This was a fun read. Thom and Clay are both staffers for a governor likely to run for president. That is where the similarities end -- Thom is a classic political operative, and Clay is a rumpled tech genius. When a photo of the two of them together is misinterpreted, the governor asks the two of them to fake a relationship -- in order to distract from a public mistake she made. The two reluctantly agree, despite their mutual distaste for one another. As they spend more time together, though, they realize they have more in common than they thought -- and that they both may be open to more than a fake relationship, even if that is not what is best for the campaign, or their careers.

I enjoyed this story, a fun combination of a political novel and a romance. Highly recommended!

3.75 stars

I really liked this book! Political enemies to lovers AND fake dating?!? Yes please to all of that.

The book had me right from the start because Thom is a complete asshole in pretty much all aspects of his life. The book starts with him dumping his girlfriend at her sister’s wedding, when he is part of the wedding party! Like, who does that?!? An asshole. Then, Thom’s boss (a governor who plans to run for president) says something homophobic, a picture of Thom being an asshole to Clay (a co-worker) gets taken out of context, and BAM! Fake dating as a way for the governor to save face.

Something I really liked about this book is that being with Clay was Thom’s first time being with a guy and it wasn’t a big deal. More of a ‘huh, so that’s a thing’, instead of GAY CRISIS. I think this is one big perk of not reading YA; there is less angst and less GAY CRISIS.

I really liked how the whole relationship developed. Thom and Clay get to know each other more through fake dating and realizing that they actually like each other. I loved how Clay was able to really see Thom, see past his being an asshole to who he really is.

The reason I couldn’t quite give this 4 stars is because I think that there could have been a bit more character development, especially with Thom. Stuff is said about his family and upbringing, but it doesn’t really get too into it, and I would have liked to have some details about what happened there. I also think that there could have been a slightly better resolution to the book. It was pretty satisfying, but I really wanted the ‘villain’ to get their comeuppance on page and they didn’t.

Overall, a fun read, could have been a bit better, but I still very much enjoyed it!

This was a fun book with delightful characters. The characters and their actions were compelling and I look forward to reading more works by this author.

Love, Hate, & Clickbait was light and fun, but missed the mark on characterization. Neither of the main characters were all that likable, though they did have enough chemistry between them to make it believable. Fake dating, political backdrop, enemies to lovers; fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue might enjoy this book.

I’m so upset this didn’t work for me. This is my preferred trope in a romance but I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. There were some issues with the writing and I just think it lacked character development.

Okay, so I had to lift this higher on my TBR as soon as I saw how much traction the book was getting online.

Fake dating trope? Check. Disaster romantics? Check? Timely commentary and millennial humor? Double check. This was such a fun read due to the previously listed aspects, but also Thom and Clay are *head shaking* hopeless when it comes to each other. Despite not beginning on a romantic tone, they do become quite cute as the book goes on and I even wish we got a bit more of Thom, but there is definitely character development and two hopeless adults falling in love by accident.

This was a fun way to pass a few hours, but neither the story nor the characters will stick with you after it's done. Some parts were really well done, and I look forward to seeing Liz Bowery grow as an author.

REVIEW ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Love, Hate & Clickbait by Liz Bowery is the thoroughly entertaining story of a most unlikely relationship between Thom Morgan and Clay Parker who both are working for the governor of California as she campaigns for the office of president. The governor’s poor choice of works soon has her staff scrabbling for damage control. In an attempt to divert media attention away from the governor’s gaffe, Thom and Clay find themselves cast as fledgling lover who take social media by storm. But is the fake relationship really diversionary, or is it morphing into something very real. ⠀
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This book is sharp, witty and at times absolutely steamy. Melding two popular tropes—enemies to lovers and fake relationship—has resulted in a truly delightful read. Eventhough Thom spends the majority of the book being obnoxious and cocky you still manage to care about him. On the other hand, the animosity and ridicule heaped on Clay seems a tad overdone, but all in all I truly enjoyed this laugh-out-loud funny love story set against the backdrop of high-stakes politics. ⠀

Love, Hate & Clickbait by Liz Bowery is a new contemporary romance where taking one for the team on a job takes on a whole new meaning. Thom Morgan is as cutthroat as they come as a political advisor for a governor hoping to make a run for president. His boss makes a significant social misstep and calls upon Thom and another member of the staff, Clay Parker, to distract the press. She asks them to pretend to be a couple which is a huge deal as neither man can stand each other. Thom knows he needs to make this work and Clay wants to keep his job so they do the best they can to keep their dislike to themselves. But after extra hours in the office and time spent getting to know each other the men find themselves questioning how fake their relationship truly is.

Thom Morgan is a huge jerk. He is a self admitted a**hole who doesn’t hesitate to do absolutely whatever is necessary to get a job done for the campaign. He regularly finds himself at odds with Clay but when asked to pretend to be Clay’s boyfriend he takes it in stride while having never been with a man before. What he never expects is finding there is so much more to Clay than his rather appalling public persona. Clay ends up being supportive in ways that Thom never knew he needed and humanizes him. He finds their intimacy refreshing and constantly wants more which is so outside his comfort zone. This all is very frightening for Thom though and he finds himself pushing Clay away when he feels they are getting too close out of self preservation.

Clay Parker is a mess. He thought he had established a place for himself in Silicon Valley only to be thrown out and made a fool of by his prior roommate/business partner. He hopes that working on the campaign will save him from further embarrassment and get him back on the path towards IT greatness. He struggles at first to be around Thom who has been nothing but hostile and outright rude to him on all occasions. He never expects to find there are layers that Thom hides from everyone. He ends up being endeared to the prickly man in and out of the bedroom.

I enjoyed this book more than I think other people will. I like prickly dislikeable characters which I know are not for everyone. I really liked Thom and Clay because they didn’t pretend to be anyone they weren’t. I did not like the governor at all though. She was atrocious and I wanted to slap her for the entirety of the book. Politics as represented in this story is a series of missteps and finding ways to distract people from the overwhelming shortcomings of candidates. Our system is gross. That being said, watching Thom and Clay fumble through made me happy and I found myself laughing and later swooning.


4 stars for a political stunt turning into so much more for Thom and Clay.

When I first saw the cover of the book, it reminded me of another book that I read called Red, White and Royal Blue. That was what drew me to it first and I am glad that it did.
While it did not read like my original thought, I still found my self enjoying it. I read it in a day, which is something that I hardly ever do.
The trope of enemies to lovers is not usually done well but in reading this book, I loved it, I saw the progression within the main characters and I felt that I could relate to them even while being the opposite gender.
I was not surprised by the ending as I thought that this was something that seemed to be what the author was progressing towards. I enjoyed how it ended and I found myself wishing that there was a small epilogue with Clay and Thom.
Overall, the novel was really good. And I hope to read more from this author in the future (even if it does not deal with LGBTQ topics).

There was nothing awful about this book, but at the same time, there was nothing that made me fall in love with it or with the characters. It was the perfect embodiment of a 2.5 star book.

I was nervous that Thom and Clay would not develop as characters at all seeing as they both seemed really unlikeable at the beginning. And though I don't need to like all of my characters, I was searching for something redeemable. I starting appreciating them throughout the book, but there was no development that had me cheering for them by the end.

Throughout the book, there were some underdeveloped characters and subplots, and that only highlighted the implausibility of the overarching plot. This book had a lot of potential, but it unfortunately fell short for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

I am so glad I got my hands on this one! I really enjoyed it. I found it quick-paced, engaging, and overall cute. I have read another book with a similar setup in the beginning so I was a little nervous but I really enjoyed this and although the MCs were a little tough to like at first, especially Thom, I still was invested in their journey. I liked that our MCs weren't perfect, it made them feel realistic. And I really really liked the fake dating political aspect. The politics and overall feel of this novel felt a lot more realistic to the world we are living in. I do think some readers will struggle to connect with Thom and Clay as they have some hard-to-love qualities, but I hope readers will give the book a good chance and enjoy the story!

Tropes: LGBTQIA+, fake dating, enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, political relations

Insert your favourite emoji for “meh” right here. My biggest issue is I never believed it. The idea that the world would care about two staff members of someone who *may* run for President seems so far fetched to me. These characters never felt real and the situations were borderline questionable at times (and I know that was partially intentional, but… come on…). I nearly gave up several times, but the writing was clean enough to keep me hoping for a miracle. All in all, if this book is asking me what I’d do for my job, the answer is a very strong and confident, “not this!”

This was so cute!! I've been listening to BookTokers talk about this book for ages now and was beyond delighted to get my hands on a copy. Definitely some RWRB vibes mixed in with some West Wing vibes. I love how the relationship progressed and the characters grew- it seemed like a very realistic timeline of personal growth, and was definitely hard to put down. The ending, I felt, could have served with an epilogue, but it was wrapped up well enough that readers will feel satisfied while also leaving the door open for a sequel (?). Either way, one definitely to read on April 26!

DNF - had no interest in the characters, nothing was compelling enough, felt repetitive and just boring.

Love, Hate & Clickbait by Liz Bowery is a classic enemies to lovers tale with fake dating thrown in for extra trope enjoyment. Clay and Thom are unlikeable apart, but you'll come to cheer for them to overcome their initial disdain for each other and find something to love about each other. Set in the backdrop of a political race, this is a great book for fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue with even more of the stress of dealing with the always moving news cycle.

This was aggressively fine. I almost DNFed early because Thom and Clay seemed so unredeemably dickish and annoying, respectively, but I will admit that as the story went on I liked them both better. Still not sure they grew enough to earn the ending but they got much more enjoyable to spend time with. There were dropped subplots and undeveloped secondary characters all over the place though which lent the already barely-plausible plot a sense of messiness that dragged it all down.

My review of Love, Hate & Clickbait will be publicly available on my blog (www.giareadsbooks.com) on April 19th, 2022. You will be able to find it at: www.giareadsbooks.com/book-reviews/love-hate-clickbait

Genre: Romance/LGBTQIA
Rating: 3 Stars
Spice Rating: 4 Stars*
*This one was pretty descriptive and had quite a few explicit scenes. I’d personally categorize the spice level as New Adult.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Liz Bowery, and NetGalley for sending me a digital copy of Love, Hate & Clickbait in exchange for an honest review.

Review:

In this swoon-worthy debut, work rivals Thom Morgan and Clay Parker are forced into a fake relationship after they get caught in a compromising position by the press. In order to save their jobs and more importantly, their boss’ presidential campaign, Thom and Clay must put their differences aside and work together to fool their friends, families, and (no pressure) the entire country. Should be a breeze, right?

I struggled to write this review at first. I didn’t think it was all that bad, but it also didn’t strike me as particularly good either. I binged it in a day, yet after a few hours of contemplation, I couldn’t think of a single secondary character that got any kind of character development throughout the entire book. I’m conflicted about it, and I think it might just be because the author started her career as a fanfiction writer.

Let me be clear, I love fanfiction and fanfiction writers, but there are clear differences between passages from fanfiction and passages from published novels – grammar, passive vs. active syntax, main and secondary character development, plot direction, etc. The gap between fanfiction and published novels is shrinking every year, but after surrounding myself with fanfiction for a decade, it’s impossible for me to ignore the tell-tale fanfiction signs in traditional publishings. This book felt like a fanfiction masquerading as a Rom-Com. (This is not an insult, don’t come for me!)

Other than the two main characters (and barely, at that), there was literally no character development in this story. Thom and Clay’s coworker, Felicia, was honestly so unlikeable (this is true for almost every character) that every scene she was involved in made me roll my eyes and resort to skim reading. There was only a single scene where she didn’t do something completely annoying or say something incredibly ridiculous, and that’s because she was barely in the scene to begin with.

Lennie, Clay and Thom’s boss (and wanna-be president), was an asshole for the entire book. There was not a single redeemable thing about her. Not. One. Thing. I honestly questioned Thom’s undying loyalty to her every time she opened her mouth because why did everyone treat her like the Queen when she treated everyone else like dirt???

Thom had an entirely other issue throughout the book wherein he was an asshole to every female character he came across in the novel (except his boss, who probably deserved it??). We start and end the story with Thom’s perspective, yet when I compare the two chapters, Thom is almost exactly the same in both. Thom was unlikeable for the majority of this book, and it didn’t feel like it was in a purposeful way.

Finally, although I like fast-paced romance novels, I feel like this book would’ve benefited from slowing down. There were multiple instances where Bowery would build something up, only to completely skip over it and start a chapter after the event. It was incredibly frustrating and again, indicative of her fanfiction background (ex. only writing the dialogue/spicy scenes between the love interests and skipping over any actual plot, only to have it mentioned in dialogue later on to keep the reader up to date on the nonexistent plot).

Overall, this book was just okay for me. It’s a quick read and fast paced, but I went in expecting a “Red, White & Royal Blue meets The Hating Game” (author’s words, not mine), and was left highly dissatisfied. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fanfiction, but honestly this book felt like something I could read online for free.

A/N: The *spicy* scenes in this book are fantastic

Love, Hate, & Clickbait wasn’t what I expected it to be. I thought I’d at least like Clay or Thom but I didn’t like either of them because they didn’t any sympathy. I don’t have to like the characters in order to enjoy the plot, but the fake wedding was a bit over the top.

I got this eARC from Netgalley and these opinions are my own! I wasn’t sure with this one, I was drawn to the love story but often struggle with political things but Liz Bowery wrote Love, Hate, and Clickbait in a way that the politics was connected to the story but didn’t really bog it down. Thom works for the Governor of California and she is running for President. Clay also works for the Governor, the two do not get a long! Through a series of mishaps the press indicate that Thom and Clay are in a relationship which neither like but at the behest of the Governor they begin a fake relationship! Can they put aside their differences to do what must be done? How long with they have to fake date? What if they start to feel more? I enjoyed that both Clay and Thom were arrogant and terrible in their own ways but despite that they were both so lovable! They both knew what they wanted and did what it takes to get there but maybe it’s not that easy… I also enjoyed reading about a character that discovered he wasn’t straight but didn’t struggle with that in anyway it was refreshing! I definitely had some feelings about the way Clay was treated, not that he was perfect, but it ended up working out! I loved their journey together and the enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes! Definitely a must read if you like romance and enemies to lovers stories! Excited to read again when it comes out!