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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
I was so excited for this book because the book I read and loved before this (He’s to die for) was pitched as Brooklyn 99 meets The Charm Offensive so naturally my next read had to be The Charm Offensive. Sadly, this completely missed the mark for me.
For of all, the characters‘ motivations made zero sense. Dev claims he loves true love and that’s why he works on a tacky dating reality tv show. Apparently, he truly believes that every single one of the women is there to find true love. You cannot make be believe that an adult in his late 20s is so delusional that he doesn’t know what reality tv, especially dating reality tv is about.
Charlie’s motivation, to salvage his image by being Prince Charming, also makes no sense. Apparently, he has been blacklisted in Silicon Valley because he is difficult to work with and getting publicly engaged to a woman on a dating reality tv show will somehow rectify that. I doubt that a bunch of Silicon Valley dudes care about that. Like how do you get from ‚guy wants to work in tech‘ to ‚guy should enter a reality tv show‘? It makes no sense.
But what made me dnf this book was how Charlie was treated. It made me feel so icky and uncomfortable and literally made my skin crawl. He is very autism coded but according to other reviews it is explained he has (social) anxiety and OCD but it honestly just feel like the author chose those term because they’re mostly seen as „fun“ and „quirky“ while autism is more of a „problem“ and she wanted Charlie to be a hot but quirky character without having to do the work to actually portray neurodivergence well and he felt more like a caricature than a well thought out character.
Additionally, Charlie was treated horribly, no one on the production team cared about him and making accommodations or was even compassionate, not even Dev. Right at their first meeting, Charlie told Dev that he doesn’t like to be touched without a warning and what does Dev immediately do? Touches him without a warning. Even if there was a reason (mic still on, he switched it off because he didn’t want Charlie to say anything that was later going to be taken out of context), he could’ve at least tried to indicate what he was going to do. And while he at least starts using hand sanitizer, he still proceeds to just touch Charlie until he explains that he doesn’t like to be touched in more detail and that’s when Dev finally apologised and vows to do better but like you couldn’t muster that compassion before?? He already told you he doesn’t like to be touched and once should be enough, no questions asked.
Also, Dev takes Charlie out for brunch on a practice date and doesn’t care about his diet at all. Charlie is gluten free and vegan and when he tells Dev, his answer is just that they’re in LA, Charlie will find something at the spot they’re at. Spoiler alert, they serve French toast and other gluten including non vegan items so Charlie orders fruit. As a fellow vegan, the disregard and blatant dismissal of Charlie’s dietary restrictions was the final straw for me that made me want to dnf this book because it’s really not that hard to ask if a person has dietary restrictions beforehand and as Dev said, they’re in LA, they could’ve found a spot where Charlie could eat anything besides fruit but Dev just didn’t care.
The only thing I’ve liked up to where I read were the allusions to Charlie being asexual and I hope this gets explored more in the rest of the book.
For of all, the characters‘ motivations made zero sense. Dev claims he loves true love and that’s why he works on a tacky dating reality tv show. Apparently, he truly believes that every single one of the women is there to find true love. You cannot make be believe that an adult in his late 20s is so delusional that he doesn’t know what reality tv, especially dating reality tv is about.
Charlie’s motivation, to salvage his image by being Prince Charming, also makes no sense. Apparently, he has been blacklisted in Silicon Valley because he is difficult to work with and getting publicly engaged to a woman on a dating reality tv show will somehow rectify that. I doubt that a bunch of Silicon Valley dudes care about that. Like how do you get from ‚guy wants to work in tech‘ to ‚guy should enter a reality tv show‘? It makes no sense.
But what made me dnf this book was how Charlie was treated. It made me feel so icky and uncomfortable and literally made my skin crawl. He is very autism coded but according to other reviews it is explained he has (social) anxiety and OCD but it honestly just feel like the author chose those term because they’re mostly seen as „fun“ and „quirky“ while autism is more of a „problem“ and she wanted Charlie to be a hot but quirky character without having to do the work to actually portray neurodivergence well and he felt more like a caricature than a well thought out character.
Additionally, Charlie was treated horribly, no one on the production team cared about him and making accommodations or was even compassionate, not even Dev. Right at their first meeting, Charlie told Dev that he doesn’t like to be touched without a warning and what does Dev immediately do? Touches him without a warning. Even if there was a reason (mic still on, he switched it off because he didn’t want Charlie to say anything that was later going to be taken out of context), he could’ve at least tried to indicate what he was going to do. And while he at least starts using hand sanitizer, he still proceeds to just touch Charlie until he explains that he doesn’t like to be touched in more detail and that’s when Dev finally apologised and vows to do better but like you couldn’t muster that compassion before?? He already told you he doesn’t like to be touched and once should be enough, no questions asked.
Also, Dev takes Charlie out for brunch on a practice date and doesn’t care about his diet at all. Charlie is gluten free and vegan and when he tells Dev, his answer is just that they’re in LA, Charlie will find something at the spot they’re at. Spoiler alert, they serve French toast and other gluten including non vegan items so Charlie orders fruit. As a fellow vegan, the disregard and blatant dismissal of Charlie’s dietary restrictions was the final straw for me that made me want to dnf this book because it’s really not that hard to ask if a person has dietary restrictions beforehand and as Dev said, they’re in LA, they could’ve found a spot where Charlie could eat anything besides fruit but Dev just didn’t care.
The only thing I’ve liked up to where I read were the allusions to Charlie being asexual and I hope this gets explored more in the rest of the book.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
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
I was going to give this book four stars because it didn’t make me cry but I sobbed in a hotel room in Macon so good for you! Dev and Charlie are beautiful and I love that Charlie is portrayed as a neurodivergent questioning hunk. It was beautiful to watch him develop feelings and fantastic to see him struggle through those. Dev is very relatable. I feel like the majority of gay men feel like they deserve love and to see that represented was wonderful. I really enjoyed that we say the bad side of a relationship and not just all the good loving parts.
“I want to make sure you’re giving up on your old romantic ideals because you don’t want them, not because you think you don’t deserve them.”
The Bachelor meets mentally ill gays. The way they showed mental health issues felt genuine and real, Dev and Charlie are the cutest couple and I caught myself falling in love with them. It’s a cozy light book to have fun and giggle.
The Bachelor meets mentally ill gays. The way they showed mental health issues felt genuine and real, Dev and Charlie are the cutest couple and I caught myself falling in love with them. It’s a cozy light book to have fun and giggle.
this book is so good i wish that reality tv was real
I started it: Meh, it's cute
I ended it: Well, damn.
I rated this high, despite the story telling being kinda surface level, because it has one of the most devastating lines I've read in a story???
"He doesn't know how to show someone they're worth of being loved. So he just stays."
It has the usual moments of pamphlet LGBTQ exposition that made my eyes glaze over, but the way the story talks about love got to me.
Also liked the mental health inclusion though the characters might want to get a second opinion on their diagnoses, but idk I'm not a doctor.
I ended it: Well, damn.
I rated this high, despite the story telling being kinda surface level, because it has one of the most devastating lines I've read in a story???
It has the usual moments of pamphlet LGBTQ exposition that made my eyes glaze over, but the way the story talks about love got to me.
Also liked the mental health inclusion though the characters might want to get a second opinion on their diagnoses, but idk I'm not a doctor.
this book tries so hard to check all the boxes with representation and it feels so forced. everyone has a mental illness, everyone's lgbtq+, everyone's a poc (though you actually could never tell if the author didn't tell you "look, he's indian, he has an indian name"). the romance was lackluster, they mostly bond over their mental illnesses. the last scene was cringe-worthy. not that bad but not very good
emotional
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was looking forward to this book because everyone said it had good mental health and asexual representation. Though I had no real problems with the asexual/demisexual representation, I thought the mental health stuff was over the top and less relatable than overly cringeworthy.
Dev was not nice to Charlie and I didn’t understand why any of the characters liked each other. The romance felt forced and unnatural, the conflict was too convoluted to the point of being annoying and in the end it was never actually resolved. Dev was afraid to commit to a relationship but what did he do to show that he had got over that fear? Charlie did all the work.
I get that the characters are supposed to have flaws but isn’t the point of that to develop and become better? Charlie should have dumped Dev and let him chase after him when he realised he was unhappy without him. Overall it was a very unsatisfying ending to an already disappointing story.
Dev was not nice to Charlie and I didn’t understand why any of the characters liked each other. The romance felt forced and unnatural, the conflict was too convoluted to the point of being annoying and in the end it was never actually resolved. Dev was afraid to commit to a relationship but what did he do to show that he had got over that fear? Charlie did all the work.
I get that the characters are supposed to have flaws but isn’t the point of that to develop and become better? Charlie should have dumped Dev and let him chase after him when he realised he was unhappy without him. Overall it was a very unsatisfying ending to an already disappointing story.