This was a funny and engaging rom-com which lots of readers of the genre will enjoy.
It was cleverly plotted and was a roller coaster of emotions for me as a reader.
A popular read I am sure
Thanks to the author and publisher for this ARC in return for an honest review

This was a fun read but I felt that it was just a little bit too drawn out. I enjoyed the characters and the premise but it felt unbelievable that the situation would have gone on that long.

Talk about your tangled webs and your star-crossed lovers and a plethora of other Shakespearean sayings. Literally star crossed in this case as, for both Dylan and Flo, their stars are definitely on the rise ... but only as long as they are apart from each other. In spite of being very much in love, and from the beginning of the book you can tell that they are, some obstacles are just too big to overcome. Work, friends, family ... all conspire against love's young(ish) dream, but a separation creates a new kind of muse and heartache really does become the making of the pair, but it's not enough for Dylan and Flo. When they decide to give their relationship another go, it is in secret, deceiving all their loved ones, as being back together doesn't fit the 'narrative' of Flo's overnight stardom. From here on in, Justin Myer's charts the course of their relationship - which definitely does not run smoothly thanks to the ups and downs of life in the public eye.

I really did enjoy getting to know Flo and Dylan over the course of the book. The chemistry between them just shone from the very start of the book, but it was also clear that as much as they loved each other, and as much as they worked hard at their relationship, sometimes the gap between them, the differences in their upbringing and the attitudes of their friends and family - mostly Flo's it has to be said - became all too apparent. Dylan is an honest, working class lad from Yorkshire, trying to make it as an actor. Flo runs her mother's shop and does gigs on the side, but her background is decidedly more middle-class and there is a feeling of Dylan just not being good enough for her in the opinion of those around her. There were times I wanted to shake the pair of them, tell them to get a grip and to tell their family and friends to wind their necks in, although both times Flo tries that it doesn't necessarily end too well. Then there is Dylan whose own doubts about being good enough lead him to make a very big decision, one that does have very life changing, and often humorous longer term consequences.

There is a very varied cast of characters around Dylan and Flo who bring really life, colour and texture to the book. On Dylan's side, we have best friend Max , who has been by his side since childhood. Max has his own issues to deal with, not least of which is an estrangement from his family due to him being gay. The kinship between them is touching and often adds its own laughs, but there are some rather poignant moments too, a good number of which are based around Max's sexuality. The subject of sexuality and representation in the media and in life as a whole, is really sensitively handled and blends well into the narrative, especially when Max finds himself a touch of romance too. There there is Ciara McLean. Tough, independant and one of the most notorious actors on Dylan's new series, she is the epitome of every stereotype you see on tv when a strong woman is represented. And yet, her character is carefully handled too, and there is far more to her than initially meets the eye. Between Ciara and Max we get a view of two very current, very relevant issues of modern life, played out in a way that really does get you thinking about how quickly we rush to judgment when it comes to others, and how much we can be manipulated by the media.

When it comes to Flow, she has her own entourage who manage to shake things up quite a bit. I'm not going to lie, I struggled with them - totally not my kinds of people. It's very clear that they are dedicated to Flo, which is perhaps their one redeeming quality, but they really don't make life easy for her or Dylan. Both Flo's mother and her best friend Estelle, make it quite clear how they feel about Dylan, and although her mother is perhaps a touch more open in her criticism, the subtle, and not so subtle, barbs really do hit where it hurts. Then we have brothers Sonny and Jesse. Chalk and cheese as far as personalities go, but both know exactly what Flo is going through with her new found fame, and provide support when it is needed. It's Jesse who I liked the most, and there is something more honest about him than any of the other people in #TeamFlo, even if he is nursing a few secrets of his own. But no matter which of the characters we meet, each are vibrant, authentic and original, and all certainly serve to make our love-struck duo's lives far more complicated.

There is a lot of humour in the book, as well as some very serious moments in which we are brought front and centre to some very emotive storylines. I'm not meaning the on again, off again romance between Flo and Dylan, although this is certainly key, but how much of themselves they have to hide or give up in order to maintain their success. Many of their attempts to meet did make me smile, and I felt a good deal of sympathy for them as they try hard to stay together when everyone around them is trying to reinforce how much better they are apart. Some of the flare ups between them, designed to keep people off the scent, feel a touch too real, and this very modern Romeo and Juliet tail does have a sting in its tail. As well as a kink or two, ones that certainly made me smile.

With great characters, a witty, frustrating, thought provoking and sometimes emotional narrative, this book has something for all rom-com lovers. Set in a fictionalised version of the worlds of tv and music, I can't help feeling that amongst all of the dramatic license, there may also be a small glimmer of truth behind some of what happens in this book. It kept me amused from start to finish and I know I'll be reading more from this author in future.

A really different take on a typical rom-com, I found it took me quite a while to get into the book , the story starts quite slow but I was glad I persevered. Funny, light hearted but touching on some topical themes. An enjoyable read

Flo and Dylan are struggling artists in London: Flo a singer, singing songs she didn’t write and that she doesn’t like with an accompanist she would love to get rid of; and Dylan is an actor, bouncing from audition to audition, but the only recurring role he has is as a tour guide for the “Horror Stories of London” tours that he is running in all sorts of miserable weather for ungrateful or uninterested tourists. Coupled with the pressures that arise from their different backgrounds and the comments made by friends, it is hardly surprising that tempers flare, and Dylan and Flo decide to end things between them.

In the wake of their break-up, Flo suddenly finds her voice and uploads an original song to YouTube that immediately goes viral and catapults her into stardom. At the same time, Dylan lands a role in a soap – no, a continuing drama – that sees him take to the screen as a character that seems designed to make others swoon. After a few months of going it alone, Dylan and Flo reconnect, but there’s one problem: Flo’s viral hit song and subsequent image was based on her break-up with Dylan and everyone knows it … so they can’t just go back to being a regular couple. So, with their break-up turned fake-up, the question is whether Dylan and Flo can balance their public feud with their private love affair, and if so, how they’ll deal with the inevitable fallout when it finally goes public.

“The Fake Up” was my first book by Justin Myers and I enjoyed it. I felt that the characters were interesting and the premise was unique. It gave an insight into the less glamorous, more uncomfortable side of fame that is so often swept under the rug and ignored when we read books about famous characters. This book looked at the rise to fame in a unique and refreshing way, and I appreciated that.

That being said, though, I felt that the book didn’t really move along very fast. The main conflict of the book was really just the secret relationship between Flo and Dylan and it seemed that the body of the book was the same slight conflict and resolution copy-pasted a few times until the word count was reached. I thought it would have been interesting to develop a bit more of a story to thread through the book, as it felt like the plot that there was ended up being stretched a bit thin.

The book also seemed to be fairly quirky, which was at times really fresh and interesting to read, but at other times felt like the author was trying to show that men can write romantic comedy, and then ended up being a bit heavy-handed. (For example, there is a scene in the book that speaks about how a character’s genitals react to the cold tiles in the bathroom, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why this was something that was necessary to move the plot along; it just seemed gratuitous and I didn’t see why it needed including.)

Overall, though, I found the book to be entertaining and a fairly solid escapist read. It had interesting characters, who I thought made reading the book interesting, and the book ultimately had enough of an interesting premise going for it that I felt like I wanted to know more. The story was intriguing enough, with enough tension to keep me reading, even if I think there are some areas that could have been tightened up. Overall, I enjoyed this book and will be looking out for more of Justin Myers’ books in the future.

Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a review.

Thank you for giving me this to read, but unfortunately I found that it wasn't for me. I think it was the writing style for me, but I just couldn't get into the story.

I enjoyed the Magnificent Son and loved this one as it's a highly entertaining and compelling story.
Everything works: the pacing, the characters, the humour.
I had a lot of fun, rooted for the characters, and enjoyed it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

What a fun read this was. Dylan and Flo's relationship is on the rocks. It doesn't seem that they have a future together. They both dream of great things in terms of their careers and it seems that they are better off apart in terms of things progressing. However they pretend to split up and actually stay together. What ensues is a great , light hearted read.

Dylan and Flo come from different worlds but their love is unmatched. Despite their efforts, they just can’t hold on to each other, but what tears them apart catapults Flo to fame. Their pull is undeniable but breaking up could have been the best thing for them 😳

I struggled with the first part of this book, the relationship between the two was sweet but seemed to be forced and I struggled to connect with the characters. Once we moved past the initial story building, I did enjoy the relationship more 💖

Cute but a little slow to start

This was a very funny novel and the characters came to life under the authors words.
It was impossible to put down.
5* from me
Thanks to#NetGalley for the advance copy in return for an honest review

An off beat romcom but unfortunately not a book for me. I love to try something different from what I normally read but this time it did nothing for me. Thanks still to Justin Myers and your publisher. Thanks to NetGalley as well.

Dylan and Flo don't have the most glamourous life, but they're happy. He's almost an actor, and she's almost a musician, and they've got a cosy flat in the city together. Her private school friends might not get their life, but it's theirs and it's forever.

Until it wasn't. It all fell apart, and in a moment it was over. Their entire relationship had been relegated to a line in a song, an anecdote. But that promise of forever is still lingering and they soon realise they don't want to be apart.

But so much has happened, and they just need some time to themselves to work it out without prying eyes and vicious tongues … so they pretend. They pretend to be apart, while they can work towards their wildest dreams and maybe back to each other.

"We are like Romeo and Juliet. Except we don't die at the end."

This is not the story I expected, but it was a riot nonetheless. Full of total chaos and things I hope could only happen in books or soap operas (Sorry, I meant continual dramas.)

Full of timely and painfully relevant truths about being a woman, a person of colour or a member of the LGBT+ community, especially in the harshness of the spotlight. Hands down this story contains some of the best written women written by a man I've read in a very long time. I also adored the relationship between Dylan and his best friend, Max - a real, affectionate friendship between men who aren't scared so hold each other and say they love each other.

The Fake-Up is a bit of a long read, and definitely had its slow points - but countered it with intense drama and the allure of fame and adoration. The ways our characters got themselves tied up more and more with each turn was so insane that it almost became believable.

Full of sickly sweet romance, side-splitting humour and heartbreak that could 'give a sunflower seasonal affective disorder', this off-beat oddball romcom is definitely something unique.

This book is alot if fun and definitely not one to be taken seriously, it's light-hearted and funny and a different twist on the usually romantic comedies.

What a funny, hard to put down book! It kept me wanting to read to find out what happens with them. I’ll definitely be reading more books by him. Well done!

Oh my, I was already starting to think that I will never finish this book. I couldn't warm to it, not for a single moment. I've started to read it filled with hope and expectations, it was really good sold to me and also, I think, the synopsis is very promising.
But right from the beginning, it felt meh, wooden and forced. And well, maybe it's me, but why write a story without actually a story? What was the purpose? The way it was written was also not working for me, we were fed with snippets and moments from the characters' lives that were neither interesting nor significant. Just some chosen moments. It didn't feel like emotional rollercoaster of feelings, it felt too laboured and forced. It was frustrating to read about the characters breaking up, finding each other again, knowing, then not knowing what they want, and then all over again, the same, the same. I'm still not sure why I've read till the end - OK, I've eventually started to skim reading, but even though, I'll never get back those precious hours of my life back.

I tried, I really tried, pushing through it and hoping, but it wasn't for me.

The Fake Up is an enjoyable read, one that puts a unique twist on the fake dating trope—instead of them faking to date, they’re faking to have broken up, and it’s a lot of fun.

The book follows Dylan and Flo who, on breaking up, realise that their respective careers have taken off, thanks to the feelings that break-up inspired. Only, perhaps they’re not so broken up as they’d have everyone think. So really, this is a bit of a secret relationship novel.

Dylan and Flo are both very sympathetic characters, which is why this novel works as it does. If either of them had been dislikeable, then we would have an issue, I think. Okay, so they’re both somewhat messy and not always likeable, but you can sympathise with them. You’re rooting for them, although maybe not always their relationship. Alright, at times I rooted for Dylan more than Flo, because she seemed to be using him a bit more mercenarily than he did her, but overall it was like. Mutual mercenary use. And quite fun for it.

That’s really the draw of this book: how much wild and messy fun it is. I mean, the premise promises it, and I think it delivers too. It’s a read I fairly sped through because of how fun it was. But it wasn’t all chaos and nothing else—there were still emotions there, particularly nearer to the end.

What I would say, though, is that there was a lot of time with them together at the start, and not a lot of time spent broken up. Which, I guess, is needed so you can establish the relationship and make people root for them, so that you get the emotions I talked about. But I don’t know. I feel like I needed them to be broken up for a little longer. As it was, it felt like they were broken up for barely a moment (although I’m pretty sure it was meant to be longer, if only for how long they moped).

However, as I said, this was a broadly enjoyable read. Perhaps not my favourite of Justin Myers’ books, but then. It was always going to be hard to dethrone The Magnificent Sons.

Flo and her boyfriend Ryan are trying to make in the entertainment field, Flo as a singer and Ryan is an aspiring actor; but it's not happening. They are living in a small flat, just managing to get by when Ryan feels the gap between them is too much and he wants her to succeed. They split up.... but do they. Flo writes a fantastic song based on her break up and this is her big break.

The story follows Ryan and Flo; how they get on in their own fields, you are behind them both every step of the way.

What happens next? Do they manage to get by without each other or not?

The book has some great laugh out loud moments but it is also sad in parts.

A really good read which I highly recommend. Will we meet these characters again - I hope so!

If you want an easy, fun read then this is the book for you. The main characters Flo and Dylan are very likeable. There are many turns in the fight for their chosen careers, both very different, and the added difficulty of pretending to be apart from one another.

My only niggle with this book is that it kept making me think of Adele´s song, Hello, which isn't a bad thing as I love Adele!

My thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced copy in return for an honest review.

The Fake Up was a disappointing read. I didn't connect with the characters and the ending was disappointingly contrived. I really wanted to like this book but sadly it wasn't for me. I

I can't fault the writing and there were some amusing parts to this book but I 'm sorry to say that I found it quite slow and a difficult read. Maybe I'm just of the wrong generation as I feel the story is aimed more towards young adults and so I found it hard to engage with the, (mostly), young characters in the story. I couldn't identify or sympathise with either of the main characters. Flo and Dylan, and didn't find them to be particularly likeable. Flo's Mum was a bit of light relief with her supercilious attitude towards Dylan making her a character to loathe so at least I felt some kind of emotion towards her whereas I found myself not really caring too much either way for what happened to Flo and Dylan to be honest. I ploughed on hoping that I would become more interested as the story progressed but sadly it was a struggle and I found myself skipping a few sections here and there. I'm sure that readers of a younger age than me may love this book but it sadly just wasn't for me. Sorry. My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.