abigail's Reviews > The Dating Plan

** spoiler alert ** I picked this book for my Janurary Book of the Month subscrption and boy, was I disappointed.

I really hate to nitpick, but I noticed a couple of errors that made me pause and sigh. For one, the prom fiasco was intially described as Daisy being the nerdy freshmen going with the popular senior. Near the middle of the book, the story becomes that Liam stood her up during her senior prom. So which was it? Second, this book could have used a few more rounds of editing because there were some run-on sentences that confused the heck out of me!

Second, I LOVE the fake dating trope. However, the point of the fake dating trope is for everyone to believe the couple is actually together. In this book, mored than half of the characters know that Daisy and Liam are lying and they talk about it loudly in public settings/her work like it’s NBD. Only a select number of family members (on both side) actually believe their relationship is real.

Third, the characters are straight up ANNOYING. There was no part of me that liked either Daisy or Liam. My biggest issue with Daisy is that she reads as neurodivergent, but she (and everyone else) just calls her nerdy and/or quirky. Her distant-mother used the phrase “weirdly smart” and part of me believes her mother probably thought that Daisy was on the spectrum and meant it to be hurtful. I’m honestly so tired of authors coding characters as neurodivergent as if it’s cute and quirky, especially if they are in the technology field. It’s ugly and boring and needs to stop! Second, I had no respect for Daisy because she would say one thing and then either do/or show something else. She claimed to loathe Liam after their first re-encounter, but she jumped on the chance to be his fake fiancee. Honestly, I generally felt little depth for both Liam and Daisy. They were so one-dimensial that I wasn’t rooting for either of them.

Lastly, this book was described on BOTm as ‘LOL’ and ‘salacioius’ and that is simply not true lmfao!! First, the “funny” scenes were so cringy I had to put the book down several times. Desai tried to use the quirky aunts as jokes, but they grew old fast. One aunt makes bad dishes, such as mixing all the food at a stadium together and the gag was liam eating it to impress the aunt. After that moment, the aunt kept making it for Liam and everyone around them would laugh. Second, the sex scenes (sorry, this is not a graceful transition) were anything but steamy. I love a good romp but god, there was no spark or tension between Liam and Daisy! Desai made a joke about them breaking all the furniture in Daisy’s bedroom and I’m like...okay but how?? There was nothing steamy enough going on for Liam to break a headboard with his bare hands.

I really hate to be negative in book reviews, but oof! This one was a serious doozy to get through. If I had gotten it from the library, I would have simply put it down, but because I spent money on it, I forced myself to get to the end.