The upside of falling

The Upside of Falling is a 2020 contemporary young adult romance by Alex Light, built around the fake-dating trope. Becca Hart is a quiet high-school senior who would rather disappear into a book than deal with her classmates — or with the grief she still carries after her father's death. To get a persistent friend off her back, she blurts out that she has a secret boyfriend.

Brett Wells, the school's popular and seemingly untouchable football captain, overhears the lie and, for reasons of his own, offers to play the part. What starts as a convenient arrangement to satisfy other people's expectations slowly becomes something neither of them planned for, as the two discover they have more in common — and more to hide — than their labels suggest.

Sweet, low-stakes, and told in alternating points of view, Alex Light's debut is a comfort read about grief, family pressure, and the danger of letting a pretend feeling turn real.