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Fake Like Me
This "impressively intelligent thriller," a finalist for the 2020 Edgar Best Novel Award, follows a young painter who tracks the mysterious life and death of her role model. After a fire rips through her loft, destroying the seven billboard-size paintings meant for her first major exhibition, a young painter is left with an impossible recreate the lost artworks in just three months without getting caught -- or ruin her fledgling career. Homeless and desperate, she begs her way into Pine City, an exclusive retreat in upstate New York notorious for three outrageous revelries, glamorous artists, and the sparkling black lake where brilliant prodigy Carey Logan drowned herself. Taking up residence in Carey's former studio, the painter works with obsessive, delirious focus. But when she begins to uncover strange secrets at Pine City and falls hard for Carey's mysterious boyfriend, a single thought shadows her every What really happened to Carey Logan?
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 18, 2019
177 people are currently reading
5821 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Bourland
4 books276 followersBarbara Bourland is the award-winning author of three novels, most recently The Force of Such Beauty and Fake Like Me. A finalist for the 2020 Edgar Best Novel Award and the recipient of a 2022 Independent Artist’s Award from the Maryland State Arts Council, her writing has been translated into Japanese, German, Hebrew, and Mandarin. She is at work on her fourth novel, Fields and Waves, forthcoming from Dutton. She lives in Baltimore.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 293 reviews
October 16, 2022
3.5 stars rounded to 4
I'll admit, I'm less than knowledgable about anything involving the art scene. I am not cool, hip, or in the know about much these days other than Peppa Pig and Blippi, but it was nice to delve into an "adult" story that did not feature talking pigs or a grown man wearing clothes that appear to fit a toddler. This story is also being touted as a thriller, which I guess it is in some ways, but I would classify this more as a literary thriller, or a dramatic, thought provoking crime fiction. That's not a criticism, merely a heads up to those looking for a more classic thriller.
Where to start? This glitzy, sleek story is told in such a unique format; we do not learn the official name of out narrator, who gives off an unstable vibe from the very beginning, and I honestly found this so fascinating. I was intrigued to know what drove this character, what brought her to the art scene, and how someone could so seamlessly slip into the lifestyle of another person. Like I said, this is really more of a dark character study than a thriller, but there's enough of a vein of suspense that keeps the reader hooked and intrigued throughout. I found that once our nameless girl makes it to the art retreat Pine City, that the pacing really picked up and I found myself fully invested.
I don't want to say much more, but if you decide to read this one, and want to discuss in greater detail (AKA SPOILERS), we would love to have you join our Goodreads bookclub HERE!
*I was provided a finished copy of this book for review via the publisher; all thoughts are my own.
I'll admit, I'm less than knowledgable about anything involving the art scene. I am not cool, hip, or in the know about much these days other than Peppa Pig and Blippi, but it was nice to delve into an "adult" story that did not feature talking pigs or a grown man wearing clothes that appear to fit a toddler. This story is also being touted as a thriller, which I guess it is in some ways, but I would classify this more as a literary thriller, or a dramatic, thought provoking crime fiction. That's not a criticism, merely a heads up to those looking for a more classic thriller.
Where to start? This glitzy, sleek story is told in such a unique format; we do not learn the official name of out narrator, who gives off an unstable vibe from the very beginning, and I honestly found this so fascinating. I was intrigued to know what drove this character, what brought her to the art scene, and how someone could so seamlessly slip into the lifestyle of another person. Like I said, this is really more of a dark character study than a thriller, but there's enough of a vein of suspense that keeps the reader hooked and intrigued throughout. I found that once our nameless girl makes it to the art retreat Pine City, that the pacing really picked up and I found myself fully invested.
I don't want to say much more, but if you decide to read this one, and want to discuss in greater detail (AKA SPOILERS), we would love to have you join our Goodreads bookclub HERE!
*I was provided a finished copy of this book for review via the publisher; all thoughts are my own.
August 15, 2019
She met her when she was nineteen, a fledging art student meeting Carey Logan, an artist part of a collective called Pine City. She admired her strange work, her notoriety, Carey was the in artist, Pine City the in group. Then she hears that Carey had stopped creating, turning instead to performance art, and then kills herself. Why did this happen? Our no name artist wants to know, wants to know obsessively. In time she gets her chance, after experiencing a tragedy of her own, and what she finds is so much more than she expected.
The avant garde art scene, I find it fascinating and something I will never personally experience. Those who create for their livlihood where so few actually make it. This is a study of those creators, but also of a young artist struggling for her own future and becoming enveloped in something she never expected. This is in parts strange, part mystery and part revelation. Our unnamed young artists backstory helps explain her insecurity and her intense quest for her own artistical recognition but also
her own search for self. It takes us deep inside the strange world of the rich and famous, of friendships that form and cement the participants in a course of action that could lose them everything they worked for. It was quite good, but felt the ending was the weakest part of the story. It did though, show us where our young artists future may possibly lie.
ARC from Netgalley.
The avant garde art scene, I find it fascinating and something I will never personally experience. Those who create for their livlihood where so few actually make it. This is a study of those creators, but also of a young artist struggling for her own future and becoming enveloped in something she never expected. This is in parts strange, part mystery and part revelation. Our unnamed young artists backstory helps explain her insecurity and her intense quest for her own artistical recognition but also
her own search for self. It takes us deep inside the strange world of the rich and famous, of friendships that form and cement the participants in a course of action that could lose them everything they worked for. It was quite good, but felt the ending was the weakest part of the story. It did though, show us where our young artists future may possibly lie.
ARC from Netgalley.
July 2, 2019
You've got to admit that Humpty Dumpty was a piece of art. Well, then you can admit that this poor piece of art committed suicide by falling of the wall. And so it was again in Fake Like Me, except that this time it wasn't Humpty Dumpty ...
Franz Kafka said:“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
Was Fake Like Me one of those books? Nope. Mediocre in its intent to promote radical feminism with all the narrative safely and securely established as the main intent/purpose of the saga. But yes, the idea is a popular trend, actually, a small percentage in the big world out there, and yes, it has its moments. But no, it did not rock my world at all.
I actually enjoyed the book. An easy read, with a touch of mystery and sleuthing going on. The bouts of word dumping, like a bad cold, got to me from time to time, but was tolerable. I loved the author's way with words. This paragraph gave me the wordy thrills: It was almost a shrieking—I heard it all so quickly. Wind battered the trees; birds screamed at each other. Cicadas rattled their exoskeletal cages like a jailed Christmas choir, and somewhere behind me, the vast, empty lake beat against its rocky shore. The outside world shrank and fell off the edges, like a twig going over a waterfall, and I had the sudden sensation of total solitude. These were the deafening sounds of human absence.
For the wordsmithery a star is added to the rating. I'm in a good mood.
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Franz Kafka said:“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
Was Fake Like Me one of those books? Nope. Mediocre in its intent to promote radical feminism with all the narrative safely and securely established as the main intent/purpose of the saga. But yes, the idea is a popular trend, actually, a small percentage in the big world out there, and yes, it has its moments. But no, it did not rock my world at all.
... You represent women. You shouldn’t route the trafficking of our identity politics through some gaudy money dump that only exists as decoration for the world’s richest people,” I insisted. ...Our anonymous narrator and protagonist lost her paintings and had to suck up to her super rich and influential 'friends'in the art world to save her budding reputation and lucrative income. While receiving their assistance in unimaginable ways, she constantly attacked them for being privileged. That was a kind-of deal-breaker to me. But alas, she persisted and she came up trumps in the end.
...For the first time in my life, I had buckets of money, and I put every cent into Rich Ugly Old Maids, the show that I was making for Milot. I spent the next two years on seven paintings: Humility, Obedience, Chastity, Modesty, Temperance, Purity, and Prudence. ...
... They were an exorcism of the words that named them, from the guilt that had dogged me through years of wondering how I was supposed to be a person who pursued only her own interests, who was never aligned, who was never part of a family, who did not wake up every day ashamed of herself for being childless and alone. I was not pure of heart, chaste of body, obedient to authority, humble before others, prudent in my actions, temperate in my behavior, or modest in my appearance—and I no longer felt bad about it. I was free from the burden of being only a girl. I had become an old maid, a woman of my own, a master of my medium. They were my crowning glory. And all seven of them were in my loft on the day it burned to the ground.
I actually enjoyed the book. An easy read, with a touch of mystery and sleuthing going on. The bouts of word dumping, like a bad cold, got to me from time to time, but was tolerable. I loved the author's way with words. This paragraph gave me the wordy thrills: It was almost a shrieking—I heard it all so quickly. Wind battered the trees; birds screamed at each other. Cicadas rattled their exoskeletal cages like a jailed Christmas choir, and somewhere behind me, the vast, empty lake beat against its rocky shore. The outside world shrank and fell off the edges, like a twig going over a waterfall, and I had the sudden sensation of total solitude. These were the deafening sounds of human absence.
For the wordsmithery a star is added to the rating. I'm in a good mood.
More discussions can be viewed in this group
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/.... Join and enjoy.
July 11, 2019
(4.5) A no-name painter – 'no-name' as in 'not famous', but also literally, as she remains nameless throughout the book – is on the verge of a career breakthrough. She is nearing completion of her series Rich Ugly Old Maids, a set of large-scale oil paintings loosely based on the seven virtues. Then the loft in which she has been living and working burns down. Her insurance won't be paid out, because she wasn't supposed to be living there; her management still expects the show to be delivered on schedule, as she'd claimed the finished works were in secure storage. As she sees it, there's only one way out. She has to recreate the work, via the single item she managed to salvage: a notebook containing meticulous notes on the process used to create each painting.
In the background of all this, there's another important character: Carey Logan, the narrator's hero. Until she killed herself at the age of 37, Logan, a sculptor and performance artist, was an art industry darling. She was the most famous member of a five-person collective, Pine City; the group went on to establish a residency of the same name in upstate New York. As the narrator secures a place at Pine City and gets to know Logan's collaborators, the parallels between the two women become worryingly clear.
Every turn of Fake Like Me is remarkably well handled. There's a sense that the narrator is stepping into Carey Logan's shoes, but she doesn't lose her identity, and her own art never ceases to be important. Her surroundings, from the fashionably ramshackle Pine City to her wealthy friend Max's astonishing modernist home, easily spring to life in the mind's eye. As do her paintings. I had guessed the twist well ahead of its reveal, but I didn't care. I think that's the best way to do a twist, really: it doesn't matter that it's reasonably obvious to the reader, because it's still immensely satisfying to watch everything (finally) click into place for the narrator.
Smart and authentic and incredibly gripping, Fake Like Me isn't just a step up from Bourland's debut, I'll Eat When I'm Dead; it's several flights of stairs up. The narrator and her art are utterly believable creations. If you enjoyed What I Loved, The Strays or The Ecliptic, I urge you to add this to your wishlist. It's a literary art novel laced with enough elements of the psychological thriller to make it feel taut and compulsive – a brilliant concoction.
I received an advance review copy of Fake Like Me from the publisher through NetGalley.
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In the background of all this, there's another important character: Carey Logan, the narrator's hero. Until she killed herself at the age of 37, Logan, a sculptor and performance artist, was an art industry darling. She was the most famous member of a five-person collective, Pine City; the group went on to establish a residency of the same name in upstate New York. As the narrator secures a place at Pine City and gets to know Logan's collaborators, the parallels between the two women become worryingly clear.
Every turn of Fake Like Me is remarkably well handled. There's a sense that the narrator is stepping into Carey Logan's shoes, but she doesn't lose her identity, and her own art never ceases to be important. Her surroundings, from the fashionably ramshackle Pine City to her wealthy friend Max's astonishing modernist home, easily spring to life in the mind's eye. As do her paintings. I had guessed the twist well ahead of its reveal, but I didn't care. I think that's the best way to do a twist, really: it doesn't matter that it's reasonably obvious to the reader, because it's still immensely satisfying to watch everything (finally) click into place for the narrator.
Smart and authentic and incredibly gripping, Fake Like Me isn't just a step up from Bourland's debut, I'll Eat When I'm Dead; it's several flights of stairs up. The narrator and her art are utterly believable creations. If you enjoyed What I Loved, The Strays or The Ecliptic, I urge you to add this to your wishlist. It's a literary art novel laced with enough elements of the psychological thriller to make it feel taut and compulsive – a brilliant concoction.
I received an advance review copy of Fake Like Me from the publisher through NetGalley.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
June 19, 2019
It's 1996 and the unnamed narrator of this story is a fledgling artist from Florida, currently a sophomore at the Academy in NYC, and feeling pretty lonely in the big city. One day she notices a group of five young and beautiful artists who are 'making it' in the art scene. Three of them have graduated from the same art school she's attending and all are becoming well known for their nihilistic and shrewd work, rather all of a type. But it is a young woman of the group named Carey Logan who is the hottest of them all with her hyperrealist sculptures of human body parts.
Oh, how our narrator would love to be just like her and be part of that group now known as Pine City. They form an exclusive artist collective by that name, moving into an old resort in upper New York state, where each has their own studio and other artists are allowed to come by invitation only.
Fast forward to 2006 and Carey has stopped working in sculpture and taken up performance art. The reviews are not kind and Carey does one last performance in which she commits suicide on film.
Now three more years have passed and our unnamed artist is making a bit of a splash herself with her billboard-sized paintings when disaster strikes and her loft burns with most of her work inside. She lies to the gallery owner who is selling her work about the extent of her loss and now she must quickly repaint several works for her upcoming show. It's an impossible, super human task and where can she find a studio big enough to hold her work at this late date? One art patron she meets comes to her rescue and says she can get her a spot at Pine City. Wow! Her dream is finally coming true.
The remaining four Pine City artists are not particularly welcoming at first. And she finds it odd that none of them will talk about Carey at all, even though her work still obviously influences theirs. Is there more going on here than meets the eye?
I enjoyed the story but I don't think it's going to be everyone's cup of tea. I think you have to be very interested in art and enjoy reading the details of the creative process. The minutia does slow the story done a bit but I think the pace does make sense. It gives the reader an understanding of all the work this artist must go through to recreate her paintings and save her career. Desperate times.
I had at first marked this as a 'thriller' but it is not. The touch of mystery is very light but rather interesting when you finally learn what's going on at Pine City. I think the story is much more about relationships and how people use other people.
I received an arc from the publisher via NetGalley for my honest review. Many thanks.
Oh, how our narrator would love to be just like her and be part of that group now known as Pine City. They form an exclusive artist collective by that name, moving into an old resort in upper New York state, where each has their own studio and other artists are allowed to come by invitation only.
Fast forward to 2006 and Carey has stopped working in sculpture and taken up performance art. The reviews are not kind and Carey does one last performance in which she commits suicide on film.
Now three more years have passed and our unnamed artist is making a bit of a splash herself with her billboard-sized paintings when disaster strikes and her loft burns with most of her work inside. She lies to the gallery owner who is selling her work about the extent of her loss and now she must quickly repaint several works for her upcoming show. It's an impossible, super human task and where can she find a studio big enough to hold her work at this late date? One art patron she meets comes to her rescue and says she can get her a spot at Pine City. Wow! Her dream is finally coming true.
The remaining four Pine City artists are not particularly welcoming at first. And she finds it odd that none of them will talk about Carey at all, even though her work still obviously influences theirs. Is there more going on here than meets the eye?
I enjoyed the story but I don't think it's going to be everyone's cup of tea. I think you have to be very interested in art and enjoy reading the details of the creative process. The minutia does slow the story done a bit but I think the pace does make sense. It gives the reader an understanding of all the work this artist must go through to recreate her paintings and save her career. Desperate times.
I had at first marked this as a 'thriller' but it is not. The touch of mystery is very light but rather interesting when you finally learn what's going on at Pine City. I think the story is much more about relationships and how people use other people.
I received an arc from the publisher via NetGalley for my honest review. Many thanks.
March 4, 2020
A No-Name (literally and figuratively) young female painter develops a fan-girl crush on Carey Logan, the most visible and successful member of an art collective known as Pine City, who all graduated from No-Name’s art school about six to ten years ahead of her. That crush-torch is carried from a distance for 15 years, during which time Carey Logan commits suicide. Then No-Name’s studio burns, along with six paintings she’s promised for an upcoming show. A lucky encounter gets her an in to work at the Pine City colony, and maybe to learn a bit more and finally understand her idol.This book has a problem which is not entirely its own fault. The official jacket blurb, different from what I’ve written above, promises a psychological suspense/thriller-type story. But the story that’s actually in these pages? Is definitely not that kind of story. It’s an utter fail in that what I was anticipating was not at all what I got. So then the question becomes, how do I feel about what this book actually is? The answer to that is: very, very mixed.
Positives about this book are: First, the writing is very good. It flows well, and even when I was bored with the story, I kept flipping the pages and zooming along because the writing just kept carrying me from sentence to sentence, and chapter to chapter. There’s an unreliable narrator vibe, which I generally enjoy and which kept me curious even when nothing was really happening. (And it's that tone that probably got this marketed as a suspense novel.) Second, while I did not like a single character in this book -- not one -- they are all well-drawn (ha!) with their own motives and ambitions, so I found them mostly interesting and compelling. Third, I was fascinated by the friendship between No-Name and influencer/photographer/rich girl Max. Fourth, the author seems to have done quite a bit of research, so I did feel genuinely immersed in the art world while reading this.
Negatives, in addition to the marketing problem I already mentioned, are: First, there’s next to no actual tension in this book. No-Name is supposed to be desperate to get the contracted paintings done, but while the urgency is described, I didn’t personally feel it. The narrative bounces back and forth between “omg get six huge paintings done in 44 days!” and “omg Carey Logan lived and died here and I want to know everything about her!” I found No-Name and her paintings sort of interesting, but I didn’t really care about her or them. Second, this book seems pretty insulting to the professional art world; it’s very cynical (beyond satirical, imo), and I would be curious to know how actual artists might feel after reading it. Third, there’s a sort-of twist at the end, but I saw it from very early on and kept hoping I was going to turn out to be wrong. But nope, it was just that obvious. Last, the ending felt like a bit of a let-down for me, as it didn’t really add up to anything (although it was a happy ending, if very muted). On the bright side .
So, if I’d gone into this book expecting a dodgy personal story rather than a thriller, I might have liked it better. As it is, I liked it all right, and am curious to read this author’s first book. I’d guess that a person’s appreciation of this book depends mainly on whether they feel the urgency or not, and whether they guess that twist or not.
May 17, 2019
A young un-named painter with potential is poised to make waves in the art community with her collection of seven billboard-size paintings. When her apartment goes up in flames and decimates the entire collection, she lies to her gallery and says that six have been safely crated and stored; only the final painting she was still working on has been destroyed.
The gallery decides it's in their best interest to have her to re-create the final piece, which has already been sold, in total secrecy.
Now homeless and without a single piece for her show, she searches frantically for a studio available on short notice where she can re-create all seven pieces in their entirety in just three months.
The artist is in awe when an acquaintance gets her a spot at the exclusive artist retreat known as Pine City in upstate New York. Pine City isn't just a resort, it's also the name of the collective of five artists who own it.
Carey Logan was a member of Pine City, and the idol of our main character. Carey's work was brilliant and her life ended far too soon when she purposefully stepped into a lake and drowned.
When our no-name artist arrives at Pine City, she finds it's full of secrets. The retreat is shadowed by Carey's presence and yet none of the dead artist's friends will speak about her; she has been removed from every photo on the grounds, and none of the remaining collective will share their work.
Across the lake is Max, our MC's childhood friend who has been famous most of her life for being wealthy and then earned fame with her photography skills. Max swears total secrecy when she learns that her friend is re-creating her entire show but soon it appears Max has motives for keeping her secret.
Carey Logan not only designed the home Max now lives in, but she was represented by Max's husband, Charlie. The MC learns that Charlie's gallery is in a legal battle with Pine City over a rumored final piece of art by Carey Logan.
What was the final piece? Why is Pine City so secretive about their work and the legacy of Carey Logan?
Fake Like Me fits solidly into the women's fiction genre but it also surprised me by being a dark satire as well as a thriller set in the glamorous contemporary art scene.
The characters are overwhelmingly pretentious and take themselves far too seriously, but as in all good satires, it was incredibly entertaining.
I wasn't expecting the mystery surrounding Carey Logan to be so compelling; I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to uncover the truth.
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Fake Like Me is scheduled for release on June 18, 2019.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
The gallery decides it's in their best interest to have her to re-create the final piece, which has already been sold, in total secrecy.
Now homeless and without a single piece for her show, she searches frantically for a studio available on short notice where she can re-create all seven pieces in their entirety in just three months.
The artist is in awe when an acquaintance gets her a spot at the exclusive artist retreat known as Pine City in upstate New York. Pine City isn't just a resort, it's also the name of the collective of five artists who own it.
Carey Logan was a member of Pine City, and the idol of our main character. Carey's work was brilliant and her life ended far too soon when she purposefully stepped into a lake and drowned.
When our no-name artist arrives at Pine City, she finds it's full of secrets. The retreat is shadowed by Carey's presence and yet none of the dead artist's friends will speak about her; she has been removed from every photo on the grounds, and none of the remaining collective will share their work.
Across the lake is Max, our MC's childhood friend who has been famous most of her life for being wealthy and then earned fame with her photography skills. Max swears total secrecy when she learns that her friend is re-creating her entire show but soon it appears Max has motives for keeping her secret.
Carey Logan not only designed the home Max now lives in, but she was represented by Max's husband, Charlie. The MC learns that Charlie's gallery is in a legal battle with Pine City over a rumored final piece of art by Carey Logan.
What was the final piece? Why is Pine City so secretive about their work and the legacy of Carey Logan?
Fake Like Me fits solidly into the women's fiction genre but it also surprised me by being a dark satire as well as a thriller set in the glamorous contemporary art scene.
The characters are overwhelmingly pretentious and take themselves far too seriously, but as in all good satires, it was incredibly entertaining.
I wasn't expecting the mystery surrounding Carey Logan to be so compelling; I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to uncover the truth.
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Fake Like Me is scheduled for release on June 18, 2019.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
June 18, 2019
I finished this book last night but needed some time to digest everything I had read. I went back and forth between 4 and 5 stars (4 stars only because I'm generally not a big art fan and some of the descriptions bogged me down), but in the end, it was so out of the realm of my expectations and so mind-bending, that I felt that alone was worthy of 5 stars.
I think it's a bit difficult to classify this book - it is a suspense, but not really a suspense; it is a thriller, but not really a thriller, so ID'ing a target audience is still up in the air for me. Overall though, I believe readers of mystery/suspense/thrillers/women's fiction will find it to be an intriguing read in many ways. The book delved so deeply in the dark, strange world of art that, at times, it lost me, but those moments were brief - just when I would feel my eyes start to glaze over slightly, it would suck me right back in, and I was fully immersed once again.
I'm not always a big fan of first-person narratives, but this one worked for me. It captured the narrator at the height of a professional disaster - her already-marketed paintings were destroyed in a fire, and she has only 90 days in which to recreate them (without anyone letting the proverbial cat out of the bag that the original paintings were destroyed), all while also dragging her into a 20-year old conspiracy surrounding what happened to famed artist/sculptor, Carey Logan, whom the narrator had idolized since college. The narrator is offered the chance to live and work at an artists’ retreat called Pine City (also the name of the tight-knit group of young, beautiful artists, which included Carey Logan), where Carey lived and died. The narrator’s ability to complete her project evolves into a dependence upon finding out what happened to Carey and infiltrating her inner circle of friends; however, the more she gets to know the Pine City group of friends, the more she begins to question them and their motives, as well as the circumstances surrounding Carey's death. It all builds to a hectic climax that parallels the narrator finishing the paintings and solving the mystery of Carey's death.
I didn't expect to be so drawn into the mystery surrounding Carey, but I was - to the extent that when all was finally revealed, it felt surreal and left my mind racing as to whether I should have been more in tune to some of the bread crumb clues along the way, because I was completely out in left field with my inclinations as to what happened to Carey and how it would all end. I figured out one part of the twist early on, but even with that, the ending still surprised me (for reasons I can't go in to without spoiling the book) and still left me immensely satisfied. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, I have to dismiss all other minor flaws of a book and say "bravo" to the author! Overall, a superb book that every time I put it down, I eagerly awaited the next time I would be able to pick it up again. 5 artsy, twisty stars for me!
I think it's a bit difficult to classify this book - it is a suspense, but not really a suspense; it is a thriller, but not really a thriller, so ID'ing a target audience is still up in the air for me. Overall though, I believe readers of mystery/suspense/thrillers/women's fiction will find it to be an intriguing read in many ways. The book delved so deeply in the dark, strange world of art that, at times, it lost me, but those moments were brief - just when I would feel my eyes start to glaze over slightly, it would suck me right back in, and I was fully immersed once again.
I'm not always a big fan of first-person narratives, but this one worked for me. It captured the narrator at the height of a professional disaster - her already-marketed paintings were destroyed in a fire, and she has only 90 days in which to recreate them (without anyone letting the proverbial cat out of the bag that the original paintings were destroyed), all while also dragging her into a 20-year old conspiracy surrounding what happened to famed artist/sculptor, Carey Logan, whom the narrator had idolized since college. The narrator is offered the chance to live and work at an artists’ retreat called Pine City (also the name of the tight-knit group of young, beautiful artists, which included Carey Logan), where Carey lived and died. The narrator’s ability to complete her project evolves into a dependence upon finding out what happened to Carey and infiltrating her inner circle of friends; however, the more she gets to know the Pine City group of friends, the more she begins to question them and their motives, as well as the circumstances surrounding Carey's death. It all builds to a hectic climax that parallels the narrator finishing the paintings and solving the mystery of Carey's death.
I didn't expect to be so drawn into the mystery surrounding Carey, but I was - to the extent that when all was finally revealed, it felt surreal and left my mind racing as to whether I should have been more in tune to some of the bread crumb clues along the way, because I was completely out in left field with my inclinations as to what happened to Carey and how it would all end. I figured out one part of the twist early on, but even with that, the ending still surprised me (for reasons I can't go in to without spoiling the book) and still left me immensely satisfied. That doesn't happen often, but when it does, I have to dismiss all other minor flaws of a book and say "bravo" to the author! Overall, a superb book that every time I put it down, I eagerly awaited the next time I would be able to pick it up again. 5 artsy, twisty stars for me!
August 28, 2021
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Beyond its promising summary Fake Like Me is little more than a predictable and unsatisfying ode to the female artist.
This book is not doing any favours to modern and in particular abstract art. If anything it confirms the notion that today anything can qualify as art, and that critiques of modern art use an array of pretty metaphors that have little meaning or depth.
ps: by "modern" art I mean conceptual, installation, and performance art (made by artist of dubious talent such as Tracey Emin).
This novel should not be pegged as a suspense since there is very little tension or mystery to be found in its story. The first chapter sets an intriguing stage which is soon discarded as our mc travels to a retreat that is poorly described.
A lot of the details surrounding this place are given in a muddled manner so that I could never quite picture it in my mind. The mc spends the first 30% of the novel in a self-pitying stupor, and she becomes increasingly obsessed with Carey Logan an artist who drowned in the retreat's lake. Apparently the two not only look alike but they are both 'women' so our mc obviously believes that it is them vs. the patriarchy. We are led to believe that there are only a handful of female artists (a huge lie) and that their work is therefore some sort of statement about their sex. Sure, way to embellish things...
While this book succeeds in describing the technical aspects of constructing huge canvases, it fails to actually illustrate what these pieces on the whole look like. Yes, I know the colours that our nameless protagonist has used, but what about the shapes and forms of her painting? All those pages on the products she uses, where she buys these products, and how cumbersome these materials and tools can be...all for what? To have only a vague idea of what our mc's 'masterpieces' look like?
Usually I prefer slow burn reads but here the narrative really made it hard for me to remain engaged in the story. This is partly due to the narrator, whose namelessness is merely a cheap trick to convey her 'ambiguous' or formless identity. She was the typical solipsistic self-pitying main character who believes that she is different from other women (she is not as attractive or stylish or confident, you know the drill). Her reflections on her art and art itself were laughable and seemed to belong to a thirteen year old rather than a person in their 30s. For that matter, all of the characters sounded and acted in a way that seemed 'young'. They act like teenagers who have had little life experiences...and the other artists and characters are never properly introduced, some have two or three lines here and there, which made them very superficial. The book is surprisingly tame and predictable yet the narrator seems to take herself and her artwork pretty—if not all too—seriously.
Overall I thought that this was a clichéd story starring an irritating mc who attributes to her work all sorts of vapid or glib metaphors.
If you are looking for a novel that beautiful portrays the struggles of an ambitious young artist I recommend Self-Portrait with Boy.
Beyond its promising summary Fake Like Me is little more than a predictable and unsatisfying ode to the female artist.
This book is not doing any favours to modern and in particular abstract art. If anything it confirms the notion that today anything can qualify as art, and that critiques of modern art use an array of pretty metaphors that have little meaning or depth.
ps: by "modern" art I mean conceptual, installation, and performance art (made by artist of dubious talent such as Tracey Emin).
This novel should not be pegged as a suspense since there is very little tension or mystery to be found in its story. The first chapter sets an intriguing stage which is soon discarded as our mc travels to a retreat that is poorly described.
A lot of the details surrounding this place are given in a muddled manner so that I could never quite picture it in my mind. The mc spends the first 30% of the novel in a self-pitying stupor, and she becomes increasingly obsessed with Carey Logan an artist who drowned in the retreat's lake. Apparently the two not only look alike but they are both 'women' so our mc obviously believes that it is them vs. the patriarchy. We are led to believe that there are only a handful of female artists (a huge lie) and that their work is therefore some sort of statement about their sex. Sure, way to embellish things...
While this book succeeds in describing the technical aspects of constructing huge canvases, it fails to actually illustrate what these pieces on the whole look like. Yes, I know the colours that our nameless protagonist has used, but what about the shapes and forms of her painting? All those pages on the products she uses, where she buys these products, and how cumbersome these materials and tools can be...all for what? To have only a vague idea of what our mc's 'masterpieces' look like?
Usually I prefer slow burn reads but here the narrative really made it hard for me to remain engaged in the story. This is partly due to the narrator, whose namelessness is merely a cheap trick to convey her 'ambiguous' or formless identity. She was the typical solipsistic self-pitying main character who believes that she is different from other women (she is not as attractive or stylish or confident, you know the drill). Her reflections on her art and art itself were laughable and seemed to belong to a thirteen year old rather than a person in their 30s. For that matter, all of the characters sounded and acted in a way that seemed 'young'. They act like teenagers who have had little life experiences...and the other artists and characters are never properly introduced, some have two or three lines here and there, which made them very superficial. The book is surprisingly tame and predictable yet the narrator seems to take herself and her artwork pretty—if not all too—seriously.
Overall I thought that this was a clichéd story starring an irritating mc who attributes to her work all sorts of vapid or glib metaphors.
If you are looking for a novel that beautiful portrays the struggles of an ambitious young artist I recommend Self-Portrait with Boy.
December 6, 2018
I was lucky to receive an ARC of Fake Like Me, and I DEVOURED it over a weekend, taking it with me everywhere I went. A young unnamed artist struggles in the shadow of an impossibly cool dead one, another young artist—gorgeous, enigmatic, talented—worshipped beyond measure in the downtown New York/Hudson Valley art scene. There's a mysterious compound where our dead girl created her work, and where those she left behind are still haunted by her death. Yes, there's a man gutted by her loss, who our unnamed artist can't stay away from. You're sensing "Rebecca" vibes, but this is all brand new. It's a book about jealousy and legacy and who really owns your vision. But it's also a deeply sexy thriller, that will keep you guessing until the last gorgeously-written pages. A stunner.
May 24, 2019
I can't remember reading anything that delved so deeply into the art world as this. Our narrator, a truly original painter who doesn't know her power, loses her home and 9th floor walkup studio in a fire and talks her way into an artists' compound of almost mythic reputation in the Adirondacks.
Barbara Bourland claims to not have an in depth knowledge of this world, but this book belies that fact. Her descriptions of the creative process ring so true as our heroine creates her billboard-sized oil paintings because "they are the pinnacle of labor," expensive, weighing hundreds of pounds, incorporating such materials as copper shavings and jewels. Is one's identity only visible through their art or what other viewers may see in that art, or what is bruited abroad. At times I was reminded of Rebecca (the protagonist is unnamed, Carey, her predecessor, deceased, the waterfront setting which was the location of Carey's death). This is one hell of a read.
Barbara Bourland claims to not have an in depth knowledge of this world, but this book belies that fact. Her descriptions of the creative process ring so true as our heroine creates her billboard-sized oil paintings because "they are the pinnacle of labor," expensive, weighing hundreds of pounds, incorporating such materials as copper shavings and jewels. Is one's identity only visible through their art or what other viewers may see in that art, or what is bruited abroad. At times I was reminded of Rebecca (the protagonist is unnamed, Carey, her predecessor, deceased, the waterfront setting which was the location of Carey's death). This is one hell of a read.
August 5, 2019
I have to admit I know very little about modern art – or at least I did before starting this book. However, this was in no way a handicap to enjoying Fake Like Me. In fact, reading the book was something of an education into the movers and shakers of the art world and the physicality and science involved in creating artworks like those produced by the narrator.
The author convincingly conveys the intensely personal, almost visceral nature of the process of creating art for our narrator. ‘Everything for me is about giving birth… Somehow I get pregnant, and then eventually a painting comes out.’ On the other hand, the book exposes the commercialization of the modern art world and the commoditization of the artist by agents, collectors and galleries. As our narrator observes at one point, ‘We make work and it goes in the machine’.
As a fan of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (and don’t get me started about the wonderful film version starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine), I loved the frequent nods to du Maurier’s novel. There’s the fact that we never learn the first name of the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca just as the narrator of Fake Like Me remains unnamed and all her identity papers are destroyed in the fire that consumes her studio. And in both novels the unnamed narrator is obsessed by a predecessor with whom she feels she can never compete. There’s also a particular scene in Fake Like Me that had me exclaiming, ‘That happens in Rebecca too!’ The literary allusions don’t stop there (don’t you just love a bit of intertextuality?) because there are party scenes in Fake Like Me reminiscent in their alcohol and drug-fuelled excess of The Great Gatsby. Another ‘fake’ of course…
There’s sly humour as well, including the ridiculing of pompous pronouncements about art, and the fact that events are often in opposition to the chapter headings. You might be able to guess what happens in the chapter entitled ‘Chastity’.
And of course I haven’t mentioned the mystery at the heart of the book – the events surrounding the death of Carey Logan that so dominate the thoughts of our narrator and will probably similarly dominate yours as you read. The revelation, when it comes towards the end of the book, is unexpected but also completely consistent with what has come before, being the product of artistic instinct and observation by our unnamed narrator.
Fake Like Me is an intense, vibrant and deliciously dark literary thriller.
The author convincingly conveys the intensely personal, almost visceral nature of the process of creating art for our narrator. ‘Everything for me is about giving birth… Somehow I get pregnant, and then eventually a painting comes out.’ On the other hand, the book exposes the commercialization of the modern art world and the commoditization of the artist by agents, collectors and galleries. As our narrator observes at one point, ‘We make work and it goes in the machine’.
As a fan of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (and don’t get me started about the wonderful film version starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine), I loved the frequent nods to du Maurier’s novel. There’s the fact that we never learn the first name of the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca just as the narrator of Fake Like Me remains unnamed and all her identity papers are destroyed in the fire that consumes her studio. And in both novels the unnamed narrator is obsessed by a predecessor with whom she feels she can never compete. There’s also a particular scene in Fake Like Me that had me exclaiming, ‘That happens in Rebecca too!’ The literary allusions don’t stop there (don’t you just love a bit of intertextuality?) because there are party scenes in Fake Like Me reminiscent in their alcohol and drug-fuelled excess of The Great Gatsby. Another ‘fake’ of course…
There’s sly humour as well, including the ridiculing of pompous pronouncements about art, and the fact that events are often in opposition to the chapter headings. You might be able to guess what happens in the chapter entitled ‘Chastity’.
And of course I haven’t mentioned the mystery at the heart of the book – the events surrounding the death of Carey Logan that so dominate the thoughts of our narrator and will probably similarly dominate yours as you read. The revelation, when it comes towards the end of the book, is unexpected but also completely consistent with what has come before, being the product of artistic instinct and observation by our unnamed narrator.
Fake Like Me is an intense, vibrant and deliciously dark literary thriller.
June 16, 2019
This is an instance where the book and I simply weren't meant to be together.
The writing itself has a nice literary quality. It flows well and has great rhythm.
But the story bored me. I know, I'm sorry. Of course I expected the plot to revolve around the art world, but I didn't expect to read such detailed minutiae about the painting process. I felt like I was back in my college art appreciation class, and that bored me as well.
The "no-name painter" narrating the story remains without a name. I couldn't connect with anything about her or the characters whose lives she desperately aspired to be part of.
And so I gave up about a third of the way in. At the start of the year, I vowed to stop forcing myself to finish a book I'm not enjoying, and so there you have it.
*I received a review copy from the publisher via Amazon Vine.*
The writing itself has a nice literary quality. It flows well and has great rhythm.
But the story bored me. I know, I'm sorry. Of course I expected the plot to revolve around the art world, but I didn't expect to read such detailed minutiae about the painting process. I felt like I was back in my college art appreciation class, and that bored me as well.
The "no-name painter" narrating the story remains without a name. I couldn't connect with anything about her or the characters whose lives she desperately aspired to be part of.
And so I gave up about a third of the way in. At the start of the year, I vowed to stop forcing myself to finish a book I'm not enjoying, and so there you have it.
*I received a review copy from the publisher via Amazon Vine.*
October 20, 2020
You can also find the review on my blog: https://prettypeonyblog.com/2020/10/2...
Fake Like Me is a thriller by Barbara Bourland. The story is written in first person point-of-view through a no-name narrator who starts out as an art student and moves her way upward.
While in art school, the narrator becomes obsessed with a particular art student named Carey Logan. After graduating, Carey and her artist friends soon create attention grabbing visual art. They work as a team becoming very famous and banking. The narrator puts Carey on a pedestal and hopes to one day have talent and fame like Carey.
Things are not as they seem and suddenly Carey decides she doesn’t want to do art anymore. Instead, she wants to be an actor. The narrator found that odd and wondered what made Carey change her mind. Then, Carey drowns in a lake and the narrator is even more curious as to the cause.
The narrator loses her apartment in a fire and decides to move into a cabin in a village exclusive to exceptionally talented artists, and where Carey lived. Carey’s friends were all still there and narrator hoped to learn the cause of Carey’s death through them, but everyone is hush-hush, including the narrator’s girlfriend, Max, who lives in the neighborhood but in a gorgeous home.
While getting around the village, the narrator gets to know Tyler (Carey’s boyfriend) and falls in love with him. She also hoped that he’d be the one to tell her about Carey’s death, but he refused to talk about anything having to do with Carey. In fact, no one wanted to talk about Carey, not even Max.
With the narrator’s pushing, everything is eventually revealed and with this revelation, the narrator becomes a stronger person.
This story was one crazy ride and I loved every bit of it. I found it strange that the narrator didn’t have a first or last name. The story was written so well that I didn’t even know she didn’t have a name until I finished the story and went back to find where I had missed her name, only to find that it was never mentioned. Good trickery there.
I enjoyed the buildup, the tension, the confusion, the curiosity, the way the characters tried to hide the truth (they were good at it), and the determination the narrator had at finding the truth. It was one great story that had me reading until 5am in the morning. That’s right, it was one those books where I kept saying, “Just one more chapter then I’ll go to bed.” This book is definitely up there with the thrillers, mysteries, and suspense.
This was a free Amazon book I chose to read and review for Vine.
Fake Like Me is a thriller by Barbara Bourland. The story is written in first person point-of-view through a no-name narrator who starts out as an art student and moves her way upward.
While in art school, the narrator becomes obsessed with a particular art student named Carey Logan. After graduating, Carey and her artist friends soon create attention grabbing visual art. They work as a team becoming very famous and banking. The narrator puts Carey on a pedestal and hopes to one day have talent and fame like Carey.
Things are not as they seem and suddenly Carey decides she doesn’t want to do art anymore. Instead, she wants to be an actor. The narrator found that odd and wondered what made Carey change her mind. Then, Carey drowns in a lake and the narrator is even more curious as to the cause.
The narrator loses her apartment in a fire and decides to move into a cabin in a village exclusive to exceptionally talented artists, and where Carey lived. Carey’s friends were all still there and narrator hoped to learn the cause of Carey’s death through them, but everyone is hush-hush, including the narrator’s girlfriend, Max, who lives in the neighborhood but in a gorgeous home.
While getting around the village, the narrator gets to know Tyler (Carey’s boyfriend) and falls in love with him. She also hoped that he’d be the one to tell her about Carey’s death, but he refused to talk about anything having to do with Carey. In fact, no one wanted to talk about Carey, not even Max.
With the narrator’s pushing, everything is eventually revealed and with this revelation, the narrator becomes a stronger person.
This story was one crazy ride and I loved every bit of it. I found it strange that the narrator didn’t have a first or last name. The story was written so well that I didn’t even know she didn’t have a name until I finished the story and went back to find where I had missed her name, only to find that it was never mentioned. Good trickery there.
I enjoyed the buildup, the tension, the confusion, the curiosity, the way the characters tried to hide the truth (they were good at it), and the determination the narrator had at finding the truth. It was one great story that had me reading until 5am in the morning. That’s right, it was one those books where I kept saying, “Just one more chapter then I’ll go to bed.” This book is definitely up there with the thrillers, mysteries, and suspense.
This was a free Amazon book I chose to read and review for Vine.
September 1, 2019
I hate the rating thing, but then I also love it. This book has me in a bind. On one hand it’s really not quite a five star read, however, on the other hand, it is most definitely a five star read for me, personally.
When I am trying to decide if the book is good I usually lean on the following criteria:
Did I read it continuously.
Did I read it instead of doing life things, like making dinner.
Did the characters stay with me during, between, and after reading the book.
Did I consider rereading the book after finishing it.
Absolutely! (Yes to all the above.)
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of fiction more dedicated to the actual process of making art. It was beautiful. I was, and remain, blown away. I’m actually jealous. Anyone that loves art should be a wee bit envious of the amount of work and passion that went into writing this story.
I felt a bit weird about the main character. Things were never quite right with my perception of her- but in the end I really liked that, and also liked her. I was never sure how reliable she was as a narrator and felt compelled to reread the book the minute I read the last page. This is a major accomplishment, as I am a very jaded reader, particularly regarding novels about the art world and artists.
I think the author has accurately captured a very specific moment in the contemporary art world. Is it likable? Not really. But everyone wants to get a glimpse of the art elite, and things aren’t always as we dreamed. Bourland plays on this premise in Fake Like Me and it was hugely successful.
The more I think about this book, the more I like it. I’ll definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the shadow side of art.
I’ll be reading anything Barbara Bourland writes or recommends. Pick up this incredibly well written novel about people making and destroying- all in the name of art.
When I am trying to decide if the book is good I usually lean on the following criteria:
Did I read it continuously.
Did I read it instead of doing life things, like making dinner.
Did the characters stay with me during, between, and after reading the book.
Did I consider rereading the book after finishing it.
Absolutely! (Yes to all the above.)
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of fiction more dedicated to the actual process of making art. It was beautiful. I was, and remain, blown away. I’m actually jealous. Anyone that loves art should be a wee bit envious of the amount of work and passion that went into writing this story.
I felt a bit weird about the main character. Things were never quite right with my perception of her- but in the end I really liked that, and also liked her. I was never sure how reliable she was as a narrator and felt compelled to reread the book the minute I read the last page. This is a major accomplishment, as I am a very jaded reader, particularly regarding novels about the art world and artists.
I think the author has accurately captured a very specific moment in the contemporary art world. Is it likable? Not really. But everyone wants to get a glimpse of the art elite, and things aren’t always as we dreamed. Bourland plays on this premise in Fake Like Me and it was hugely successful.
The more I think about this book, the more I like it. I’ll definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the shadow side of art.
I’ll be reading anything Barbara Bourland writes or recommends. Pick up this incredibly well written novel about people making and destroying- all in the name of art.
November 1, 2019
This novel is told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator. It is 1996 and our narrator is a young art student, visiting a gallery in New York. The artist is Carey Logan, part of a collective called Pine City, who includes not only Carey, but Jes Winsome, Marlin Mayfield, Tyler Savage and Jack Wells. For the young art student, Pine City are everything she aspires to and Carey the most inspiring.
Years later, the artist is struggling to make her name, when her studio loft burns to the ground and the paintings inside – many already sold – are good. She is then pushed into a dilemma. Financial ruin, or else she remakes the whole collection, in secret. In other words, she commits fraud. Desperate, she ends up at Pine City’s final retreat, unwanted and resented by the members of Pine City, who no longer include Carey in their number. Carey had committed suicide, after turning to Yoko Ono type performance art. She had walked into the lake at the retreat and she was gone, but her life remained in ripples left behind.
At first, our narrator is just grateful for the space to try to save her career; despite the issues of trying to recreate a whole collection in secret. However, gradually, she begins to unravel what happened to Carey, all those years ago.
This is a really interesting novel, set in the murky art world. The narrator is a working class girl, who worshipped Carey Logan and begins to fall for Tyler. However, the group have secrets to rival her own. There are a good cast of characters; including her childhood friend, Max, whose lives with her gallery owning husband in a magnificent house, opposite the lake. A very enjoyable, and interesting read, with a great setting.
Years later, the artist is struggling to make her name, when her studio loft burns to the ground and the paintings inside – many already sold – are good. She is then pushed into a dilemma. Financial ruin, or else she remakes the whole collection, in secret. In other words, she commits fraud. Desperate, she ends up at Pine City’s final retreat, unwanted and resented by the members of Pine City, who no longer include Carey in their number. Carey had committed suicide, after turning to Yoko Ono type performance art. She had walked into the lake at the retreat and she was gone, but her life remained in ripples left behind.
At first, our narrator is just grateful for the space to try to save her career; despite the issues of trying to recreate a whole collection in secret. However, gradually, she begins to unravel what happened to Carey, all those years ago.
This is a really interesting novel, set in the murky art world. The narrator is a working class girl, who worshipped Carey Logan and begins to fall for Tyler. However, the group have secrets to rival her own. There are a good cast of characters; including her childhood friend, Max, whose lives with her gallery owning husband in a magnificent house, opposite the lake. A very enjoyable, and interesting read, with a great setting.
June 25, 2019
While worried that she’ll never paint again, an unnamed narrator has a breakthrough. She begins to come out of her shell. She was rather successful, and even begins to travel with her work. She becomes extreme interested in learning about another artist, Carey Logan. She learns that Carey has a very similar style. As a matter of fact, the closer she looks at Carey’s work, she noticed that Carey used a model of hers in a recent sculpture.
Our unnamed artist is quite determined to see who Carey is and what she is all about, so she is shocked to discover that Carey has just committed suicide. So the narrator does all she can to learn who Carey actually was. However, she suffers a tragedy. Her apartment goes up in flames, and all of her paintings have been destroyed.
Now homeless and without any money, she must recreate her art, or her career will be ruined! Hopefully, she will be up to the task. While in the process of working hard, she jumps into the mystery as to who Carey was and what really happened as to how she lost her life.
As I truly have no interest in art, this story did not do a lot for me. What kept me interested was the rush of getting the commissioned work done, as well as the personal relationships that grew during the course of this story.
Many thanks to Grand Central Publishing and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.
Our unnamed artist is quite determined to see who Carey is and what she is all about, so she is shocked to discover that Carey has just committed suicide. So the narrator does all she can to learn who Carey actually was. However, she suffers a tragedy. Her apartment goes up in flames, and all of her paintings have been destroyed.
Now homeless and without any money, she must recreate her art, or her career will be ruined! Hopefully, she will be up to the task. While in the process of working hard, she jumps into the mystery as to who Carey was and what really happened as to how she lost her life.
As I truly have no interest in art, this story did not do a lot for me. What kept me interested was the rush of getting the commissioned work done, as well as the personal relationships that grew during the course of this story.
Many thanks to Grand Central Publishing and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.
June 26, 2019
"𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙨 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙮𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚."
*𝐴𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑜𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤* Fake Like Me is a visceral, haunting character-driven suspense novel that delves into the art world. This book will not be for everyone. It’s not action packed, there are no gimmicks. Personally I found it intriguing and compulsive, but I’m also a lover of fine art. We are never given the narrator’s name. She’s a somewhat successful, somewhat struggling painter on the cusp of a huge upcoming deadline. She’s finishing up the order of several large scaled pieces when a fire spreads through her studio/home, destroying all her work. Circumstances lead her to an elusive artists retreat where she attempts to recreate her works in an extremely short period of time, and becoming more unstable the closer the deadline gets. While there she is drawn into the mystery surrounding a suicide that happened on the property years earlier. The book gives an inside look into an artistic, somewhat hedonistic lifestyle within a community of well-known artists. It has just the right amount of feminism, without bashing you over the head with it. I have to say I can’t imagine NOT reading this on audio, if only to be able to hear the voices of certain characters like Max, Charles or Tyler. In the end I found it modern, smart, and effortlessly cool. I didn’t want to leave this no-name woman behind but was thoroughly happy with the way it ended. If you enjoy character studies with an air of mystery & intrigue I highly recommend 𝙁𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙈𝙚 𝘣𝘺 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙗𝙖𝙧𝙖 𝘽𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙. Narrated by 𝙓𝙚 𝙎𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨! Read via Audible. Speed read: 1.25x (10hrs & 47mins) Read with Goodreads group 𝙎𝙪𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝘾𝙡𝙪𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬𝙨.
*𝐴𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑜𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤* Fake Like Me is a visceral, haunting character-driven suspense novel that delves into the art world. This book will not be for everyone. It’s not action packed, there are no gimmicks. Personally I found it intriguing and compulsive, but I’m also a lover of fine art. We are never given the narrator’s name. She’s a somewhat successful, somewhat struggling painter on the cusp of a huge upcoming deadline. She’s finishing up the order of several large scaled pieces when a fire spreads through her studio/home, destroying all her work. Circumstances lead her to an elusive artists retreat where she attempts to recreate her works in an extremely short period of time, and becoming more unstable the closer the deadline gets. While there she is drawn into the mystery surrounding a suicide that happened on the property years earlier. The book gives an inside look into an artistic, somewhat hedonistic lifestyle within a community of well-known artists. It has just the right amount of feminism, without bashing you over the head with it. I have to say I can’t imagine NOT reading this on audio, if only to be able to hear the voices of certain characters like Max, Charles or Tyler. In the end I found it modern, smart, and effortlessly cool. I didn’t want to leave this no-name woman behind but was thoroughly happy with the way it ended. If you enjoy character studies with an air of mystery & intrigue I highly recommend 𝙁𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙈𝙚 𝘣𝘺 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙗𝙖𝙧𝙖 𝘽𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙. Narrated by 𝙓𝙚 𝙎𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨! Read via Audible. Speed read: 1.25x (10hrs & 47mins) Read with Goodreads group 𝙎𝙪𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝘾𝙡𝙪𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬𝙨.
April 14, 2025
3.5⭐️ I would have rated this higher but it just took too long to get to the mystery. Still, a compelling story.
June 19, 2019
I am not an artist and I have no idea what it means to be one. So I enjoyed genuinely peeking into the bohemian-like art world for a while.
Our main protagonist stays without a name. She is a thirty-something artist in New York. She is still a nobody although she sold some of her paintings in the past. Now she is about to have her break-through with a new series of paintings. But all this paintings get destroyed in a fire. For some reasons she can’t admit that they are all lost. So she decides to repaint them in an incredible short time without anybody knowing it. Through an old friend she gets an invitation to Pine City, a group of artists who life in a house in the country. This has been her dreams since she started to be an artist. When she was young she witnessed this group performing their art. Their main protagonist was Carey Logan. She was the star and became the hero of out no-name artist. Three years ago Carey Logan committed suicide and Pine City clamed up about that and refuses to talk about her. Now our no-name artist is finally invited into this elusive retreat. But Pine City is a disappointment. It is nothing like she imagined it. And they are still not willing to speak about Carey Logan.
This story is really about art. There are very detailed descriptions what out artist needs for her paintings and how she does them. She is not just painting neat little aquarelles. She makes huge thinks with a lot of material. I would have loved to see them. There is also a lot of talk about other artist which art you can google. I enjoyed that but I also skipped some of the crafty details about producing the paintings. It was sometimes a little bit much.
It was nice to hangout in this world. The characters are not very multi-dimensional and I found our main character to be whiny and needy. She has obviously the potential but she is full of self-doubt and compares herself to Carey Logan all the time. She lacks the enormous self-esteem every other artist in this book has but takes herself far too serious. There is a lot of telling in this book. Not much happens. For the first half our no-name painter is simply telling us how she got where she is now. Even when she arrives at Pine City she is just painting all the time and yearning for the other members to accept her. Not much action here. Toward the end there is a little twist and you see what Pine City was all about. That was nice but also our artist was a bit tiring with her fixation on unraveling the mystery about Carey. “Fake Like Me” was an entertaining read, a little bit on the slower side but with a compelling subject.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
Our main protagonist stays without a name. She is a thirty-something artist in New York. She is still a nobody although she sold some of her paintings in the past. Now she is about to have her break-through with a new series of paintings. But all this paintings get destroyed in a fire. For some reasons she can’t admit that they are all lost. So she decides to repaint them in an incredible short time without anybody knowing it. Through an old friend she gets an invitation to Pine City, a group of artists who life in a house in the country. This has been her dreams since she started to be an artist. When she was young she witnessed this group performing their art. Their main protagonist was Carey Logan. She was the star and became the hero of out no-name artist. Three years ago Carey Logan committed suicide and Pine City clamed up about that and refuses to talk about her. Now our no-name artist is finally invited into this elusive retreat. But Pine City is a disappointment. It is nothing like she imagined it. And they are still not willing to speak about Carey Logan.
This story is really about art. There are very detailed descriptions what out artist needs for her paintings and how she does them. She is not just painting neat little aquarelles. She makes huge thinks with a lot of material. I would have loved to see them. There is also a lot of talk about other artist which art you can google. I enjoyed that but I also skipped some of the crafty details about producing the paintings. It was sometimes a little bit much.
It was nice to hangout in this world. The characters are not very multi-dimensional and I found our main character to be whiny and needy. She has obviously the potential but she is full of self-doubt and compares herself to Carey Logan all the time. She lacks the enormous self-esteem every other artist in this book has but takes herself far too serious. There is a lot of telling in this book. Not much happens. For the first half our no-name painter is simply telling us how she got where she is now. Even when she arrives at Pine City she is just painting all the time and yearning for the other members to accept her. Not much action here. Toward the end there is a little twist and you see what Pine City was all about. That was nice but also our artist was a bit tiring with her fixation on unraveling the mystery about Carey. “Fake Like Me” was an entertaining read, a little bit on the slower side but with a compelling subject.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
June 8, 2019
I was anticipating a white knuckle mystery. Instead it read more like a cross between a rather boring memoir and women's fiction. The unnamed narrator seems to carry on her own personal pity party through most of the story. The very end, when the solution to the mystery is revealed there is a spark of what I was expecting but it quickly faded.
July 12, 2019
"This was fraud. This was wrong. I was a cheat. Above all else I was a liar."
This one was interesting. I don't know if the artists obsessed with another artist is an original plot, but this one felt pretty fresh and interesting. The demise of the art and the ultimate reason for her to rush 2 years work is way too few days was interesting and fast paced.
But I didn't enjoy the love story as much. The twist and turn, the on and off - it just felt.....frustrating and boring after a point. But I did find the art world interesting and I did like the story. The writing was really well done as well. All in all, it was good but I didn't love it
This one was interesting. I don't know if the artists obsessed with another artist is an original plot, but this one felt pretty fresh and interesting. The demise of the art and the ultimate reason for her to rush 2 years work is way too few days was interesting and fast paced.
But I didn't enjoy the love story as much. The twist and turn, the on and off - it just felt.....frustrating and boring after a point. But I did find the art world interesting and I did like the story. The writing was really well done as well. All in all, it was good but I didn't love it
March 10, 2020
Is It Art? Is It a Mystery?
Review of the Hachette Audio audiobook edition (June 18, 2019) published simultaneously with the Grand Central Publishing hardcover original
This reading was part of my investigation of the novels nominated for the 2020 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America. Fake Like Me is a nominee for Best Novel. The winners will be announced April 30, 2020.
For the longest time here I had to keep doing double takes to make sure that I was reading the correct book. I had picked up Fake Like Me due to it's Edgar nomination and I kept wondering: where is the crime? where is the mystery? It seemed like a struggling young artist story about someone trying to live up to her idols, and it was really well done but I couldn't see how it qualified for a crime fiction award. BUT, it gradually became clear and then in the last quarter or so it REALLY became clear. And it was excellent. There are hints of the macabre somewhat throughout due to some of the conceptual art and performance art and even grand guignol aspects, but the elements of fakery and conspiracy are only very gradually revealed. I can't say much more due to spoilers.
I think if you enjoy modern abstract / performance art especially and slowly revealed hints to subterfuge you will enjoy this as well. The actual physical work of painting has never been better portrayed in any other fiction that I have ever read.
I also especially liked the narration in all voices by Xe Sands who was a new narrator to me, but whom I'll watch for in the future.
Review of the Hachette Audio audiobook edition (June 18, 2019) published simultaneously with the Grand Central Publishing hardcover original
This reading was part of my investigation of the novels nominated for the 2020 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America. Fake Like Me is a nominee for Best Novel. The winners will be announced April 30, 2020.
For the longest time here I had to keep doing double takes to make sure that I was reading the correct book. I had picked up Fake Like Me due to it's Edgar nomination and I kept wondering: where is the crime? where is the mystery? It seemed like a struggling young artist story about someone trying to live up to her idols, and it was really well done but I couldn't see how it qualified for a crime fiction award. BUT, it gradually became clear and then in the last quarter or so it REALLY became clear. And it was excellent. There are hints of the macabre somewhat throughout due to some of the conceptual art and performance art and even grand guignol aspects, but the elements of fakery and conspiracy are only very gradually revealed. I can't say much more due to spoilers.
I think if you enjoy modern abstract / performance art especially and slowly revealed hints to subterfuge you will enjoy this as well. The actual physical work of painting has never been better portrayed in any other fiction that I have ever read.
I also especially liked the narration in all voices by Xe Sands who was a new narrator to me, but whom I'll watch for in the future.
June 8, 2019
This is a difficult novel for me to review. When I spotted it on Amazon Vine, I could have sworn that they had listed it as a graphic novel, but apart from one map, the ARC has no other illustrations, or suggestions that there would be any art in the final work. Now, admittedly, this could well have been my mistake, so my disappointment on not being able to see how an ARC graphic novel would be presented is all mine. Having said that, I was intrigued by the subject matter. I am certainly not an expert in art, in any way, but I do enjoy art and like any creative process, it intrigues me.
The story follows a young, female artist whose home and studio are destroyed in a fire, taking with it her latest pieces for an exhibition. She tells her gallery that only one of the pieces was destroyed, meaning that she has to recreate her entire collection on a seemingly impossible timescale, and with nowhere to paint them, to boot. Against this backdrop, is the story of Pine City; a group of five artists who lived together, but out of all of them, Carey Logan was the most successful. Tragically, Carey committed suicide. Our un-named protagonist was a fan of Carey's work; she aspired to reach the same heights that Carey did, so imagine her delight when she ends up living in the same studio that Carey inhabited.
"Fake Like Me" is definitely not a bad book, so I struggled in some ways to pinpoint why it didn't seem to be a good match for me. Looking back, I think it was because of the amount of detail there is within the plot. Some of this was interesting, some less so, but regardless it left me feeling as though this story was one that you had to plough through. Like an oil colour painting, there seemed to be so much detail, that it left layers and layers for you to try and battle through. But, rather than these layers binding together to create the bigger picture, here it felt that at times the layers distracted from the main plot. Certainly, for me, it felt as though it took a long time for the plot to truly get going and this meant that I found the book distracting and difficult to engage with.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am not saying that this is not a well written novel; just that it wasn't one that worked for me.
The story follows a young, female artist whose home and studio are destroyed in a fire, taking with it her latest pieces for an exhibition. She tells her gallery that only one of the pieces was destroyed, meaning that she has to recreate her entire collection on a seemingly impossible timescale, and with nowhere to paint them, to boot. Against this backdrop, is the story of Pine City; a group of five artists who lived together, but out of all of them, Carey Logan was the most successful. Tragically, Carey committed suicide. Our un-named protagonist was a fan of Carey's work; she aspired to reach the same heights that Carey did, so imagine her delight when she ends up living in the same studio that Carey inhabited.
"Fake Like Me" is definitely not a bad book, so I struggled in some ways to pinpoint why it didn't seem to be a good match for me. Looking back, I think it was because of the amount of detail there is within the plot. Some of this was interesting, some less so, but regardless it left me feeling as though this story was one that you had to plough through. Like an oil colour painting, there seemed to be so much detail, that it left layers and layers for you to try and battle through. But, rather than these layers binding together to create the bigger picture, here it felt that at times the layers distracted from the main plot. Certainly, for me, it felt as though it took a long time for the plot to truly get going and this meant that I found the book distracting and difficult to engage with.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am not saying that this is not a well written novel; just that it wasn't one that worked for me.
June 29, 2019
“The history of art is littered with the bodies of dead women.” 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
First up, I need to mention that this book is not a fast-paced, dark-and-twisty thriller as some of the marketing may suggest. It is however, an impressive examination of the life of a struggling artist and a fascinating satire of the New York art world.
The unnamed artist at the center of the novel is on the cusp of the most important gallery show of her career when a fire destroys all of her paintings. She lies and tells the gallery that only one was destroyed, she then has three months to attempt to remake everything that was lost.
Her big break comes when she gets a chance to use studio space at a famous, upstate, art collective known as "Pine City." She goes there knowing that Pine City has some secrets, it was the home of her artistic hero, Carey Logan, a widely successful sculptor who a few years earlier walked out into the lake surrounding Pine City and drowned.
Our narrator senses there is something "off" about the stories surrounding Carey's death, and as I write this brief synopsis I know this is sounding like the set-up to a thriller--but that's not what this book is. Yes, there are secrets and some clues sprinkled throughout Pine City; some things are not quite as they seem, but this is a slow burn. The book is less about the mystery of Carey Logan's disappearance and more a meditation on the physical and emotional toll of trying to carve out a viable career as a female painter.
Putting the mystery aspect aside, what really struck me was the author's deft descriptions of class. At every point you are keenly aware of the income disparity between wealthy collectors; the trust-fund art students who have unlimited budgets for materials and travel; and then people like our narrator, working-class strivers with great talent who work incredibly hard but may never get ahead. If you know me, you know I deeply appreciate novels that attempt to talk about paychecks, about class, about wanting things that may forever be beyond your reach. This novel does that.
A thought-provoking meditation on art and the artist.
First up, I need to mention that this book is not a fast-paced, dark-and-twisty thriller as some of the marketing may suggest. It is however, an impressive examination of the life of a struggling artist and a fascinating satire of the New York art world.
The unnamed artist at the center of the novel is on the cusp of the most important gallery show of her career when a fire destroys all of her paintings. She lies and tells the gallery that only one was destroyed, she then has three months to attempt to remake everything that was lost.
Her big break comes when she gets a chance to use studio space at a famous, upstate, art collective known as "Pine City." She goes there knowing that Pine City has some secrets, it was the home of her artistic hero, Carey Logan, a widely successful sculptor who a few years earlier walked out into the lake surrounding Pine City and drowned.
Our narrator senses there is something "off" about the stories surrounding Carey's death, and as I write this brief synopsis I know this is sounding like the set-up to a thriller--but that's not what this book is. Yes, there are secrets and some clues sprinkled throughout Pine City; some things are not quite as they seem, but this is a slow burn. The book is less about the mystery of Carey Logan's disappearance and more a meditation on the physical and emotional toll of trying to carve out a viable career as a female painter.
Putting the mystery aspect aside, what really struck me was the author's deft descriptions of class. At every point you are keenly aware of the income disparity between wealthy collectors; the trust-fund art students who have unlimited budgets for materials and travel; and then people like our narrator, working-class strivers with great talent who work incredibly hard but may never get ahead. If you know me, you know I deeply appreciate novels that attempt to talk about paychecks, about class, about wanting things that may forever be beyond your reach. This novel does that.
A thought-provoking meditation on art and the artist.
January 22, 2022
Loved this book and loved how it showed an honest lens into the creative process for making art - not that I know much about that tbh. BUT if I could picture myself as an artist, the internal dialogue and approach to the work I think would be the same.
The book also read like a thriller, even though you already know all the details of the “drama” at the beginning. The book keeps hinting at more and as the plot continues, the layers keep getting pulled back on all the characters and how history unfolded.
If you’re into art, a highly recommended book!
The book also read like a thriller, even though you already know all the details of the “drama” at the beginning. The book keeps hinting at more and as the plot continues, the layers keep getting pulled back on all the characters and how history unfolded.
If you’re into art, a highly recommended book!
August 17, 2019
Death and fraud in the art world, YES! Smart and engrossing, and so vivid and incisive I almost expected to find the works of art with a google search. In the acknowledgements the author calls it "a love letter to the labour of artmaking", which is very much how it reads. Belongs next to Siri Hustvedt on the bookshelf.
January 9, 2023
I have a sister who’s an artist, holy crap the accuracy of how they live, I laughed so many times. I really enjoyed this, but glad I don’t go to gallery openings anymore!
March 24, 2020
Holy hell I lovedddd this. The characters and the story were so fascinating and enveloped me completely. I will say I really would not classify this as a thriller, but regardless I was on the edge of my seat following such an unstable narrator. One of my new faves
August 14, 2019
Time taken to read - 2 days
Pages - 368
Publisher - Riverrun
Source - Review Copy
Blurb from Goodreads
At once a twisted psychological portrait of a woman crumbling under unimaginable pressure and a razor-sharp satire of the contemporary art scene, FAKE LIKE ME is a dark, glamorous, and addictive story of good intentions gone awry, from the critically acclaimed author of I'll Eat When I'm Dead.
What really happened to Carey Logan?
After a fire decimates her studio, including the seven billboard-size paintings for her next show, a young, no-name painter is left with an impossible task: recreate her art in three months-or ruin her fledgling career.
Homeless and desperate, she flees to an exclusive retreat in upstate New York famous for its outrageous revelries and glamorous artists. And notorious as the place where brilliant young artist Carey Logan-one of her idols-drowned in the lake.
But when she arrives, the retreat is a ghost of its former self. No one shares their work. No parties light up the deck. No one speaks of Carey, though her death haunts the cabins and the black lake, lurking beneath the surface like a shipwreck. As the young painter works obsessively in Carey's former studio, uncovers strange secrets and starts to fall--hard and fast--for Carey's mysterious boyfriend, it's as if she's taking her place.
But one thought shadows her every move: What really happened to Carey Logan?
My Review
Our main character and story teller has no name, like she is nameless through the whole story. She is an artist and about to hit the big time when an untimely fire wipes out the artwork she needs to hand in in a few months. Her idol Carey Logan inspired her since she seen her years back. Carey is now dead by suicide and chance happens she gets to go to the retreat Carey and fellow artists create some of their master pieces in. Finding herself in Carey's actual creative space our main character attempts to pull off the recreation of her works whilst trying to find out about Carey and what really happened.
So art isn't my thing but I did find it quite interesting reading the various methods our main character uses to create her master pieces. There is a lot of coverage on the creative artistic side to the book and I think for arty folk this will be interested but as a non arty person I did enjoy learning about something so different. The book is a slow burner in that respect, it is all about the artist, her struggles, work, ideas. Trying to infiltrate the group of artists at the retreat who aren't happy about her arrival. We also see her old "friend" I use that term loosely as the more you read the more shallow she seems and their friendship hallow.
Art, sex, friendship, creativity, betrayal and secrets and just some of the themes in the book although the massive focus was on the artist side. It was different, interesting and managed to surprise me once or twice along the way. Not a book I would normally pick up but I did find it interesting and would read this author again, 3.5/5 for me.
Pages - 368
Publisher - Riverrun
Source - Review Copy
Blurb from Goodreads
At once a twisted psychological portrait of a woman crumbling under unimaginable pressure and a razor-sharp satire of the contemporary art scene, FAKE LIKE ME is a dark, glamorous, and addictive story of good intentions gone awry, from the critically acclaimed author of I'll Eat When I'm Dead.
What really happened to Carey Logan?
After a fire decimates her studio, including the seven billboard-size paintings for her next show, a young, no-name painter is left with an impossible task: recreate her art in three months-or ruin her fledgling career.
Homeless and desperate, she flees to an exclusive retreat in upstate New York famous for its outrageous revelries and glamorous artists. And notorious as the place where brilliant young artist Carey Logan-one of her idols-drowned in the lake.
But when she arrives, the retreat is a ghost of its former self. No one shares their work. No parties light up the deck. No one speaks of Carey, though her death haunts the cabins and the black lake, lurking beneath the surface like a shipwreck. As the young painter works obsessively in Carey's former studio, uncovers strange secrets and starts to fall--hard and fast--for Carey's mysterious boyfriend, it's as if she's taking her place.
But one thought shadows her every move: What really happened to Carey Logan?
My Review
Our main character and story teller has no name, like she is nameless through the whole story. She is an artist and about to hit the big time when an untimely fire wipes out the artwork she needs to hand in in a few months. Her idol Carey Logan inspired her since she seen her years back. Carey is now dead by suicide and chance happens she gets to go to the retreat Carey and fellow artists create some of their master pieces in. Finding herself in Carey's actual creative space our main character attempts to pull off the recreation of her works whilst trying to find out about Carey and what really happened.
So art isn't my thing but I did find it quite interesting reading the various methods our main character uses to create her master pieces. There is a lot of coverage on the creative artistic side to the book and I think for arty folk this will be interested but as a non arty person I did enjoy learning about something so different. The book is a slow burner in that respect, it is all about the artist, her struggles, work, ideas. Trying to infiltrate the group of artists at the retreat who aren't happy about her arrival. We also see her old "friend" I use that term loosely as the more you read the more shallow she seems and their friendship hallow.
Art, sex, friendship, creativity, betrayal and secrets and just some of the themes in the book although the massive focus was on the artist side. It was different, interesting and managed to surprise me once or twice along the way. Not a book I would normally pick up but I did find it interesting and would read this author again, 3.5/5 for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 293 reviews