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caseythereader's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
- BOYFRIEND MATERIAL is the kind of book that feels like a warm hug. Who doesn't love working through childhood trauma with banter and hijinks?
- Honestly I keep trying to think of more smart words to put here and wind up just sort of waving my arms around with how much I loved it. It's all the best things about romance novels.
- Plus, some truly hilarious secondary characters. I would read a whole book on Alex bumbling through his office job.
- Also, the audiobook is fantastic.
- Honestly I keep trying to think of more smart words to put here and wind up just sort of waving my arms around with how much I loved it. It's all the best things about romance novels.
- Plus, some truly hilarious secondary characters. I would read a whole book on Alex bumbling through his office job.
- Also, the audiobook is fantastic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Cancer, Cursing, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Drug use, Fatphobia, and Homophobia
half_bloodreader's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Luc O'Donnell is the child of rock stars, which has unfortunately always kept him in the eye of the press. Having ditched his family when Luc was a kid, his absent father lived the stereotypical life of sex & rock'n'roll: addiction & scandals, until his return to TV with a rehabilitated image. This comeback leads to new attention from bloodthirsty paparazzi who publish a compromising out of context photo of Luc, putting his job at risk.
To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship, and vegetarian barrister Oliver Blackwood is perfect boyfriend material. Yet they don't have much in common (or so they think). So they agree to fake date for the benefit of these big events they both have, at which point they'll separate. Stupid of them to think they won't catch the feels!
I absolutely loved this rom-com! I haven't felt so much enjoyment and fuzzy feelings, or laughed out loud so often due to a book for a long time now 💜 I love fake dating and it was done right!
Written in 1st person, past tense.
The cast of characters will absolutely endear you to them, with their worries, banter, self destructive ways, hidden tenderness, needs; their humanity.
Luc felt very real from the start: insecure, with low self esteem, and paranoid for good reason, as you'll find out. He narrates with self awareness and matter-of-factly. Fortunately he has a very loyal group of friends and a loving family: his mother & her friend Judy.
Since the story wasn't told through Oliver's pov, he was not as quickly understood. But his earnestness and passion about doing what's right were clear from the start. There are subjects he avoids and I won't spoil, which indicate some of his own personal issues. He likes Welcome to Night Vale, which gave him a bunch of cookie points from me!
If this book is anything to go by, I think Alexis Hall is really good at this genre. This is the kind of romance I enjoy, balancing humour, emotion, heartbreak, candor, vulnerability.
There is social commentary woven in seamlessly with the mc's entertaining internal thoughts and moments. The pop culture intertwines with the narrative, in a way that, if you don't know it, either you'll get by the context or won't affect your enjoyment and understanding of the story.
In lots of American fiction, I find the works are saturated with references that are overkill and will lose their contemporary value soon (unless one's culture is just knowing all of USA's pop culture and not much else). Not the case here.
If we were using ao3 tags:
- Fake dating / relationship
- Slow burn
- Only one bed
- Disaster mc
- Found family
- Eccentric mother
- Oblivious coworkers
- Ferrero Rocher
To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship, and vegetarian barrister Oliver Blackwood is perfect boyfriend material. Yet they don't have much in common (or so they think). So they agree to fake date for the benefit of these big events they both have, at which point they'll separate. Stupid of them to think they won't catch the feels!
I absolutely loved this rom-com! I haven't felt so much enjoyment and fuzzy feelings, or laughed out loud so often due to a book for a long time now 💜 I love fake dating and it was done right!
Written in 1st person, past tense.
The cast of characters will absolutely endear you to them, with their worries, banter, self destructive ways, hidden tenderness, needs; their humanity.
Luc felt very real from the start: insecure, with low self esteem, and paranoid for good reason, as you'll find out. He narrates with self awareness and matter-of-factly. Fortunately he has a very loyal group of friends and a loving family: his mother & her friend Judy.
Since the story wasn't told through Oliver's pov, he was not as quickly understood. But his earnestness and passion about doing what's right were clear from the start. There are subjects he avoids and I won't spoil, which indicate some of his own personal issues. He likes Welcome to Night Vale, which gave him a bunch of cookie points from me!
If this book is anything to go by, I think Alexis Hall is really good at this genre. This is the kind of romance I enjoy, balancing humour, emotion, heartbreak, candor, vulnerability.
There is social commentary woven in seamlessly with the mc's entertaining internal thoughts and moments. The pop culture intertwines with the narrative, in a way that, if you don't know it, either you'll get by the context or won't affect your enjoyment and understanding of the story.
In lots of American fiction, I find the works are saturated with references that are overkill and will lose their contemporary value soon (unless one's culture is just knowing all of USA's pop culture and not much else). Not the case here.
If we were using ao3 tags:
- Fake dating / relationship
- Slow burn
- Only one bed
- Disaster mc
- Found family
- Eccentric mother
- Oblivious coworkers
- Ferrero Rocher
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Fatphobia
crystalmethany's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Toxic relationship
Minor: Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Terminal illness, and Cancer
technicallyaly's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
love love love love this. I don't even know where to begin.
It's so FUNNY. And HEARTBREAKING. And so relatable. Sometimes characters tend to be larger than life but everyone here felt so real. Lucien's struggle with his mental health and being unable to clean his room, and the moments he talks to his friends about his struggles, were so real. It's a reality for a lot of people, so to see it written with so much care was really important.
Also, My copy was filled with me yelling in the margins. "can y'all stop flirting for FIVE MINUTES." "fellas this is GAY gay" "do u think they know they're already in love?"
I really do get images from his book stuck in my head at random times. Lucien having a panic attack on the floor of his bathroom, Lucien rolling over to whisper "my dad has cancer" to Oliver in the dark, Lucien being stood up by his dad... I haven't felt so much empathy for a character in so long. I cannot describe how protective over Lucien I feel. But also, I loved everyone in this book. The ensemble was incredible. Except Jon Flemming, and Oliver's family they can choke xoxo <3
Overall, I loved this. 5/5 would read again and recommend to everyone everywhere.
It's so FUNNY. And HEARTBREAKING. And so relatable. Sometimes characters tend to be larger than life but everyone here felt so real. Lucien's
Also, My copy was filled with me yelling in the margins. "can y'all stop flirting for FIVE MINUTES." "fellas this is GAY gay" "do u think they know they're already in love?"
I really do get images from his book stuck in my head at random times.
Overall, I loved this. 5/5 would read again and recommend to everyone everywhere.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Body shaming, Cancer, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Panic attacks/disorders
heyjaycee's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Luc O'Donnell just wants to get on with his life. But being the son of two celebrities, even relatively obscure as they are, seems to come with nothing but downsides for Luc. The tabloid press is determined to paint him as a sex-obsessed junkie meltdown, despite the reality of his life being perfectly ordinary. Now he's going to lose his job if he can't clean up his image. So he recruits his (hilarious, queer as hell) friends to find him a respectable fake boyfriend.
Oliver Blackwood is nothing if not respectable. A reserved vegetarian barrister, he lives quietly and works hard. He's exactly the kind of guy Luc is looking for. And, luckily, Oliver is on the lookout for a fake boyfriend of his own to bring to his parents' wedding anniversary.
Of course, they catch feels.
Alexis Hall's Boyfriend Material is a romantic comedy for the ages. This novel should stand in the romcom halls of fame beside Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, or at least The Holiday. Hall has a perfectly English sense of humour, where everything is lightly farcical at best at all times. I give you: Alex Twaddle, the Wodehouse-posh, nice-but-dim workmate; Judy Cholmondeley-Pfaffle, a caricature of the hearty English aristocrat; and the James Royce-Royces, husbands and soulmates who both just happened to be called James Royce.
Not only is Hall pitch perfect on the comedy, he's diamond-sharp on the stratifications of British society and prejudice. The novel—and Luc—doesn't fail to comment that Luc's job is in danger because he's being perceived as a 'bad gay', instead of the nice, friendly, middle class type. From Welsh pop-up restaurants in London to nouveau riche Milton Keynes mansions, middle class dinner parties to queer gatherings in beer gardens, Hall's analytical eye is acute, and always serving not only his comic sensibility but his gentle social critique.
Can I telegraph 'I LOVE THIS BOOK' even harder? Because I love this book. And oh no but I've just discovered Hall wrote the Kate Kane series, which I've been dithering over whether to pick up, and now I feel like a tit for not grabbing them sooner.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia and Cancer
Minor: Homophobia
Luc has to deal with subtle homophobia as part of the plot. No epithets, just microaggressions. Another character has terminal cancer, and it's discussed a lot,iamstraightasanoodle's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Biphobia, Cancer, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Homophobia
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