This Is How You Fall In Love

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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. Zara loves love in all forms: 90s romcoms and romance novels and grand sw eeping gestures. And she's desperate to have her own great love story. Crucially, a real one. While both Zara and Adnan insist that will never happen — they’re close friends, that’s it — the tide turns when Adnan needs to cover-up his real girlfriend and begs Zara to pretend they’re an item. How hard can it be? Very, as things turn out. First up, there’s a whole lot of practical issues around how they behave towards each other, and around Adnan’s actual girlfriend. Then there’s jealousy, and the problem of Zara falling for someone for real. With a fun meta-fiction vibe (a romcom about romcom with entertaining romcom twists), the besties-to-couple trope is thrust to the fore from the off: “that’s literally how every YA romcom starts. Boy and girl are besties, they get involved in a fake dating scheme and then BAM they get together for real.” Extra brownie points for the female friendship in this story, between Zara and Sadie. They’re both huge fans of rom-coms and Sadie’s an incredible friend all along. Loved them!

most of all, I fell in love with myself. I embraced that I am who I am, no excuses, and I realised that I don’t need to cater to what everyone else wants for me. I can still be loved by those around me while doing what I want’. This is How You Fall in Love' by Anika Hussain was a delightful read. Adnan and Zara have been best friends since forever. Their families spend Sunday dinners, holidays to Bangladesh and every other major life event together. When Adnan falls for new girl Cami, he stumbles across a big problem - they need to keep their relationship a secret due to Cami's overprotective family. Enter a classic fake dating scenario which challenges the boundaries of Adnan and Zara's relationship. Is the love they feel for each other actually like siblings or something more?One of my favorite things about This is How You Fall in Love was the characters. The main character of this story, Zara, is a Desi teenager, a bookworm, a romantic at heart and a huge fan of rom-coms. I found the way she was depicted realistic as a whole: she makes mistakes, she’s sometimes angry and impulsive, she’s certainly a teenager in all of her glory and, well, that’s a young adult book and I expected it. Most of it all, I loved it. I immediately found myself caring for her and wanting her to have her own happy ending. 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… A hilarious and heartfelt romcom, told with a light touch, perfect for fans of TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE, EXCUSE ME WHILE I UGLY CRY and HANI AND ISHU’S GUIDE TO FAKE DATING. From start to finish it’s hard not to find these two so endearing. Though their actions may have been crazy, they were carried out with good intentions. Problems arise, but welcome to see the importance of being true to yourself and not being over concerned with keeping others happy. He inches closer to me, his forehead pressed against mine, the warmth of his breath beginning to thaw my heart. ‘I need to know, Zara, do you love him?'” – Yahya, This is How You Fall in Love

Though she’s obsessed with romcom novels and movies, Zara has yet to star in her own love story. In the meantime, her life revolves around her beloved Desi family and her best mates - Sadie, who sets about making a documentary film project about love, and Adnan, her best friend since childhood, who everyone thinks would be her ideal leading man, including their parents. This is a group to have fun in. For everyone. Think of others before you post or comment. I'm watching... Always watching... Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!While this book fell flat, I still enjoyed my time reading it and liked how the book ended. I'm definitely excited to see what the author comes out with next. wow! okay i really enjoyed this book. it had such a great flow between the plot and the characters and everything in between. Best friends, fake dating, friends-to-lovers twists and a whopping web of secrets — Anika Hussain’s This is How You Fall in Love has a wonderful Desi girl at its beating heart and reels with romcom entertainment. However, the characters annoyed the HELL out of me. Every single one of them. Especially Adnan and Cami, who, despite asking Zara to do this massive favour for them so they could be together in secret, had the audacity to be mad at her for not doing that quite right. There were parts where I was pretty confused about - like, why couldn't they just hang out without Zara there, especially somewhere not in public? I didn't quite understand all of that. It felt like Cami and Zara were just being pitted against each other for drama's sake and I think it would've been a better message for that not to happen.