Thank you to Afterglow Books and NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for my honest thoughts. 

The (Fake) Dating Game has the fun, wholesome vibes that I've come to expect from Timothy Janovsky while simultaneously surprising me with how spicy it was in comparison to his previous works. The game show aspect was very unique, but I found myself wanting more of it. The romance, though fake-dating lite, was what kept me reading. I wanted to know what came next for Holden and Leo as they inevitably fell for each other. Was it insta-love? Yes. Was it still delightful? Yes. 

This book had me crying into my pillow. The depiction of grief, especially as the book went on, was so hard-hitting. It shows us that grief doesn't start and end during the immediate aftermath of loss. Grief sticks with us years down the line when our dreams are coming true, when the person we're becoming isn't the person we thought we would be. Janovsky pulled me in to Holden's buried grief until I couldn't stop the tears from falling. 

What I've loved about Janovsky's previous works was that he wasn't afraid to make his characters unlikable. I think because of that Holden felt flat to me. His character growth wasn't satisfying enough to me. I could relate to his grief, but he read like any other twenty-something struggling in the post-grad x paying off student loan debt era of their life.