Boyfriend Material
Ratings238
Average rating4
This book...ugh. I absolutely loved Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake so I decided to try Alexis Hall's other works. Clearly that didn't go well.??
I hated almost all of the characters with exception of Luc's mother. Oliver and Bridget were THE WORST.??
Oliver is definitely one of my least favorite love interests I have ever read about. This entire book made me so angry. There were one too many conflicts for my liking. Also, that entire plot-line with Luc's dad was...unnecessary??? I wish we'd just been told that he is an asshole and that'd been it because it went absolutely nowhere. I was just desperately waiting for it to end. Honestly, I kinda wanna forget about it.??
CAWPILE Breakdown:
Characters: 7
Atmosphere: 5
Writing: 9
Plot: 5
Intrigue: 5
Logic: 7
Enjoyment: 8
Pros:
- Adorable characters: I loved Luc and Oliver they were such well fleshed out characters who had amazing personalities. And that isn't to mention the rest of the cast, especially Luc's band of friends, they added so much to the story and it made it so enjoyable
- Banter: Luc and Oliver are the kings of banter and there were lots of instances where I was laughing out loud at both their antics and how unbelievably ridiculous they were
Cons:
- Pacing: This book struggled in the middle in terms of pacing. I really struggled because I felt like we were at a standstill and the story was not progressing.
- Ending: I was really disappointed in the ending, it seemed very unfinished. I know there is a second book coming but I think this one would have benefited from one final chapter to do a better job of wrapping everything up.
Loved it. Loved how they're so different yet fit so wonderfully. Loved how they can be so goddamn awkward (because that's just relatable af). Loved how things were never easy and they got through things together as a couple and together with their lovely ever-present friends. Loved how they challenged everything and went back and forth and apologized and moved on. Loved it all. Just wish there was more.
Maybe closer to 4.5. It repeated the same plot point too many times for me to give 5 stars.
I went back on forth on whether to give this a lower rating or not. While I enjoyed the story, the main character can just be such a thoughtless jerk that I hated him half the time. I absolutely loved Oliver, though – he deserved better, and I wish I could have gotten a story just about him and someone else who treated him wonderfully.
Funny. I enjoyed this light romance a lot, the witty selftalk etc. Yet at 4/5 I felt the book was over. It dragged on and on while you knew it was all going to be just fine anyway.
Truly, the audiobook version of this is like being wrapped in a warm blanket while drinking the best hot chocolate.
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listening to this again because I am in desperate need of comfort!
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CUTE!
That's it, that's the review.
4.5 stars (rounding off to 5 since I enjoyed this too much) ✨
Should mention that I didn't like RWRB at all, this book was nothing like RWRB, and was loads better. If anything, it felt a bit more like Carry On (that I love).
(This book only copied off RWRB's cover design. The characters were way better, and so was the story. No American politics and I just didn't like anything in RWRB okie
piqued by the fakedating, stayed for the first sentence, really wish i could cuddle my partner right now. so cute and funny and heartwarm-y <3
Boyfriend Material was honestly one of the best and most fun books I have read all year. It is a clever, hilarious, and moving slow burn queer romance full of delightful banter. It made me genuinely laugh out loud with no one around. The main characters are fully realized and incredibly lovable. Perfect for fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Okay, let me start by telling you that I enjoyed reading this one so much that I am planning on buying it in the future. Just having an ARC is not good enough! I almost pulled an all-nighter to finish this book. Plus, I will be reading more by this author.
This book is hilarious, cute, and had me invested really quick. I was in love with the characters quickly, even the side characters.
I did have a minor issue with the conflict and some of the end parts – I really wanted to dive into and condemn more of the negative issues that came up. Sorry, I'm trying not to spoil too much. In that vein, I do want to say that how Luc's anxiety and his family issues were dealt with were amazing – in my opinion.
There is a lot of good to this book. I would totally recommend it and plan on re-reading this in the future.
This was a really fun read. I laughed out loud several times. Luc isn't the most likable character in the beginning but I definitely grew to love him by the end. The banter between Luc and Oliver is lovely as well!
4.5 stars, rounding down. I screenshotted so many passages from this to share on Twitter because this book kept making me laugh out loud while I read it. I'd call this more of a romantic comedy than a straight-up romance - it's first-person from Luc's POV and there's not much exploration of Oliver's baggage/situation until the last 75-100 pages. I loved basically every character in this (except the ones you're not supposed to love), especially Bridget and Luc's too-posh-to-live coworkers Alex and Rhys. (And Luc's mother and her Drag Race-obsessed friend, of course.)
Anyway. 4.5 stars instead of a full five because I thought the ending was pretty abrupt and this could've used a little bit of an epilogue for the happily-ever-after, but that's really my only nitpick. This was delightful.
I really wanted to like this book, and there are aspects of it I enjoyed while reading. However, the stereotyped and often annoying secondary characters kept ruining my enjoyment.
In this book, Luc is the mildly famous son of an old rock star who needs a respectable boyfriend to keep his job. Rather than fight against the obvious discrimination of the situation, Luc decides to get a fake boyfriend who is an “acceptable” gay. To this end, he begins dating Oliver, a controlling, sometimes uptight lawyer. Of course, as in any hate to love fake dating story, they develop real feelings for each other before conflicts arise and threaten their budding relationship. You know, the standard plot.
I actually liked the relationship between Luc and Oliver. They are good for each other, and the chapters early on that deal with their romance are good. However, the conflicts that arise between them later on in the book are unnecessary. They do not seem like real-life conflicts that would actually cause couples to break up. In all fairness, I find this a problem in many romance books.
My main problem with this book is the secondary characters. I absolutely despise Luc's coworkers and some of his friends. They are portrayed as ridiculous stereotypes, especially his coworkers. They are utterly clueless, and it's just annoying. I do not believe that any one person would have that many ridiculous people in his life.
If this book had been shorter and had eliminated the frustrating side characters, I might have enjoyed the read. As it is, I cannot rate it any higher than 2 stars.
A cute m/m romance about finding onesself and letting people in. Not as steamy as I would have liked, but ultimately it was funny, rewarding and enjoyable. Luc, the MC, was a little annoying at times, but I feel like Oliver and Luc's mother made up for his behavior. Four stars.
I'm conscious this could be rather burdensome to hear, but you remain the thing I have most chosen for myself. The thing that's most exclusively mine. The one thing that brings me the deepest joy.
This book is everything I wanted RWRB to be. Two grumps, lots of angst, LOTS of pining, witty banter. Perfect romcom.
It's cute, it's hilarious. I loved it from start to finish.
This came highly recommended to me as a readalike for [b:Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566742512l/41150487.SY75.jpg 61657690]. And I kind of think...that what happened here was that this publisher was like “we need a readalike for RWRB, let's rush this to publish!!” Because this book had way more typos and sentences with missing key words than I'm used to seeing in professionally published fiction. And it's not like that will totally ruin the experience for me, but it was like, every few pages.Anyway, I also feel like this book couldn't decide if it was supposed to be realistic or a satire? Like all of Luc's posh coworker seem like absolute cardboard slapstick people, to the point where it was hard to process any of Luc's interactions with them. Like: is Luc's POV exaggerating this for effect? Are these people joking? Are these people legitimately suffering from some sort of brain injury? WTF?I require very little buy-in to get on board for a fake dating scenario; this one seemed a little thin but like, sure, I'm here for it. And Luc and Oliver were both more developed characters than the side characters. (Obviously that's almost always the case but here it was so jarring to have these other characters who were SO unrealistic nothing cardboard people).ESPECIALLY since it came so highly compared to Red White and Royal Blue but it really does suffer in comparison IMO since RWRB did have such fun and compelling side characters and just felt like...more in touch with the world. Oh also, again not a huge deal per se but this book did have weirdly dated pop culture references like Season 1 of Drag Race and early episodes of Welcome to Night Vale? Like was this something Alexis Hall had been trying to publish since like 2012 and then all of a sudden RWRB became a hit and Sourcebooks was like “MUST PUBLISH THIS IMMEDIATELY no time to spellcheck or update the pop culture references!!!!!!!!”IDK IDK IDK whatever it's fine, it's fun, I just didn't like it nearly as much as Red White and Royal Blue and I wish I had not been led to expect that I would.
If this is Alexis Hall's breakout mainstream publisher novel, I have no complaints. Saved it for vacation, read it in less than 24 hours, wanted to read it all over again when I was done.
Received an ARC on #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book is being touted as the next Red, White & Royal Blue but honestly it doesn't pull me in the same way.
It was a fun read with some comedy but I just didn't fully believe the love story and some the humor didn't land the way it seemed to be intended?
Overall it was a good book but it definitely is not my favourite.
This book got me all heart eyes. I absolutely loved it.
Boyfriend Material made me laugh out loud, cry, smile, be angry,...
In my opinion all characters were unique in their own way. Alex made me laugh most of the time, Lucien made me smile and cry and also laugh with how witty he is, plus he's super relatable.
Hall's writing style is very quick to read. It's clear that a lot of effort has been put in the emotional aspects of this book, the humour aspects of this book, the love aspects of this book,...
I think this might be one of my favourite books of 2020.
I guess it was fine. Not very impressed but it wasn't too bad either. Maybe I just had too high expectations.
3.5 stars.
I didn't really like Luc in the beginning but by the end, I liked his and Oliver's relationship. However, I never fully got invested in their romance, partly because they were constantly breaking up. By the final chapters, I wasn't entirely sure their relationship would survive, they were both too eager to throw in the towel any time they encountered an obstacle. After their final reconciliation, it crossed my mind that they were likely to be that on-again, off-again couple that irritated all their friends and finally broke up after 10 years of turbulent coupledom.
All that said, I liked that Luc's father wasn't magically turned into a present dad. It seemed a realistic portrayal of their relationship. Finally, I hated Bridget, I know that I am likely to be in the minority here but I couldn't stand her.
