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A review by onceandfuturereaders
Love, Hate & Clickbait by Liz Bowery
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Thom and Clay both work for the Governor of California who is getting ready to run for President. They seem to absolutely despise each other, but after the Governor makes a bad comment to the media and Thom and Clay get photographed in awkward position, they decide to fake date to help salvage the campaign. What could possibly go wrong?
Now let me start off by saying that while I enjoyed this book a lot, it is not for everyone. If you really want to like your main characters and hope they’re good people, you may be disappointed and this book is likely not for you.
I had seen that this was for fans of the West Wing (one of my favorite comfort watches) and I’m a huge fan of this trope combo (fake dating and enemies to lovers). I also live just outside DC so the politico storyline was very intriguing (and realistic) to me. That being said, Thom is quite literally the worst (okay there is one character who is worse, but that would be a spoiler). He actually had me questioning whether I think Josh Lyman, who clearly inspired his character, is a good person or am I just really attracted to Bradley Whitford? There were only maybe 3 or 4 quick moments where I genuinely liked Thom. Clay has his own personality faults, but is clearly struggling with imposter syndrome and I found him the more likeable of the two. Weirdly I did like them as a couple the more into the book I got, but I didn’t like them at all in the beginning.
All that said, the writing is really good and I found myself laughing in so many places. And honestly I’m glad that I knew going into it that the characters weren’t really likeable (see Liz’s bio which says she writes romances for terrible people) because it let me really enjoy this book a lot for what it was.
If you like The West Wing, particularly Josh Lyman, fake dating, enemies to lovers, and don’t mind terrible people as characters, this may be for you!
Always check all content warnings (I use StoryGraph), but this has homophobia, bullying, and emotional abuse (especially in the workplace).
Now let me start off by saying that while I enjoyed this book a lot, it is not for everyone. If you really want to like your main characters and hope they’re good people, you may be disappointed and this book is likely not for you.
I had seen that this was for fans of the West Wing (one of my favorite comfort watches) and I’m a huge fan of this trope combo (fake dating and enemies to lovers). I also live just outside DC so the politico storyline was very intriguing (and realistic) to me. That being said, Thom is quite literally the worst (okay there is one character who is worse, but that would be a spoiler). He actually had me questioning whether I think Josh Lyman, who clearly inspired his character, is a good person or am I just really attracted to Bradley Whitford? There were only maybe 3 or 4 quick moments where I genuinely liked Thom. Clay has his own personality faults, but is clearly struggling with imposter syndrome and I found him the more likeable of the two. Weirdly I did like them as a couple the more into the book I got, but I didn’t like them at all in the beginning.
All that said, the writing is really good and I found myself laughing in so many places. And honestly I’m glad that I knew going into it that the characters weren’t really likeable (see Liz’s bio which says she writes romances for terrible people) because it let me really enjoy this book a lot for what it was.
If you like The West Wing, particularly Josh Lyman, fake dating, enemies to lovers, and don’t mind terrible people as characters, this may be for you!
Always check all content warnings (I use StoryGraph), but this has homophobia, bullying, and emotional abuse (especially in the workplace).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Homophobia