Material Concerns

You know the old saying that you can't judge a book by its cover? Well, in the case of Boyfriend Material, by Alexis Hall, you absolutely can.

Look at the back of the book, and you'll get a summary of a romantic comedy plot that sounds so predictable, you can practically hear the perky voice of the winking trailer narrator. The only wrinkle that keeps it from being like countless other rom-coms you've probably seen or at least heard of is that the couple in the story is gay.

Luc is a mess with a chip on his shoulder about his famous rocker father. Oliver is a barrister wound so tight he might snap. Both think they're undateable, and both of them need a boyfriend -- one to clean up his public image, the other to attend an upcoming formal event. Though they have nothing in common, they agree to serve as "fake boyfriends" for each other. But might it be the start of something more real?

If you don't already know exactly how this story is going to go, know that you can also judge this book by its front cover. This story is very British, as the iconography around the title promises. The "why can't anyone say how they really feel?" trope of rom-coms is ratcheted up another notch when you add the stiff-upper-lippedness common in British culture. (At least, British culture as commonly fictionalized.)

What I guess I'm really driving at is this: I can't be too disappointed by this book, because I can't pretend I didn't know precisely what I was in for. Maybe I'd imagined a more sexy LGBT romance novel when the book was determined to be the most chaste rom-com imaginable, but the contours of the narrative here were abundantly clear before page 1.

But am I a little disappointed that the road to this book's inevitable ending didn't make a little more sense. It's a one sided-book, with the perspective locked in Luc's head the entire time. We're living his self-doubts and hang-ups, while only hearing about Oliver's. And of course, Luc is in the process of falling in love with Oliver, so he doesn't come off very flawed at all. Oliver comes off like the author's  wish fulfillment. He's too perfect for the premise that he'd need a "fake boyfriend" to ever be believable.

Then again, it's possible that rom-com characters are often this shallow and simple, existing only to serve the plot, and I just haven't read/seen many rom-coms. Representation means gay people too can be part of mediocre fiction.

I'm inclined to grade Boyfriend Material something like a C for being quite literally average. On the other hand, I probably entered into a pact to grade it on a curve just by reading it in the first place. Maybe something like a B- is more fair? If it sounds like something you'd ever want to read, you'll probably find it to be a pleasant enough diversion.