Boyfriend Material

3.5 stars.

I didn't really like Luc in the beginning but by the end, I liked his and Oliver's relationship. However, I never fully got invested in their romance, partly because they were constantly breaking up. By the final chapters, I wasn't entirely sure their relationship would survive, they were both too eager to throw in the towel any time they encountered an obstacle. After their final reconciliation, it crossed my mind that they were likely to be that on-again, off-again couple that irritated all their friends and finally broke up after 10 years of turbulent coupledom.

All that said, I liked that Luc's father wasn't magically turned into a present dad. It seemed a realistic portrayal of their relationship. Finally, I hated Bridget, I know that I am likely to be in the minority here but I couldn't stand her.

well.... anyways... this book was good and bad at the same time for me.

the only parts i enjoyed was the tension they had before they eventually started dating,luciens friends, co-workers and his mother. too much information got thrown at me in between situations/conversations...that i keep telling myself “omfg... just get to the point already or atleast simplify!!” so then i skip a few paragraphs ... which is not fun

This book is everything I wanted RWRB to be. Two grumps, lots of angst, LOTS of pining, witty banter. Perfect romcom.

It's cute, it's hilarious. I loved it from start to finish.

I'm starting to think the romance genre isn't for me, because my eyes were just glazing over the entirety of this book, except for the existence of the best character in the book—Alex, of course—who I honestly thought would have been the romantic lead, and I'm gonna be honest, would have been way funnier and interesting to me. Then again, I have no idea what people typically like when it comes to romance, and I can see why people would liken this to RWRB. There's that style of writing that some people think is funny and charming but I find vaguely irritating in the way I find white people trying to be funny irritating most of the time, there's the vaguely diverse group of friends that's there, being vaguely diverse (this just being Priya who is Muslim, which is crazy because Priya is as Hindu a name as I can conceive of, but who cares, there've been worse things in life), there's the snarky main character who's biracial (like, French and English, which as I understand might as well be vaguely ethnic to British people) and the uptight blonde dude that's there being sexy and constipated. Interestingly, it also shares a commonality with RWRB in that they both make an off color reference to American imperialism and violence that just jars you, because it reminds you that these books are written for an audience that decidedly excludes people like me and my friends, while also trying to pretend that it isn't. People of color are largely ornamental here, which I'm not disappointed about and I've just sort of expected from books like these written by white queer people—but it feels like there's a difference between knowing this, and seeing it in action. I'm sure this isn't the kind of book where I'm even supposed to care about, because who cares about the optics of representation when two white gay dudes are having a go at each other through fake dating tropes or whatever, and I know these books are largely meant to be escapist fantasies. But what kinds of romance books are people escaping into? Books where (ex?)Muslim South Asians lesbians are just inexplicably hanging out with nobody but white people? Books that make a one-liner out of a war? Again, I'm sure I'm hand wringing over things that nobody cares about but me. But I'm starting to think that books written by white queers and touted as feel-good romance books and escapist fantasies are books that are catered to the kind of person that doesn't want to think about these things, which is a luxury that quite a few people want to enjoy. I won't begrudge them that. But I will wonder.

Anyways, two stars because I really liked Alex♥️

the book was great in context of highlighting real life problems such as manipulative, controlling parents, deadbeat fathers, sef-loathing, homophobia in many different ways where people think they're just being funny, eating disorders (in a way?) but the story itself didnt do much for me

I really wanted to like this book, and there are aspects of it I enjoyed while reading. However, the stereotyped and often annoying secondary characters kept ruining my enjoyment.

In this book, Luc is the mildly famous son of an old rock star who needs a respectable boyfriend to keep his job. Rather than fight against the obvious discrimination of the situation, Luc decides to get a fake boyfriend who is an “acceptable” gay. To this end, he begins dating Oliver, a controlling, sometimes uptight lawyer. Of course, as in any hate to love fake dating story, they develop real feelings for each other before conflicts arise and threaten their budding relationship. You know, the standard plot.

I actually liked the relationship between Luc and Oliver. They are good for each other, and the chapters early on that deal with their romance are good. However, the conflicts that arise between them later on in the book are unnecessary. They do not seem like real-life conflicts that would actually cause couples to break up. In all fairness, I find this a problem in many romance books.

My main problem with this book is the secondary characters. I absolutely despise Luc's coworkers and some of his friends. They are portrayed as ridiculous stereotypes, especially his coworkers. They are utterly clueless, and it's just annoying. I do not believe that any one person would have that many ridiculous people in his life.

If this book had been shorter and had eliminated the frustrating side characters, I might have enjoyed the read. As it is, I cannot rate it any higher than 2 stars.

This was an easy and mostly enjoyable listen, but again suffered from being just too long.

The back and forth between the characters, the multiple break ups and getting back together just felt a bit too much after a while.

I did enjoy all of the characters, even Luc once he stopped being a child and grew a pair, but especially Oliver who had the patience of a saint.

The narrator (Joe Jameson) was brilliant and I definitely recommend the audio for this one.

This came highly recommended to me as a readalike for [b:Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566742512l/41150487.SY75.jpg 61657690]. And I kind of think...that what happened here was that this publisher was like “we need a readalike for RWRB, let's rush this to publish!!” Because this book had way more typos and sentences with missing key words than I'm used to seeing in professionally published fiction. And it's not like that will totally ruin the experience for me, but it was like, every few pages.Anyway, I also feel like this book couldn't decide if it was supposed to be realistic or a satire? Like all of Luc's posh coworker seem like absolute cardboard slapstick people, to the point where it was hard to process any of Luc's interactions with them. Like: is Luc's POV exaggerating this for effect? Are these people joking? Are these people legitimately suffering from some sort of brain injury? WTF?I require very little buy-in to get on board for a fake dating scenario; this one seemed a little thin but like, sure, I'm here for it. And Luc and Oliver were both more developed characters than the side characters. (Obviously that's almost always the case but here it was so jarring to have these other characters who were SO unrealistic nothing cardboard people).ESPECIALLY since it came so highly compared to Red White and Royal Blue but it really does suffer in comparison IMO since RWRB did have such fun and compelling side characters and just felt like...more in touch with the world. Oh also, again not a huge deal per se but this book did have weirdly dated pop culture references like Season 1 of Drag Race and early episodes of Welcome to Night Vale? Like was this something Alexis Hall had been trying to publish since like 2012 and then all of a sudden RWRB became a hit and Sourcebooks was like “MUST PUBLISH THIS IMMEDIATELY no time to spellcheck or update the pop culture references!!!!!!!!”IDK IDK IDK whatever it's fine, it's fun, I just didn't like it nearly as much as Red White and Royal Blue and I wish I had not been led to expect that I would.

This review is just to help me remember key points about the book. If you find it helpful or relatable that's cool too.Pride Month Edition

piqued by the fakedating, stayed for the first sentence, really wish i could cuddle my partner right now. so cute and funny and heartwarm-y <3

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This book was equally hilarious and super cute, and I loved every minute of it! Let me start by saying that this is the first paragraph of the book:

I've never seen the point of fancy dress parties. You have two choices: either you make a massive effort and wind up looking like a dick, or you make no effort and wind up looking like a dick. And my problem, as always, was not knowing what kind of dick I wanted to be.

I mean, I immediately had to send this to my friend, who replied with “mood”, which was also a big mood. A mood-ception, if you will.

Okay, so let's talk about the characters! We have Luc, who is a huge mess and the son of two former rock stars. He's really into partying and self-pity and that would be just fine if he was a nobody and his drunk pictures didn't end up all over the internet. But, when his absentee father, who spent most of his life in and out of rehab, decides to make a comeback and the public eye starts focusing on Luc more, his scandalous photographs begin to threaten his job at the Coleoptera Research and Protection Program (CRAPP – the acronym, oh my god!).

All that's left to do is find a respectable fake boyfriend, so he can convince the donors he's not such a trainwreck. Bridget, the token straight girl (Alexis Hall's words, not mine!) in Luc's friend group finally has the chance to set him up with her only gay friend, Oliver, who coincidentally also needs a date for his parents' anniversary. The deal is sealed, now they just have to get along!

So, I mentioned Luc's friend group and honestly, they are all just hilarious. Let me just tell you that one of the many names of their WhatsApp group is QUEER COMES THE SUN!! I mean, this is just genius. Obviously, I went on and changed my own group chat title into Queer comes the sun (don't sue me Alexis Hall).

I can't choose a favorite quote, so I'll leave you to decide which one is the best:

“You really do own your illiteracy, don't you?”
“Yeah, I'm thinking about moving to America and running for public office.”

“For a gay, you are far too sensitive about your arsehole.”

“It was just a dick, looking at a dick, asking why he was always such a dick.”

This book had me cackling out loud several times and it was the right amount of funny and sweet, so I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good romcom that uses all the right tropes (there's only one bed ftw!!)

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy!

oh man if i was luc i also would've fallen for oliver that hard. what a babe.

I found this perfectly average. There were a lot of British references that I didn't get so maybe it's on me. But I didn't feel much of their chemistry at all. 

I didn't like the repetitive dinners and making fun of Oliver's vegetarianism. I mean once would have been fine, but it was annoying to have it done repeatedly throughout the book. 

This wasn't for me.

this book was great, no notes

DNF - PG 23

If you like these type of books (romcom that is trying way too hard with the ‘com' aspect and dropping pop culture references left and right) you could probably do worse. I don't know. I don't read these type of books because I'm more annoyed with the sense of humor than anything else. Well, that and all the pop culture references - 95% of which I struggle to understand (and the other 5% I just don't like).

I didn't even get to meet the love interest, I was so annoyed by our ‘hero' and his sense of (non-stop) humor.

Here's to hoping that my next attempt at this author turns out better for me.

Tbh spent the first half of this book complaining it was trash, and describing it as the “wattpad version of Red, White & Royal Blue”. However, around half way through I started to notice and appreciate the level of character development, the pacing of events and the writing style. Overall this book was a decent read.

I absolutely adored this book and I can't believe I forgot to rate it!