Fix Her Up Book Review

Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey
Series: Hot & Hammered #1
Published by Avon on June 11, 2019
Pages: 400
Goodreads

A brand new romantic comedy from New York Times bestseller Tessa Bailey!
Georgette Castle’s family runs the best home renovation business in town, but she picked balloons instead of blueprints and they haven’t taken her seriously since. Frankly, she’s over it. Georgie loves planning children’s birthday parties and making people laugh, just not at her own expense. She’s determined to fix herself up into a Woman of the World... whatever that means.
Phase one: new framework for her business (a website from this decade, perhaps?)
Phase two: a gut-reno on her wardrobe (fyi, leggings are pants.)
Phase three: updates to her exterior (do people still wax?)
Phase four: put herself on the market (and stop crushing on Travis Ford!)
Living her best life means facing the truth: Georgie hasn’t been on a date since, well, ever. Nobody’s asking the town clown out for a night of hot sex, that’s for sure. Maybe if people think she’s having a steamy love affair, they’ll acknowledge she’s not just the “little sister” who paints faces for a living. And who better to help demolish that image than the resident sports star and tabloid favorite?
Travis Ford was major league baseball’s hottest rookie when an injury ended his career. Now he’s flipping houses to keep busy and trying to forget his glory days. But he can’t even cross the street without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there's Georgie, his best friend’s sister, who is not a kid anymore. When she proposes a wild scheme—that they pretend to date, to shock her family and help him land a new job—he agrees. What’s the harm? It’s not like it’s real. But the girl Travis used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman and there’s nothing fake about how much he wants her...

I went into Fix Her Up wanting a light-hearted romance and that’s what I got. I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into, other than Tessa Bailey’s reputation and I’m not sure it was what I was expecting or what I needed. We follow Georgette and Travis as they work out how to deal with family and personal trauma whilst fake dating.

Characters in Fix Her Up

Travis and Georgie I think were my biggest issue with Fix Her Up, I couldn’t understand the attraction and I kept hoping it would grow as the book carried on but it didn’t. There was this lack of awareness all the way through this story with both Georgie and Travis having no idea what the other one is feeling. It was frustrating, especially with the way Travis treats Georgie and the people around him. It wasn’t cute and it didn’t make me fall in love with this book. I personally don’t think Travis’ redemption was enough and I think it would have been a better story is she had up and left him to be honest.

And, Georgie, I mean Bailey literally made her a clown, and I don’t even have words. It basically summed up the way she was viewed throughout the book, it just felt cruel and I’m not sure it added anything to the story or plot line. There was nothing really to Georgie as a character, her entire personality was based on the fact she loved Travis and he genuinely didn’t deserve it.

The Bad Bits in Fix Her Up

I think the issues with the characters tainted the rest of Fix Her Up for me. It was a tough to get past that and there were certain parts of the story that didn’t help things. The scenes I really didn’t like were the fireplace pissing contest and the fake injury moment. I thought they didn’t show Travis off in the right light and I actually thought it ruined their entire relationship because the foundations had visible cracks all the way through. I would have loved for there to have been more time spent redeeming Travis especially after the awful fight and make up scene, there was a lot of potential that wasn’t reached.

The Good Bits

You may be surprised to learn that there were actually good bits in Fix Her Up. I did enjoy some of the book, and the bits which really stood out to me were the girls club events. It was great that despite all the crap going on we could see this group of women come together and work out what they needed from each other. Seeing Georgie and her sister’s relationship struggle and strain but also grow felt like a real moment and one that was particularly relatable. If it wasn’t for these moments I definitely think I would have put the book down and not gone back especially with how awful the characters were by the end.

What’s next?

Fix Her Up is a part of a series and one which I will be continuing but not for a little while. There is nothing really pushing me to carry on with the books and I’m not sure I care about the other girls that the books surround. I might give the next one a go and if the writing style works better than the series may become a favourite.

Have you ever read a book and just been let down by both the characters and plot? Let me know which one!