a book

[psocoptera]

I managed to Read A Book, a feat that has been beyond me for a couple of weeks. Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall, fake-dating contemp romance currently popular on the internet. Didn't quite land for me for a couple of reasons - the pairing was very much a Sweaterboy/Absolute Nightmare dynamic, but the Nightmare was just such an asshole a couple of times (including late in the story when he shouldn't be any more) that it was hard for me to root for them as a couple. Like, yes, he's the protag, and he has Backstory Pain, so I was sympathetic, but I never quite wanted him for Sweaterboy. And then also it got off to an awkward start because in chapter one, the protag Meets A Guy, so I was like, okay, great, that's our couple, but then chapter five introduces A Different Guy clearly flying the plot banner and I was like but wait when are we coming back to the original guy, I am confused, why does this new guy have the flag, and had to flip to the end to determine that Original Guy had just been part of the plot set-up, whoops. That was all very negative so I should clarify that I have read many (het) romances that were much worse - this at least had snappy writing and a lot of funny lines and a large and entertaining secondary cast. And there were big chunks I genuinely liked a lot.