Faking It: A Review

Thank you to NetGalley for this early review copy of Rebecca Smith's newest novel, Faking It, coming out on August 7th!

I did NOT know that this was second in a series and I am so mad that I missed out on the first book! However, I was 75% through with the book when I realized and I was able to read this as a stand alone.

All I can say is this book is HILARIOUS! I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book and was entertained the entire time. There was not a single moment where I was not laughing or enjoying myself reading this. It is a typical British comedy, that deals with the taboo topic of sexuality and sexual intercourse. I was literally LOL'ing from the first page to the very last, and that is impressive.

Faking It follows our 44-year-old, mother of three, Hannah. By day, Hannah is a teacher for Year Ten three days as week and a mother to a 10, 17, and 18-year-old. By night, she is Twinky Malone, author of Erotic Fiction and talking about sex makes her quite uncomfortable. 

I loved reading about Hannah's growth in regards to owning her sexuality and identity. She goes from being very timid to being very open about talking about life, sex, and her own experiences. I felt like she truly flourished as a character throughout the entirety of this novel. I think that the message that Hannah and this book represents is that women should feel empowered when they talk about their sexuality, and not be ashamed to speak about sexual fumbling they may encounter or the daily run of their "boring" life. Women should be able to have open conversations about how to spice things up in both the bedroom and their parenting and life. You see her go through a lot of missteps as she is working on her journey to self-discovery and being able to have an identity outside of being a mom, that her life is not over or boring because she is a mom. I'm not a mom myself, but I am sure that is a lesson all moms need to be reminded of sometimes, it makes us human. 

There is one part of the book where she has a sex-toy (Pure Romance) party, and it is absolutely hilarious and fun. I think that was the point in the book where we see Hannah start to turn a little and embrace herself and her sexuality instead of shying away from it. This is the part where we see her really take off in her writing of the sequel to her Erotic novel that husband charmingly refers to as porn (despite Hannah's protests that it is not porn and is just Erotica with humor and a dash of romance). 

There were also parts of the novel where we get to read Hannah's novel in process and parts of it that she has written so far. I thought that was a nice touch because it would connect with what she was experiencing and gave you a look into what her character does for a living. It was fun to read her writings because it was not steamy, and quite funny, much like Hannah's personality and the overall vibe of this book. 

And Hannah's 10-year-old Benji was the funniest character ever! The things that he would say and do were just hilarious and the way that Hannah would react was priceless. It was funny but also realistic of a 10-year-old's thinking. 

The writing in this book was easy to follow and the chapters were pretty short, which is always a plus. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and am so glad that I read it. With Chick-Lit, sometimes it can be a hit or miss but this one was definitely a hit. I was hitting a bit of a reading slump so this was a nice pick-me-up to get me back in the reading mood. There was not much of a climax but with a book like this, that made sense and read well. 

Overall Rating: 4 stars