I thourghly enjoyed this book, it was a lovely easy read.
Flo and Dylans relationship is not going well, Dylan feels inadequate compared to Flo's friends and eventually their relationship can withstand no more. Back at home with her parents Flo is heartbroken and she channels this into her song writing, not knowing that this will lead to stardom.
Things are also looking up for Dylan, he has finally got an acting role on a regular show.
Dylan and Flo can't help but miss each other and they decide to get back together, however they both realize their relationship would be bad for their careers. So they hatch a plan to get back together whilst pretending to still be broken up. Like all the best laid plans it doesn't quite work out.
I highly recommend this book, I'm happy to have discovered another great author to add to my TBR list.

Dylan is an aspiring actor and Flo an aspiring singer-songwriter- neither is at all successful, but they have each other and they're a pretty great couple, even if they do have to live in a grotty flat and Flo's well-off family (and friends) don't bother to hide their disapproval of Dylan's more working-class background. Then it all goes a bit wrong and somehow, they break up.

When Dylan lands a role as a doctor on a popular TV hospital soap, and Flo suddenly achieves unexpected chart success with a song about her broken heart, the pressure's on. Flo is being marketed as the Queen of Heartbreak and Dylan is TV's newest heartthrob - it doesn't "fit the narrative" (we hear a lot about the narrative) for them to get back together. So when they do, it has to be kept a very closely guarded secret...

Justin Myers' new novel is a very enjoyable read which reminded me a bit of Jonathan Harvey's books, which are always fun (though there don't seem to have been any for a while). My only caveat is that it did feel it went on for a bit too long, with all the to-ing and fro-ing with Flo and Dylan's relationship and other people they might or might not get together with. Still, it kept my interest throughout, with a few proper laugh out loud moments and some great insight into the world of TV in particular. There are some good supporting characters - Dylan's best friend Max, Flo's snotty best friend Estelle, Flo's agent Tanya, and the excellently named Jesse Ribeiro. (That really is a great name.) I'd like to have seen a bit more of Dylan's mum Cheryl, who seemed fun.

A good read, recommended.

Wow I could not put this book down it had me captured from the 1st page , what a book it was I was up till the early hours reading this book as I could not put it down, I fell in love with the characters
and loved the story and the authors writing , I won't ruin this review with any spoilers but I am definitely Team Dylan and my god max remind me of a dear friend that Is no longer around.


I am going to recommend this book to all my book friends and wish the author all the best with this book and can see this being a Best selling Book for 2022.


Many thanks to Netgalley & Little Brown Books for the arc of this book in exchange for this review.

I really enjoyed this not so typical girl meets boy book. Although a romance by all accounts it is one with real depth of character and emotion as Flo and Dylan grow together, supporting each other through small time gig after lousy audition. The breakdown in their relationship seems to be the trigger for great things for them both and allows some wonderful story lines of the rise to fame and stardom, the pressures of perfection and red carpets, the vagaries of making true friends with other stars and the lengths they have to go to to prevent their respective stars crashing down.

As rom coms go this was up there with some of the best. The fake up is a clever idea and leads to allsorts of drama. Great characters and lots of humour. I enjoyed it

I was lucky enough to be pre approved for a copy of this book and I loved it!

Dylan and Flo love each other but too many obstacles are in their way and they split up. In the meantime their careers start to go really well. I don't want to give any spoilers but it's a book full of twists and turns and you can't decide what is going to happen or what you want to happen.

I'm a big fan of easy reads but they're normally so predictable, I thoroughly enjoyed this as I didn't have a clue how it was going to end.

I loved the character Max too and the book touched on homophobia in a really effective way.

Definitely worth a read.

The Fake-Up is the comedic tale of what happens when two people break up, channel their pain into success, and then realise they want to be together again. Dylan and Flo want to be wrapped in their own world together, but real life keeps breaking in, from Flo's opinionated friends to their dingy flat, and their respective failing attempts to make it as an actor and musician aren't helping either. After a heated argument they break up, and though both are at first broken by it, they start to find success, as Flo writes break-up songs and Dylan turns his anger into passion for getting a part in a continuing hospital drama series. The only problem is, they want to be back together, but having found such success as broken-up people, they'll have to keep that a secret.

This is a romcom that leans more heavily on the comedy and navigating emotions than on the romance: it moves between Dylan and Flo's perspectives as they navigate breaking up and getting back together, but mostly it focuses on their impact on their lives and careers, and how they might hide from friends, family, and the public. Despite the genre, there is more of a focus on some elements of reality and the fact that things aren't simple, though the characters' sudden fame adds more of a fairy tale element too. There's also some exploration of class woven throughout, sometimes exaggeratedly, which asks questions of how similar or different people can be, and how deserves fame and success. The downside of this was that Flo's friends were insufferable and it was hard to see why she even liked them.

A great side plot is Dylan's best friend Max's romance with a new colleague of Flo's, and how Max tries to explain to Dylan, who is straight, what it is actually like to be gay, especially as Dylan is playing a bisexual character on TV but doesn't understand the realities of actually not being straight. The book mentions but doesn't really go into—partly because it's a comedy I imagine—some of the questions around who is cast in non-straight roles, and it might've been interested to see other opinions around typecasting and closeted actors, though as a romcom it's not really going to delve deep into issues. The treatment of public sexuality, whether fictional or real, is interesting, especially considering how much fuss the heterosexual couple make about having to keep their relationship a secret.

The ending wasn't what I expected, bringing a comedic touch underpinned somewhat by emotional development, and people looking for more of the romance than comedy might be disappointed, but it had a fitting tone for the book and it was enjoyable to be surprised by it. Overall, I prefer Myers' The Magnificent Sons in terms of the combination of real emotion, comedy, and flawed characters who develop as people, especially as the generation gap worked well in that one and it felt like a very original novel, but The Fake-Up has similar elements and once again is a comedy that treats emotions as complex.