Not As Interesting As The Title Suggests | The Love Interest Book Review
Hey friends!
Welcome back to my blog and today I’m going to be sharing
with you a review of a #loveozya book – The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich.
I had heard a bit about this book on Twitter and most of it
was positive and the synopsis was interesting enough BUT as you can tell from the
title, this one was a ‘meh’ for me. I did enjoy the first half and it was on the
way to being a four star read but then the ending let me down.
About the book.
Book: The Love Interest
Author: Cale Dietrich
Author: Cale Dietrich
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication date: 16 May 2017
Publication date: 16 May 2017
Synopsis: There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets.
Caden is a Nice: the boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: the brooding, dark-souled guy who is dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose the Nice or the Bad?
Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be—whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.
What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both. (source)
Caden is a Nice: the boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: the brooding, dark-souled guy who is dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose the Nice or the Bad?
Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be—whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.
What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both. (source)
Genre: Contemporary
Recommended for: Anyone 14+
My thoughts.
WHAT I LIKED!
- The idea was super cool! I loved that the author tried out something new with YA and there actually aren’t that many spy novels in YA, especially spies that fall in love with each other. I loved that this was going to have a m/m romance too!
- The trope satire. This is one of my favourite parts of the book and that is how the author makes fun of typical YA tropes through the book such as ‘the boy next door’ vs ‘the bad boy’. It felt like such an accurate description of most YA for me. Dietrich also made fun of classic YA moves where the boy stares at the girl until she notices and blushes and the ‘tucking a strand of hair behind her ear’ which, in context, was pretty damn funny!
- The plot was very addictive and fast paced. It was really easy to get into the book and wrapped up in the story, especially since it wasn’t a very long book and it didn’t have much world building or complicated explanations
- It had some pretty good plot twists throughout the book. This made it a very light and easy read
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE!
- The characters fell really, really flat. They weren’t explored outside their tropes at all and the author wasn’t able to make them into more than the Love Interests. They were very 2D and personality-less throughout the book with no character development AT ALL and a book like this NEEDS character development to show progression of the characters. The side characters were also very bland and boring and there was nothing that stood out about them
- The writing was very jerky and there wasn’t a very great flow to it. I don’t know what more to say about this other than it made for a very awkward reading experience
- The plot had quite a few plot holes. The lack of world building and character development meant that there were quite a few inaccuracies and ‘huh?’ moments. The ending also felt very unrealistic and it made for such a flat and predictable ending which is NOT what you need after 300 pages of anticipation building for the end
- One thing I wanted to add, from what I have read and heard from other bloggers is that this book is marketed as a m/m spy romance but the message towards queer teens wasn’t that positive. There were some homophobic comments made throughout the book that weren’t directly disputed and I had seen overall unhappiness about the representation (however, I am not an LGBTQI+ teen – this is what I have heard from queer teens)
Anyways, this was a bit of a disappointment but what can you
do?
OVERALL RATING:
★★★
Have you read The
Love Interest? What did you think? And what’s a book that has disappointed you
in the past?
8 happy thoughts
Aw man! I'm sorry you didn't like this one. It's on my TBR. I'll probably still read it one day but I'll definitely keep your negatives in mind. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteNo problem, glad you enjoyed Molly!
DeleteSorry this didn't live up to it's hype! History Is All You Left Me kind of left me disappointed, probably because of all the hype surrounding it during it's release.
ReplyDeleteYeah I get that, it left me a little disappointed too!
DeleteI honestly have only heard disappointing things about this and I'm sad!! It has SUCH A good premise. *cries* I actually have taken it off my to-buy list because of what everyone's said about the characters being so flat. D: However I do think the author is queer though, right? So I guess it's #ownvoices still? But always a pity when there are negative portrayals of minorities without the proper amount of fighting for what's right. *sighs*
ReplyDeleteI'm actually not sure if the author is queer so I'll have to do a little research on that!
DeleteAw, what a shame! :S I'm so on the fence for this one, and now I'm even more 'eh' after reading your review. I do like the idea of it, and the fact that it kind of makes fun of all those tired old tropes. Maybe the humour of it all will tide me over? Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteNo problem and glad you enjoyed it Cass <3
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