Title: This Is How You Fall In Love
Author: Anima Hussain
Genre: YA Romance
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Pages: 400
Release Date: 2 February 2023
Trope-loving, hopeless romantics rejoice! Today I'm sharing my review of This Is How You Fall In Love by Anika Hussain. A brilliantly heartfelt and humour-filled YA rom-com, that follows two teens and their unconventional path to dating, friendship and romance.
Synopsis
Zara and Adnan are just friends. Always have been, always will be. Even if they have to pretend to be girlfriend and boyfriend...
Zara loves love in all forms: 90s romcoms and romance novels and grand sweeping gestures. And she's desperate to have her own great love story. Crucially, a real one. So when her best friend Adnan begs her to pretend to date him to cover up his new top-secret relationship, Zara is hesitant. This isn't the kind of thing she had in mind. But there's something in it for Zara too: making her parents, who love Adnan, happy might just stop them arguing for a while. She may not be getting her own love story, but she could save theirs.
So Zara agrees and the act begins: after all, how different can pretending to be in a relationship with your best friend be to just hanging around with them like usual? Turns out, a lot. With fake dating comes fake hand-holding and fake kissing and real feelings... And when a new boy turns up in Zara's life, things get more confusing than ever.
The course of true love never did run smooth, but Zara's love story is messier than most...
Review
I absolutely LOVED THIS! And love how Hussain cleverly explores the complex and often unpredictable nature of relationships whilst perfectly capturing the essence of love in all its many forms.
Full disclosure, having spent the past few months reading soo many romance books back to back I was beginning to get a little fatigued and had put reading this off. But, having finished a pretty intense read recently I’m actually soo mad that I didn’t pick it up sooner!
With 90s and early 00s rom-coms as inspiration (both 10 Things I Hate About You and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging are name checked by our romance loving protagonist)
Hussain perfectly captures the very essence of what makes a good teen rom-com; a healthy dose angst, quirky meet cutes, lashings of humour and a host of well meaning but nosey loved ones (friends and family) who may or may not be a little too invested in the protagonist’s relationship.
It’s a formula that seems full proof, but has produced some pretty lack-luster results in recent years. So it was great to finally see someone exploring and breathing a fresh (and fabulously diverse) new life into the genre—even if it’s only on paper…for now.
The writing was wonderfully compelling and the characters well developed and full of depth. I particularly loved Zara, our adorable, rom-com loving bookworm and protagonist. She’s such a sweet, compassionate and loyal friend whose commitment to helping the people she cares about is beyond words. I mean she literally embodies the mates before dates mantra—even when doing so hinders her own plans or happiness.
Though I liked Adnan and thought his friendship with Zara was super sweet, I was a little let down by some of the choices he makes—especially in terms of at his laissez-faire attitude to sharing (or not sharing) need to know info with Zara which was vital to make their relationship believable. Thankfully he does eventually redeem himself later on and owns up to his mistakes—in fact all arguments and disagreements that crop up are handled exceptionally well by the characters. And it was great seeing characters take responsibility and finding solutions to their problems without it resorting to too much drama.
I also really enjoyed exploring Zara’s family relationships, and loved that unlike most YA novels, her parents were just present enough in the narrative to know they existed (and there to support her if necessary) without being too involved to make their inclusion seem unrealistic. I also really liked their positive and rather candid approach to sex (and the ‘sex talk’).
There’s not much else I can say without spoiling the plot but, if you love a good rom-com and are looking for a lighthearted, throughly engaging read with loveable (and wonderfully diverse) characters then I definitely recommend picking this up
Also huge thank you to Readers First and Hot Key Books for the physical copy.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
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