Faking It

Faking It
by Diane Alberts
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
I was a little bit so-so on this book. It's a pretty solid 3 ½ stars for me. By the end, I liked it, but there were some annoying things and I wasn't swept up when I first started reading. It took me two or three tries before I felt like continuing past the first couple pages.

Stephanie is the klutzy youngest child, with I believe three older brothers. One of them is an FBI agent and, in between dangerous missions, he's always checking up on her and trying to take care of her. He also likes to set her up with his friends.

This latest friend ends up being Derek. Owner of a company, in town on business, and witness to Stephanie's klutziness even before she knows who he is. The banter between these two is fun, but sometimes seems like too fast ping pong balls. They'd be serious for a while and then just throw in a couple silly lines and I felt like I had to go back and read again to say “oh, that was a silly line”. They could flip flop back for forth in the blink of an eye.

Even though we don't see too much of Stephanie actually getting work done (I don't know much about why she was good at her job, but we're told she is), she has very noble intentions. She's trying to get funding for a series of medical centers for low-income families. Stephanie and Derek end up playing the part of an engaged couple when Stephanie's slimy boss pushes them into that in order for her to keep her job.

Derek is intrigued enough that he plays along and keeps things going. I felt like he was rather condescending to Stephanie a lot of the time. In his mind, he's constantly calling her “little”. She doesn't get angry, she has a “whimsical little temper”. I cringed every time “little” was used, but overall I did like Derek. He was doing what he knew and I felt confident that Derek and Stephanie's obstacles were not insurmountable.

I was glad when Stephanie stood up for herself in the end, but I had been hoping she'd find a way to prove she really could make it on her own. I'm not sure that she really did that. It felt like the book perpetrated this view of women as somewhat inferior, and yes, Stephanie stood up for herself, but it seemed that she just came to accept that she couldn't really take care of herself anyway, so why not let someone else do it. So, I wasn't completely fulfilled with the ending, but I was happy that Derek and Stephanie found a way to work out their differences.