Romance which includes but lightly traverses issues of mental health, multi-racial identity and self-worth, the last being the one bearing the most weight. Fun and well paced with some satisfactory glam wardrobe moments. ( )

Loved it. Well written and cute story. I figured it out part way through but written so well that I kept reading. Where is the planner app? I need that planner in my life! ( )

Gracie is trying to get her mother, who has Alzheimer's, into a better nursing home, but the one she wants for her is more expensive and has a huge waiting list. Gracie's job is a nightmare - she's being subtly harassed by her boss but doesn't feel she can do anything about it because 1) no evidence and 2) she really needs the money. Then she receives a nerve-wracking offer she can't really refuse: get paid handsomely to act as the double of famous Chinese actress Wei Fangli. This puts Gracie in frequent contact with Fangli's best friend, the gorgeous and equally famous actor Sam Yao, who disapproves of this plan but will do whatever is necessary to help Fangli.

The scenes with Fangli and Gracie were wonderful - I loved reading about those two becoming friends. Unfortunately, the romance between Gracie and Sam wasn't as good. In the midst of everything else, it didn't have enough room to breathe. Sam was pretty emotionally walled off - he took on the bulk of teaching Gracie to be Fangli, and one of the most important lessons he had to teach was that everyone watched literally everything he and Fangli did when they were out in public, and every word, gesture, and action had to take that into account.

Gracie learning to be Fangli was great, if anxiety-inducing. That said, the author went a bit easy on her, so situations that should have blown up in her face and ruined the whole plan ended up being much less disastrous than I expected. The story's internal logic occasionally had some issues, as well. For example, Gracie was acting as Fangli's double so that Fangli could rest while still projecting "Fangli is fine" to the world, but at one point Gracie used laryngitis as an excuse to avoid having to talk and there were no real consequences.

The cross-cultural mental health aspects were interesting. Also, I loved that each chapter started with an illustration of Gracie's latest stab at her productivity app (which, by the end of the book, I really wished I could try). I wish the romance storyline had been stronger, although I appreciated that this was a bit of a romance unicorn, with off-page sex (on-page was limited to kissing and hand-holding).

While I had some issues with this book, I still enjoyed it a lot and plan to try more of the author's works.

Extras:

Reading group guide, interview with the author, and blank templates of some of Gracie's various To Do list ideas.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

As I don't use audible, I didn't hear this in its first incarnation as an audiobook so I was pleased to find a physical copy at my local library (I'd also spotted it at Target, but as we know book acquisition and reading are two different hobbies and for the former I'm really evaluating whether or not I want to keep a copy on my shelf for rereads or lending).

This is a cute debut, very breezy for the most part (especially considering Gracie starts with a boss that sexually harasses her before she's fired- something that made me wonder if we were going to go into serious topic mode like a [a:Sonali Dev|7025918|Sonali Dev|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1397764249p2/7025918.jpg] romance). The end is a little too neat (though it does explain how this situation could work) and reminds me of [b:The Joy Luck Club|7763|The Joy Luck Club|Amy Tan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1304978653l/7763._SY75_.jpg|1955658]'s revelation that June has twin older sisters left behind in China.

I appreciated the specificity of Gracie's biracial identity and Toronto locations- feels like the author writing what she's familiar with. ( )

The Stand-In is such a pleasant surprise. It takes a well-worn trope (in this case, a Prisoner of Zenda-type set-up, where regular old Torontonian Gracie Reed finds out that she's a dead ringer for the famous Chinese actress Wei Fangli and is asked to be her secret stand-in) and deals it with in an unexpectedly thoughtful way through characters who feel like human beings. This is basically the kind of book that I always hope I'm picking up when I start a new romance novel!

Lucy Chu admirably resists the tendency of a lot of contemporary romcoms to overplay the shenanigans or the Capital Q Quirky side characters or the quippy conversations. She clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how someone might react in a situation like this—either having to pretend, like Gracie, or being co-opted into the pretense, like Fangli's friend and fellow movie star, Sam Yao. I could buy all of these people as people, and I really warmed to Gracie in particular. When the book begins, she's in a difficult spot—lonely, dealing with depression and anxiety and a toxic workplace, trying to do her best by her mother who has early onset Alzheimer's. Chu manages for the most part to deal with these issues and others thoughtfully and respectfully, while still keeping this a piece of light fiction—no mean feat!

There are some places where it shows that this is a first novel, though, particularly in the inevitable Third Act Conflict/Crisis. The book plays out here in ways that are a bit more tropey in the bad/undeveloped way, as if Chu couldn't quite plot her way out of it. But one part of it in particular rubbed me the wrong way. One of the themes of the book is Gracie and Sam grappling, in different ways, with ideas of authenticity and doing the right thing. Gracie, for instance, has ethical qualms about pretending to be Fangli, and those particularly surface in a scene where she interacts with a sick child who thinks he's getting to see one of his favourite actresses in person. There's a later scene where Sam interacts with Gracie's mother, who is confused and thinks he's her long-dead brother. Gracie asks Sam just to go with it; he refuses because his character arc is about learning to advocate more for himself and what he truly wants to do with his life. He doesn't want to lie or pretend to be something that he's not anymore.

Now on a thematic/mirroring level, I get what Chu was doing here! But it didn't work for me. Generally Chu shows a great deal of empathy towards Gracie's mom and her condition, and shows the good days and the bad days that are part and parcel of it. But I've lost a loved one to Alzheimer's, and while I know that the impulse that Sam feels here—and that Gracie goes with elsewhere in the book—to try to insist on who you are, etc., to an Alzheimer's sufferer is a strong one, it generally doesn't work and it just makes everyone feel more upset. It's a very human response, so I was rubbed the wrong way not so much by the fact that it happened as by the narrative framing of Sam as right on this particular issue. I feel like there had to be a more elegant way to hit the same character beat. That's a very personal issue for me though, and it may not strike other people the same way.

Overall though I really enjoyed The Stand-In, and I will definitely be looking out for future work by Lucy Chu. ( )