When It's Real review

When It's Real by Erin Watt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love books about celebrities falling for a "normal", even if it's simply a publicity stunt.
In order to pretty-up Oakley Ford's image, his management suggests they hire a regular girl, the quintessential girl-next-door type to be his girlfriend for one year. The pop star balks at first, but eventually they manage to bring him around.
Enter Vaughn, whose parents left her and her siblings in a pile of debt, which led her to take a year off before going to college to get a job and help her big sis with the bills. When the idea of dating the famous bad boy is presented to her, she laughs it off at first, until she realizes how desperate her sister, Paisley, is for her to accept the job for the huge paycheck. After all, twenty-thousand-dollars a month is nothing to sneeze at. It'd be enough to settle all of their debt AND put money aside for her twin brothers' college tuition.
There's only one hiccup, though. And that is Vaughn's boyfriend, W.
I loved how funny this book was. When they informed Vaughn that she would have to publicly break up with her boyfriend and that there might be a few "mild" kisses between her and Oakley, I giggled with glee. I knew then that this book was going to be good.
Vaughn and Oak's first meeting was a reader's heaven--it was pure antagonism from the start. Uncontrollable sounds were spewing out of my mouth by that point!
I appreciated the emotional undertones of both main characters, and how even a famous guy like Oak had his moments of self-doubt.
Random thoughts:
-My favorite scene was when they were buying ice-cream, for some reason. (Yes, it did make me crave ice-cream at two in the morning but that's not why it stood out to me).
-Favorite character is Ty. Kind of hope he and Paisley get their own book at some point.
-Least favorite character is W. I don't like to use the word "hate" especially when talking about a fictional character, but, dude, you really need to grow up!
- I wish Oak had fired his team.
-Finally, this book highlights how much power social media wields in our life, and THAT is a scary thing indeed.



View all my reviews