So,
you know you’re really enjoying a book while reading it and then you get a
call. You give the phone the stank eye and see it is your BFF and with a sigh,
you answer it because you just have to, you know. Bestie prattles. And prattles
some more. Then there a kind of silence and you realise you have to say words. And
you don’t know what to say because you haven’t heard anything. You haven’t
heard anything because you’re enveloped in a romantic haze brought on by the
book. And that is when you realise just how immersive that book is and how much
it has burrowed into you.
This
is what happened while reading In Development.
A
fake romance between two celebrities for their own career ends, the premise
does no justice to the book. Nor can a synopsis do any justice. There are a lot
of synopses of the book floating around (including on the back cover) so instead
of revisiting that, we’d like to just deal with the feelings it evoked.
Written
in alternating points-of-view of the two MCs, Lila and Cobie, the books makes
us live every thought and emotion they have. Their reasons for doing what they are
doing, their feeling towards the situation (fauxmance) that they are creating,
their justifications and most importantly their feeling about and towards each
other. This intimate knowledge of each one draws us into their heads totally
and we feel for them as we read about their struggles and their baggage.
Lila
Wilder is a very, very thinly veiled Taylor Swift (most lesbians around the world
are waiting for her to come out as a bisexual – this book could well become a
prophecy instead of just imagination). While both, Lila and Cobie are
well-developed and well-realised characters, Lila stole our hearts. We always
have a softer feeling towards the person who goes out on the limb more and who
takes more chances driven by emotion.
This
is not only one of the best fake romances, it is one of the best romance books,
period.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
