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A review by lauraly
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book brought me so much joy.
The representation in this book is more than I could have ever hoped for tbh.
I'm not gonna go into detail about the rep but if you want to know just scroll to other reviews cause they all already discussed it.
Let me just say this was so diverse!!!
I loved it so much!!!
However some people are mad and say this book is problematic 😐
They do not however say that about other rom-coms with white straight characters only.
For some reason only books with a diverse cast get picked on for "wrong representation".
But of course books with maybe one queer or poc character (if at all) are totally fine with y'all.
Obviously I can not justify any racism in this book because I am not Indian, but I saw people of colour talking about this topic and how white people are always the ones saying that's racist. I for example talked with an Asian girl about the hate on 'one last stop' that was caused by racism and she said that while reading she didn't thought that it was very racist (if you know the context of the scene). She also said that she had a Chinese fried who shares her opinion and that mostly white people had a problem with that one slightly racist comment.
(Also I'm not saying that a slightly racist comment is okay cause it's most definitely not. However in the book itself the Asian character puts the white girl in her place for saying that racist comment.)
I'm not gonna explain this problem any further but on YouTube there is a girl who talked about that situation more detailed so you can check that out before being mad at authors for trying to put some diversity in their books.
But let's move on from that topic.
I loved the romance!!!
I don't really read rom-coms or romance books in general that much.
(except for contemporary (tjk, coho...)
Cause if a book is mostly focused on the romance than it either gets boring after a while or you don't like the romance and than you don't enjoy reading it at all.
But let me tell you these characters had chemistry!!!!
Oh god it was so adorable to watch these characters fall in love.
And I really loved how casually queer it was
(I mean except for the part with the reality show and that being a big deal)
But the characters were all really cool about it and I loved it.
This is now one of my favourite books istg.
And it wasn't stereotyped!!
I mean a few characters were maybe a little but not in a harmful way.
I was kinda afraid this would remind me of rwrb too much (after boyfriend material I have that concern with achillean rom-coms) but it didn't!!!
Yay.
Also I already have fancasts (a few of them aren't from the same country as described in the books but they fit the description otherwise and I didn't white-wash anyone dw)
Dev = Reiky de valk (I'm not sure where he comes from exactly but people on tik tok use him as a desi james fancast and it was really hard to find someone else who fit the age range.
Alternatively I also have Dev Patel who is actually perfect except a little too old 😭 but that's how I pictured him tbh.
Jules = beabadoobee (idk the vibes yk)
Charlie = Nicholas Galitzine (definitely only cause he's going to play Henry in rwrb haha)
I also have others but yeah I don't really want to search their names now so bye.
<33
(Also I NEED a book about Daphne's love story asap)
The representation in this book is more than I could have ever hoped for tbh.
I'm not gonna go into detail about the rep but if you want to know just scroll to other reviews cause they all already discussed it.
Let me just say this was so diverse!!!
I loved it so much!!!
However some people are mad and say this book is problematic 😐
They do not however say that about other rom-coms with white straight characters only.
For some reason only books with a diverse cast get picked on for "wrong representation".
But of course books with maybe one queer or poc character (if at all) are totally fine with y'all.
Obviously I can not justify any racism in this book because I am not Indian, but I saw people of colour talking about this topic and how white people are always the ones saying that's racist. I for example talked with an Asian girl about the hate on 'one last stop' that was caused by racism and she said that while reading she didn't thought that it was very racist (if you know the context of the scene). She also said that she had a Chinese fried who shares her opinion and that mostly white people had a problem with that one slightly racist comment.
(Also I'm not saying that a slightly racist comment is okay cause it's most definitely not. However in the book itself the Asian character puts the white girl in her place for saying that racist comment.)
I'm not gonna explain this problem any further but on YouTube there is a girl who talked about that situation more detailed so you can check that out before being mad at authors for trying to put some diversity in their books.
But let's move on from that topic.
I loved the romance!!!
I don't really read rom-coms or romance books in general that much.
(except for contemporary (tjk, coho...)
Cause if a book is mostly focused on the romance than it either gets boring after a while or you don't like the romance and than you don't enjoy reading it at all.
But let me tell you these characters had chemistry!!!!
Oh god it was so adorable to watch these characters fall in love.
And I really loved how casually queer it was
(I mean except for the part with the reality show and that being a big deal)
But the characters were all really cool about it and I loved it.
This is now one of my favourite books istg.
And it wasn't stereotyped!!
I mean a few characters were maybe a little but not in a harmful way.
I was kinda afraid this would remind me of rwrb too much (after boyfriend material I have that concern with achillean rom-coms) but it didn't!!!
Yay.
Also I already have fancasts (a few of them aren't from the same country as described in the books but they fit the description otherwise and I didn't white-wash anyone dw)
Dev = Reiky de valk (I'm not sure where he comes from exactly but people on tik tok use him as a desi james fancast and it was really hard to find someone else who fit the age range.
Alternatively I also have Dev Patel who is actually perfect except a little too old 😭 but that's how I pictured him tbh.
Jules = beabadoobee (idk the vibes yk)
Charlie = Nicholas Galitzine (definitely only cause he's going to play Henry in rwrb haha)
I also have others but yeah I don't really want to search their names now so bye.
<33
(Also I NEED a book about Daphne's love story asap)