{"id":16563,"date":"2018-05-22T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/?p=16563"},"modified":"2018-05-21T21:41:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T04:41:06","slug":"grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/","title":{"rendered":"GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND by Jackie Lau | Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"grumpy<\/h2>\n

**ARC provided by the author for review**<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Jackie Lau\u2019s new novella, GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND <\/a>(Kwan Sisters #1), has good bones. It stands out for its Toronto setting and a Chinese-Canadian heroine who has a diverse friend group. All things we don\u2019t see enough of in the romance world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Naomi, the heroine, is looking forward to spending a long weekend at a lake house with three sets of couple friends, one of which includes her ex and his new girlfriend. Not wanting to be the only single person on this trip, she gets her brother to enlist the help of his reclusive writer buddy Will Stafford to pose as her boyfriend for the weekend. Forced proximity, ahoy!<\/span><\/p>\n

Written in alternating first person, Naomi\u2019s early chapters read like a high school diary, way younger than her late 20’s age. Will is a grumpy introvert writer who\u2019d rather avoid people. They bicker (and I mean bicker, this is not banter) the whole way to the lake house. Frankly, I wanted to kick both of them out of the car. Things improve once they arrive. It\u2019s showtime. <\/span><\/p>\n

The second act at the lake house is the strongest section of the story. We meet Naomi\u2019s friends including her ex Jordan, and his new girlfriend.\u00a0 <\/span>Their overzealous PDA turns into a battle of who can be more lovey-dovey. All in all, it feels more like New Adult than adult contemporary romance to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the couples on the trip is planning a wedding and over the course of the weekend, the group ends up talking about and playing Chinese wedding games. Lau integrates cultural elements seamlessly, it never seems gratuitous or like she\u2019s trying to make a point. As many of us hapa kids can attest, most of the time you don\u2019t go around consciously thinking about this stuff every minute of the day, it\u2019s just part of your life and experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND<\/a> pretty quickly turns into instalove. One of my least favorite tropes. I\u2019m all about everyone deserving a happily ever after, but I just didn\u2019t buy how fast it happened. If anything, for Naomi, it\u2019s rebound, and Will? Well, his dry spell just ended, so it\u2019s probably more like insta-lust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asian-(North) American leads are still rare enough in adult romance that I\u2019ll be watching to see how the series develops. Mr. Hotshot CEO<\/a>, book #2 in the series, is due out in July.<\/span><\/p>\n

3 stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND on Amazon<\/a>\u00a0| iBooks<\/a><\/p>

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**ARC provided by the author for review** Jackie Lau\u2019s new novella, GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND (Kwan Sisters #1), has good bones. It stands out for its Toronto setting and a Chinese-Canadian heroine who has a diverse friend group. All things we don\u2019t see enough of in the romance world. Naomi, the heroine, is looking forward to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[1171,2057,1789,2056,2052,2054,2055,1174,1133,2053],"class_list":["post-16563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-chinese-canadian","tag-diverse-books","tag-diverse-romance","tag-jackie-lau","tag-naomi-kwan","tag-poc","tag-review","tag-romance","tag-will-stafford"],"yoast_head":"\nGRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND by Jackie Lau | Book Review - DailyWaffle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Grumpy Fake Boyfriend features an Asian American heroine and a hero she's had a crush on for awhile, headed to a couples weekend at the Lake.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michelle\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Michelle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/#\/schema\/person\/699f5bbc3243018b1b4177972fd4c932\"},\"headline\":\"GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND by Jackie Lau | Book Review\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-05-22T12:00:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/\"},\"wordCount\":431,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"book review\",\"Chinese Canadian\",\"diverse books\",\"diverse romance\",\"jackie lau\",\"naomi kwan\",\"PoC\",\"review\",\"romance\",\"will stafford\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Book Reviews\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailywaffle.com\/stage1\/grumpy-fake-boyfriend-review\/\",\"name\":\"GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND by Jackie Lau | Book Review - 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