Melissa’s Reviews > Fake Yourself a Merry Little Christmas > Status Update

Because no matter how grumpy, how misunderstood, or broken, or shy, everyone deserves their own happily ever after, and the cheesier the better.
Christina

Sunshine. I know you’ve only been single for a month. But I’ve been yours since the first moment I laid eyes on your marshmallow mustache….
Will you please be my (real) wife?

Jake’s proposal 💍

Jake- Sitting here next to this woman, who is smart and funny, a little wild, and all mine—there is not a doubt in my mind that I’ve found my person. And for once, I am excited about the future. I can’t wait to figure out how the HEA will look like for Christina and Jake.
But there’s no rush. Today, we can just be happy, and that’s more than enough for now.

“I don’t know if I can help at all, but if you ever need a hand to hold, you only need to text me, and I’ll be here with both my hands.”

Jake to Christina
This might be my favorite line from the whole book.

“My fake wife is a real romance author!”

They made an entrance.

Christina- If the price for getting my dream is losing Jake, if in order to get my theoretical happily ever after with a theoretical partner and a theoretical child in a theoretically distant future, I have to let go of the real, perfectly flawed man in front of me, who practices making me happy on a daily basis—maybe it’s time I change my dream.

“Why would you not tell everyone you know that you’re a writer?”
…Every reason I had turned out not to be mine. As much as I hate to admit it, I allowed Paul to leave a huge mark on my career. It’s time I started thinking for myself. Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore. Revealing my face to the world seems such an easy & insignificant gesture now. There are no stakes to it, only benefits.

Christina- In my defense, truth is not always the answer to everything. If it was, my answer would be yes. I am still pretending.
Pretending I was pretending.

She’s pretending to pretend
Not ready to admit her real feelings for Jake

He could have so easily become a cynic like me, closed himself off from the possibility of falling in love ever again. Instead, not only does he read romance, he also believes in it, which is an act of bravery in our world….
Look at that, my biggest fan has more courage than his favorite author. I hide inside my stories, writing out scenarios that I wish to see in real life but don’t actually believe I would.

…studying myself in the mirror. I look like I imagine my heroines look at their lowest point in the story. I thought I understood exactly how they felt when I wrote their stories. I had no problem sending my characters to the bottom of despair, because I knew their happily ever after was waiting right around the corner, and it would be so much sweeter if they really deserved it
Do I deserve it?
Does Jake?
Christina