The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West | Book Review

Book Review:
The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West

Spoilers?

Yes!

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Title - The Fill-In Boyfriend
By - Kasie West
Publication - May 5th 2015 by HarperTeen
Format - Paperback, 343 pages
Genre - Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

When Gia Montgomery's boyfriend, Bradley, dumps her in the parking lot of her high school prom, she has to think fast. After all, she'd been telling her friends about him for months now. This was supposed to be the night she proved he existed. So when she sees a cute guy waiting to pick up his sister, she enlists his help. The task is simple: be her fill-in boyfriend—two hours, zero commitment, a few white lies. After that, she can win back the real Bradley.

The problem is that days after prom, it's not the real Bradley she's thinking about, but the stand-in. The one whose name she doesn't even know. But tracking him down doesn't mean they're done faking a relationship. Gia owes him a favor and his sister intends to see that he collects: his ex-girlfriend's graduation party—three hours, zero commitment, a few white lies.

Just when Gia begins to wonder if she could turn her fake boyfriend into a real one, Bradley comes waltzing back into her life, exposing her lie, and threatening to destroy her friendships and her new-found relationship.

The Rating :

My Review:

My review in a gif. Which equals 5 stars.

via GIPHY

The Cover:

Although they say never judge a book by it's cover I believe the cover should represent what the book is going to be like or at least some aspect of it.

The photo they used for the cover was perfect. It made me picture the couple as Gia and Hayden. But what I thought made me eek alittle,  was the font. If they used another font maybe it'd be all awesome but I just hated it too much. 

Or no- actually I think it's the font for the artist name that I don't like. Looking at it now I do like the title designs. It’s the artist's name, the font and the green color. No thank you.

The Story:

It's the story of a girl, Gia, who gets dumped at the parking lot when her promise starting. She had already told her friends that her boyfriend was going with her and they had never met him and believed he wasn't real. All because of salty Jules, who spent the duration of Gia and  Bradley's relationship saying that he may not be real. 

Gia's is not boyfriend-less and about to go in and tell her friends that she got dumped but decide to make a total stranger in the parking lot a deal. He has to be her pretend boyfriend, a fill-in Bradley, and she will owe him a favor. One thing leads to the other and she ends up wanting to know more about this fill-in boyfriend.

Relationships:

There weren't that many couples in this book but the ones that were established I appreciated them.

Gia x Bradley

While we don't really know much about Bradley we do know that he is older than her by a few years, a college student. And that they rarely saw each other. Hence why her friends never met him and believed he wasn't real.

Even with that I never found myself feeling sorry for her being dumped by him. And even after we do find out a bit more about him -I didn't much care for him.

Gia x Hayden

They are so cute. He cares so much about her and she likes him so much but with the bundles of lies that were created, not just by her, it was difficult for them to see that they liked each other. All throughout the story I just wanted them to stop playing pretend and just be. That's how much I liked this book couple.

Family Dynamics:

As for Gia’s family.

Gia’s family was so horrible to me. 

Gia was immature and like total popular girl in high school cliche. Her mom was Mrs. perfect who wore makeup all throughout the day and was always dressed up. The dad was always agreeing with whatever mom would say as to not get into fights. Oh! And Mr. Im also so duche was horrible. How in the hell do you make a video making out your younger sister to look bad infront of his peers and post in online. Like what the fu*k.

What was worse is how she would always try to give him another chance to be a better big brother and he would always keep messing with her.

Even if not everyone in the Montgomery home changed, at least Gia became aware of how she acted. She started being more kind to people and not bossy to her friends like she used to. So this is good.

As for Hayden’s Family

We didn't see much of his dad but we did meet his mom. She's an artist and she's amazing at it. She gives great advice and is nice. You see how her being like that made Hayden and Bec the way they are. This was even a conversation between Gia and Hayden where he said he wasn't like his dad or his mom, that he was a bit of both. 

Settings:

Some of the paces I liked and would love to be around is the beach. I just liked the way it was described in the scenes that took place there. 

I think I also would like to go to old man’s house and smash some car windows. That is such a great way to release anger and stress that when I was reading this I was cheering them on. 

Is that weird?

Overall:

Okay, so, at one point I just wanted to toss the book across the room of trough a window, but I'm glad I did not. Well I didn't because it want my book and the feelings were internal but you get what I mean.

I hated Gia’s family and Jules was a horrible human being and biggest manipulator ever. All the time I was wishing Gia would just confront her head on, but I'm glad she didn't. Mostly because if her friends were so easy to go convince that they should go against her, then they weren't really friends.

I loved the natural progression of Gia and Hayden’s story. It had it's ups and downs but they liked each other a lot. I was glad they talked it out and believed in the other despite the world being against them. 

I'm also glad that Bec tricked them in the end. She's such a good cupid. And she was so awesome. Hands down my favorite side-character in this book.

I’ve read a couple of books between this one and now so I barely remember what I was going to say about it. Maybe I’ll remember and do an update.

Get a copy at:
Amazon US  |  Book Depository

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