Books › The upside of falling
The upside of falling
281 pages
A sweet, trope-tastic high school romance that melts guarded hearts with cozy fake-dating antics.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like wrapping yourself in a warm, familiar blanket on a rainy afternoon. It delivers the quintessential fake-dating experience with a brisk, breezy pace that makes it incredibly easy to devour in a single sitting. The dual perspectives offer a tender look at two teens hiding behind different masks, one of cynical detachment and the other of flawless perfection. While the atmosphere is overwhelmingly sweet and swoony, gentle undercurrents of family angst and the fear of abandonment give the romance a grounding emotional weight. The prose is straightforward and dialogue-driven, keeping the focus squarely on the characters' blossoming connection. It is a perfect comfort read for anyone who delights in watching the line between pretend and reality slowly, inevitably blur.
- Mood
- cozy
- swoony
- tender
- lighthearted
- Tone
- earnest
- sweet
- hopeful
- gentle
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- fake dating to real feelings · healing from family trauma · the pressure of perfection · learning to trust · vulnerability
- The writing
- Accessible, dialogue-heavy, and breezy, focusing closely on the internal emotional shifts of the dual narrators.
- The arc
- Moves from guarded skepticism and performative perfection to genuine vulnerability and open-hearted trust.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave sweet, low-stakes YA romances with classic tropes and just enough family angst to ground the swoon.
Content notes
- parental abandonment
- divorce
About the book
It’s been years since seventeen-year-old Becca Hart believed in true love. But when her former best friend teases her for not having a boyfriend, Becca impulsively pretends she’s been secretly seeing someone.
Brett Wells has it all. Being captain of the football team and one of the most popular guys in school, he should have no problem finding someone to date, but he’s always been more focused on his future than who to bring to prom. When he overhears Becca’s lie, Brett decides to step in and be her mystery guy. It’s the perfect solution: he gets people off his back for not dating and she can keep up the ruse.
Acting like the perfect couple isn’t easy though, especially when you barely know the other person. But with Becca still picking up the pieces from when her world was blown apart years ago and Brett just barely holding his together now, they begin to realize they have more in common than they ever could have imagined. When the line between real and pretend begins to blur, they are forced to answer the question: is this fake romance the realest thing in either of their lives?
Description from Open Library.
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