Review: The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

⭐⭐💫 2.5 stars | Fake relationships are one of my favorite romance tropes so when I saw the description for The Dating Plan, I jumped at the chance to read it. Daisy Patel is a software engineer who has a plan for her life and it doesn't include getting married or falling in love, much to the unhappiness of her family. So she comes up with a plan to ask Liam Murphy, her childhood crush, to be her fake fiance. He benefits from the arrangement too because his inheritance is contingent on being married plus he's always wanted to reconnect with Daisy after he broke her heart as teenagers. Soon the fake dates they go on to make their relationship seem real.. start to feel real to them as well. But are they willing to admit that to themselves?

I thought the book had a strong start. As someone who was in the tech start-up world for a long time, a lot of those little details surrounding Daisy's job (and even Liam's to a certain extent) resonated with me. Not to mention, their meet-cute was truly hilarious. The dynamic between them were definitely there and I did find myself pretty amused at a handful of moments. But the book and story just progressively waned and even dragged at some points, which was surprising given that it's a short book. It felt very superficial and never dug too deep with character development. Instead the author chose to emphasize just certain aspects of their personalities like Daisy being a nerd or Liam having a past. It made them caricatures instead of fully-realized characters. And if can't connect to at least one of the protagonists, it makes it difficult to connect to the romance and story overall. 

Do I recommend? I think there are better fake relationship books out there if you also enjoy that trope. I ended up giving this 2.5 stars which for me translates to as just "okay" and ultimately forgettable.

***

pub 3/16/21 by Berkley Books

Adult - Contemporary Romance

Received e-ARC from pub for review

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