I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review in any way.
Tori Albert is eighteen, her confidence level is zero. Her life experience...also zero. She's a girl lost in the shuffle, hiding in the shadows, craving attention. If only someone, anyone, would notice her, maybe life would improve.
Grant Donovan can't stop noticing Tori, but she is young, inexperienced and naive. She is also his best friend's younger sister. Grant knows the best thing he can do is just walk away. So why the hell isn't he walking away?
When a late night knock lands across her bedroom door, Tori knows what stands behind it could end in disaster...but how many times does opportunity come knocking?
Just when she thinks her luck is finally changing, the assurance Tori believes she has finally found is taken away. With new assets and a new goal in sight, Tori will soon learn her new found confidence isn't all it's cracked up to be. Unfortunately, some things you just have to learn the heard way.
I'm not going to lie, the cover and title did slightly put me off. With a name like
Fake Boobs God knows what I thought this book was going to be about. So yes, I wasn't head over heels, but you know what? The cover intrigued me, so I clicked on it and sure enough I liked the sound of it. I'm glad I did bother to read the description, I really enjoyed
Fake Boobs, and it carries such an important message.
Tori suffers with extremely low self-esteem, she's slim and doesn't have much in the way of boobs or a bum. All the guys she knows think she looks gorgeous, but obviously no-one has ever told her that so she has serious issues regarding her appearance. So much so that after the break down of the short but intense relationship with her brother's best friend, Tori starts to change herself.
In her quest to be 'beautiful' Tori goes from a brunette to platinum blonde, from never touching makeup in her life to caking it on, she gets contacts to change her eyes from brown with a honey hue to blue. And most notably, Tori experiments with her breast size. She starts off with an innocent padded bra, then she moves on to plastic bra inserts to amp up her cleavage. But the temporary solution isn't good enough for Tori, she's working in a bar where the girl's wear corsets and tiny shorts, she's immersed herself in a world where big boobs and blonde hair are beauty. So she gets implants, huge things that overpower her petite frame and finally set off alarm bells for her family. That's right, only then do her family finally notice that something is up with Tori, she was left to hate part of herself so much that she got surgery. Surgery.
I think the message that Ryan Ringbloom portrayed in Fake Boobs is really important. She showed how a girl, beautiful and shy, succumbed to her own insecurities and drastically changed herself to fit what's portrayed as beautiful. Not only does Tori change her physical appearance so drastically, she's willing to anything with guy's because she wants to feel pretty. No woman's self-worth should be measured purely by if a man finds you attractive. Luckily, Tori had someone looking out for her, it may have taken her brother way too long, and Grant may have disappeared for four years when she needed him the most, but in the end it all turned out all right.
I really enjoyed the narrative that Ryan Ringbloom employed, the change in POVs, showing us both Tori and Grant's POVs. Also, the narratives did not follow the standard chronological order of events, we start off in the past and follow Tori, but then we're introduced to Grant's POV and go back and forth. This was definitely an interesting tactic and one that I feel worked really well.
I found Fake Boobs really heartwarming and enjoyable. It shows that it's important for girl's (and guy's) to be happy the way they are. You've got to love who you are, because until you do that you won't truly be happy.
Have you ever read a book that had a message you felt strongly about? Let me know in the comments!
'Fake Boobs' by Ryan Ringbloom
5 Stars
Labels: 2015, 5 Stars, Fake Boobs, New Adult, Published 2015, Ryan Ringbloom
