Review of “Fake Out” by Felicia Farber

Score: 9.5+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)

Fake Out by Felicia Farber is one of the tensest and most suspenseful novels of the entire year!
We found ourselves on the edge of our seats the whole time!

The book hinges on an excellent, menacing, and compelling villain in Krystal Cooper, the so-called “Ice Queen” of Westberry High. Where do we even start with this b*&$#? Well, for starters, she's a power-hungry tyrant who makes full use of her cult of personality to institute a hierarchical structure among the student body with her and her “Class A” followers at the top and others at the bottom. She's a bully who uses her groupies, a gang of mean and dedicated followers known to the protagonists as “Things,” to intimidate and bully people she doesn't like. Their favorite target seems to be the main protagonist, Blair Evans.

However, Krystal's defining character trait is how manipulative she is. This 17-year-old, self-centered, selfish, stuck up, snobbish b*$@% is one of the most cunningly manipulative characters we've ever encountered in fiction! We may have found Palpatine's real granddaughter. Seriously! She is constantly spinning, weaving, and telling lies, finding ways to get under the skin of different characters. She is constantly turning them against each other with a variety of strategies and tactics straight out of Machiavelli. And when nothing else works, she can always fall back on her acting and turn on the water works.

At some points, you're going to find yourself thinking: Why the hell does anyone still believe or listen to this witch?!

At other points, you're going to find yourself thinking: She CAN'T be right... or can she? What if she's telling the truth? Maybe a portion of the truth? Maybe a half truth?

Heck, she even had us tricked, fooled, and giving her the benefit of the doubt at times! We're not kidding!

She even turned us against characters we thought were good and lovable like David and Hunter Hartman. Because of Krystal's influence, we thought that Hunter Hartman, the guy who seemed overly nice to Blair, might be the one doctoring and manipulating all of those photos and videos! We even thought that Frankie might be involved in wrongdoing against David and Blair!

There are so many red-herrings and potential culprits in this book! There's Hunter Hartman, Pam Epstein A.K.A. Thing #3, and Frankie Portillo (who was largely responsible for getting the protagonists arrested in the previous). There's also the enigmatic Mr. Cooper (Krystal's dad, who rarely talks or interacts in the story and is married to convicted felon), Keira Cooper (Krystal's seemingly sweet and well-meaning sister), and Alyssa Levine A.K.A. Splenda (a phony person, sycophant, and chronic gossiper).

So, even with a clearly-evil culprit who seems responsible for it all (Krystal), the reader is still left wondering: What if she isn't responsible for these bad things after all? Or what if she isn't working alone?

It's intense!

And that's even considering that there aren't many life-or-death, do-or-die situations in this book. It doesn't matter! The protagonists, Blair and David, are constantly at risk of losing their futures, their freedom, their reputations, their love, and each other. Those are high enough stakes!

Geez, and we haven't even talked about the plot itself yet.

Well, where do we begin?

Well, don't let the fact that this is the second book in a series discourage you from reading it. We actually didn't read the first book, but we were up to speed pretty quick.

In other words: this can be a standalone read.

The way the author accomplished that is brilliant. Rather than hitting us with a wall of exposition at the very beginning, the author actually snuck it into a phone conversation between the main protagonist, Blair, and one of her friends, Nikki, who is away at college. So, we basically receive an explanation for what happened in the first book from this phone conversation.

The Cliff Notes version is: David and Blair were wrongfully arrested and accused of sexting at the beginning of their school year, a scenario partly manufactured by Krystal and accidentally aided by David's clumsy best friend, Frankie, who got drunk and sent out a partially-nude photo of Blair from David's phone. In concert with all of this, Krystal's mother (who we learn throughout the book has serious health problems), was arrested for ch**d p**n after accessing Blair's webcam and attempting to expose her. This was another situation that was at least partly manufactured by Krystal, who complained to her mother about Blair incessantly due to Blair dating Krystal's ex-boyfriend, David. It's weird how easily we digested and understood all of that...

Anyway, Krystal continues on a warpath against Blair and David in retaliation.

The villainous Ice Queen interrupts David and Blair from sleeping together for the first time, calling relentlessly, even calling multiple phone lines. Anyone who has had a crazy ex will be familiar with this kind of harassing, psychotic behavior.

Anyway, Krystal drops a bombshell when she reveals to David that she is pregnant, likely with his child (as they had slept together before David dating Blair). She also used her gang to corner Blair, giving her a savage ultimatum: that Blair will drop the charges against her mother in exchange for Krystal aborting the baby.

That's right, this evil, psychotic 17-year-old is so unhinged and ruthless that she's willing to barter with the life of her unborn baby just to control her ex-boyfriend and her perceived enemy!

So, that begs a series of questions that eventually get answered in the book.

But the question that we had this whole time was: How does Krystal keep getting away with all of this?
And why do the authority figures at Westberry, including the teachers, principal, dean, and guidance counselor, all seem complicit in her schemes? They always seem to side with Krystal and blame Blair and David (especially David) for everything.

It's bizarroland! Then again, this is kinda how the justice system is. Victims seem to have significantly less rights than perpetrators. Perpetrators have guaranteed legal rights. Victims, sickeningly, have to abide by these rights. It's kinda disgusting when you think about it. For example, if you're trying to get a restraining order, you have to face the person you're physically trying to avoid in court.

Another issue that comes up is how Blair and David are still blamed for their arrests even though they were innocent and cleared of all charges. In other words, their charges are mistaken for convictions. For example, the administration still dangles David's arrest as being one of “three strikes” that threaten to destroy his academic and athletic careers, outright ignoring that he was never convicted and that the charges were wrong.

It's agitating! And that just adds to the tension.

Principal Scott, Ms. Bautista (the guidance counselor), and Dean Fowler are pretty terrible people. They might even count as villains or antagonists alongside Krystal.

Meanwhile, Blair is denied letters of recommendation from classes she is performing well in because the teachers judge her based on the partially-nude photo that was leaked without her consent, the arrest, the sexting accusations, and/or them being a friend of Krystal's dad.

That leads us back to asking: What the heck is up with Krystal and her family? Like, how is it that Krystal and her dad keep getting off scotch-free? Is he like the head coach of the local university football team? Is he the governor of the state? Is he the police chief? What gives?

Both he and Krystal seem to have so much respect and pull in their community, yet they had a convicted felon of a very serious and disturbing crime in their home! This broke our suspension of disbelief a bit, along with the fact that they played a video of minors engaging in sexually activity for other adults as part of a case—something which realistically wouldn't happen because of laws preventing the distribution and showing of this kind of content. Usually, a trusted analyst hired by the court or the prosecution would simply describe what is happening in the video rather than it being shown to a jury.

Anyway, we're still wondering why anyone likes or follows Krystal. Not only is she overtly mean and negative, but she is also described as being repugnant in terms of smell, sound, and appearance. Her voice is described as being “dreadful” and “husky.” Her smell is described as being cloying because she abuses fragrances, especially lavender. Her appearance isn't even that impressive. She's not as athletic or fit as Blair. Her eyebrows are described as “tattooed.” She really doesn't sound like an attractive person to us, even ignoring her terrible personality.

The only thing about her that's emphasized as a bit of a positive is that she's busty, although we're not sure if she's actually busty or if she just wears clothes that try to accentuate that part of her body.

Speaking of body parts and sexuality, you should come prepared that this book does contain descriptions of a sexual nature that include characters who are technically minors, including an emphasis on different body parts, usually for the sake of the story. This might offend or put off some people.

We'd actually caution that this isn't really a YA or teen book despite it including characters who are around the age of 17. This is more of an adult book. The fact that there's quite a bit of vulgarity and cursing confirms that.

We were willing to overlook that because the book is so compelling, but it's still worth mentioning.
One thing we're really loving about this book is that the supporting characters are fleshed out enough without distracting from the central plot or seeming superfluous. There's a supporting character named Kayla whose parents are clearly bigoted while also being overprotective of her. Another supporting character, Rachel, isn't just defined by her eating disorder; she's also passionate about climate change and art. She provides good advice to the main character.

Lastly, this is actually a GREAT book that explores artificial-intelligence and the worrisome trend of deepfakes, giving the book its title. Deepfakes involve using technology to manipulate an image, video, and/or audio to include a person or part of a person that wasn't in the original media. It can take someone's persona without their consent and show them saying or doing something they didn't say or do including doing drugs, drinking alcohol, or engaging in sexual activity, including of a pornographic nature. This is very troubling, worrisome, and disturbing because it ignores things like consent, dignity, and a person's right to privacy. The Screen Actors Guild just held a strike over this very issue since AI and deepfake technology threaten to replace their roles in movies.

It has huge repercussions for our future! Various contributors actually talked about it in 100 Livestreaming & Digital Media Predictions, Volume 4, which is also in this contest.

This book provided us with a great, compelling, and enjoyable reading experience. It never once lost our interest or attention.

Check it out on Amazon!