The Fill-In Boyfriend

Kasie West introduces us to the conflict of this book straight away by showing the breakup between Gia and Bradley. She also presents another conflict in the friend group because a newly indoctrinated person has now begun poisoning her friends against her, using the fact that they have never met her boyfriend to try and claim that he doesn't exist. He breaks up with her outside her prom, which is when we learn more about him and her, namely that he is twenty-one years old and she is seventeen. Not wanting to let Jules make even more of a mockery of her she goes up to the first person around her age she sees and asks him to be her date. He agrees after much back and forth (which, there being no repercussions for him if they're found out, isn't that unrealistic) and he goes to change and this is the start of her confrontation with her relationship which Bradley. How it was never as good as she thought, and how they were happy, not in love (or even at a point where they had strong feelings for each other).

He's only in the area because his sister is going to the same prom and he says that she will be cool with what is going on. However, after she realises what is happening they realise that she isn't at all cool about it (especially since she seems to know of Gia from somewhere else) and they stage a quick breakup, where he acts like he was cheating, and then they go their separate ways, with Gia feeling worse from this 'breakup' than she did when Bradley broke up with her.

While Gia is trying to get in contact with fake Bradley through his sister (a person called Bec who had intentionally made herself unrecognisable on prom night) we learn about the reason that Bec doesn't like her. It is because while she wasn't an active bully to her friends, she was a passive one, not stopping her other friends when they did things, and even sometimes laughing along. This is a pretty fair reason for you to not want your sibling in contact with someone, and I think that Bec's response is perfectly reasonable, even if I don't like it because it goes against the main character.

Gia's friendship with Claire is obviously a lot stronger than with the other girls, but with Jules digging her claws into them all, and the fact that Gia is keeping secrets from her (like the fact that her boyfriend broke up with her just before prom and the person she came with was a stand-in) only pushes the narrative that a wedge is going to be driven between them once Bradley eventually reveals what actually happened and that she lied. Gia, however, doesn't view this secret as much of a big deal, and was even going to tell Claire about what happened but only didn't because she was interrupted by a text to Claire from Jules and Laney. Although it isn't viewed as a big deal to her, the fact that Claire is already receiving poisonous words from Jules, combined with the fact that she had started to believe those words (the relief on her face once she realised that Gia actually came to prom with her boyfriend that Jules claimed was made up) only further shows the disconnect starting to be sown between the two.

What I really liked about Gia's behaviour here was that even while lying about how she broke up with her boyfriend, she still was able to tell mostly the truth about what she was doing. For example, instead of saying that she was going on a 'date' with fake Bradley because she owed him, she said that his sister, Bec, set them up on a blind date. It is a lie, but it is one where there isn't going to be any chance of failure and massive betrayal-like feelings like if she had just told them that she was visiting a friend, or her brother or something. Lies that are based on a lot of truth hurt fewer people, and also have a higher chance of being kept as secrets.

Bec was deciding between two different options, and those were whether Eve, Hayden's (fake Bradley) ex-girlfriend, wants him back, or is trying to show off in front of him and hope that we will be jealous. When they get there it turns out to be the second option, as she is dating his former best friend of many years, which is what causes the change from him maybe wanting to get back together with her, to using her as his fake girlfriend. Although with everything she feels when he is doing that, and how Hayden comments on how good at acting she is, it is clear that she has already started to develop feelings for him, even though it doesn't look like (from an outside perspective at least) he has the same feelings as of yet.

After making Hayden jealous and seeing that one of his friends was someone who she knew to be previously rude she doesn't tell him, but they do leave shortly after. When they get to his house she sees just how different his family dynamic is from hers, and comes to the conclusion - after she arrives home - that maybe her family isn't as perfect as she had previously thought it. This is attributed by me to a difference in what she viewed as a perfect family, versus what she got. She realises after only a few minutes with Bec, Bradley and their mother that she likes the openness they have and the light teasing that happens between each of them. Things like telling their mother about the plan and the fake date, which is something that she could never consider doing with her parents, but is something that she'd like.

Jules, ever the one to cause as much drama as possible, while they are getting taught by a pro surfer, starts planting even more seeds in her friend's heads. Insisting that Gia was flirting with Claire's boyfriend, Tyler, Claire doesn't even deny it and instead just insists that 'it is nothing' which obviously means that she was convinced that Gia was flirting with her partner.

Drew, her brother, wins an award but since he is three hours away he doesn't want any of them to come down, and instead of insisting on going, his parents just obey and even after she asks, is shut down quickly by her mother. Hayden, after hearing this, offers to take her down and although she first rejects it, eventually comes around and accepts his generosity. His presentation shows her a lot, and her talks about her social media. How society nowadays is addicted to social media and I would have to wholeheartedly disagree with his assessment.

There are studies that show the increase in self-harm, suicide, and mental health issues as social media rose, but that shows correlation, not causation. What is more interesting to look at is how much the internet and social media has helped people to first realise that maybe something isn't quite right in their mind, or that they aren't alone in their thoughts, no matter how much it will sometimes feel like they are. The internet and social media, in my opinion, something that gave light to a lot of mental health issues, and just like the people who argue that violent games cause violence, these people are arguing that mental health issues are caused by social media when I'm sure the difference is only in openness and diagnosis.

Gia believes that what he is saying is the truth, but from what we have seen of her in this book, she doesn't focus on social media and real life, things like college, friends, and relationships, are much more her focus. So while she might attribute a little too much of her self-worth to social media, she isn't someone who relies on social media, or at least that is what we have seen up to this point.

Their relationship slowly starts to grow, and they are even getting close to expressing their feelings for each other when one of Hayden's friends, Spencer, who he had told somewhat of their arrangement thinks that she is some sort of hooker and offers her money in exchange for being his date to an event to try and make his ex jealous.

She is of course appalled, and once she sees Hayden laughing along with Eve, and Spencer says to her that she helped them get back together she leaves in tears. Hayden comes and finds her, but instead of taking in her side of the story and comforting her, he believes Spencer because he says she has a history of lying (referencing the first time they met when he pretended to be Hayden which just isn't fair at all considering he was also lying at that moment as much as she was. And he continued lying to try and make Eve jealous after that). He also argues that his story fits better, which is just mightily hypocritical as he had no problem lying until it started to affect his friendships. She leaves without him and called her dad to come and pick her up and once she is in the car she breaks down, and it is revealed that her dad is much more sympathetic than he had seemed before (this was hinted at when she asked about going to her brother's presentation and he was considering it, but only rejecting it because his wife said she didn't want to).

Drew comes along, when she is just starting to realise things about herself that she never knew, and brings along Bradley. Real Bradley, in front of all the girls and they find out that she had been lying to them the whole time. Claire and Laney leave instantly, and it is revealed that Jules's whole goal was to get Claire away from Gia because she thought she deserved better. This seems like she was just trying to do the right thing because she suspected Gia of lying until you realise that she was trying to separate them before she had even started lying to them. This context changes things and means that she isn't a saint like she tries to portray herself to be, and is actually someone worse than Gia. Additionally, Gia only started lying because of Jules's pressure. I'm not saying that this is an excuse for lying for such a long time, but Jules acts like she did something good when she was the driving force behind all Gia's actions even if she overall did have control over what she did and the fact that she lied.

Because the drama was so close to the end of this book the finale felt abrupt. It felt like there was more needed to expand on everything and clean up some of the things that had happened. Obviously, not everything needs to be cleared up and some things can be left up to the reader's imagination, but it felt like too many things were left up to the reader to decide. Questions like, are Claire and Gia going to make up? Are Jules's intentional sabotages going to ruin her friendship with Claire? How does Laney feel in all his? What is Hayden's dad like? How long is Gia's mother going to be able to retain her emotional openness?

All these questions, and more, were left unanswered and I think at least half of the ones listed there could have been easily answered if the ending was further away from the final bit of drama. And also, the drama was revealed on the back of the book in the blurb so we knew it was going to happen but for it to happen only a few pages before the ending of the book was a really weird oversight. It felt like everything was just being dumped onto us and then we were supposed to be happy adding our own spin to the rest.

Overall I did like this book, and the character growth shown by Gia was amazing. Hayden's character growth was basic as hell, and Claire, Laney and Jules didn't have one. That didn't mean that the book didn't have a lot of ups in it though and I would definitely recommend this book If you're interested in the YA-Romance genre.

7.8/10