Faking It

**Audiobook review 2024**

This is one of my go to rom coms. I have read it probably around 20 times and it never gets old. Jennifer Crusie just knows how to build characters and set ups like no one else. You like these people and you will smile and laugh all the way through it!

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This is one of my all time favorite books by Crusie. I have read it numerous times and thoroughly enjoy it each and every time! You can tell that Crusie is a fan of Hollywood Screwball comedies by the way her characters think, talk, and act, but especially how she sets up her grand finale scenes. It is delightfully charming, beautifully witty, slightly over the top, and 100% terrific!
I discovered Jennifer show more Crusies' books about ten or so years ago and she has rarely ever let me down with a story. In fact, I can only think of two of her books that I only liked rather than loved, but, again, I liked them. She is writer with a gift of creating characters and language and premises that sparkle with their own truths.
Case in point, Tilda Goodnight and her crazy wonderful colorful family have a secret that span generations. One that could plunge the already struggling financially family further into debt, and get them arrested to boot. Art forgery, generations of art forgeries by their ancestors. Tilda, holds the family together by recreating masterworks as murals for clients. But when her niece mistakenly sells a painting hidden in the basement, the Goodnight family secrets are suddenly in jeopardy of exposure. It's up to Tilda to try and steal it back.
That is where she meets Davy Dempsey, a life long con artist, from a family of con artist, who had been trying to go straight. Until his financial manager embezzled his three million dollars and gave it to Davy's ex girlfriend. Both Davy and Clea the ex appear in another of Crusies stories Welcome to Temptation (about Davy's sisters Sophie and Amy.) Davy is trying to steal his money back from Clea and both Davy and Tilda choose the same closet to hide in to escape capture. It is that meeting that sets these two souls up for mayhem for the remainder of the story. Cons, art, gold diggers, a possible hitman named Ford, theft, vodka, mistaken identities, a dog named Steve, a retired thief, lousy sex, mindblowing sex, wit, snark, and love all ensue.
Again, it's a favorite. It plays out like the best screwball comedy. Guaranteed to make you smile! show less

This is one of my all time favorite books by Crusie. I have read it numerous times and thoroughly enjoy it each and every time! You can tell that Crusie is a fan of Hollywood Screwball comedies by the way her characters think, talk, and act, but especially how she sets up her grand finale scenes. It is delightfully charming, beautifully witty, slightly over the top, and 100% terrific!
I discovered Jennifer Crusies' books about ten or so years ago and she has rarely ever let me down with a story. In fact, I can only think of two of her books that I only liked rather than loved, but, again, I liked them. She is writer with a gift of creating characters and language and premises that sparkle with their own truths.
Case in point, Tilda show more Goodnight and her crazy wonderful colorful family have a secret that span generations. One that could plunge the already struggling financially family further into debt, and get them arrested to boot. Art forgery, generations of art forgeries by their ancestors. Tilda, holds the family together by recreating masterworks as murals for clients. But when her niece mistakenly sells a painting hidden in the basement, the Goodnight family secrets are suddenly in jeopardy of exposure. It's up to Tilda to try and steal it back.
That is where she meets Davy Dempsey, a life long con artist, from a family of con artist, who had been trying to go straight. Until his financial manager embezzled his three million dollars and gave it to Davy's ex girlfriend. Both Davy and Clea the ex appear in another of Crusies stories Welcome to Temptation (about Davy's sisters Sophie and Amy.) Davy is trying to steal his money back from Clea and both Davy and Tilda choose the same closet to hide in to escape capture. It is that meeting that sets these two souls up for mayhem for the remainder of the story. Cons, art, gold diggers, a possible hitman named Ford, theft, vodka, mistaken identities, a dog named Steve, a retired thief, lousy sex, mindblowing sex, wit, snark, and love all ensue.
Again, it's a favorite. It plays out like the best screwball comedy. Guaranteed to make you smile! show less

Some books are burned into my retinas, and for some reason, this is one of them.

I tend to recall the books I've read during crucial parts of my life. Even if I don't remember what I was up to during that time, I remember what I was reading when it happened. And every single time I pick up this book, I remember Gloria Jean's Coffee.

I started my undergrad in a po-dunk town I thought was a city because it had a lousy bus system. Unlike my colleagues, it never occurred to me to be afraid of the buses, so the last year I lived there, I took bus-related adventures. Usually, this involved me going to the mall because it was somewhere that had a Waldenbooks. Since I was buying books at the CVS across the street, Waldenbooks was a huge step up show more (if I wanted to sit on a different bus for 20 minutes more, I could get to a Borders. That's where I bought Angel Season 5. Like I said: fiction-based recall).

That day, I hopped on a bus to escape everyone I knew, turned off my usually disfunctional phone, and went to the mall with the Waldenbooks. I vaguely recalled liking the one Crusie book I'd read in high school, so after picking up a paperback, I tottered downstairs to buy a mocha from Gloria Jean's and a pretzel from Auntie Anne's. I promptly spilled my drink on the first few pages, causing my copy to forever smell like coffee. From there, I remember sitting, drinking good coffee and eating pretzels, as I was launched into this book for the very first time.

The pretzel was long gone and the coffee half empty when I met Davy Dempsey for the first time. I remember reading while walking to the bus stop, then curling up in my grandpa's donated plush recliner in the living room while my roommate chain smoked and read the BBC online. I don't know what anyone else did for the rest of the day, but I ended up in my room, reading Jennifer Crusie, and it was like I had remembered how to breathe. I loved everything about this book. I just wanted to read more.

Crusie writes fun, fast-paced novels that I read when I hate everything. They're fun under any circumstances (I've read them at many different moods and points of my life), but unlike any other author, Crusie can pop a depression bubble so fast that I usually regain my standard optimistic worldview by the time I'm done.

And this, really, is my favorite Crusie. I know not why, but the madcap shenanigans are off the charts, the hero and heroine fight and laugh and there's pineapple orange everything for everyone. And Louise. I love Louise. Basically, I get clever ladies and a heroine with ashthma. What more could a gal want? show less

It took me a while (4 books?) to completely "get" Crusie's writing style, but I really enjoy it! The humor is dry and for a couple of books, I felt like I couldn't tell when people were being sarcastic, funny, witty, serious, frustrated, angry, etc. I've learned to just assume the characters are being at least a little sarcastic, a little serious, and a little funny. In other words, Crusie takes banter to a new level, and I like it.

I also like that her characters are good people, but morally interesting--affiliated with the mob, or grifters, thieves, con artists, etc.

Faking it was just such a novel. I loved having Davey as the main character (He was a minor character in Welcome to Temptation). Crusie does such a great job of plotlines show more and characters with moral gray areas. For instance, Davey is a some-time thief (but mostly Robin Hood-like) and former con-artist. In contrast, his ex-girlfriend, and former porn star, Celia, is a thief, con-artist, manipulator, etc. And I can think she's gross and evil, and still root for Davey (who does a lot of the same things!). Love this line Crusie walks. show less

A really well done, light-hearted romance with all the zaniness you'd expect from a Crusie novel. The plot does begin to wobble apart towards the end, because there was one rather large element which I found not at all convincing, but Crusie throws so much at you—hit men and art forgeries and split personalities and families of con artists—that you just have to go with it. I also loved that the main couple, Tilda and Davy, started out having utterly mediocre sex, and only started setting the house on fire once they really got to know one another. Highly recommended.

If there’s one thing that Crusie is good at, it’s writing a fun story. From the moment Tilda and Davy bump into each other in Clea’s closet to the final page, there’s ne’er a dull moment in the lives of the Goodnights and Dempseys.

It’s hard to imagine a dull moment in their lives even without that bump in the night. Everyone in this book is a character with a capital “C”. It could have been overkill, but I think Crusie gives them enough “real” characteristics to balance out the wacky. You want to root for them, even for the unconventional hit man.

The search for the Scarlett paintings gives a bit of meat to the romance, and I enjoyed it. For the most part, I really like what Crusie does. It’s a little like if Carl show more Hiaasen wrote romance books. show less

This is a companion book to Welcome to Temptation, which I’d never read, so I read both books one after the other. Faking It is Davy’s story (brother to Sophie) from the first novel. While the plot may be as perfectly told and wild, it didn’t quite match my love of the first book, although it came close. One of the best things about Crusie’s books, are her wonderfully off the wall characters and there is a wealth of them here, even down to Steve, the dog. Yes, everyone here is deceitful in their way, but worth loving for the hysterical ending where everyone seems to have a thing for hiding out in the closet. A cute, fun story. I’m glad to have spent time with this.