A few weeks ago--meaning this review should have been posted long ago--I read Pretend You Love Me (originally titled Far From Xanadu) by Julie Anne Peters. I preface this review by saying that Peters is one of my absolute favorite writers. Three of the four books of hers that I own are LGBT-oriented--this book being one of them--and I must say that this one did not disappoint. I enjoyed reading a novel of a lesbian in a small town where she was just accepted as that, because when you think of small towns and gay culture, the standard stereotype is a bunch of redneck, Bible-hugging, closed-minded individuals who are ready to run the homos out of town. This book wasn't anything like that. What I think I liked most was that the fact that Mike (whose birth name is Mary Elizabeth) doesn't flaunt that she's a lesbian, and you sort of forget about that fact and are more focused on the crush she has without really considering gender a part of the problem, just that Xanadu only sees her as a friend.
In the beginning, I, like the characters in the novel, was enamored by Xanadu. She's the city girl who moves to the middle of nowhere with this intense backstory of drugs and death. But while Mike falls deeper and deeper in love with Xanadu, my feelings for her followed that of Jamie (Mike's gay male counterpart), whose fascination with Xanadu reaches a peak and then peters out into a deep loathing. Xanadu truly takes Mike and readers on a wild ride. It was difficult to put the book down, so most of the time I didn't.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys LGBT fiction. I also recommend this to anyone who enjoys Young Adult fiction. I give this novel an 8 out of 10. You can acquire this book at this link.
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