The Love Con (Seressia Glass)

The Love Con
Seressia Glass
Berkley Books
Fiction, Romance
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Ever since high school, Kenya Davenport has been a power cosplayer, using makeup, prosthetics, and costuming to recreate favorite fictional characters or mashing them up into original creations. Unfortunately, her parents have never understood her passion, insisting she give up her dream and get a "real" job with her engineering degree. When her best friend Cameron Lassiter, who shares her loves of cosplay, gaming, anime, and comics, tipped her off about a new reality competition - Cosplay or No Way, pitting cosplayers against each other for a grand prize of $100,000 and a chance to work on a Hollywood blockbuster fantasy film - it seemed like the answer. If she can prove, on national television, that she has what it takes to turn her "childish fantasy" into a real career by winning, maybe they'll finally understand. Amazingly, she made it to the final round... but the last challenge throws a wrench into the works. She has four weeks to design a pair of costumes for the finale: one for her, and one for the significant other she does not have, having broken up with her last boyfriend some time ago. Under pressure, on camera, she names the first person who comes to mind: Cam.
Cam was working late at his fledgling fabrication shop, Make It Works, watching his best friend since high school make her way to the final round on Cosplay or No Way when he hears his name. He has had feelings for Kenya for a while, but they've never dated, and the one time he floated the idea in their college days she friendzoned him hard. But now she's telling all of America that they're an item. When she comes back to Atlanta, film crew in tow (because of course they want to film the entire design process, and likely drum up some domestic drama for ratings), she explains that it's just a pretend romance. The producers had been trying all season to cast her as the mean, fat Black woman stereotype; the judges likely didn't even think she had ever dated when they set the final challenge, let alone dated a blonde hunk like Cam. She also needs his help if she's going to fabricate two costumes in four weeks, a job that would usually take months. For the sake of their friendship and the competition, Cam agrees to be the perfect fake boyfriend.
Cosplay may be all about make-believe, but there's nothing fake about the feelings that spark between Cam and Kenya, even when the cameras aren't rolling...

REVIEW: Romances make nice palate cleansers, I find, and this one had the extra interest of the cosplay sideline; I've never indulged, but always found it an interesting hobby. The Love Con hits the usual romance novel notes, but (no offense intended to romance fans) one generally doesn't read romances for unpredictable originality in the plots. It's characters, their interactions, and the individual ups and downs of their relationship (which, being a romance, one can generally predict the outcome of) that make or break these stories. On those levels, The Love Con proves satisfying. Kenya has been fighting her whole life against expectations: not just the expectations of a society that has a particular Idea of how large Black women are and what they can and cannot do, but against parents who, while they may mean well, cannot understand how their demands are hurting more than they're helping. She's always had Cam in her corner, though, ever since they met in high school, but never let herself think of him as anything more than a friend, the wayward son of an alcoholic father, whom her parents took under their wing when he needed a family most. Cam, meanwhile, has carried a candle, if not a full-blown torch, for Kenya for years, but never knew how to broach the subject after the one failed attempt. Pretending to be her boyfriend may be a back door into a real relationship. But even he is taken by surprise by the strength of emotions that their fake romance unearths. Along the way, they have to contend with jealous exes, Kenya's disapproving parents (who made her promise that, if she didn't win, she'd give up her fledgling cosplay career and "grow up"), and a reality film crew intent on stirring up drama. The leads are pretty well matched, with some solid interactions and believable insecurities, and of course there's rising heat as they realize how real the fake romance has become. Glass also treats cosplay and fandom respectfully, as the passions and commitments they are. A few of the twists are a little too telegraphed, and there were a couple threads and ideas that seemed underplayed or forgotten, but all in all The Love Con offers exactly what it says on the label.

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