Title: Like a Love Song

Author: Gabriela Martins

Pub. Date: August 3, 2021

Pages: 304

Pub: Underlined/Delacorte

Genre: LGBT YA Contemporary Romance

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Goodreads

This debut paperback original romance follows a Latina teen pop star whose image takes a dive after a messy public breakup, until she’s set up with a swoon-worthy fake boyfriend.

Fake boyfriend. Real heartbreak?

Natalie is living her dream: topping the charts and setting records as a Brazilian pop star…until she’s dumped spectacularly on live television. Not only is it humiliating—it could end her career.

Her PR team’s desperate plan? A gorgeous yet oh-so-fake boyfriend. Nati reluctantly agrees, but William is not what she expected. She was hoping for a fierce bad boy—not a soft-hearted British indie film star. While she fights her way back to the top with a sweet and surprisingly swoon-worthy boy on her arm, she starts to fall for William—and realizes that maybe she’s the biggest fake of them all. Can she reclaim her voice and her heart?

This will be a spoiler free review. I read the paperback in one sitting while lying on the beach. This was a perfect, fun, easy and quick beach read and I loved it.

It was so adorable. I inhaled this book. I think I only stopped reading so I could run up to the house and get another drink. The plot kind of reminded me of Disney Channel’s “Starstruck” and for that, I loved it. But I’ll be honest, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

Though, to be fair, I spent like 7.5 months building this book up in my head and anxiously anticipating it. So, I skewed my own expectations. But I also would have loved for the book to be just a little bit longer.

I would have loved to spend some more time learning the characters, getting to know them. While I appreciated the quick pace which made it a quick read, I just wanted more. I love fake dating/contractual dating and where it always leads. This was so great in that regard, I just wanted more. I wanted more cute moments, more of the harder moments. More of the internal reflecting moments. Yes, it was a quick read, but that meant everything happens very fast.

As for the characters – I loved Nati and William. I thought they were fantastic characters with their own dramas and issues, and they felt real. I love their reasons for doing what they do and how they handle the worlds they want to be a part of. Their soft moments are adorable, and I love that when they’re being themselves, they’re so compatible. I also love that they have hard moments, really tough ones where they have to look inward and figure out what they want.

This book might be on the shorter side, but Martins tells a story about figuring out who you want to be, and what you want out of life. I can’t wait to see what she writes next, and I recommend picking this book up if you haven’t already. If you want a contemporary romance that’s on the lighter, fluffier side, but also touches on some bigger themes, then you should definitely check this out!