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A review by yazaleea
Boyfriend 101 by Riley Hart
4.0
A bit over 4 stars? I don't know I hate rating books but I loved this. My favourite of the series with Ash and Beau's book, for sure!
This was such a sweet and fun and unproblematic friends-to-lovers piece. For a few books now, we've seen Cam flirt with Jude and Jude struggle to know how to react.
Jude has always been straight... until he realised he was in love with his best friend Rush, who found the love of his life in Fever Falls. Depressed and heartbroken and most of all very confused, he settles down in Fever Falls too and for the first time, he gets a group of people who care about him. He works as a barista in the group's favourite gay bar, but he is still pretty sure his feelings for Rush were a fluke... until Cam.
Cam is easygoing, he is a protector but he is always down to have fun. And he cannot resist Jude's pretty looks. Jude is so different from his usual type, but they have something between them. They immediately become friends and Jude feels comfortable with Cam, and they trust each other so deeply with their secrets. Cam is the only one who knows how deep Jude's feelings for Rush were, and Jude knows about the one time Cam was in love and how badly it ended.
It was just one lie, a little white lie to stop Rush from feeling guilty over Jude's feelings and a second later, Jude and Cam are thrown into a pretend relationship, for Jude to experiment with a man for the first time, and who better than the man he trusts more than anyone else and who he is insanely attracted to? Except they're already best friends, and when their physical attraction becomes too strong to ignore... they don't know what they are - best friends with benefits? fake boyfriends? or were they the real thing all along?
I loved this. The relationship between Cam and Jude was so sweet and safe and flirty, they made me so happy. I love how Cam did everything he could to make Jude at ease and give him time and space to deal with all the changes this relationship forces him to confront. Jude needs time to process stuff, and often he puts distance between him and Cam and it makes Cam a little insecure, but they always communicate and are upfront with how they feel and they never lead the other on. They just care so much about the other, and they're both just as whipped. The smut was super sweet, different from the rougher sex MM romance tend to gravitate toward and I loved that too.
This book kind of felt like it took the tropes of books 2-4 and made them better: flirty friends-to-lovers? check. Pretend relationship? check. Grumpy-ish and sunshine-ish? check. Bi-awakening? check. And one of the elements I liked best was how Cam and Jude took Theo under their wing. Like Lincoln did Trey, they adopted this confused lonely teen and helped him grow confident in himself and offered him friendship. Where Trey felt kind of an after thought sometimes in Linc and Rush's book, Theo was more present and I really liked the dynamics between him & Jude/Cam.
The writing style is the one thing I'm not suuper fond of, as usual the dialogue is super repetitive with the same phrases used multiple times in the book to the point where it gets a little jarring.
Still, I enjoyed the book! The series was fun and Ok, but books 1 and 5 made me happy. I love to see a couple like Jude and Cam who just genuinely enjoy each other's presence, trust each other dearly and openly communicate and do everything they can to make what they have work. It was lovely!
This was such a sweet and fun and unproblematic friends-to-lovers piece. For a few books now, we've seen Cam flirt with Jude and Jude struggle to know how to react.
Jude has always been straight... until he realised he was in love with his best friend Rush, who found the love of his life in Fever Falls. Depressed and heartbroken and most of all very confused, he settles down in Fever Falls too and for the first time, he gets a group of people who care about him. He works as a barista in the group's favourite gay bar, but he is still pretty sure his feelings for Rush were a fluke... until Cam.
Cam is easygoing, he is a protector but he is always down to have fun. And he cannot resist Jude's pretty looks. Jude is so different from his usual type, but they have something between them. They immediately become friends and Jude feels comfortable with Cam, and they trust each other so deeply with their secrets. Cam is the only one who knows how deep Jude's feelings for Rush were, and Jude knows about the one time Cam was in love and how badly it ended.
It was just one lie, a little white lie to stop Rush from feeling guilty over Jude's feelings and a second later, Jude and Cam are thrown into a pretend relationship, for Jude to experiment with a man for the first time, and who better than the man he trusts more than anyone else and who he is insanely attracted to? Except they're already best friends, and when their physical attraction becomes too strong to ignore... they don't know what they are - best friends with benefits? fake boyfriends? or were they the real thing all along?
I loved this. The relationship between Cam and Jude was so sweet and safe and flirty, they made me so happy. I love how Cam did everything he could to make Jude at ease and give him time and space to deal with all the changes this relationship forces him to confront. Jude needs time to process stuff, and often he puts distance between him and Cam and it makes Cam a little insecure, but they always communicate and are upfront with how they feel and they never lead the other on. They just care so much about the other, and they're both just as whipped. The smut was super sweet, different from the rougher sex MM romance tend to gravitate toward and I loved that too.
This book kind of felt like it took the tropes of books 2-4 and made them better: flirty friends-to-lovers? check. Pretend relationship? check. Grumpy-ish and sunshine-ish? check. Bi-awakening? check. And one of the elements I liked best was how Cam and Jude took Theo under their wing. Like Lincoln did Trey, they adopted this confused lonely teen and helped him grow confident in himself and offered him friendship. Where Trey felt kind of an after thought sometimes in Linc and Rush's book, Theo was more present and I really liked the dynamics between him & Jude/Cam.
The writing style is the one thing I'm not suuper fond of, as usual the dialogue is super repetitive with the same phrases used multiple times in the book to the point where it gets a little jarring.
Still, I enjoyed the book! The series was fun and Ok, but books 1 and 5 made me happy. I love to see a couple like Jude and Cam who just genuinely enjoy each other's presence, trust each other dearly and openly communicate and do everything they can to make what they have work. It was lovely!