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.”
*There are spoilers in the content warning section below, above the summary. Tread lightly!*
Published: July 2020
Genre: Romance
Representation: LGBTQIA2S+ (gay main characters; lesbian side character); BIPOC (black and brown side characters).
Content Warning: self-hatred; depression; being stalked by paparazzi; slander and defamation; past parental abandonment; manipulative and emotionally abusive parents; cancer; discussion of disordered eating; non-consensual kissing; homophobia; workplace discrimination; body-shaming (one incident, side-character); sexual content.
Summary
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.
— summary from Alexis Hall’s website
Review
Witty, emotional, cathartic, and quite self-deprecating, this romance novel was truly loads of fun. It’s one of those books that kind of sneaks up on you…where, before you know it, you’re so totally invested in the characters, totally ensconced in what can only be described as uniquely British humour. Despite the overarching tone of snarky, deadpan comedy, Boyfriend Material packs an emotional punch, as the book starts off featuring our main character, Luc, experiencing a rather difficult go of it. Still very much enmeshed in the traumatic fall-out of his last relationship, a messy situation unique to those who are related to celebrities, Luc’s life has taken a bit of a dive as a result of extreme self-loathing and an undeniably deep depression that has totally consumed him for long enough that he has neglected his well-being, his job, and his friends. A startlingly homophobic conversation with his boss (delivered through inexpressive, straight-forward British fashion that was admittedly quite jarring) leads Luc to tumble into a fake-dating situation in an effort to gain positive publicity and polish up his damaged reputation. Oliver seems stuck-up and uninterested, and despite their borderline disastrous first date and the later potholes the duo find themselves in (in usual romcom fashion), Oliver and Luc start to get carried away and the result is heart-warming and hilarious.
We’ve spoken before about how our favourite parts of story-telling often comes from multi-layered characters of various complexity that can elevate an interesting premise into a fascinating story. Luc is definitely one of those, and anyone who has experienced a depressive period may find his demeanour in the early pages of this book quite alarming and all-too familiar – for that, we say, please tread lightly and take care of yourselves! But as the book continues, Luc starts to slowly but surely pull himself out from below the surface of depression’s waters, and discovers a new appreciation for his life, underlined by a compassion and understanding for himself that he was previously lacking. The result is a beautifully honest subtextual story of a person’s mental health recovery, a process of re-building one’s life that is honest and tear-jerking, a stark contrast to the notes of humour that really anchor the book. All the side characters, however, are interestingly one-dimensional, in a way that we would normally say is boring, but the execution was such that we had a large cast of supporting characters who were each endearing and sweet in their own way, despite the fact that there really wasn’t much to them except for the fact that they were in our main characters’ lives. Even as we call them one-dimensional, we feel that this description isn’t enough – because in all honesty, there’s not a whole lot happening plot-wise in this book, and so it has to be the characters and their dynamics that make it so easy to inhale this novel start to finish with barely a breath taken in the middle.
A romance novel that feels more like a confession, this book is tender and indulgent. It felt oddly intimate, as if it was a story told by a friend when catching-up. It was a warm hug of a story, a lovely escape from real life that filled us with comfort and joy.
You should never let anyone tell you it is wrong to be how you are.
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