A review by bengaliyaoi
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

2.0

I’m starting to think the romance genre isn’t for me, because my eyes were just glazing over the entirety of this book, except for the existence of the best character in the book—Alex, of course—who I honestly thought would have been the romantic lead, and I’m gonna be honest, would have been way funnier and interesting to me. Then again, I have no idea what people typically like when it comes to romance, and I can see why people would liken this to RWRB. There’s that style of writing that some people think is funny and charming but I find vaguely irritating in the way I find white people trying to be funny irritating most of the time, there’s the vaguely diverse group of friends that’s there, being vaguely diverse (this just being Priya who is Muslim, which is crazy because Priya is as Hindu a name as I can conceive of, but who cares, there’ve been worse things in life), there’s the snarky main character who’s biracial (like, French and English, which as I understand might as well be vaguely ethnic to British people) and the uptight blonde dude that’s there being sexy and constipated. Interestingly, it also shares a commonality with RWRB in that they both make an off color reference to American imperialism and violence that just jars you, because it reminds you that these books are written for an audience that decidedly excludes people like me and my friends, while also trying to pretend that it isn’t. People of color are largely ornamental here, which I’m not disappointed about and I’ve just sort of expected from books like these written by white queer people—but it feels like there’s a difference between knowing this, and seeing it in action. I’m sure this isn’t the kind of book where I’m even supposed to care about, because who cares about the optics of representation when two white gay dudes are having a go at each other through fake dating tropes or whatever, and I know these books are largely meant to be escapist fantasies. But what kinds of romance books are people escaping into? Books where (ex?)Muslim South Asians lesbians are just inexplicably hanging out with nobody but white people? Books that make a one-liner out of a war? Again, I’m sure I’m hand wringing over things that nobody cares about but me. But I’m starting to think that books written by white queers and touted as feel-good romance books and escapist fantasies are books that are catered to the kind of person that doesn’t want to think about these things, which is a luxury that quite a few people want to enjoy. I won’t begrudge them that. But I will wonder.

Anyways, two stars because I really liked Alex♥️