt quite angry - not that she had to do it, but because she’s making the same assumptions she is criticising others for making.
Perhaps inevitably, she ends up meeting Joshua, and as their dates progress things seem positive - but he thinks he’s with a confident young woman called Gretel. How can things work out when they’ve started on such a strange footing?
I received an ARC of this from NetGalley and formatting issues definitely impacted on my enjoyment of this. There were random sections of text that appeared, empty pages and - on occasion - pages that didn’t seem connected to what I’d just read. They didn’t (I think) drastically affect my reading but it didn’t help my ability to engage with the character.

April is messy and imperfect and real, so heartbreakingly, relatably real. She feels broken inside and doesn't know how to fix herself - doesn't know that she can fix herself. So she decides she needs to fake it until someone else believes she's fixed and she can obtain the relationship she believes her life needs.

Because I'd already read (and loved) How Do You Like Me Now?, I wasn't sure how Pretending would end, but I knew it would feel honest and true to the characters. I was sure we would see April grow and end up happier than she started - and that her growth and happiness would be down to her as an individual, rather than because a romantic relationship had magically fixed everything for her. Bourne's ending did not disappoint.

I think my favourite moments in Pretending were linked to April's job as a charity worker. She had such an interesting but intense role that helped so many people with very limited resources. Pretending doesn't hold back in its exploration of trauma, and the varying and long lasting effects it can have. It makes for difficult reading in places, but necessarily so. If you have experienced sexual abuse in any form, this novel will help you feel seen. If you haven't, it will force you to reconsider the way you react to trauma and triggering situations, more aware of the effect your words and actions could have on others. April's brilliant boxing group, and the group chats which emerge from it, create some of this novel's most special scenes.

Bourne writes for the modern reader, perfectly encapsulating what it feels like to be a woman in the 21st century. I can imagine Pretending being read in decades time as an insight into how we live and love now.

This is easily one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. I absolutely love love LOVED it! Initially, I picked it up because I thought it was going to be a nice easy and uplifting read but it is so much more than that. Yes it is funny and warm with some great well-developed characters. But it is also sharp, perceptive, addresses some tough issues and expresses in words that I couldn’t have found myself, how a lot of us feel (or have felt in the past) about being a woman.


These days April is a regular on the dating scene, but she struggles to get past the 5th date. She will just be about to start trusting a guy and they will reveal themselves to be just as unreliable as the last one and she’ll be left feeling stupid, depressed, disillusioned.
After another dating fail she decides to take back some control. And the next time she gets back in the game, she pretends to be a woman with all her sh*t together, naming herself “Gretel”. Gretel is the woman that April believes all men want and it isn’t too long until she reels in Joshua. But as they get closer, how is she going to be able to carry on pretending? 


Without giving away any spoilers I should start out by giving a *trigger warning* for sexual assault. I didn’t find it to be at all graphic but if this is a trigger for you just bear it in mind before deciding to read this book

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April is such a fabulous character. She works for a charity and her caring and nurturing sides initially shine through her career and how she relates to her housemate. But she’s also a simmering ball of frustration and anger, letting rip with some lengthy, and often very wry and funny, internal rants, largely about men and their actions (and with good reason). 


April manages to have and to develop some wonderful female friendships throughout, highlighting the importance of a strong support network, particularly in times of emotional difficulty. Her boxing class sounds particularly amazing, kind of making me want to take up a new hobby!


There’s a sort of will-they-won’t-they love story in here too and Bourne has written a wonderful, realistic character in Joshua, the guy who finds himself on the receiving end of April’s catfishing scam.


Bourne’s writing is an absolute joy. It’s by turns super-smart, laugh-out-loud funny, emotional, raw, and everything in between. The overriding message is one of female empowerment really, and light at the end of the tunnel for anyone facing daily emotional struggles. This is the first of her books that I’ve read but it certainly won’t be the last. It’s just perfection.