Trigger Warning : Cancer / Disordered eating / Homophobia / Parental Abuse
☽ Synopsis ☽
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.
☽ Review ☽
Plot
I thought the romance was incredibly well written. Luc and Oliver’s relationship is by no means perfect, but they both put in effort to make it work. Anyone who knows me knows I love a good fake dating plot and this book delivered. The two of them have a lot of chemistry which made the slow burn even better. I will say though, their fake dating got off to a rocky start which made sense for the characters but was cringy for me to read. The beginning, I think, was the reason this book is four and not five stars.
Along with the romance, there are a few side plots mostly to do with Luc’s relationship to his parents, specifically his non-existent one with his rock star father who left him when he was three. I didn’t mind this side plot. I thought it did a nice job showing how Luc changes throughout the book. I wasn’t the biggest fan of how it turned out, but it made sense. There’s also a side plot with Oliver and his parents but it doesn’t reveal itself until near the end. In the end, that side plot felt random and I wish that it was incorporated more into the story.
Characters
I liked all the characters. I liked seeing Luc and Oliver grow together and I liked that neither of them were perfect by the end of the book. In fact, I think I preferred Luc at the end (for reasons I can’t go into because spoilers) than at the beginning purely because I can’t handle self-destructive personalities. As for the other characters…well they had enjoyable personalities but it seemed they only existed to further Luc along in the plot. I think Priya even jokes about it. Overall, they could’ve used the character arcs themselves but I get the author thought that might’ve distracted from the main character arcs.