The Stand-In

This book was all over audible when I first joined. It is also available now in written format in paperback or e-book. I was flipping between the two to see how each would fare and thought either one works well.

We are introduced to Gracie who is sexually harassed by her boss Todd and takes a sick day to seek a lawyer for advice. The lawyer asks why she didn’t approach HR first and she mentions that she didn’t think it was a good avenue to explore. After the meeting she grabs a coffee at a local cafe and notices photographers snapping her photo. She doesn’t think too much of it.

Gracie gets to work the next day and Todd knows she wasn’t really sick, showing her the photos of her from the paparazzi mistaking her for international famous actress Wei Fangli. She gets fired and this starts some stress and worry. Gracie is wanting to get her mum into a good nursing home as she is being cared for her Alzheimers. In comes Wei Fangli with an offer of a lifetime. Can Gracie stand-in for Fangli at public events? Since the paparazzi already mistook her, it could work. Fangli’s closest friend and pretend boyfriend Sam Yao (also internally famous for acting) thinks it’s a bad idea. Gracie really wants the money to help her mum and decides what’s the harm in pretending to be famous for awhile?

I loved that we had representation in this book. The MC is biracial and so is the author. The concept of the book was funny and I don’t know that I could fake being someone famous as Gracie put in a lot of hard work to pull it off. It wouldn’t be the easiest job and there were moments that she could have easily been caught out.

What I loved about this book was that the characters didn’t realise they needed each other until they crossed paths. They each had a hand in each others growth and that to me was special. I didn’t love Sam at first and thought he was a bit of a rude d%*k to Gracie, but when they had their truce, they started to really understand one another. Recognising similar traits in herself, I liked how Gracie was able to assist Fangli get the help she needed for her depression.

There was a twist towards the end that I didn’t see coming, because I just wasn’t expecting it and it worked so well in the story. It was a sweet ending where everyone got something unexpected out of this bizarre set up.