Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Boyfriend Material

June 2024-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖
This was a good re-read. I think this book was emotional and it helped me feel more connected to the characters. Luc and Oliver were adorable.

September 2022-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📱
This was good. I liked this book. Luc and Oliver were a cute couple.

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owliglot's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

5.0

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bedtimesandbooks's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted 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

4.5

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katywhyte's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing 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

4.0

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sami_leigh's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

5.0

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5
🌶/5

I'm conscious this could be rather burdensome to hear, but you remain the thing I have most chosen for myself. The thing that's most exclusively mine. The one thing that brings me the deepest joy.

🇬🇧 First person POV (Luc)
🇬🇧 Fake dating
🇬🇧 BANTER! 🙌🏻
🇬🇧 Forced proximity
🇬🇧 Enemies to lovers (somewhat miscommunication)
🇬🇧 Growth in our MCs!
🇬🇧 Nickname
🇬🇧 Representation of diverse sexualities.
🇬🇧 Well established -and hilarious -secondary characters

⚠️ Cancer, abandonment, homophobia, references to drugs and alcohol.

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wardenred's review against another edition

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emotional funny slow-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

4.0

“Are we really bad at this?” I asked. “We’ve been fake dating for three days and we’ve already fake broken up once.”
“Yes, but we fake resolved our difficulties and fake got back together, and I’m hoping it’s made us fake stronger.”

I cracked this book open with the full intention of loving the hell out of it. After all, it's by Alexis Hall, and he's one of my favorite romance authors. And my friends have been recommending it to me for ages. And everyone kept saying it had the vibe of a far more adult Red, White & Royal Blue, and I absolutely adored that one. Oh, and finally, it's a fake dating romance with a tint of enemies-to-lovers, how cool is that?

However, for the first looong half of the story, my heart just wasn't in it. I kept trying to figure out what was wrong. There were plenty of hilarious moments. And plenty of dramatic moments with feelings. And lots and lots of compelling characters and cool scenes and amazing banter. But somehow, all of it refused to come together into a single engaging tapestry.

It was in the second half that I realized what wasn't working for me: I would have loved this book so hard if it was from Oliver's point of view and not Luc's.

I mean, I don't mind Luc. And he's certainly the logical choice for the POV character if there only has to be one. He's the one with all the stuff going on: family and work and paparazzi and his life and mind both being a huge mess. But Oliver was just so more compelling to me. I would have loved a book focused front and centered on someone who is so put together (but also a strongly contained mess on the inside, because aren't we all), and who gets confronted by and pulled into all of Luc's chaos and inadvertently helps Luc find his footing while slowly losing and then regaining his own.

I felt like Oliver's arc was so much more interesting and had more depth, but it took so long for it to truly become prominent on page. Because we spend the entire book in Luc's POV, and Luc sure took his time to actually see Oliver. He kept catching glimpses here and there, but then his own insecurities kept getting in the way.

So all in all: I enjoyed the story, but not how it was told/presented, I guess. And it well may be a case of "it's not you, dear book, it's me," so I guess 4 stars will be a fair rating.

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botanicalprofanity's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

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taelights's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I had previously dnf this book but I decided to go back and give it another chance seeing as the audiobook was available through the library and I wanted to listen to something lgbt+ because I had mostly been listening to thrillers a lot recently. While I started off enjoying it more this time by the end I found myself wishing i hadn't given the book a second chance.

First of all the book dragged. It was so long and for what? Plus there is apparently a sequel too? Unnecessary in my opinion and I definitely won't be reading it.

While I did find some of the jokes funny I felt most of them fell flat and the author was trying too hard to be funny. I felt like I was reading a "crack" fic that was trying too hard rather than an actua published book. Plus some of the "jokes" were a bit of problematic - including rape/sexual assult ones, biphobic ones, etc. Plus I thought the book did play into some harmful stereotypes of both lesbians and bi/pan people. And as a vegetarian I did not like the way vegetarian and vegans were portrayed in this book and it felt like the author really likes forcing vegetarians to eat meat which is gross of them.

The negatives:

1) Both of the main characters need some major therapy; both individual and couples. Yet after after a whole book dealing with their flaws and trauma and incompatibility and trust issues these things just seem to go away at the end in an unsatisfying way. I hate the whole "love will fix all your problems" thing. Like damn I hope these two characters went to therapy next book but I doubt it lol.

2) While Oliver and Luc had chemistry at the beginning of the book I thought they lost all their chemistry. I was no longer believing in their relationship and routing for them towards the end. Plus THREE breakups in one book is a bit extreme. By the third I kind of didn't even want them to get back together.

3) I thought the side lesbian relationship was problematic like they play into both the lesbian age difference trope and while I personally love age gaps in general it's annoying when it's like 90% of lesbian media. Also it played into the whole gross lesbian married to man and cheats on him with a woman trope. Also the lesbian friend felt like the angry lesbian trope.

4) I also felt that there was harmful bi/pan stereotypes in this. Like having one of Luc's ex boyfriends being a bi man who leaves a gay man for a straight woman.... It kind of plays into the harmful belief that bi people will always leave their same sex partners for a straight relationship.

5) The characters were all extremely one dimensional. The side characters especially but so were Luc and Oliver honestly.

6) As a vegetarian I was extremely disappointed in how the author handled a vegetarian character. Between making the vegetarian character eat meat not once but twice, the love interest who convinced him to eat meat basically commenting that it's sexy he's going against his morals and eating meat, characters acting like being vegetarian is so strange and different and such an inconvenience, and being like yeah he's obviously only vegetarian because he has an eating disorder. Honestly I between the jokes about vegans/vegetarians and the whole forcing one to eat meat just made me so uncomfortable and I honestly believe this author has something against people who don't eat meat which is weird of them.

7) The whole reason for the fake dating plot line didn't make sense in the first place.

8) The whole plotline with Luc's dad didn't make sense and didn't have a satisfying conclusion at all and just made the whole element of the book seem needless.

I could go on. I just really did not like this book by the end.

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