Hannah Orenstein

Named a Best Book of Summer by Glamour, BuzzFeed, Cosmopolitan, and many more! From the author of Playing with Matches, the rollicking tale of a young jewelry shop owner who accidentally leads her Instagram followers to believe that she’s engaged—and then decides to keep up the ruse. Eliza Roth and her sister Sophie co-own a jewelry shop in Brooklyn. One night, after learning of an ex’s engagement, Eliza accidentally posts a photo of herself wearing a diamond ring on that finger to her Instagram account beloved by 100,000 followers. Sales skyrocket, press rolls in, and Eliza learns that her personal life is good for business. So she has a choice: continue the ruse or clear up the misunderstanding. With mounting financial pressure, Eliza sets off to find a fake fiancé. Fellow entrepreneur Blake seems like the perfect match on paper. And in real life he shows promise, too. He would be perfect, if only Eliza didn’t feel also drawn to someone else. But Blake doesn’t know Eliza is “engaged”; Sophie asks Eliza for an impossible sum of money; and Eliza’s lies start to spiral out of control. She can either stay engaged online or fall in love in real life. Written with singular charm and style, Love at First Like is for anyone growing up and settling down in the digital age.

A Novel

Love at First Like

Kasey Montagnat

Zarah Hussain

Sarah Herring

I am surprised I even finished this with how unlikeable the characters were.

Linda Quintanilla

Love at First Like is chaotic romance book to read. There is so much happening at once that you are pulled into different situations. 
You really want to like the book but it was just too much for my taste. I needed a little more organization. 
The character are enjoyable to read for a moment then it get tiresome for awhile. It keeps getting crazier and crazier with the schemes. I prefer taking it step by step, not rushing all at once. It needed more time.
It's is a okay romance story if you are in a mood of chaotic romance. If not, then it is not for you. 
Three stars

Tiffany Engler

I'm not going to lie, I had pretty high hopes for this book. I thought it was going to be super cute and quirky. It was neither of those things. The main character, Eliza, schemes just about everyone she knows. She cons Blake into dating her, knowing that he may eventually propose to her and she can pretend that her fake proposal was with him.

I hate how almost everyone in her life is okay with her scheming people. Especially Blake. Did nobody think about his feelings in all of this?? Eliza didn't even have feelings for Blake. She was hoping that somewhere along the line, she would develop feelings for him. Okay Eliza, you're a bitch and so are all your friends and family.

This book just honestly didn't make any sense to me. I have lowered my rating since my initial rating of three stars. There were some aspects that I liked, which is why I'm giving it a two-star rating instead of a one-star. Raj is the reason this book got two-stars. Eliza does not deserve him.

2/5 Stars

Alicia Haws

⭐️⭐️⭐️
3 STARS

**Special Thanks to Atria Books and the author for generously providing an early review copy in exchange for my honest review.**

     Love at First Like is the story of Eliza, a self-made entrepreneur and co-owner of a local jewelry store. Eliza accidentally posts a fake engagement picture to her Instagram account and in a spur-of-the-moment decision decides that to increase sales at her store, she will plan her own ‘fake’ wedding. Only Eliza doesn’t even have a boyfriend!

First I am going to be clear that the writing was great, and there was nothing wrong with the pacing either. This was an easy read, and a great summertime read.

I’m going to be totally honest, though. The plot and characters just weren’t my favorite. Not so bad that I couldn’t finish reading it, but bad enough to only give it an OK star rating.

The premise is pretty far-fetched and implausible. As you read it only becomes more and more evident that Eliza is absolutely crazy. I mean, she accepts a free wedding ceremony for literally no reason at all! Like….what kind of grown-up actually acts so impulsively like this? 

Eliza makes so many bad decisions that you will be basically screaming at your book. Eliza made me pretty mad…some of these decisions make it really hard to like or root for our heroine.

The most unbelievable part of the whole thing is that everyone in her life doesn’t STOP HER! She is trying to rope this kind, handsome man into proposing to her when she doesn't even really love him, her family/friends go dress shopping with her, and cake tasting, and all of these other normal bridal activities like it’s completely normal and okay for her to SCAM people!

[Overall]
If you like a light and fun summer read, this is definitely the book for you and I highly recommend as the writing was great. If you are more of a deep and emotional kind of reader though, I’m not sure you will like this plot that just gets sillier with each turn of the page. The author had a good idea, and good writing, but ultimately, I found this book underwhelming.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing: 5/5
Content: Mild Language/Sexual Content. Very brief mention of religion.

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Review can be found here at Booked J. 


   As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way.
 

OH, GOSH. This was 100% not what I expected and honestly I'm not sure how I feel about that? I keep going back and forth with my rating. Somethings about Love at First Like annoyed me and made me cringe. BUT, I was never infuriated by it? In-fact, it made it oddly endearing to me. I was infatuated by the entire novel. Moreso than I expected? I'm trying to decide: was Love at First Like a three star read? A four? A five? A NEGATIVE ZERO? A six-hundred and forty-seven? We just don't know. 

Incidentally, you get the impression that our leading lady just doesn't know what she's getting herself into with all the lies and choices and games she plays. We'll get to that in more detail in a minute--I want to focus on Eliza; our main character is flawed. Capitol F. She is messy. She can be unlikable at times. She won't be everyone's cup of tea and neither will Love at First Like for that reason alone. 

You know those characters that make you want to run and hide from these moments of secondhand embarrassment? The very ones you want to reach out and shake some sense into? You just sit there, eyes glued to the pages, thinking, "
  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Stop that! Oh no, baby, what is you doing?
" You catch yourself forgetting that the character isn't real. That you can't send them your advice. That their story is written in ink and placed before you, but you aren't actually a part of it. 

Well, that's kind of how I felt about Eliza's story in general. I was like. Girl. No. Please. STOP. You are a mess! But then I was also like, okay, get a happily ever after, darling girl. So, when I say I have a lot of greatly tangled conflicted emotions about Love at First Like I mean that sincerely and I think that says enough about Hannah Morenstein's ability to tell a story. Any author who can get so many emotions churned out of her readers should be applauded. End comment. 

Look, as someone who has quite literally grown up in the digital age and seen many forms of social media come and go, I felt firmly attached to the use of it in this novel. Orenstein captures what it's like to live online, and offline, in a way that is realistic and not terribly pretty. She does so with a hint of honesty and a lot of humor, which I can appreciate. Something about this novel felt like one of those cringy rom-coms we all secretly enjoy--we've even got a fake engagement plotline, with a twist.

Eliza has this tendency to take things too far. We see it all the time with social media: what others do for clout, for their followers. Hashtag for the 'gram. I'm not necessarily the type of person to scoff at this type of behavior, so a lot of this just added an extra layer to the plot and brought her flaws to the forefront. Social media can bring out many sides of us and Love at First Like has this message strong and in bold print. Which I can get into. Eliza is very much so that type of aspiring influencer who can be frustrating and strives for the perfect online life and appearance. 

As for central story arches go, I feel like there are many good things to be said about Love at First Like. Like its heroine, the story can be flawed and a little overwhelming. I rather liked it that way and found myself completely enamored by it, despite of these things. Love at First Like can be cheesy and embarrassing, fluttery sweet, humourous and steamy; which, in the end, made it much more successful for me. I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more by Orenstein in the future!

Love at First Like A Novel

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