Awesome, awesome, awesome. ( )

Is It Art? Is It a Mystery?
Review of the Hachette Audio audiobook edition (June 18, 2019) published simultaneously with the Grand Central Publishing hardcover original

This reading was part of my investigation of the novels nominated for the 2020 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America. Fake Like Me is a nominee for Best Novel. The winners will be announced April 30, 2020.

For the longest time here I had to keep doing double takes to make sure that I was reading the correct book. I had picked up Fake Like Me due to it's Edgar nomination and I kept wondering: where is the crime? where is the mystery? It seemed like a struggling young artist story about someone trying to live up to her idols, and it was really well done but I couldn't see how it qualified for a crime fiction award. BUT, it gradually became clear and then in the last quarter or so it REALLY became clear. And it was excellent. There are hints of the macabre somewhat throughout due to some of the conceptual art and performance art and even grand guignol aspects, but the elements of fakery and conspiracy are only very gradually revealed. I can't say much more due to spoilers.

I think if you enjoy modern abstract / performance art especially and slowly revealed hints to subterfuge you will enjoy this as well. The actual physical work of painting has never been better portrayed in any other fiction that I have ever read. ( )

While worried that she’ll never paint again, an unnamed narrator has a breakthrough. She begins to come out of her shell. She was rather successful, and even begins to travel with her work. She becomes extreme interested in learning about another artist, Carey Logan. She learns that Carey has a very similar style. As a matter of fact, the closer she looks at Carey’s work, she noticed that Carey used a model of hers in a recent sculpture.

Our unnamed artist is quite determined to see who Carey is and what she is all about, so she is shocked to discover that Carey has just committed suicide. So the narrator does all she can to learn who Carey actually was. However, she suffers a tragedy. Her apartment goes up in flames, and all of her paintings have been destroyed.

Now homeless and without any money, she must recreate her art, or her career will be ruined! Hopefully, she will be up to the task. While in the process of working hard, she jumps into the mystery as to who Carey was and what really happened as to how she lost her life.

As I truly have no interest in art, this story did not do a lot for me. What kept me interested was the rush of getting the commissioned work done, as well as the personal relationships that grew during the course of this story.

Many thanks to Grand Central Publishing and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion. ( )

When the young aspiring painter arrives in New York to become a real artist, she encounters the already famous quintet that calls itself “Pine City“ after the place they work. Jes, Marlin, Jack, Tyler and especially Carey are the up-coming big names in the art world and all that the unnamed narrator dreams of: self-confident, relaxed, comfortable in themselves. A couple of years later, she is at the threshold of making herself a name when her apartment burns down and with it several pieces of work that were meant to be shown just a couple of weeks later. She had stored them at home, not at safe place as she tells her curator, thus, she has to act quickly and rebuild them. An impossible task, even more so if you do not even have a work place anymore. She luckily finds an interim solution: a friend brings her at the heart of the circle she once admired and which has been reduced to a quartet after Carey’s suicide. It was her especially that she looked up to and felt connected with. Maybe staying there might give her some insight in why she decided to end her life.

I really dived into the novel and was immediately hooked by Barbara Bourland’s novel. The young artist who is insecure and admires those who already succeeded. I also appreciated the insight in a painter’s work, how her emotions lead to results when she manages to channel them into the art. Interestingly also to glance behind the façade of the art and culture circus - you get the impression that it is just this: a façade, a cover-up to please, a pretence - without any solid foundation or walls. However, I got a bit lost when the plot developed too much into a love story.

I enjoyed the author’s style of writing and the combination of the art world with a touch of mystery. Yet, apart from the protagonist, it was hard to support the characters who were nor only shallow but pretentious and affected, and who took themselves and their work by far too serious. Just like the characters, the overall plot was also a bit trivial and lacked the depth and analysis or insight in the art work I had expected. The mystery surrounding the suicide of Carey, too, did not really show any suspense. An interesting read with a very strong beginning but a bit lengthy from the middle on. ( )

When an artist loses her expensive artwork in a fire, she must remake her paintings in three months or lose everything. She takes up residence at Pine City, the isolated studios of a collective who influenced her own work. While lost in the dizzying pace of her own work, she begins investigating the death of the most prominent collective member, who supposedly died by suicide on film.
I love the pace of Barbara Bourland's storytelling, and the ending made me gasp, a delight that I haven't experienced in a while. ( )