I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review

There is no doubt about it, Holly Bourne has solidified herself as one of my favourite authors. Pretending is her second adult book and boy does it pack a punch. April is a woman in her early thirties, tired of putting up with mediocre men and worn out from her job at a sexual advice charity. After yet another failed date, she decides she is going to get her revenge on men. She is going to pretend to be Gretel, the perfect no-fuss woman.

That premise may sound like a light-hearted comedy romp but don't be fooled. As with all of Bourne's stories, the focus here is solely on the main character dealing with her mental health and trauma from her past. There are huge trigger warnings for sexual assault, trauma but also for general sexist, entitled, borderline abusive behaviour from men. These things are captured so well that it's astonishing how unafraid Bourne is to write them down. It is both refreshing and heartbreaking to experience them in a story form and I will forever treasure this book because of that. I cannot stress the potential triggers enough though, as important as they are. I have no history of sexual assault (at least in the traditional sense) but this book made me reflect deeply on my previous relationship and ask some serious questions about what marks it might have left on me.

Putting that aside, this is just a stellar example of Bourne's writing skill. The characters might as well be real people, the pacing is perfect and the plot, though a basic slice of life on paper, is exactly the story that needs to be told. I have no doubts this will resonate with any woman at least a little bit, but it could also open some eyes for some men if you're willing to not take the prose as a personal attack. I desperately want the straight men in my life to read this, if only so they can finally appreciate the complexity and depth behind navigating relationships from a female point of view. The beauty of it as well is that a book of this kind could so easily feel like cheap pandering but it doesn't even come close because it rings so true.

Is this book perfect? No. I can see some people having issues with aspects of the plot, and this is by no means an easy read. But I love Pretending for daring to tell women their feelings are valid and to not shy away from the uglier truths. If a book can rip you apart and stitch you back together, not by pretending everything is okay but by promising it might be...that's a book we all need to exist.

Overall Rating: 4.5/5 stars

It takes real talent to write about trauma, while keeping the style light and funny. The main character, April, is angry and in pain and the book covers some tough issues in a frank, truthful style. At times it's a hard read, but alongside this, the book is warm and uplifting.

I loved this one! I went in unsure because of the blurb, but ended up being blown away. Excellent! The take on relationships from a female point of view was fascinating, even though I'm a guy...I oddly understood it all. What a delightful surprise of a book.

I’ve read several Holly Bourne books now, and while I enjoyed the first few (How Do You Like Me Now in particular was great), I’ve found the more recent ones to be quite laboured and not particularly enjoyable to read. It feels a bit like Holly Bourne has just found out that rape happens to women and thinks it makes a substitute for interesting characterisation or plot, and I don’t particularly want to read more books about how it completely ruins lives and turns women into hate-filled harpies.

Holly Bourne is known to many as the reigning Queen Of YA, but her status as one of Britain’s seminal writers was sealed with the realise of her adult debut in 2018. ‘How Do You Like Me Now?’ was an examination of societal expectations for women that was as perceptive as it was scathing and bitterly funny. The same can be said for ‘Pretending’, except this book feels even more piercing as Bourne hones in on modern dating. Namely on how shit and god-awful it can be. Protagonist April feels like an every-woman – kind, thoughtful, sweet and caring – yet for the majority of her adult dating life she’s been unable to make it past date 5. Having been let down countless times, and having heartbreaking utter betrayals of the worst order, she endeavours to ignore the dating advice of ‘being herself’. She’s done that and it’s gotten her nowhere. Instead, she decides to be perfect- or at least pretend to be. She alters her information on the dating apps and becomes Gretel – a woman who is perfect and the kind men will deserve and crave in a way they never feel about April.

Gretel is in control and self-assured when it comes to dating, so confident in herself that she’s unshakeable – quickly reeling in the unsuspected Joshua. Except what should have been casual dating quickly becomes more serious. Who is really in control here? And how long can the pretending continue?

This all plays out in such an addictively readable manner, we instantly become invested and desperate to know how everything will play out. Bourne masterfully negotiates and oversees proceedings, with a deceptive lightness of touch, regularly gut punching us with potent wonderings and justified righteous rage. The aching empathy we feel for April, reinforced for many of us fellow singletons by the fact it all feels so bitterly familiar, lasts long after reading.

This is a powerhouse of a novel, a modern classic and treatise of modern dating. The term ‘must-read’ gets banded around all-too frequently, but rarely does it apply as accurately as it does here.

April is a normal girl who wants to find someone to love and who will love her, for her. So why can’t she get past five dates? Deciding that it’s because she’s too “damaged” from a previous relationship she decides to create the perfect woman ‘Gretel’ and have her revenge on every man.

At lot of this book struck a chord with me and I think everybody reading this book can relate to at least one insecurity that we have about ourselves and dating. As the book progressed I felt more and more sad about what April was getting herself into and I was rooting for her to come out of it in a better place.

I don’t normally like to give any spoilers about the books I read but I feel that this one should come with a little heads up as it covers the topic of rape, specifically date rape and coercive control and some parts are difficult to read.

It is however also filled with humour highlighting the importance of having good friends and knowing your self worth no matter who has tried to knock you down.

A book worth reading!

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC

Sadly I didn’t finish this novel, maybe it just wasn’t for me right now and I will have another look at it in the future.
I could see what the author was trying to achieve with a very angry feminist opening. Having not read any of Holly Bourne’s previous books, I thought I might be reading a new feminist book along the lines if Caitlin Moran’s Howto be a Woman. It then segued into something that felt like a contemporary romance novel where the girl who’s great in every way just can’t find a guy. It felt clunky and uncomfortable, I think the subject matter is really important and I applaud the author for tackling it, but it just didn’t feel like a genuine story with three dimensional characters. It felt like they were just there to serve a purpose and get the author’s point across.

A really great novel about how women pretend to be someone else just to get a man to love them. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it touched on many sensitive subjects (there’s potential trigger too) and it rides the #metoo wave in a way that really makes you think about your past/ current relationships and what we women put up with just to “belong to the other side” where the “happily married” couples live.

From the title, I was afraid it was going to be another one of those faking-your-perfect-life-on-social-media stories - I’m really kind of done with that now. Thankfully, it wasn’t - the “pretending” April does in this book is of a far more face to face nature.

She decides - for reasons you’ll have to read it to find out - to act out a persona she thinks men want - Gretel, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Next Door Slut With No Problems. (Remember the Cool Girl? Kind of like that.) And guess what, it seems to work. But pretending to be someone you’re not is a high risk strategy...

April is a rape survivor - Holly Bourne handled this brilliantly - and her job with a sex and relationships advice charity further exposes her to harrowing stories on a regular basis. April’s pretty certain men are jerks - they keep proving it over and over again, after all. And she’s angry. And she’s right to be.

This is really about April’s journey towards recovery from trauma, which sounds dark and indeed is at times - there’s serious stuff going on here, but it’s equally a really fun - and hugely insightful - read, with believably human and complex characters.

Holly Bourne is a great writer- I’ve loved her books so far, her YA is brilliant especially, so I was excited to read Pretending. April is fed up of life and feeling burnt out by her job, yet she wants love. She creates Gretal, her alter ego who is tough and treats men how they’ve treated her, until she meets a man who challenges that. It isn’t just about the romance though. I love how the book dealt with April’s last and how her job affects her, as well as showcasing the love and support she has around her. A great modern story.

I think this book could have come with a trigger warning, because of the topics covered within.

All things considered, it was really well written, covering a whole range of emotions and experiences. I laughed a lot and I shed many a tear reading this book.

It was relatable in the sense that everyone always seems to be thinking a million things at once. And that not everyone is as you'd expect them to be.

This book was SO disappointing! I'm usually such a big Holly Bourne book but this one totally missed the mark for me.

This book does deal with some really important issues, mainly to do with rape. Which is great, and very much needed. It's important this book discusses this topic so frankly. I'm sure it would help a lot of women.

However, tone of this book was really different from her earlier books. It wasn't funny or witty. It was very angry and moany. Obviously the main character has gone through some difficult times, but the entire book was very downbeat, which made it hard to read.

I thought the plot was kind of lacking. As I've already said the topics this book covered were important, but it just felt very repetitive and wasn't all that interesting to read.

I did however, like how this book discusses what it's like to work in a charity, on a help advice line. It was interesting and I learnt a lot about that type of job.

But the rest of the book just felt flat for me. I also really did not agree with the ending. I obviously can't say to much without it being spoilers but it wasn't okay in my opinion, it definitely sent out the wrong message.

So overall, this book is important and I think certain people at certain points of their life will enjoy this book, but for me, I was really disappointed by it and it was no where near as good as her previous books

TW: open discussions around rape

Holly Bourne’s latest takes some familiar themes in this but with our focus very much on adult characters some of the issues are a little more triggering.
Alice, our main character, is definitely a character you will come to understand - whatever you actually think about her. Her work for a support charity means she is regularly seeing the worst of people. She, herself, has been raped by an ex-boyfriend and it’s evident that her experience continues to impact upon her. Alice is fed up with boyfriends lasting a few dates and then dumping her because she doesn’t measure up to their expectations. She wants to be loved for herself, and so comes up with a plan.
Determined to make men pay for their privilege, Alice decides she is going to act in the way she believes men will find appealing. It seems to be an act of disassociation and when she comes up with the idea to pretend to be someone else I felt quite angry - not that she had to do it, but because she’s making the same assumptions she is criticising others for making.
Perhaps inevitably, she ends up meeting Joshua, and as their dates progress things seem positive - but he thinks he’s with a confident young woman called Gretel. How can things work out when they’ve started on such a strange footing?
I received an ARC of this from NetGalley and formatting issues definitely impacted on my enjoyment of this. There were random sections of text that appeared, empty pages and - on occasion - pages that didn’t seem connected to what I’d just read. They didn’t (I think) drastically affect my reading but it didn’t help my ability to engage with the character.

April is messy and imperfect and real, so heartbreakingly, relatably real. She feels broken inside and doesn't know how to fix herself - doesn't know that she can fix herself. So she decides she needs to fake it until someone else believes she's fixed and she can obtain the relationship she believes her life needs.

Because I'd already read (and loved) How Do You Like Me Now?, I wasn't sure how Pretending would end, but I knew it would feel honest and true to the characters. I was sure we would see April grow and end up happier than she started - and that her growth and happiness would be down to her as an individual, rather than because a romantic relationship had magically fixed everything for her. Bourne's ending did not disappoint.

I think my favourite moments in Pretending were linked to April's job as a charity worker. She had such an interesting but intense role that helped so many people with very limited resources. Pretending doesn't hold back in its exploration of trauma, and the varying and long lasting effects it can have. It makes for difficult reading in places, but necessarily so. If you have experienced sexual abuse in any form, this novel will help you feel seen. If you haven't, it will force you to reconsider the way you react to trauma and triggering situations, more aware of the effect your words and actions could have on others. April's brilliant boxing group, and the group chats which emerge from it, create some of this novel's most special scenes.

Bourne writes for the modern reader, perfectly encapsulating what it feels like to be a woman in the 21st century. I can imagine Pretending being read in decades time as an insight into how we live and love now.

This is easily one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. I absolutely love love LOVED it! Initially, I picked it up because I thought it was going to be a nice easy and uplifting read but it is so much more than that. Yes it is funny and warm with some great well-developed characters. But it is also sharp, perceptive, addresses some tough issues and expresses in words that I couldn’t have found myself, how a lot of us feel (or have felt in the past) about being a woman.


These days April is a regular on the dating scene, but she struggles to get past the 5th date. She will just be about to start trusting a guy and they will reveal themselves to be just as unreliable as the last one and she’ll be left feeling stupid, depressed, disillusioned.
After another dating fail she decides to take back some control. And the next time she gets back in the game, she pretends to be a woman with all her sh*t together, naming herself “Gretel”. Gretel is the woman that April believes all men want and it isn’t too long until she reels in Joshua. But as they get closer, how is she going to be able to carry on pretending? 


Without giving away any spoilers I should start out by giving a *trigger warning* for sexual assault. I didn’t find it to be at all graphic but if this is a trigger for you just bear it in mind before deciding to read this book

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April is such a fabulous character. She works for a charity and her caring and nurturing sides initially shine through her career and how she relates to her housemate. But she’s also a simmering ball of frustration and anger, letting rip with some lengthy, and often very wry and funny, internal rants, largely about men and their actions (and with good reason). 


April manages to have and to develop some wonderful female friendships throughout, highlighting the importance of a strong support network, particularly in times of emotional difficulty. Her boxing class sounds particularly amazing, kind of making me want to take up a new hobby!


There’s a sort of will-they-won’t-they love story in here too and Bourne has written a wonderful, realistic character in Joshua, the guy who finds himself on the receiving end of April’s catfishing scam.


Bourne’s writing is an absolute joy. It’s by turns super-smart, laugh-out-loud funny, emotional, raw, and everything in between. The overriding message is one of female empowerment really, and light at the end of the tunnel for anyone facing daily emotional struggles. This is the first of her books that I’ve read but it certainly won’t be the last. It’s just perfection.

Lovely feminist story with usual Holly Bourne style about loving yourself for yourself.

It was nice to read.
Thanks a lot, NG and the publisher for this copy.

This was frickin great. A timeless tale for women the world over about accepting yourself and learning to trust people around you. The ones who aren’t dickheads, anyway.

I enjoyed parts of this book. I liked the fact that abuse and rape were discussed in a sympathetic and empathetic way. Some of April’s story was hard to read. She had been hurt a lot physically and mentally in past relationships. Parts of the book were funny. I laughed a few times. I thought that the ending was predictable but overall the story was good.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

It's safe to say, Holly Bourne knows how to write women. She has a real knack for portraying the female mind so accurately that you'll nod through several points of this book. And for that, I applaud her. However, overall I had really mixed feelings about this book. I don't personally believe it is as good as her first adult novel, How Do You Like Me Now which felt a lot more fresh and innovative. The plot of Pretending is full of rich, diverse characters and the author tackles some tough subjects (of which I'm hoping there will be a Trigger Warning for) incredibly well but overall, it all felt a bit bland. Right before you even start reading the first page, it's pretty obvious where the story is going to go whereas I would have prefered a more surprising ending. The ending also seemed incredibly rushed, to the point I was left thinking, '...Is that it?' If the book was always going to head towards the ending that it did, I actually think the book would have been a hell of a lot stronger if that had happened at some point during the middle of the plot and the remaining half of the book explored the effects of this. I'll always enjoy how Holly writes however this book just didn't do it for me.

Where do I even begin with reviewing this amazing book? How do I do this wonderful piece of fiction justice? This book is so much more than entertainment, this is the book we all needed to read, a book so many of us can identify with, I feel seen and I feel heard and I feel like so many of the things in my head have finally and honestly been put down on paper for all to read.



This book centres around April who is just such a wonderful character to spend time with, April isn't always likable and doesn't always make the best choices but she is real and she is flawed just like us and she is just so easy to relate to, to empathise with and ultimately we will all be championing her to get through this.



April has been through a lot, like so many of us and so definitively exercise care if you are triggered by rape, sexual violence or abuse of any kind. This book does deal with some tough subjects but by dealing with those subjects through character April and through this fictional world that she lives in and the fiction world she revolves around somehow there is less of an 'edge'. Rape becomes not a statistic but something that real people deal with all the time and something that not enough people bring to light or talk about what happens when life carries on. I don't know how Holly Bourne managed it but she has woven so much trauma and so much truth into this piece of fiction so that we can all read and relate and recognise.



For all that this book deals with trauma and sexual violence, there is also heart and humour throughout the pages. This writer just says it like it is, what we're all thinking and she did make me laugh as well as exclaim 'me too' so many times throughout this book. At one point April ponders 'Living Life and being an adult is terrible. Why does nobody tell you how terrible it is?' And there are other moments too where April ponders how to be the perfect date and what mean really mean when they say on their dating profile that they are looking for a 'partner in crime'. Those moments are just hilarious but definitely fall under the 'if you didn't laugh you would cry' category.



For a book that has been marketed as a romcom, some people might not expect the depth and the raw emotion that this book contains. It touched my soul and is beautifully written and everybody need to read it now. With phrases like 'leaves slug trails of guilt glistening through my blood' how could you not?