Boyfriend Material

I don't know how I feel about this one, so I won't rate it.

I really enjoyed some of the humor, but there were some jokes and other things that very much hit me the wrong way (transphobic humor, jokes about sex workers, vegetarianism as a plot point).

I liked the push and pull romance plot, but I had a lot of trouble sympathizing with Luc at first, because he can be so unnecessarily mean.

This is a contemporary, but a lot of the action feels a little tilted away from reality. Mostly this is fun, as with Alex, the unbelievably posh co-worker. But then Oliver's parents are over-the-top evil, and what's happening there is really important.

I could identify with these characters' issues, unfortunately for me, and I feel the author did a great job of handling some weighty stuff. Hall also portrays a lot of different types of homophobia; it's a depressing background to most of the book's plot, but he treats it with a relatively light touch. I can't remember another book that handles the topic exactly that way.

Overall, this book feels like a slice of life, and I think that's my favorite thing about it. I don't believe Oliver and Luc are necessarily riding off into the sunset together, and that's okay. Only some of the non-romance-plot threads are resolved and not all in happy ways. That all feels realistic to me, and very sweet.