A very touching read, hits a few nerves with me as I could see so many shared traits it’s scary reading them and seeing your own flaws reflected back at you, but as always Holly does everything so sensitively and handles everything carefully, it’s so well written and researched, it’s an emotional read as Hollys books always are, but powerful and uplifting and full of hope. Uncomfortably accurate at times, but worth the discomfort, a wonderful powerful read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I enjoyed ‘How do you like me now’ which was not the easiest read but very relevant so I thought I had some concept of how this would be however I found this quite a struggle. The subject matter is not an easy one and Holly has done a fantastic job portraying April’s mental issues with men primarily caused by a previous abusive relationship in which she was raped. That said her mental feed is very vitriolic, I’m not saying it’s unsurprisingly so however it did leave me confused as to why she keeps putting herself out there when she approaches relationships with such a negative mindset. I really just wanted to take her out of her life and support her through her issues to be honest. Prepare to be challenged with this however it is a very (sadly) necessary read

Pretending by Holly Bourne is the first book from the author that I have read. To be honest I must have my head in the sand because I have not heard of her before and by searching on the internet that she has wrote several books. So, when I read the blurb for this book, I thought I was going to read a funny Rom com and a light-hearted read. Boy was I wrong. This book is about Rape and Mental health.
Don’t get me wrong this was a well written book about what is rape and someone who experienced it and what effects it has in their lives, how they cope and how they get over something like that and how they build new relationships. I didn’t really like the ‘character’ of Gretel and cringed in some parts. But I must say that this is a book that needs to be told. Well done to the author. This is a very thought-provoking book that leaves you with lots of unanswered questions but in a good way.4 stars from me.

Holly Bourne has been writing brilliantly honest books for a while now - first with her teenage fiction and then with her excellent adult debut a couple of years ago. I thought How Do You Like Me Now was devastating. Pretending is something even rawer. Holly Bourne manages to capture women’s darker sides; the thoughts they don’t normally verbalise. And it’s brilliant.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to give a big trigger warning for this book - the main character is unpacking a lot of trauma and there are a lot of upsetting bits in it. But it’s all necessary.

My only real critique is that I feel it ended quite abruptly, I would have liked a few more chapters there.

Thanks to the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Beautifully written. Any book that makes you cheer out loud at the last page is worth recommending to everyone you’ve ever met, in my humble literary opinion.

I had to stop reading on a couple of occasions, purely because April’s negative self-talk bares such a striking resemblance to my own, I needed to step away for a moment. Holly has perfectly captured every female relationship neurosis and delivers it back to us, sometimes uncomfortably accurately.

This book deserves all the amazing success I know it will achieve, and I for one will still be cheering. Well done for broaching the difficult stuff, your bravery as a writer will have such a huge impact. Be proud.

Pretending by Holly Bourne is maybe the greatest novel I’ve read in the last few years. Not because it’s set to be a literary masterpiece and win the Man Booker but because it represents the experiences, feelings and hurt of so. many. women. It is a cuddle to every woman out there who has been through an experience that they shouldn’t have had to at the hands of a man. And, whilst I promised myself I wouldn’t turn this review into a rant - I feel like every woman has some experience of feeling threatened, belittled and/or abused by a man. And so many men just DON’T get it because they come from a place of male privilege. Even intelligent, gentle and kind men I’ve met in the past have not understood their privilege purely by being a man. And, despite me describing experiences to them that made me uncomfortable, they can’t see anything inherently wrong with their male peers. It’s a continuous cycle of explaining what it’s like to be a woman and then being told your feelings aren’t valid and perhaps you’re overdramatising something etc continue ad infinitum. My favourite story of male privilege was when I complained to HR of the company I worked for that I felt my (male) boss was being sexist and I felt uncomfortable in the workplace. His (lol, yes, male HR) solution was ‘it’s not that bad, in 20 years time you’ll just look back and laugh.’ GOD how I wished I had the balls to do something about that. Instead I just sat there gormlessly.

ANYWAY, this novel is wonderful in so many ways. It is witty, moving, educating, accessible, relatable and, most of all, honest. It isn’t a laugh a minute and there is some hard-hitting stuff within the pages but I think it highlights the plight of so many women of being abused at the hands of a partner or lover who they think they should put up with because they love them. It restored my faith in women and gave me a sense of strength to keep pushing through the male dominated spheres in my world. It was also strangely cathartic and provided me with the chance to reflect on my own experiences and re-validate them and confirm that I’m not just being ‘overdramatic’.

There was one line in the book, that I can’t remember word for word so please excuse my crude interpretation, but it was something along the lines of this:

Statistics say that 1 in 4 women will be raped but actually it’s more like 1 in 4 women WON’T be raped.

And it just hit me so hard in the feels. And WOMEN, we are strong and beautiful, and we put up with SO MUCH. And please just read this book.

It was fine, but just not as good as her adult debut How Do You Like Me Now? I felt more could have been done with the brilliant concept, as it ended up being fairly predictable.

Thank you! We included the book on Caboodle (20 books to look out for in 2020), and will read and review on Pretty Books!

Many thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of Pretending by Holly Bourne, which is this author's second adult novel. I've enjoyed a lot of Holly Bourne's other books, more specifically her first adult novel, How Do You Like Me Now?, so I was super excited to read this book. 

Trigger warnings: frank discussions and flashbacks to rape and sexual assault/abuse, catfishing, discussions of cheating, discussions of gaslighting and emotional abuse

There will be some spoilers in this review, but I'll try to keep them to a minimum. 

It's not clear from the blurb, but this book deals heavily with rape and sexual assault, so if that's not something you're comfortable with, I would definitely not advise you to read this book. It follows April, a 30-something woman who finds relationships very difficult. She blames herself, believing that she is too broken to ever truly find love. Instead, she pretends to be Gretel, an impossibly perfect woman. Gretel is a mask that April can slip in and out of. By being Gretel, April suppresses her natural instincts and behaviour, and instead acts as she believes every man - including a potential new boyfriend, Joshua - wants her to act. Throughout the book, April starts to realise that although pretending to be Gretel may have initially made her more confident, this might not be the healthiest way of finding a relationship. 

A fantastic part of this novel was the depiction of different ways to cope with trauma. Throughout Pretending, April and her flatmate Meg display different ways of coping with past relationship and sexual trauma. For April, this was obviously pretending to be the 'ideal woman' of Gretel, and for Meg, that was to swear off men entirely. Neither of these techniques (if you can call them that) work for them, because they don't allow these women to unpack the ways that their past experiences have affected and scarred them. In contrast, there's a couple of really great scenes where April attends a boxing class specifically for women who have had experiences of abuse, where she is given the space to confront her abuser (emotionally and spiritually), and explore how that experience continues to impact her. She is encouraged to actually feel her anger, sorrow and guilt so that she can slowly begin to heal. When paired with the main plot of Gretel, this book paints a really interesting and nuanced picture of how April has internalised her abuse. It rang emotionally true to me, even though the actual plot of Gretel is a little bit far-fetched. 

I also really liked everything to do with April's job at a charity - she works as an advisor at a sex and relationships charity. Part of her job involves responding to anonymous emails from people who have questions about sex, including sexual assault. I thought that the way that the charity itself was represented was really great - there's a very clear support system in place (including a workplace therapist) for April when she comes across emails with her triggers. I've worked in charities before (and as has Holly Bourne, I believe), and so it was great to see a charity job being represented so correctly, such as the fact that they can be super draining, that they can hit a lot of personal triggers every day,  and that there is a need for a structural support system. I so often find that first-person books like Pretending just kind-of gloss over jobs and the stresses of the workplace, so to have this charity job play such an important part of this book was super great to see. 

The one thing that I wasn't too fond of was Joshua himself. I felt like we never really got to know him. I realise that this was on purpose, as April didn't really know him either. (And when pretending to be Gretel, she couldn't know the real him, as she tried to only create environments in which he could be happy by assuming that she knew what would make him happy.) But near the end, when he's also given the space to discuss his own past experiences with relationships, it's supposed to be this huge moment where the reader realises that we haven't even scratched the surface of his personality. But I honestly didn't really care to explore him much more, and we're not given this opportunity, as the book jumps straight to an epilogue. I don't say this often, but I honestly wish that this book had a planned sequel. It would have been much more emotionally effective to know that there was another book being released that would allow them to start to understand each other and grow together as a couple. The epilogue skipped to the point where they had already done this hard work, which was a bit disappointing. 

Having said that, overall I really enjoyed this book. The way that Holly Bourne explores trauma and relationships is extremely true to life, especially in her adult novels. The nuance in her female characters is always something that I admire, and while I might not have liked this book quite as much as How Do You Like Me Now?, it is still a good and important novel, and one that I am glad that I've read. 

Pretending by Holly Bourne will be published in April 2020.

Whilst this was an incredibly important book, it is categorically not the book that is advertised as “hilarious”. This is fundamentally not a “funny” book - it deals with sexual abuse and it’s impact on mental health in an overt manner which makes for very uncomfortable reading at times. This is fine - if you know what you are going into - but is distressing if you do not. This is advertised as a funny romantic book and those who are not familiar with Holly Bourne, in particular, will be in for a big surprise. I didn’t find any part of this “hilarious” and whilst the description is factually accurate in that April pretends to be Gretel and then falls for Joshua, the main character arc is completely omitted. I wouldn’t have chosen to read this had I known due to the distressing way this is presented and - however accurate that may be - which therefore had a negative impact on my own mental health. This is disappointing to me as I have read and enjoyed all of Holly’s other books (adult and young adult alike). More accurate copy next time, please.

This was the book I needed to read. Holly Bourne is my Yoda. She always has been, always will be. Bourne’s writing doesn’t sugar coat the realities of life, love and mental health. Instead, she makes it the new normal. She makes me the new normal.
While the character of April could, in another writer’s hands, feel cringeworthy and ‘unlikable’ Bourne gives the reader the extra character balance and insight to remove the stereotype checklist and make her relatable and someone the reader understands.
Bourne is the Queen of first person narratives. It allows the reader to feasibly relate or, at the very least, empathise.
This book charms, educates and opens the reader up to question how relationships impact our identity. It’s not just thrown together either, this is a well researched, sensitively provoking rather than a fashionable theme shoehorned in.
Thank you, Holly Bourne, for constantly breaking ground and being the trailblazer we all need.