Review from 2024 re-read: 3.75⭐

 

Red Morgan believes that she is happy working on her family’s farm and focusing on doing the most she can to make the farm thrive. Her life is turned upside down when a video of her falling in a pile of manure and pretending to be famous singer Zay-Zay Waters goes viral and catches the eye of none other than the Zay-Zay Waters.

This was my second re-read of the season and I had such high hopes for it but it didn’t quite live up to the memory that I had of this book from the first time that I read it. It was interesting skimming through a review that I had written of it from the first time as my only issue then were the HP references however reading it through now, that feels so insignificant (which is wild considering I hate HP references) when you compare it to the references to Israel. I think the reason that this really got under my skin was that there wasn’t really any reason when characters needed to be from Israel or that the film was going to be filmed there. I thought it was really surface level when Red was asking about tzitzit as it felt as though it was being described as something that is more woo-woo as opposed to being a religious garment and it was a shame because it could have been a meaningful moment for cultural exchange. 

In addition to referencing a couple of things that I just don’t want to read about, the start of the book is pretty slow and if I didn’t know that I had previously enjoyed the book, I am not sure if I would have pushed through it. Davis also made a decision to really highlight Zay-Zay’s accent by constantly having Red’s internal monologue commenting on the ways that Zay-Zay pronounced words differently and it became repetitive very quickly, particularly as I was hybrid reading so every time Red made a comment, I had just heard how Zay-Zay said the sentence.

Despite having some issues with the story, I did enjoy the main plot of Red living in LA and pretending to be Zay-Zay as well as falling in love with Koi. If I am being honest, I actually would have liked the book to have been longer as I would have like to have seen more of this. Overall, an enjoyable enough read that was flawed in places.

 
Review from first read: 5⭐

 

Firstly, let me get my singular - yep, I really had one major issue with this book! - issue with this book out of the way. It is the year 2023, there really is no reason why we need two references to a certain children's book series. Seeing these references of the page, especially when I was otherwise ADORING this book was like a stab in the gut and stopped me in my tracks.

Now that the negative is out of the way, let me talk about the positive and, let me just say, this book had so much positive going for it. It was sweet, it was funny, it was addictive, it was magical. It was just chef's kiss. This book beautiful combined a story akin to The Prince and the Pauper with the fake dating trope and the resultant story was an absolute joy to read.

I will admit that I found the Brooklish translations a little much when we initially met the character of Zay-Zay but there were not something that continued throughout the story and I fully understand why they were included to really paint a picture of the character.

Once I started reading this book, I was so hooked that I was compelled to sit in a single spot and read the whole book in one sitting. Whilst there were clear places that the story seemed to be going it, it never felt as though those destinations were telegraphed in a heavy-handed way. I also found that there were a lot of surprises in the narratives because ultimately, whilst this story asks the reader to suspend their disbelief around some of the events, the characters behaved in a way that is to be expected from real human beings.

There were many emotional points in the story which brought tears to my eyes; some of those years were happy, some were for utterly heartbreaking moments.

I am not completely sure what age demographic this book is intended for however I would likely categorize it as NA because of the way the characters felt on the page and some of the story beats but this book contains zero smut, the spiciest thing anyone does is kiss. I mention the lack of spice not out of disappointment but rather to set expectations as I understand that labelled something as NA implies a certain degree of spiciness.

This book was the third title that I have read from Davis and it has firmly solidified that she is one of my favourite authors. I look forward to seeing what she writes next as I feel certain it will be a delight to read.