★★★★☆ | Yes, I love the tropes

❤️ m/m fake relationship
❤️ opposites attract & hate to love
❤️ “we’re so different but are we really??”
❤️ emotional baggage

Wanted:
One (fake) boyfriend
Practically perfect in every way

Luc O’Donnell is tangentially–and reluctantly–famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he’s never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad’s making a comeback, Luc’s back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.

To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship…and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He’s a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he’s never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened.

But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that’s when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don’t ever want to let them go.

ALC/ARC received from Libro.fm/NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Luc O’Donnell is a messy, anxious, and disastrous individual.

As a son of a rockstar, all his mistakes are well documented on the pages of magazines and gossip portals so when a compromising photo is about to ruin his life again he enlists the help of his friend group to find him a pleasant boyfriend who could help him repair his reputation.

Oliver Blackwood seems like a perfect man for the job. A barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and zero scandals on his account.

Except he hates Luc, doesn’t he?

I liked how those supposedly complete opposites managed to find a common ground and work through their issues. I’m a huge sucker for opposites attract AND hate to love so this was my jam.

The fake dating trope was also quite fun and organic though I would like it more overt in the early stages of their relationship? Hard to explain without spoiling anything but after [redacted] it didn’t feel like fake dating fake dating?

It was fun and tropey and had lots of British humour which I loved — Luc’s snarky narration was the best part of the book.

But it also had a deeper side with Luc’s and Oliver’s emotional baggage.

There’s dealing with anxiety, difficulty with talking about one’s emotions, lots of back and forth, messing up, and apologising.

In the end, I liked it very much but I still felt like something was missing? I loved the characters and had fun listening to it but I missed the intensity that would make my heart beat faster here.

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