I wanted to love this book, but it was essentially a bad knockoff of "barely lethal" However it was well written so I will give the author another shot.

Still interested in this book. Will read and review later and see what I think. Not sure why I didnt read it back in the day but excited to.

Unfortunately, this book ended up disappointing me. The concept sounded so good and so unique, but it just wasn't executed well. I did enjoy a couple small things though so that's why I'm giving it 2 stars.

I was really excited for The Love Interest and despite the warning signs of a bad love triangle I got from the synopsis, I had hopes that it would put a different spin on it. Safe to say I was wrong.

I'll say one thing though: I really liked the idea of the two guys meant to win over the girl, giving it something different. But beyond that it was just cringe-worthy from start to finish.

The humor that I started to see peeking through was really off for most of the book. There was very little (if any) logic to most of the plot. I didn't understand why this needed to be a weird dystopian? The book was just all over the place and the twist on the classic love triangle wasn't enough to cut through the madness.

I read the first 10% of this book and it isn’t clicking with me for now. I may come back to it later and will update if so. I appreciate the opportunity to read and review this title - thank you!

I know this review is late, and I'm trying to remember what I can of what I read, but I remember the writing was really good and the characters were well developed and interesting!

Great premise and the characters and plot started off really promising. But everything suddenly took a turn and it began to read almost comical to me. Way too over the top.

DNF

The theme of today’s mini reviews is clearly books I underestimated. I was curious enough about The Love Interest to request it, but I also feared that I might regret that decision. The plot sounded…rather silly with the “Nices” and the “Bads.” But I’ll basically read anything for an LGBT romance. The Love Interest is rather silly but in the good way where it’s embracing it and satirizing.

Dietrich does a fantastic send up of love triangle tropes. In The Love Interest, there’s a secret organization that sends out two love interests to people of importance: one nice guy and one bad boy. This method encourages the hero or heroine to think that there’s something epic to the love story and encourages them to become more emotionally invested in someone they might not otherwise have been quite so tied to. It’s quite funny and insightful. That’s by far the strength of The Love Interest.

Caden is a Nice, but he doesn’t think he’s truly that nice. His love rival, Dylan, may be a Bad, but he’s not that bad. Or is he? The two become tentative friends, and Caden struggles with his strong attraction to Dylan. Though assigned to a girl, he’s realizing that he’s gay (and probably should have put in for a transfer to that department). The plot attempts to be twisty turny, but the silliness made me not care too much about that tbh. It was a page turner though. I binged right through, despite my questionable level of emotional investment.

The character development is so-so, and the romance was the weakest element of the book for me. Dylan and Caden should definitely make out, and they certainly have more chemistry than either of them does with the girl (who I also like), but there’s nothing special there. Plus, they’re both acting and completely without trust the entire time, which is not a good foundation for a relationship. It’s one of those cases where at the end, when they admit real feelings, I was like “suuuuuure.” Generally, too, I felt like everyone forgave everyone else way too easily, which further weakened the character development. This is a story that works really well as a concept, but the concept itself is tricky to pull off without sacrificing character.

A surprisingly enjoyable read, I had a lot of fun with The Love Interest. I think it pulls off the concept well, but the m/m romance is a bit disappointing, as is the character development.

I had high hopes for this, and it just did not live up to what I wanted. It wanted to be "different" but turned out to be kind of dull.

For the best intelligence, spies need to get close to their targets. What better way to get close than to train up (and brainwash) young men into becoming the perfect love interest? It seems like a foolproof plan, until Caden, the Nice boy, finds himself more interested in his competition Dylan, the Bad boy, than his target. The Love Interest is full of romance and suspense, and while it occasionally gets a bit goofy (is everyone a spy?), it was an enjoyable read.

I was interested in The Love Interest, because the guys falling for each other? Yes, please! But this is too on the nose, too stereotypical, with too many issues with worldbuilding.

It's not good. I couldn't even get a quarter of the way through. The worldbuilding is really, really stupid. It doesn't make any sense. The characters are so bland. I didn't care about any of them. There is no spark or life here. It doesn't subvert or satirize or anything. It just...was the same thing, trying too hard to be smart and be different, but it's the same thing.

Such an interesting concept. Totally something I'd recommend to my students.

As a Children and Teen Librarian, I am always on the look out for diverse reads that teens can enjoy for fun and may learn a little empathy/cultural understanding from it. Sometimes thats a huge order from a YA novel, but as a whole the genre is getting better.
I wanted so much from this book that it left me underwhelmed. The characters felt really one dimensional and some of the plot points left me shaking my head. Caden was pretty boring as a character and I quickly became uninterested in him. The story may have benefitted from Dylan's POV because it all felt somewhat one sided. I was curious to see if other reviewers felt the same way as I did and unfortunately many blog posts and reviews revealed that they did. This book had a lot of potential but I'm a little bummed I invested time in it.

This book is really different in the way that it plays around with the Young Adult book tropes. First of all, the setting feels like the prequel to a dystopian world. We have a love triangle. We have a bad boy, a nice guy, the “bland” girl that somehow has two guys fighting for her and now she’s in the middle trying to choose… BUT it also has a M/M romance-friendship-romance going on. Yes, I know I said romance twice, but this book played with my damn feelings regarding that M/M situation…it felt like queer-baiting at first and then I was like “alright alright alright, it’s happening” but I don’t want to get into details so I’m just gonna leave it as that; but I do know some people were hurt while reading the book, because it DOES feel like there’s some queer-baiting going on.
Back to the tropes. This book touches a lot of YA tropes but for ME, it’s in a satirical way…(if that’s the best way to put it?) like… I couldn’t take them seriously, which is the main reason why I enjoyed them so much! The tropes are exaggerated and it feels like they are played around with in a mockery way. I LOVED IT!

My favorite thing about this book? The (satire) trope of love triangles is played perfectly! The love interests are part of a secret organization, where they must gather intel on important and potential important people in the world, from scientists to artists and even athletes!

Why isn’t it a five star read? I was going through the whole book thinking… are we getting queer-baited? Is this gonna happen? WHY IS OUR BELOVED CADEN GETTING PLAYED LIKE THIS? Yeah… don’t toy with my feelings like this. Don’t hurt readers with queer-bait. (Although this gets better by the end… but people were hurt in the process.) Also…… *infinity of dots* the ending felt SO RUSHED! We could have gotten a sequel from those last few chapters. I would have loved to see more of how they fight back but well… it is what it is.
Overall, I enjoyed the story A LOT! It’s a refreshing and unique way to tackle these YA tropes we see, enjoy (and in my case, have also grown to hate).

Overall rating: 4.25 stars

The Love Interest was one of my most anticipated debut novels of 2017. I was super excited for a diverse spy novel that flips familiar book tropes. Sadly, despite a fantastic premise the book is a major let down and disappoints in many ways.
Caden is a spy. He's spent most of his life so far in an underground facility called the Love Interest Compound, being groomed physically and mentally to become a Love Interest for someone influential. His job is to woo the candidate and win her trust while also divulging her secrets to the Compound who will later sell the information to the highest bidder. The concept of the Love Interest Compound is really cool, but the world building is unfortunately undeveloped. I had many unresolved questions regarding its creation and purpose. I did find it interesting though that the institution goes as far as altering the Love Interest physical features with surgery to ensure physical attraction, which reminded me very much of the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, and tagging them with a tracker much like we do to our pets. After a very long time Caden has been chosen and pegged as a Nice, the nerdy-boy-next-door type. He is given a script and plays the role as Juliet's long lost friend.
Competing for Juliet's affection is bad boy Dylan, the boy who lingers in Caden's mind as first as a competitor and then to something more. Like Caden, Dylan is also given a script and a role to play as the mysterious brooder/rebel. Each of them must pursue Juliet, a girl destined to be the next great scientific mind. Whoever wins will live and share Juliet's secrets with the Love Interest Compound and whoever loses dies.
The first half of the book was decent and interesting as you follow Caden and Dylan in their individual roles. I was able to suspend my disbelief in Juliet embracing Caden as her long lost friend so easily considering how much her intelligence is emphasized. I would have liked a stronger focus on the development of Caden and Dylan's relationship. The author teeters on the "are they or aren't they?" for most of the book, but I didn't find it convincing mainly because Caden's sexuality, which the Love Interest Compound found interesting and important, is written off and tossed aside. The GLBTQ+ slant of the book is the main reason this book will draw interest, but sadly this is not developed and handled well at all. Instead of exploring sexuality, the boys are thrown into confusing make-out sessions and it is the main reason why I couldn't care for his relationship with Dylan or the push and pull of their attraction. The narrative is told entirely from Caden's perspective, and it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate between what's actually going on and Caden's assumptions.
It is the second half of the book where every thing goes down hill fast. We hardly hear of Juliet's scientific experiments which the Love Interest Compound wants. Caden's cover is quickly revealed and Juliet is surprisingly quick to forgive despite being lied to for over 200 pages (just how smart is she?), the book morphs into an action novel where the Compound must be destroyed. There are few subplots developed with the secondary characters that I didn't care for that were suppose to up the suspense. The ending and epilogue are rushed leaving lots of unanswered questions. Even after lowering my expectations for this book, I was severely disappointed and as a result do not recommend this novel.

This has #lotsofhype via @goodreads. There were good parts & bad parts but the bad outnumber the good. #ChooseForYourself

While I thought the premise of the story was promising the followthrough fell a bit short.
I will root for any story that features a non-binary lovestory - especially a YA book.
Unfortunately the plot was very predictable and the characters lacked depth and well, character! They all felt very stereotypical and I know this was part of the plot - that they each start out as a type - the Nice boy and the Bad boy and they do develop a bit through the story. Just not enough.
I guess my main complaint is that it's all just a bit too on the nose. Like when the main character yells
"fuck you! I'm the protagonist" in a life or death situation. And yes, I hate when gay characters are killed of or get put on the sidelines - but this just felt like pandering. The whole book felt too much like a Tumblr post.

Extremely interesting plot that got my attention from the start. The prince and the bad boy theme is nothing new, but the medical experiment and spy aspects made it very fresh and intriguing.

In general, this was a pretty good read. I liked a lot about it. It had an interesting world and engaging characters I just wish the dialogue was better and it was paced a little more evenly. I think it had a lot of promise that it didn't really deliver on for my type of reader but I did enjoy it.

Caden has been training for this moment for years - leave The Love Interest Company, get the girl, live. But the plan hits a snag when his competitor is BAD boy Dylan. Caden, a NICE, finds himself falling for him. What to do? Love or live?

The Love Interest is fast paced, with a distinctive voice, and with some swoony and angsty moments. It does a fun job at deconstructing and then rebuilding the competing love interests to match up with their respective tropes and formulas so familiar in other books and media.

Caden is a "nice" boy, while Dylan is a "bad" boy and it's up to Juliet (the target) to pick one.

Narrative and prose wise, it was fairly easy to get into the story. Caden's voice and personality (even while being at odds with himself) really come off the page. The first person POV however limits the characterization and insight into the other characters, making them appear one dimensional at times. We don't get to see how the others feel (which I know is usual with 1st person POV).

The LIC is interesting and it would've been nice to have some more information about it, other than how it works. The who, what, and why, essentially.

I did enjoy reading this book, however I had an issue with the supposed "plot twist" and queer-baiting. Laura at Green Tea & Paperbacks discusses it in her own review (contains spoilers). Reading the book cover to cover, I found that plot twist quite unnecessary. There were plenty of other ways to create conflict and pulling the m/m romance rug out from under the readers (and then conveniently putting it back) was not one of them.

Along the lines of marginalization, Caden has a lot of inner monologues that question situations, terms, and stereotypes and there are points in the novel in which he could openly challenge them (i.e. the gay best friend), but he doesn't.

And, where are the people of color and other LGBT+ characters. Just, you know, wondering. Are they there? Did I glaze over their descriptions or was there little to no emphasis?

So, yes, it's a fast paced funny, m/m romance that turns romance tropes up on it's head and I had fun reading, but there are some issues I couldn't ignore. The one-dimensional side characters, limited world-building, and poor plot-twist leaves it lacking some.