The Love Interest

                Hello happy readers!  I hope you all have a good weekend planned.  I hope to finish Everything, Everything today and hopefully see the movie this week so I can share all my thought about it with you.  So far I'm loving the book.  But today I'm going to discuss my thoughts and feels on a new release, The LoveInterest by Cale Dietrich, a new kind of story that I had been anticipating.  The Love Interest came out this week May 16th.  I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for my honest review. 

Rating: 4 Stars

                There is a secret organization that creates spies, Love Interests, that get close to people who are important or have power so they can get all their secrets.  They typically come in two forms:  Nice, boy next door type, or Bad, dark and brooding, giving the target options to ensure they pick one.  Nice Caden and Bad Dylan are picked for Juliet and after some modifications are ready to try and win her heart and their lives.  Because this is the first time they get to go out into the world but though they are well trained and motivated, the one not chosen dies, being in the world they find unexpected complications, feelings that could jeopardize their lives. 

                So this book was really interesting.  It takes some of the things in other books or even shows that make us swoon over the romance/characters and turns them around.  Lots of cultural references and the like as well as fun times about set pieces and scripted lines and the like.  It had a really great story happening through it.  I liked the idea of seeing a romance, one I admit I would have been rooting for had the story been from say Juliet's POV, and seeing the base logistics of it as a job rather than a romance.  Seriously this is interesting and something I've never read before so high cheers for that.  We follow Caden who has been raised in this life, training for this chance to make his chosen fall for him and live his life as a spy.  He doesn't really consider himself Nice, he just knew that was what he'd be picked as and learned to play into it and struggles with how he has “not nice” thoughts and reactions at times.  He also realizes he is gay.  Not super ideal when you’re trying to win the girl.

                The whole concept of a basically raising spies is always appealing but to raise them to be turned into the perfect match for someone is just insane. Pitting a Nice and a Bad against one another gives new depth to a “love triangle” for sure.  I really liked the double life he was living and how it had different concepts of things and the book really intrigued me and flew by as I read it.  It was so different but at the same time familiar and I loved how it balanced those lines and made me think about so many other books all at once.

                Overall I really liked this book and would highly recommend it and the only drawback for me was the ending.  It wasn’t a bad ending by any means I enjoyed how things happened and the like it was more that the first part of the book was a quick read but it wasn’t rushed and the end felt a bit rushed.  Like once you hit around 80% it just hits warp speed.  Again it’s not bad just I kind of wish things had been taken a bit slower and given the same care and depth as the rest of the book.  Like there is a lot of action happening and part of me appreciates the book keeping up the adrenaline and it matching the mood of the scene I also want more.  It’s the end and I don’t want it to feel rushed, especially with some of the revelations that happen.  I’m just needy like that.

                I enjoyed the book and I’m glad I read it.  It is a stand-alone which is also nice.  I would recommend it to anyone as there is something that pretty much anyone can get behind and enjoy. 

                Until next time…