This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026
“Life,” declares the front cover tagline of Brooke Crawford’s debut novel, Better Than the Real Thing, “is messy.”
The central character of this rawly emotionally honest romcom, which serves up a potential fairytale ending but not before being brutally real about what leads up to it, is Netta Phillips, a Melbourne, Australia third grade teacher who knows a thing or two, unfortunately, about how messy things can get.
That’s now however where she is when we meet her; at the start of Better Than the Real Thing, Netta is feeling loved up, not spectacularly but comfortably with the almost-fifty Peter, working a job she loves (though it does have days in needs of a glass of wine at the end of them) and trying for a baby, all too aware that at 39, her biological clock is ticking with a loud urgency that can’t be ignored.
All her plans are coming together and she feels like, after a lifetime of everything feeling a little dicey and uncertain, that here is stability, love and hope in one cosily realised domestic package.
What could possibly go wrong?
She swept out of the kitchen and made it to the bedroom before the tears came, hot and uncontrollable, her barren body curled into a ball with her back against the door as her life–her future— crumbled around her.
Quite a lot as it turns out.
In short order, Netta finds herself surrounded by negative pregnancy tests, a relationship suddenly and unexpectedly past its use-by date, and a mortgage she can’t afford unless a fairy godmother waves a financially lucrative wand (spoiler alert: Melbourne is fresh out of them).
What’s a woman nearing forty to do? Netta has no idea, but then suddenly she finds the childhood diary of super-famous rock star Morrison “Mo” Maplestone which it turns out he’s desperate to keep nice and private and he’s willing to pay Netta a huge sum of money to personally deliver it to him in London; that’s great BUT Netta has some past there, some nasty tabloidy past there, and going back there is not something she wants to entertain.
Until she does, and then well, Better Than the Real Thing really goes to town with all kinds of fake dates, love-filled confessions and awkward but delightful moments filling her day.
Exactly what that all involves must be left to the reading of this wholly delightful, emotionally truthful and vibrantly clever novel which is one of the standout romcoms this reviewer has read in recent years.
(courtesy Zeitgeist Agency)
What really sets Better Than the Real Thing apart from many of its also excellent cohorts is that it manages to keep the hope and fizz of fairytale possibility burning away with Notting Hill levels of fun and emotional intensity while acknowledging at every step that life is never less than messy.
There is a tendency in many a romcom, and even some of the good ones, to tidy things up too quickly when love, or even the possibility of love arrives, and while that’s something we all crave and want to believe is possible, the reality is life doesn’t stop being a sloppy pile of things we’re not comfortable with just because love, true love comes a-calling.
If only, dear members of the lovelorn human race, that was what always happened.
Instead, what happens to Netta and Mo, both of whom have some seismic issues in their past that could wreck things quite impressively were they to go off, is that they find themselves falling for each other as life, and a whole ton of attendant issues that aren’t breed over to Crawford’s unending credit, refuses to play nice and nice Roomba things up into an easily disposed stack in the corner.
It’s undeniable that a simply diary delivery has turned into so much more, but getting to the happily-ever-after point proves to be fiendishly problematic and loaded with all kinds of unexploded emotional ordinance, and the author’s willingness to leave that there when things start to get charmingly loved up gives Better Than the Real Thing a real emotional heft that adds to its already impressive readability.
As Mo walked out of the lounge, Netta closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Nothing would ever be the same after that. Nothing.
For better or worse, the sliding door had shut behind her.
If you’re the sort of person who wants love delivered on a neat silver platter with nary a trace of life’s messiness to be found, you might think that Better Than the Real Thing is not really the book for you.
But I’d caution you to consider again because you will likely find that Better Than the Real Thing is that unicorn of romcoms – it manages to be both full of love, hope and all the good things we dream of being alive possessing and also reassuringly real about how messy and difficult getting to that place of true love can be.
Why, you ask, is that a good thing?
Because there’s something brilliantly good about a romcom that embraces all the gooey, yummy, wonderful loved-up stuff while acknowledging with a sage and knowing eye that we rarely get the fairytale without a ton of baggage, a metrically heavy measurement of pain and the exhausting shitstorm of our past coming along with then package.
Tempting though it is to whitewash all the drama and the pain and the loss and having it magically vanish when love arrives, life simply doesn’t work that away and Better Than the Real Thing‘s charming brilliance lies in the fact that it beds down all the dreamy things in the messy things, the former all the richer and more rewarding for the presence of the latter.
Not putting a foot wrong, with characters you will love (including darling Audrey who is a force of dog-loving nature you will want in your corner), dialogues that sizzles, sparkles and dances with authentic glee, and a storyline that uplifts and pushes down right when it needs to do, Better Than the Real Thing is a spectacularly good debut novel that gives you life, gives you love and makes it all part of the one marvellous, loved-up, almost-perfect package.