Seventh grade was supposed to be fun, but Tori is having major drama with her BFF, Sienna. Sienna 
changed a lot over the summer on the first day of school she’s tan, confident, and full of stories about her new dreamy boyfriend. Tori knows that she’s totally making this guy up. So Tori invents her own fake boyfriend, who is better than Sienna’s in every way. Things are going great unless you count the whole lying-to-your-best-friend thing until everyone insists Tori and Sienna bring their boyfriends to the back-to-school dance. (YA - Fiction)
My Fake Boyfriend is one of those unusual YA’s where the story is more about friendship and learning valuable lessons rather than snagging the hottest boy at school.
Sienna goes away with her family for the summer and stops communicating with BFF Tori after a few weeks. Tori is ok with that figuring they will pick up their lifelong friendship as soon as she gets back and they head off to the first day of school.
Instead she finds Sienna a changed girl. Beautiful, sophisticated, confident AND she has a new really hot boyfriend named Antonio. After seeing the tell-tale ear tug whenever Sienna talks about the new love of her life, Tori is convinced her best friend is lying. While she’s upset about being lied to, she also can see that Sienna’s lies are also getting her plenty of attention and new friends so acting under the “if you can’t beat them – join them” rule she creates her own fake boyfriend, Sebastian. And if you’re going to lie you might as well go all the way….
“Oh, well, he’s perfect. Gorgeous. Funny. Brilliant” I lie, laying it on thick. But hey, as long as I’m going to have a fake boyfriend, I should have a rockin’ one, right?
Who makes up a fake boyfriend covered in zits with swamp breath?”
Of course the lies escalate between the two friends as they try to out- perfect each other’s boyfriends. It becomes hard work managing all those lies!
“I don’t know about real boyfriends, but fake boyfriends are exhausting…….”
This book is about 12 year old girls and aimed at an audience far younger than me but it was really cute and had me laughing throughout most of it. Another thing I loved about it is how Tori’s parents were portrayed. The fact that they are portrayed at all is a bit of a surprise. They are divorced but both mom & dad are involved in their daughters life and place boundaries on her and *gasp* she respects those boundaries(with a smidge of healthy rebellion)!!
I am a well-trained YA reader and I had an almost Pavlovian response to this book waiting for a “real” guy to show up and throw a complication into the whole “fake” boyfriend plot. But nope – it’s just a cute story about friends growing up, being afraid of change…feeling your way through Jr. High. Refreshing!
So my true confession moment. I had a fake boyfriend. The love of my life (not!) and very first boyfriend dumped me to date the love of his life….my best friend. They were always going on about how sorry they were and acting like I would never get over the crushing blow so I made up a boyfriend to show that I was happy (I wasn’t) and had moved on (I hadn’t). We had a tragic break up just before a scheduled double date.
Confession number two. I mentioned that this book wasn’t aimed at my age group. It’s about two twelve year old girls and while I can still appreciate a cute story and relate to it, I still had (as I said before) a Pavlovian response to seek out a romance. So I admit I had a bit of a crush on Tori’s dad. He is so perfect. He’s an artist, funny, goes to museums, loves his daughter, gives great advice, tweets and emails…..all around perfect guy! Why is this guy single?? I secretly wanted a book about him or to have Tori’s parents get back together and have a HEA. So Dear Kristina: if you ever venture in to the adult realm in your writing - a book about Tori’s dad would be great! LOL
Loved: A really sweet book with great messages without being preachy or unrealistic. You don’t have to monitor your daughter while reading this one. Adorable cover!
Nitpick: There was a storyline about a drunk teacher that didn’t really fit with the rest of the book and was a little distracting.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
Authors website: http://www.kristinaspringer.com/bio.html (I'm linking to the bio instead of the home page because it's so funny) Funny authors = awesomeness IMO
Buy the book! My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours
Thanks for the recommendation. I love the title of this, it brings back memories of some of the girls in my school who were always boasting about their 'boyfriends' - I was sure so many of them only existed in the girls heads.
ReplyDeletesuch a good story for tweens and boyfriends can't say I ever had to make one up.
ReplyDeleteLol, sounds like a good one, and especially if you had a crush in the dad
ReplyDeleteAw, this sounds very cute, hehe ... and I love how you were crushing on Tori's dad ... I think we really are so accustomed to stories where a love-interest is at least provided, even if there's no romance to speak of, that we need *someone* to drool over! :)
ReplyDeleteI went to an all-girls High School and when I was about 16, bumped into a guy I hadn't seen since the last day of Primary School, 3 years before ... and who I was still hopelessly crushing on, LOL ... well, you know what guys are like, he was teasing me and I got all defensive and threw in something about my *boyfriend* ... then years later when we got chatting again and when I told him I made the whole boyfriend thing up, he said he would have asked me out had I not said I was taken ... so, yeah, my plan backfired :P
@Bella - lol. That could have been your true love :-) Stubborn even then I see...hehe
ReplyDeleteI did the same thing while reading this book--kept waiting for the real guy to come along and sweep her off her 7th-grade feet, I guess. And she /did/ have a pretty awesome dad. :-)
ReplyDelete