Synopsis:
Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs—in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn.
Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons.
In Theo’s glittering world of pomp, privilege, and crazy rich drama, their romance is supposed to be just pretend . . . but Dylan finds himself falling for Theo. For real. Then Theo’s relatives reveal their true colors—but with the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being sidetracked by rich-people problems.
Can Dylan save his family’s business and follow his heart—or will he fail to do both?
Review:
I’ve finally got around to reading Fake Dates and Mooncakes after it’s been sitting on my Kindle for almost a year. Which, to be fair, is actually pretty quick for me to get around to a book, but it feels like it’s been out way longer.
This book ticks two boxes when it comes to my favourite romance themes; fake dating and food. I love romance books with a food theme and almost every page of this book made me hungry–which is a good thing. I’ve never really tried authentic Chinese Singaporean food but I need to now. It sounds delicious.
I really liked most of the characters, especially Dylan’s family. His aunt and his cousin Megan definitely steal the show as the best characters. It’s a shame his male cousin is kind of forgotten about. I can’t even remember his name which just further proves this point.
A character I wasn’t a huge fan of was Theo. He isn’t a bad guy, but he’s definitely a spoilt rich kid–not in the sense that he’s mean to anyone, just that he’s oblivious about a lot of things like loaning Dylan $10,000 cuff links like they cost pocket change. He does have some redeeming qualities though. You can tell he really cares for Dylan even if this is quite an ‘instalovey’ book.
The fake dating was super fun and I love that it was for a huge family event. I like the suspense of thinking someone is going to find out, that wasn’t hugely present in Fake Dates and Mooncakes though. No one really questioned the relationship so everything was pretty smooth sailing, which is also fine. I love a low stakes romance–I just wish the fake dating happened over a long period of time, not just one weekend.
Fake Dates and Mooncakes was a fairly quick read with sweet romance. The romance wasn’t my favourite part of the book, it was the family bond between Dylan, his aunt and cousins. The romance was cute though, once you get past silly miscommunications and instalove.
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