No review for first read in 2020. 

2022 re-read:

I remember why I didn't rate this the first time I read it. McFarlane is such a difficult author for me to rate because even when I have so many gripes with her books, I inhale them. 

I really like the fundamental romance of this book. I like Jamie and Laurie together. I love the drama of fake dating, and Laurie's journey to trust herself and find the confidence to self-advocate. The misogyny in the workplace is infuriating in a good way, in that it incites the perfect level of justified rage, and Dan's whole thing does too.

BUT 😂 There are just so many things that bother me in here. The way McFarlane wrote Laurie was very 'white-feminist-trying-to-write-black-female-lead-using-instagram-slide-notes-on-microagressions-and-missing-the-mark'. Ultimately not an expert, I'm white, but some of the bits that were supposed to read as woke were then immediately undermined by a microagression. It was kind of weird. Like Laurie's hairdresser commenting on her skin, or her friend asking to feel her hair, and those things were just okay (in fact Laurie was totally fine with them, no qualms?). Not ill-intended, but embarassingly missing the mark. Happened a few times throughout. And there were other small things that bothered me (a defense lawyer brushing off making mistakes at work? You're human, mistakes happen, but it is also a person's life you are impacting. The guys were so in the wrong for calling her out on it the way they did, but do I believe Laurie wouldn't feel at least a little bad about it? No). 

If you asked me why I love this author, I genuinely couldn't say. Her books entertain and exasperate me, sometimes in equal measure like this one.