What do you call that thing where...YOU ARE FREAKING OBSESSED! I adored this book. I was so invested in Luc from the first moment he sassed onto the page. I was also pretty invested in Luc and Oliver from the first date. An awesome opposites attract trope that I gladly sunk my teeth into.

Luc is a lovable hot mess, due to circumstances that actually weren't his fault, except in the fact that he couldn't handle the continuous betrayal from people in his life. He completely shut down and began to spiral into one bad decisions after another. Then, after bad publicity, he is forced to take on a fake boyfriend to clean up his image. What better than an uptight control freak barrister!

In comes Oliver, who has some issues of his own. Somehow they make it work in the most adorable way, and I am 100% smitten. My ONLY qualm is there was not enough groveling at the end for one these gentleman, I do believe he needed to do something epically cheesy to win back affection...but it was still a very satisfying ending.

I loved. Immediately went out and bought more Alexis Hall books!

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are entirely my own.

I hate to say it, but I DNFed this one. While I kind of like Luc’s eccentric personality and I adore the scenes and chemistry between him and Oliver, I just cannot tolerate the insufferable ancillary characters for another chapter. If there were people like Alex in my life, I would cut them out. So I can’t spend another chapter or anymore of my time on characters like that. While I do love the whole concept and appreciate seeing LGBTQIA+ characters leading their stories, I just can’t continue on this journey with Luc. I have no doubt that at another time in my life this one might have might and might could be the perfect book. But now is not my time with this one.

This book was an absolute tonic for these dark times, really engaging and enjoyable story, loved the characters and their development and the pace and setting were all amazing also. Would highly recommend,

I would like to thank Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars!

This book was a wonderful! The characters were well thought out and Alexis Hall manages to make a predictable fake-to-real romance unpredictable. The fake boyfriends trope is interwoven well with the character growth and relationship development of Luc and Oliver, and I appreciated it very much. The side characters are a delight to read about! So entertaining - they had me laughing to myself from the first page!

Writing style was easy to read. Some references/expressions did fly over my head a little, likely because of the British context, but I had Google so it was fine. Pace was good, nothing too draggy.

Overall, a wonderful read. Highly recommend!

This is a spoiler-free review posted to respect the reading experience of others. A more in-depth review is available here on my Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3354064784?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

This story was so sweet and so funny! The supporting cast of characters is maybe the best I've ever read, and the connection and growth between Luc and Oliver was so satisfying to read.

3⭐️

As the child of two former music legends, Luc O’Donnell is used to living his life in the public eye. When a compromising picture of him is published, his boss gives him an ultimatum: clean up your image or clean out your desk. What he needs is a perfect boyfriend to help him rehab his image. So when his best friend sets him up with Oliver Blackwood, an uptight lawyer who is in need of a date to his parent’s anniversary party, the answer seems fairly simple: they become fake boyfriends. What can go wrong? However, Luc comes to learn that just because he is in a fake relationship doesn’t mean he can’t catch real feelings.

So... I had a really hard time getting into this book. I honestly probably would have stopped reading it at around 25% in, but the positive reviews on Goodreads gave me hope that it would grow on me. And it just never did. Which is a tragedy because it’s got all the best tropes! Fake dating! Platonic bed sharing! Mutual pining!

I really struggled with Luc as the narrator. Most of the time I found him really unlikeable. The author goes out of their way to be like “he is this was because of x, y, z...” but it always felt like a cheap way to excuse his garbage behavior. He is whinny, selfish, immature, and a bad friend. I was hoping for more character growth than I got with him.

I did like the slowburn and witty banter between Luc and Oliver. Especially their texts. I think the highlights of this book were the way Luc pushes Oliver’s buttons and unabashedly flirts with him to make him awkward. And how patient Oliver is with all of Luc’s baggage and neuroses.

However these moments were often overshadowed by how they were on and off entirely too many times for a fake couple. They broke up too often and too easily. It felt like Oprah was out here going “You get cold feet! And you get cold feet! EVERYBODY GETS COLD FEET!”.

All the other characters feel like caricatures. They were often times so ridiculous that they were overly clownish. I’m found myself going “no one speaks like that” on multiple occasions. It really took me out of the reading experience.

I can see why this book is getting a lot of 4 and 5 stars... but it feels more like people are trying to fill the Red, White, and Royal Blue sized hole in their lives. I had high hopes for this one, and unfortunately it was just underwhelming.

This one was giving me all the British Bridget Jones vibes... such a fun, light read and PERFECT for quarantine (or really anytime!) I read it in one afternoon and put it down with a smile. It was sweet with dynamic characters and two leading romantic men you just keep your fingers crossed for throughout. Bravo! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

“ I thought I’d feel guiltier. But I just feel…full of bacon.”

Another lovely read from Alexis Hall and definitely a first class Rom Com.

Luc (Lucien) is the son of a famous musician who abandoned him and his mother when Luc was three. Luc is generally ok. He has his charity work at a weird beetle charity. He has good friends and a great relationship with his mum, but he doesn't have a boyfriend. His last boyfriend sold the story of their relationship to the media and Luc has been media fodder ever since. He doesn't trust people now and just seems to be rambling on through life, living under the shadow of unwanted media focus in an untidy flat in London.

Oliver is a good looking, well spoken, erudite criminal lawyer. He once met Luc at a party but they didn't hit it off. When a mutual friend suggests they pretend to be boyfriends Oliver agrees because he needs someone presentable to take to his parents anniversary.

Luc on the other hand needs to redeem his ghastly media image. He needs someone to act as a steady boyfriend so that the media will present him in a more stable light. The media portrayal of him as some kind of gay wild child is damaging his reputation at work and undermining his role as a fundraiser. Funders are withdrawing their support from the charity because they don't want to be linked to a gay wild child. Of course it is the 'gay' part that they really don't like but Luc decides that a stable boyfriend will show them that he isn't wild and that he is actually a nice chap.

And so Luc and Oliver become pretend boyfriends and along the way the inevitable happens and if you don't know what the 'inevitable' is you haven't read enough romance stories.

Generally these kinds of stories are always predictable because the reader knows the end of the story at the very beginning, but the point of these stories isn't the HEA, it is the journey to get there. The journey in this story is great fun to read. It does ramble along in some places, but that is the fun of a Rom Com. Mostly mundane people have a mostly mundane ramble and at the end you have a couple who are deeply in love, but you have had great fun getting there and lots of will he, wont he?

Of course he will! Eventually

Luc is full of self-doubt and unresolved antagonism towards his absent music star father. He works for a weird charity which expects him to 'tone down' his supposed party life and what he really wants is a steady boyfriend and a love of his own. He has great friends who are very caring but he has a kind of loneliness and bad previous relationship experiences. All this baggage makes it hard to grasp something new and when Oliver comes along Luc really wants to grasp him.

The relationship is a bit like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. It starts gently with a friendship and ends after a bit of a struggle as both men recognise the love they have for each other and the need to trust each other.

I liked this because it is a comedy. It would make a great British rom com movie. It is funny in parts, serious in others with lots if huggable ahh moments. It has a great supporting cast of loyal friends and weird work colleagues, and rather eccentric parents.

It has all the the perfect elements for a good romance story and it is. Best of all it is funny and I think funny books will help us get through the stresses of these difficult times.

Copy provided by Sourcebooks Casablanca via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I'll be honest...I picked up this book because I just finished Red, White & Royal Blue and the description of Boyfriend Material reminded me a little of it. I was not disappointed even though it wasn't as similar as I originally thought it would be going in. I love a good "fake" dating turning into lovers story and Alexis Hall did a wonderful job making this a rom-com in book form. So cute and fun! Perfect for YA romance readers.

Es fällt mir sehr schwer, meine Gedanken zu diesem Buch in Worte zu fassen. Ich hatte mit einer lustigen, süßen Liebesgeschichte gerechnet. Das ist sie auch... irgendwie. Aber ich hatte nicht erwartet, dass die Charaktere, die Gespräche und die Handlung SO skurril werden würden.
Die Geschichte wird aus Luc's Perspektive erzählt. Der Schreibstil ist angenehm, allerdings fand ich das Englisch teilweise anspruchsvoll, sodass ich gelegentlich Wörter nachschlagen musste.

Luc ist bei seiner Mutter aufgewachsen und hat seinen Vater nie kennengelernt, da dieser die Familie früh verließ, um seine Rockstar-Karriere weiter zu verfolgen. Dennoch stand Luc schon immer im Zentrum der medialen Aufmerksamkeit und hat - auch aufgrund einer gewissen Tollpatschigkeit - einen sehr schlechten Ruf. Negative Erfahrungen mit der Presse haben ihn sehr vorsichtig und misstrauisch werden lassen, insbesondere was potenzielle Partner anbelangt. Er arbeitet für eine Wohltätigkeitsorganisation, die Käfer schützt, und muss reiche Spender anwerben und bei Laune halten. Nach einem weiteren, sehr negativen Artikel steht sein Job auf dem Spiel, sodass er zu dem Schluss kommt, einen ansehnlichen, skandalfreien Fake-Boyfriend zu benötigen, um seinen Job zu retten.

Luc und Oliver sind vollkommen gegensätzlich, in jeder Hinsicht. Und schon direkt zu Beginn scheint dieses Projekt zum Scheitern verurteilt zu sein, da man sich beim besten Willen nicht vorstellen kann, wie diese zwei ein Paar darstellen sollten. Im Laufe der Geschichte wird jedoch deutlich, wie gut sie sich ergänzen und wie viel beide von dem jeweils anderen lernen können. Sie haben eigentlich ständig Krisen und Streit, und dennoch wollen und brauchen sie einander und können sich beide nicht von dieser "Beziehung" verabschieden. Ich mochte die vielen süßen Momente zwischen den beiden, die vielen humorvollen Nachrichten, die zahlreichen peinlichen Szenen und die zickigen Streitigkeiten. Ich konnte mich kaum von dem Buch lösen und wurde sehr, sehr gut unterhalten.

Zitat:
At nine o'clock on Tuesday night, [...] I came abruptly to the conclusion that all my problems would be solved if I tidied my flat. At nine thirty-six on Tuesday, came abruptly to the conclusion that this had been the worst idea ever. I'd started trying to put things in places, but the places where I wanted to put the things were already full of things that weren't the things that were supposed to go in those places, so I had to take the things out of the places, but there were no places to put the things that came from the places, so then I tried to put things back in the places but they wouldn't go back in the places, which meant now I had more things and nowhere to put the things, and some of the things were clean and some of the things were very much not clean, and the very much not clean things were getting mixed up with the clean things and everything was terrible and I wanted to die.

Ob man den Humor dieses Buches mag oder nicht, ist wirklich Geschmackssache. Luc hat sehr viele, sagen wir, individuelle Freunde und Arbeitskollegen. Aber auch seine Mutter ist speziell. Die Gespräche in diesem Buch sind zum Großteil sehr skurril und sorgen dafür, dass man ständig zwischen Lachen und "What the f*ck???" schwangt. Als "herkömmlich" kann man in diesem Buch wohl keine Person bezeichnen. Aber ich habe diesen Humor - nach leichten anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten - sehr genossen und als erfrischend empfunden.

Das Ende hat mich dann nochmal sehr überrascht, da es unerwartet ernst wurde. Ich mochte sehr, welche Entwicklung Luc vollzogen hat und wie sich seine Sichtweise auf gewisse Dinge und Personen veränderte. Ich hätte mir noch ein paar Seiten mehr gewünscht, da es mir in der letzten Szene ein wenig zu schnell ging. Aber ich konnte das Buch mit einem sehr glücklichen, tief berührten Lächeln schließen.

Fazit:
Eine Fake-Boyfriend-Gay-Romance mit sehr speziellem Humor und sehr skurrilen Gesprächen und Charakteren. Wer sich darauf einlassen kann, wird gut unterhalten werden. Absolute Leseempfehlung! 5 Sterne.


In English:

It is very difficult for me to put my thoughts on this book into words. I had expected a funny, sweet love story. And it is ... somehow. But I didn't expect the characters, the conversations, and the plot to become SO bizarre.
The story is told from Luc's perspective. The writing style is pleasant.

Luc grew up with his mother and never met his father because he left the family early to pursue his rock star career. Nevertheless, Luc has always been at the center of media attention and has a very bad reputation - also because of a certain clumsiness. Negative experiences with the press made him very cautious and suspicious, especially with regard to potential partners. He works for a charity that protects beetles and has to recruit and keep rich donors happy. According to another very negative article, his job is at stake, so he concludes that he needs a handsome, scandal-free fake boyfriend to save his job.

Luc and Oliver are completely opposite, in every way. And right from the start, this project seems to have been doomed to fail, because it is hard to imagine how these two should represent a couple. However, in the course of history it becomes clear how well they complement each other and how much both can learn from each other. They actually have crises and arguments all the time, and yet they want and need each other and neither of them can say goodbye to this "relationship". I liked the many sweet moments between the two, the many humorous messages, the numerous embarrassing scenes and the bitchy arguments. I could hardly detach myself from the book and was very, very well entertained.

Whether you like the humor of this book or not is really a matter of taste. Luc has a lot, let's say, individual friends and work colleagues. His mother is also special. The conversations in this book are for the most part very bizarre and ensure that you are constantly between laughter and "What the f*ck???" swings. No one in this book can be described as "conventional". But I enjoyed this humor - after some initial difficulties - and found it refreshing.

The end surprised me again because it became unexpectedly serious. I liked very much what development Luc had and how his view of certain things and people changed. I would have liked a few more pages because the last scene was a little too quick ended in my opinion. But I was able to close the book with a very happy, deeply moved smile.

Conclusion:
A fake boyfriend gay romance with a very special sense of humor and very bizarre conversations and characters. Anyone who can get involved will be well entertained. Absolute reading recommendation! 5 Stars.

**I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
This book was delightfully complicated. A lot of times romance cannot manage being both serious and fun. This book manages it very nicely.
IT is a fake dating story with two men who have issues. Luc is a full on disaster. He is the son of former rock stars. His mother is French and a lot eccentric. I loved all of the scenes that she was in. His father has been absent his whole life but has been the cause of him being tabloid fodder. Every single bad decision has been out for everyone to see. He has a great group of friends that pick his ass up and try to j=keep him functioning. He is good at his job but the people he works with are A LOT.
Oliver is a barrister. HE has one mutual friend with Luc. HE as very tight control of his life and he needs to keep everything the way it is. But when Luc comes into his life, even as a fake boyfriend, his life spins a bit out of his control.
I really loved both of these characters. I was rooting for them from the start. I hated every time that they had to put up with some type of homophobia or implication that they were not what they should be. Their relationship is full of pitfalls but it felt so real. IT is so well written and all of the characters are fantastically written.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

When Luc is caught in drunken debauchery by the paparazzi (again), the charity he works for tells him to clean up his act or lose his job. And by clean up his act they mean find a respectable boyfriend to bring to the next fundraising event. Enter Oliver, an extremely well-put-together criminal defense lawyer who could use a fake boyfriend himself. They strike up a deal - they will each attend each others events, then never see each other again. Definitely no plans to fall in love, or secretly pine for each other, or become hopelessly dependent on one another.

I laughed out loud more than I have in several books. Once I was in, I was hooked and I didn't want it to end. There are quite a lot of characters beyond the main two, but all of them feel real and full, as thought I was spending time with real people.

The obvious readalike is RED, WHITE, & ROYAL BLUE because it also features a semi-famous MC, a grumpy uptight British love interest, and it's full of snark. But where RW&RB is an enemies to lovers scenario, BOYFRIEND MATERIAL is a fake dating scenario.

Excellent gay rom com for fans of British humor, characters that come alive, and snarky grumpy soft boys.

I started this book and I was completely sucked in. 

This book is about Luc, the only son of two rock stars from the 1980s. He doesn't really know his dad since he walked out when he was three but since the man is back in the business with a reality TV show, Luc is getting papped by photographers all over the place. This is interfering with his job so he needs a fake boyfriend for a work function. Enter friend of a friend, Oliver, who needs a fake boyfriend for a family event. 

I wholeheartedly loved this book. Yes, the plot wasn't anything to blow me away and I could have done without the choice of conflict for the third act but the writing style had me from the first chapter. I just found it funny and enjoyable and I absolutely could not put it down, even when I was meant to be reading several other things for this reading challenge.

Part of this reason is for the cast of characters. They are all absolutely batty as anything and I really loved how interesting they were. Yes, some of them were a little one-note, especially some of Luc's friends, but I never really got any of them confused with each other and there was never one character where I was bored when they were on page. 

The romance itself I really enjoyed. Luc and Oliver both had issues with relationships that they had to get over, around trust and sticking around, and they had crappy parents to deal with on top of that, but it felt far more equal opportunity than it sometimes does in romance novels. For all Luc talks about how perfect Oliver is as a boyfriend, he really isn't (though there were sometimes when Luc thought Oliver said an incredibly arsehole thing and I was left going 'that really wasn't that bad' but I think the irrational bit was the point) and they both had great character arcs throughout the book. Maybe a little more for Luc than for Oliver but it was his POV so you got to see it a lot more. 

I just found this book really fun to read and if the author wants to release anything else about the other characters, I am more than happy to read it.

Definitely recommend. 5 stars!

Enemies to lovers, fake relationships, some of my favorite tropes! I thought this book was great and I loved all the side characters and the ever-changing group chat names as the story evolved. Luc and Oliver were well written and I liked that their relationship felt natural, and not forced (circumstances aside). Overall a very cute story!

I wasn't super thrilled with this one. I mean, I liked it well enough - but the way the characters talked was so out of place, it made me want to roll my eyes. I wish that the end had happened differently. It seemed like Oliver's personal challenges came out of nowhere, instead of how Luc's were talked about the entire book.

I really enjoyed this book! Though I think I was looking for more of a connection between Luc & Oliver. Also, I found Luc to be a bit annoying and was not as interested in the parts about his celebrity dad, etc. I'd recommend for a lover of cute romance novels and the fact that it's set in London doesn't hurt!

I wound up enjoying this book a lot more than I thought I would! Obviously I was expecting to like it when I requested it; I’d seen a lot about what a hilarious romcom it was and how good it was, so I was looking forward to it. But then I started reading it, and it wasn’t particularly my thing. Luc is a mess, and while I 100 percent support publishing all of the messy protagonists, they’re not usually the types of characters I find myself drawn to. This book also has a specific type of humor that didn’t always work for me (though lots of people said they found it hilarious), and the beginning was, quite frankly, rather slow. But then Luc started to grow on me, and I came to completely love him and his budding relationship with Oliver. It was so lovely to see his character arc evolve over the course of the story.

I will say, I didn’t like that it took until the last 15 percent of the book for Luc to realize that most of his relationship with Oliver was about dealing with Luc’s problems, and not Oliver’s. And then when some of those problems are finally revealed, we don’t really get to see Oliver work through them and strengthen his relationship with Luc, either. I also felt like things were really quickly wrapped up at the end, and I wish we’d gotten more time with Luc and Oliver together after Oliver finally made a fool of himself for Luc. But I say that because I’m obsessed with these two, and I really needed more!

All in all, these two are adorable, and I love how awkward they were together at first but how they eventually came to realize how well they worked together. And I really liked how both of them kind of needed the relationship to be fake in order to be vulnerable and eventually let it become real. Oh, and this is definitely an example of fake dating that works for me! Luc is very honest about it with the people who matter most in his life, though again, I wish Oliver’s friends and family had played a role much earlier in the story. Actually, typing this out makes me realize how underdeveloped Oliver’s arc is in comparison to Luc’s, and I wonder if having alternate POVs instead of just Luc’s would have made a difference in how the story was structured and developed and made it more even? But I also enjoyed Luc’s story so much that I’m hesitant to have that altered too much! All in all, this was a really fun, engaging read, and I highly recommend it!

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with this free advanced copy, in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to enjoy this book however This wasn’t for me has I only got to 50% in before I decided to DNF it.
It starts off quite promising, it has a face-pace plot however after getting to about 25% it started to go downhill for me. The “false” relationship didn’t come across has comedic but as slightly abusive. The side characters are very unrealistic and the main character started to get repetitive with his ramblings.

4.5 stars, rounded up

This was a slow-starter for me--as in, "15% in and not sure I was going to continue" slow. But then... then it became amazing. Really amazing: angsty & snort-laugh funny.

If you liked Red, White, & Royal Blue, but prefer a closed bedroom door, this book is for you. Lots on the value of found family and valuing the family that truly values you in return. One partner cannot fix another, but they can help hold the broken pieces while we fix ourselves.

Also--funny. Woke my partner laughing too loud funny.

I first heard of Boyfriend Material from Christina Lauren. They loved this book so much, so I was super excited, too! Plus, that gorgeous cover just added to my anticipation. Unfortunately, the beginning was too slow for me and, from there, I found it difficult to connect to or like the characters. Luc is kinda childish, which, I know, is why he needed Oliver's influence. But still, he's a full adult and I just found his actions annoying. Bummer.