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krakens_ink 's review for:
Love, Hate & Clickbait
by Liz Bowery
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF at 85%
It's impressive just how incredibly sexist a book written by a woman can be.
This book pissed me off on so many levels. The characters were horrendous and not developed and fleshed out at all. Not to mention the fact that they were all incredibly unlikable. The plot was non-existent. The politics were off-putting. The queer representation in this was questionable. The relationship made no sense.
I can't even begin to describe how much I hated Thom. He was a disrespectful piece of shit and it definitely wasn't in a charming way. He openly admitted to being sexist, he treated women like crap and to be honest, just utterly disgusting. Why did he have to mention his sexual attraction to his one female colleague every time she showed up? Why did he have to talk about her like that? Every time, this man opened his mouth I felt like ripping off my headphones and setting them on fire.
I wouldn't say that Clay was necessarily unlikable. He simply didn't have much substance to him and half of the time he was annoying in a toddler way. I didn't care about him but I also didn't wish the plague on him (like I did with Thom).
Lenny, our presidential candidate, was horrible. In the beginning, I was so excited for the badass female president but instead, we were given a total, heartless bitch that seemed to have one functioning brain cell that also wasn't in the room with us, most of the time. She was heartless, her decisions didn't make sense, she was disrespectful to everyone, a total bigot (even though she was supposed to be the democratic candidate) and not to mention, an abusive mother! (Which concerns me even more seeing that Bowery has a son herself.)
I don't have much to say about Felicia. Her character seemed to be important but then just wasn't. I either sympathized with her or thought she was a heartless bitch too. Most of the time, I felt sorry for her because of how Thom talked about her.
All of the characters were supposed to be really deep but they weren't. None of them had any personality besides having to fulfill one trope. "Badass female lead", "coldhearted workaholic", "goofy tech nerd". And then the author just plopped in some trauma on the two MCs and that was supposed to make them deep. Frankly, I don't give a shit that Clay's roommate fucked him over and that Thom didn't like suburbian life. Buh-fucking-hu. Go cry about it but please not in my book.
These characters just had no substance whatsoever. They also showed no development throughout the story.
Thom and Clay hated each other's guts and then they had to start dating and both instantly went soft around each other without anything about their interactions having changed to support such behavioral changes.
The plot in this was... Well, I can't actually tell you because I'm still waiting for it to show up. Where was the point in anything the characters did? Even the beginning of their fake relationship was a bit lumpy and extremely unrealistic. The development of their relationship didn't make much more sense. We jumped from one random scenario to the next. All of the weird dates Thom and Clay had were regularly interrupted by some campaign work that seemed to serve no purpose but to make sure that every person who read this book hates politics and will never want to vote again.
I'm sure Bowery tried really hard to show how corrupt and fake politics can be but as a politically interested person, all this did to me was make me want to throw up in the headphone-port of my phone. If I had read this before I had gotten interested in politics, I'm sure that I never would have and that book would be the one and only reason for it.
While the campaign was supposed to be one of the main focuses, I cannot tell you anything about it beside the fact that apparently it's realistic that two politicians pretending to date is going to save the whole thing.
I have said it once and I will say it again, labels are not a bad thing. Yes, labels for sexualities aren't necessary but then I at least expect a more fleshed out explanation and a deep-dive into the characters' queerness. We didn't get that with either of them. Except that Thom mentioned in one sentence that he might be bi-curious "or something" (not a direct quote but basically what he said).
So we got Thom, presented to us as a (sexist) straight man who was suddenly and with no explanation whatsoever fine with being in a queer relationship and then pretty much instantly starting to fuck another man, no questions asked, no sexuality crisis, not even as much as the tiniest bit of second-guessing. The potential Thom's queerness could have had was blatantly wasted.
As far as I know, we know nothing about Clay's sexuality. He fucks Thom. That's where it starts and that's also where it ends. And he also didn't question at all that he would have to pretend to date a man for the sake of the campaign.
I'm not looking for two straight dudes being forced into a fake gay relationship and then discovering together that they might not be that straight after all but if I'm reading a queer book, I kind of want the queerness of the characters to at least be a small topic on the side.
But then again, what did I expect from a cishet woman writing a gay smut romance?
Now to the last part, Thom and Clay's relationship. Since this is a romance novel, this is supposed to be the most important part of this story and therefor, I was impressed by how little sense this made.
Not only was Thom the shittiest partner anyone could fear for, the pace and development of their relationship in private had me confused.
First of all, Thom was horrible towards Clay. Constantly insulting and belittling him, framing him as this huge pathetic loser who would never even be close to being good enough for him. And all of that while Clay was actually being really great (or well, as great as he could be seeing how little he and the whole story were developed).
Then there were the changes in their behavior I have already mentioned. Those came with mood-swings and attachment issues that did not really matter for the story though, because no matter how often Thom decided to dramatically pull away by simply not talking to Clay, he would be turning up at his doorstep again a page later like nothing had happened. The emotional turmoil in his head that probably came with those attachment issues was also left to the reader's imagination and never mentioned.
What was mentioned were really shitty sex scenes. They popped up out of nothing and served no purpose aside from "Oh the readers love to see smut". The timing was always horrendous and made no sense. I couldn't have hated this more.
The thing that ultimately made me put this down and finally, finally give up on it, was when Lenny just decided that next logical thing that would have to happen was them getting married and they both just agreeing. This was bullshit.
This book genuinely made me sick of romances and after this, I will never read a gay romcom written by a woman ever again.
It's impressive just how incredibly sexist a book written by a woman can be.
This book pissed me off on so many levels. The characters were horrendous and not developed and fleshed out at all. Not to mention the fact that they were all incredibly unlikable. The plot was non-existent. The politics were off-putting. The queer representation in this was questionable. The relationship made no sense.
I can't even begin to describe how much I hated Thom. He was a disrespectful piece of shit and it definitely wasn't in a charming way. He openly admitted to being sexist, he treated women like crap and to be honest, just utterly disgusting. Why did he have to mention his sexual attraction to his one female colleague every time she showed up? Why did he have to talk about her like that? Every time, this man opened his mouth I felt like ripping off my headphones and setting them on fire.
I wouldn't say that Clay was necessarily unlikable. He simply didn't have much substance to him and half of the time he was annoying in a toddler way. I didn't care about him but I also didn't wish the plague on him (like I did with Thom).
Lenny, our presidential candidate, was horrible. In the beginning, I was so excited for the badass female president but instead, we were given a total, heartless bitch that seemed to have one functioning brain cell that also wasn't in the room with us, most of the time. She was heartless, her decisions didn't make sense, she was disrespectful to everyone, a total bigot (even though she was supposed to be the democratic candidate) and not to mention, an abusive mother! (Which concerns me even more seeing that Bowery has a son herself.)
I don't have much to say about Felicia. Her character seemed to be important but then just wasn't. I either sympathized with her or thought she was a heartless bitch too. Most of the time, I felt sorry for her because of how Thom talked about her.
All of the characters were supposed to be really deep but they weren't. None of them had any personality besides having to fulfill one trope. "Badass female lead", "coldhearted workaholic", "goofy tech nerd". And then the author just plopped in some trauma on the two MCs and that was supposed to make them deep. Frankly, I don't give a shit that Clay's roommate fucked him over and that Thom didn't like suburbian life. Buh-fucking-hu. Go cry about it but please not in my book.
These characters just had no substance whatsoever. They also showed no development throughout the story.
Thom and Clay hated each other's guts and then they had to start dating and both instantly went soft around each other without anything about their interactions having changed to support such behavioral changes.
The plot in this was... Well, I can't actually tell you because I'm still waiting for it to show up. Where was the point in anything the characters did? Even the beginning of their fake relationship was a bit lumpy and extremely unrealistic. The development of their relationship didn't make much more sense. We jumped from one random scenario to the next. All of the weird dates Thom and Clay had were regularly interrupted by some campaign work that seemed to serve no purpose but to make sure that every person who read this book hates politics and will never want to vote again.
I'm sure Bowery tried really hard to show how corrupt and fake politics can be but as a politically interested person, all this did to me was make me want to throw up in the headphone-port of my phone. If I had read this before I had gotten interested in politics, I'm sure that I never would have and that book would be the one and only reason for it.
While the campaign was supposed to be one of the main focuses, I cannot tell you anything about it beside the fact that apparently it's realistic that two politicians pretending to date is going to save the whole thing.
I have said it once and I will say it again, labels are not a bad thing. Yes, labels for sexualities aren't necessary but then I at least expect a more fleshed out explanation and a deep-dive into the characters' queerness. We didn't get that with either of them. Except that Thom mentioned in one sentence that he might be bi-curious "or something" (not a direct quote but basically what he said).
So we got Thom, presented to us as a (sexist) straight man who was suddenly and with no explanation whatsoever fine with being in a queer relationship and then pretty much instantly starting to fuck another man, no questions asked, no sexuality crisis, not even as much as the tiniest bit of second-guessing. The potential Thom's queerness could have had was blatantly wasted.
As far as I know, we know nothing about Clay's sexuality. He fucks Thom. That's where it starts and that's also where it ends. And he also didn't question at all that he would have to pretend to date a man for the sake of the campaign.
I'm not looking for two straight dudes being forced into a fake gay relationship and then discovering together that they might not be that straight after all but if I'm reading a queer book, I kind of want the queerness of the characters to at least be a small topic on the side.
But then again, what did I expect from a cishet woman writing a gay smut romance?
Now to the last part, Thom and Clay's relationship. Since this is a romance novel, this is supposed to be the most important part of this story and therefor, I was impressed by how little sense this made.
Not only was Thom the shittiest partner anyone could fear for, the pace and development of their relationship in private had me confused.
First of all, Thom was horrible towards Clay. Constantly insulting and belittling him, framing him as this huge pathetic loser who would never even be close to being good enough for him. And all of that while Clay was actually being really great (or well, as great as he could be seeing how little he and the whole story were developed).
Then there were the changes in their behavior I have already mentioned. Those came with mood-swings and attachment issues that did not really matter for the story though, because no matter how often Thom decided to dramatically pull away by simply not talking to Clay, he would be turning up at his doorstep again a page later like nothing had happened. The emotional turmoil in his head that probably came with those attachment issues was also left to the reader's imagination and never mentioned.
What was mentioned were really shitty sex scenes. They popped up out of nothing and served no purpose aside from "Oh the readers love to see smut". The timing was always horrendous and made no sense. I couldn't have hated this more.
The thing that ultimately made me put this down and finally, finally give up on it, was when Lenny just decided that next logical thing that would have to happen was them getting married and they both just agreeing. This was bullshit.
This book genuinely made me sick of romances and after this, I will never read a gay romcom written by a woman ever again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse