What a beautifully raw and honest book by a wonderful author. She is quite literally on my top list of authors and all of her books are an automatic purchase. I was hooked from the first line of the book "I hate men" (don't we all girl). But this is a wonderfully written story of sexual objectification and abuse and self worth, the main character April is completely lovable and her story makes you feel as though you're a part of it.

The only thing that was disappointing was the lack of supporting character hype. Lots of side characters but no real filling to their stories or their lives, we learn snippets about their past but not enough for them to feel solidified and a real part of the story.

Other than that I loved it I really did and it will not put me off reading her other books - theres still a few I haven't read so thats where I'll be heading next!

DNF. I really wanted to like this book but I just found it really hard to get into and I just couldn't connect with any of the characters whatsoever. It had such premise but in the end it just let me down.

Holly Bourne's writing style is incredibly real, witty, sharp, on-the-nose, and incredibly emotive. Pretending, her second adult novel, tells us the tale of April and her forays into online dating, as well as her disillusionment with the quest for the 'cool girl'. A little like the 'cool girl' of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, April devises a cool girl who's every bit as fake as Amy is, Gretel. Just your regular everyday manic pixie dream girl next door with no problems, Gretel is able to hide all of the messy, real parts of April that are weighing down her life.
I didn't finish this one. Not because it's not good - it is. It's excellent! Holly Bourne is incredibly skilled, and I really look forward to coming back to this when I'm in a better headspace. But Pretending, the first 20% at any rate, is not for the faint of heart. It's brutally honest, and while it's delivered with a light hand and a stylistic, feminist flourish that underpins the seriousness of the issues that Bourne is dealing with, it's still dealing with some pretty weighty topics. So it's excellent, that which I did read, but for me it's a book for a more cheerful, stable time, when I'm able to dedicate headspace to the nuanced and sophisticated views Bourne puts forward through her protagonist.

I didn’t enjoy this book at all although I did read it to the end but I found it quite boring - sorry not for me!

There was a 50/50 chance I was going to love Holly Bourne's new adult offering Pretending. I read one of her YA books, The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting and found it to be quite problematic but I read her first adult novel How Do You Like Me Now? and though it was fantastic. Pretending could have gone either way.

Pretending, published in April, is about April - nope, not a typo, just a weird looking sentence. April is looking for love, but she can't get past date 5 before whoever it is she's dating turning out to be an asshat. Turns out that guys don't want a girl like April. They want a Gretel - perfect pretty sexy girl-next-door Gretel with ho hang ups and no insecurities and here just for a good time. April decides to become Gretel. Like, actually, she sets up a fake dating profile and goes all in pretending to be a person she's not. Dating is much more fun as Gretel - especially once she meets Joshua. But can she keep up the pretence?

I loved it. I feel like I should say at this juncture though that this book deals heavily with issues of rape and sexual assault - in case that's a trigger for you.

I couldn't put it down and whilst it didn't get under my skin in the same way How Do You Like Me Now did - that book could have been written for me and about me I swear - I did find it to be timely and relevant and important and very very readable.

Holly Bourne writes like she's in your head - she gets it, what it's like to be a woman right now / to be in love / to be not in love / to be dating / to have a best friend / to not know what you're doing with your life. She writes it all like she gets it and its nice to read books like that - that make you feel seen and give you that 'oh me too' feeling. It's full of wry and often harsh truths about what it's like to be a woman (generally, not just on the dating scene) and whilst I didn't personally relate to this one as much, I can still totally see how people will, how it will become a book they hold aloft and say, 'this, yes, this is what I have been trying to say.'

It's a funny book in parts - darkly funny but funny nonetheless - but it's serious too. April is recovering from a trauma and that whole story line, which is a major theme throughout the book, is sensitively and intelligently done, and never used as a mechanism for driving the story forward or for kicks. it's a story that matters and it as handled as such. It teaches self acceptance and is bursting with themes of abuse and PTSD and recovery and stereotypes and cat fishing and gas-lighting and friendship and it handles all of them pretty well and it says a lot abut Bourne's writing that whilst I didn't always like April and I certainly didn't understand some of her choices, I never stopped rooting for her.

April works at a charity that deals with anything from people asking if they can get pregnant from a toilet seat to genuine appeals from rape victims and sometimes their perpetrators and I loved that side to the story. I found it so so interesting and watching how April handled that side of her life along side the aftermath of her own sexual assault was so clever - and so so moving.

I do wish the background characters were a little more developed; April is so whole and complex and real that everybody else felt flat and that's a shame because this book could have been so much richer if those other characters had been deeper but overall this book ticked a lot of boxes for me. Holly Bourne is now on the 'yes I like her' list rather than the 'hit or miss.'

After reading Hollys previous book I was excited to get stuck into this one. From the first line 'I hate men' and the dialogue after I was taken with it and finished it in two days. I loved how Holly had us questioning whether the man Amber chooses is really good enough for her and whether being nice is really enough - this book makes you reflect on your own life and is just beautiful. Highly recommend.

This book was so refreshing and I read it in one sitting. April has had many bad experiences with men so she decides to reinvent herself as Gretel and start dating the way Gretel would. This was such a great story and so honest and I'll be recommending it to everyone I know.

I love Holly Bourne, but wasn't sure about her first adult title, so was interested to see what she would do with Pretending. I'm happy to say that I very much enjoyed her new adult book!

Although it deals with a lot of hard-hitting issues, there is also a light-heartedness to it that doesn't make it feel hard to read. The overall message of the book, that being yourself is enough, is a wonderfully uplifting message.

I found myself really relating to April and her struggles throughout the book.

This is definitely a title I would recommend

I thought this book started well and I could relate to the protagonist - she felt realistic and her predicament was very modern.

However, I felt it lost pace about halfway through and I became less interested in the story.

This would make a great beach/holiday read but it lacked depth for me.

A tricky and emotive subject to tackle (rape, PTSD, relationships after trauma) but Holly Bourne packs no punches. At times uncomfortable to read if you have experienced what April has been through personally. But met head on and dealt with brutally, honestly and poignantly. This is the first book I’ve read by this author and will definitely search out more of her books. Highly recommend.

I've just finished reading #Pretending and I am in awe. Such an incredibly powerful book! Beautifully written with absolutely brilliant characters and an important message for all women. Quite simply stunning. Bravo, Holly!

I’ve now read almost every Holly Bourne book and enjoyed them all and this one was no different! This is Holly’s second adult novel and just like her young adult books it’s so incredibly real and honest (TW: for rape, abuse and ptsd)

Pretending follows April, a woman who’s pretty much given up on finding “the one” since every guy she dates never make it past the fifth one so she decides to become Gretel! The perfect woman that all men want but how long can she keep pretending for....

Since this has been the only book that’s actually held my attention in the last few weeks I think it’s pretty obvious that I loved and highly recommend it.

Unfortunately I must have been sent a faulty file for this book. At first I thought it was deliberate, there were quite a few empty pages. Sometimes it didn´t make sense that when April said "I open the message", then nothing followed regarding the email but a launch back into a different topic on the following page. I thought maybe it was deliberate but when after "Instead I had five messages from Megan:" came a couple of empty pages, I thought there might have been pictures of the emails/texts that didn´t show up. Finally, I gave up because of losing track when on page 107 April and Katy are in the office kitchen drinking coffee and the page ends with a full stop, but 108 begins with "and we finish a bottle of wine, and we can´t believe we are up this late on a school night...". I clearly missed something here and I wonder how much else I´ve missed in the first 1/4 of the book without fully realising.

I have checked other reviews for this but did not find anything so I wonder if it has to do with my tablet but since all my previous downloads were fine, I can´t really say what it was.

I will give it 4 stars for now because I don´t want to mess up the rating for a technical error and I will not share it on my Goodreads either.

This is not the first book by Holly that I have read. As always well written and emotive. Tackling subjects that most authors would not consider it is a beautiful and poignant reflection that shows one event can have massive repercussions and change you. The difficulties in dating in the 21st century and finding "the one" whilst anxiety and self doubt battle away inside. Do not think that this is a book that will drag you down but uplift you with the resilience and wit of the characters, whilst you see yourself in them.

Having loved Holly Bourne's first adult fiction novel, How do you like me now? I had high hopes for this one and I was not disappointed. The characters are so real and you find yourself agreeing with so many of their viewpoints. April has been badly treated by men and at times it can be quite upsetting to hear what she has been through. But she comes up with an interesting way to not have to deal with the ups and downs of modern dating. She creates Gretel. A much more datable version of herself. I was hooked from the first page and I didn't want it to end. Highly recommended.

I DNF this - it just didn't feel right to be reading it right now and is struggled to connect with it.
Will edit my review when I read it properly at a later date.

I can almost guarantee I will enjoy anything Holly Bourne writes (whether it is YA or adult) and this book was no different. All of her books have serious themes but she manages to inject them with a bit of humour and wit that make them also enjoyable. It was hard to read at times and dealt with some really difficult issues but it is just so important that this type of book is read so that it can help people understand.

Thank you for the review copy!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for this arc. I’m a massive fan of Holly Bourne’s writing, so was eager to read this and wow. Is it possible to fall in love with a book, because that’s exactly what this reading experience was like.

Trigger Warning: there are themes of sexual violence in this book.

This follows April, a 33-year old woman who works with a charity that offers people advice (sort of like the Samaritans). She works on the ‘frontline’ which involves dealing with women who’ve been sexually abused. This job is particularly emotionally exhausting for April who is dealing with her own breakup with the toxic Ryan, who raped her twice during their relationship and since then she struggles with sex, especially penetrative. The book opens with her ranting about hating men yet still fancying them and desiring a relationship with one. She goes out on a date with Simon, an absolute moron, which ends in disaster. Following this April decides do a social experiment and takes on the cool girl facade and creates another version of herself called Gretal. As Gretal, she represses her April-ness, and is the ideal woman. Gretal begins dating Joshua, who falls in love with Gretal. But is it the Gretal-ness he is besotted with or is he actually different from those toxic men?...Has April actually met a nice guy for once and will she be able to realise that in time...

This books looks at the painful experiences of dating in your thirties, dealing with sexual trauma, mental health and the different fragments of one’s self. It explores the cognitive dissonance as women create this facade in order to conform and please men that doesn’t match what they feel and want internally and the pain as this gap widens and this is reflected in Bourne’s writing style which looks at the idealised version of what April wishes would happen and she really wants to say versus what actually happens. I love Bourne’s writing style. I love the Gretal persona and the way it gets it’s own narrative in blog posts that satirises self-help relationship books. I especially loved the conversation April has with Gretal which demonstrates her conflicted psyche and these different fragments of her self. This is a beautifully written story, well-observed and nuanced take on the difficulties of overcoming trauma and dating in your thirties without reducing to cliches, an equally harrowing yet moving read about giving others a chance and the importance of love in its many imperfect forms. Hands down one of my favourite reads of the year. I can’t recommend this enough. 5/5

This book feels like essential reading for anyone my age (30s), or just any woman, really. It deals with some hard topics (trigger warnings for rape, coercion and sexual abuse), but in a truly commendable style. April's struggles with self-blame and self-esteem will be all too familiar for a lot of women, but that's why this book is so important. It tells the story of so many women, bringing things to the forefront that we all to often push to one side.

I also love the dressing down of the manic pixie dream girl myth, done subtly and successfully. It deals with all of this with an impressive level of pragmatism and raw emotion all rolled into one and avoids the sentimentality of the standard boy-meets-girl story.

This book deserves all the success it will inevitably and rightfully get.

Pretending isn't a bad book, but it's not the greatest either.

Bourne's novels always discuss important subjects, such as different forms of assault, toxic relationships, mental health struggles, and, to put broadly, feminism. And this is so important. Her novels have opened a wider discourse and conversations with people, offering a new perspective, and has provided an accessible and new space to discuss the trauma, and advise on how to seek help/recognise negative behaviour.

And this novel did that. This novel follows the protagonist April, who works as part of a charity on the front-lines, helping people with their struggles. This can range from helping them dealing with their rape, alcohol abuse, or suicidal thoughts, etc. And while April is working there, she finds herself dealing with the trauma and the effects of when she was raped a few years beforehand.

The novel does a deep dive in to April's trauma, her coping mechanisms. Part of this is her deep distrust and hatred of men. So April forms the stereotypical, satirical alter ego of 'Gretel' who is basically - what she thinks, and what we often see in various forms of media - the mans perfect woman. April thinks if she becomes Gretel, she will be free from being harmed by men: she has the control.

But this isn't as easy as April thinks it is, and this all pans out throughout the course of the novel. In conversations with herself, her friend, her therapist, her newly met friends at a boxing class for other survivors. While that is all very in-depth, I found the novel to be lacking something...

Originality. I think if this was the first novel of Bourne's I read, it would get a much higher rating. But to me, this feels like the adult version (or the finalised draft) of Bourne's YA novel before this, The Places I've Cried in Public mixed in with her first adult book (which I dislike), How Do You Like Me Now?. They all just feel interchangeable. The characters, the plots, the narrative style and their discourse.

April feels like the same character as the other protagonists in Bourne's other novels. Very cut-and-paste like. And while this a novel about the female experience, I don't think it does it justice when every male character in Bourne's novels are also the same cut and paste dry cardboard characters.

I don't know how I feel judging this based on her other work, but at the same time, having read the majority of the catalogue I am familiar with Bourne's writing style and thus have a critical eye and opinion on the development of her writing. That I can't ignore. Bourne, the more and more I read, just seems like she knows how to write the same characters and stories over and over. . . and that doesn't insinuate good writing to me. (Basically just copying herself).

So it's a really hard one, because the message of this book is important, and it has some really great moments that explore issues that all women can (sadly) relate to. But then, I find it lacks putting across the emotion it could have done, due to the not-so-greatly written characters (this novel could've had a wonderful supporting ensemble, but Bourne gives them a moment of screen time, tries to make them look *layered* and then moves on) and plot.

So this one is a 3 stars for me. I don't entirely hate it. It's decent. But I'm not head over heels for it.