You could expect my delight when I saw that Hannah was releasing a second book, "Love At First Like" and the premise was centered around social media and fake engagement, I was thrilled. Once we saw a real-life social media engagement play out, I was even more excited for the book. Luckily, I was able to score it on NetGalley and read it before it was released last week.
I have to say, I liked "Love AT First Like" even more than "Playing With Matches" -- clearly, I can't wait for Hannah's third book next summer!
Publisher's Summary:
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.
My Thoughts
Lately, I have been completely fascinated by the jewelry world. I follow a bunch of jewelers on Instagram and dream about owning fancy, expensive jewelry -- or even just being in the jewelry world in some aspect, professionally.
Eliza and her store "Brooklyn Jewels" made me long for that world even more! You would think Hannah was a jeweler herself the way she described Eliza's life, career, and the jewelry she sold. It was so descriptive and specific, you felt really emerged into that world.
The real turning point in the novel comes when Eliza accidentally posts herself wearing an engagement ring on her Instagram, and business starts booming. The charade that Eliza has to keep up is anxiety-inducing, nerve-wracking, and insane. You start to wonder how this would ever play out in real life and how you yourself would react if something like this happened... or maybe it's just me who felt like that.
Throughout the book, I started to come up with predictions of how this would play out but quite frankly, what I expected to happen did not happen, and I was pretty ok with that. I liked not knowing how everything was going to turn out for Eliza and Blake -- it kept things interesting and kept me interested in the story.
I won't give too much away but you're kept guessing and hoping until the very end for Eliza to get what she wants and deserves... it's such a sweet, interesting story with the backdrop of career, love, and social media.
Hannah's writing completely jumps off the page and you could tell how much she has grown from her first novel. Each character is developed, the plot is near perfect, and truly interesting. It might be because I'm from New York, in tune with social media, and love romantic comedies but I couldn't get enough of the book and never wanted it to end. For some reason, I also got emotional during it and I'm not sure why.
If you need an easy read that is interesting, modern, and well put together you will totally love "Love At First Like." I feel as if it's a story all young people could relate to in some way or another.
xoxo
B
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