This Time It's Real

Shivani Prabhu: Ann Liangs This Time its Real is a vibrant young adult romantic comedy with its heart in the right place. When 17-year-old Eliza Lins school essay about her fabricated love life goes viral online, she scrambles under the sudden spotlight and makes a deal with Caz, the charismatic young actor in her class. The pair soon launch into a fake dating scenario that benefits both Elizas writing career and Cazs public image. While the narrative set-upa cheesy romantic essay written for a high school assignment goes viral online, receiving literary acclaim so far as to get a prestigious editor to approach a studentis a little contrived and unconvincing, Liang still charms the reader with her endearing and relatable protagonist. Fiercely independent, achingly self-conscious, and labouring under the belief that there is something fundamentally unloveable about her, Eliza tries to preserve the threads of stable connection and belonging she has in her life, while defensively trying not to connect too deeply to the new people she is surrounded by. Liang skilfully captures the surreal nature of an adolescence impacted by internet fame and the painful reluctance to be vulnerable that romance brings out, as well as creating a grounded sense of home after a childhood untethered to one place. Lovers of Jenny Hans To All the Boys Ive Loved Before will adore this warm and vivacious novel. Shivani Prabhu is a freelance writer and a nonfiction editor for Voiceworks. Books+Publishing is Australias number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Ann Liang is a recent graduate of the University of Melbourne. Born in Beijing, she grew up travelling back and forth between China and Australia, but somehow ended up with an American accent. When she isn’t stressing out over her college assignments or writing, she can be found making over-ambitious to-do lists, binge-watching dramas, and having profound conversations with her pet labradoodle about who’s a good dog.

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