PK is a delightful idiot after my own heart. When his best friend Art breaks up with their terrible boyfriend and shows up at PK's door needing a place to stay, it seems like maybe this is fate finally bringing them together. After years of longing and hopelessly being in love with Art, maybe this is his chance to show them how perfect they'd be together?
This book was super sweet, full of angst and 'did he sit that close to me on purpose?' levels of longing. Living in PK's head is delightfully frustrating. He is an honest, relatable main character who gets lost in his own brain and I loved being along for that ride. Art is such an angel and I all of the side characters were so delightful and I just wanted to sit and hang out with all of them.
This book also handled a lot of difficult topics and I think it did them very well. Lots of open conversations and honest moments of vulnerability. Ugh, I loved it. Might have to buy a copy and read it again this summer!

Book Boyfriend was my second read from Kris Ripper and it was just as enjoyable as the first one I read. It was fun and heartwarming! And, bonus, fabulously bookish.

Here’s the book’s description:
There are three things you need to know about Preston “PK” Kingsley:
1) He’s a writer, toiling in obscurity as an editorial assistant at a New York City publishing house.
2) He is not a cliché. No, really.
3) He’s been secretly in love with his best friend, Art, since they once drunkenly kissed in college.
When Art moves in with PK following a bad breakup, PK hopes this will be the moment when Art finally sees him as more than a friend. But Art seems to laugh off the very idea of them in a relationship, so PK returns to his writing roots—in fiction, he can say all the things he can’t say out loud.
In his book, PK can be the perfect boyfriend.
Before long, it seems like the whole world has a crush on the fictionalized version of him, including Art, who has no idea that the hot new book everyone's talking about is PK’s story. But when his brilliant plan to win Art over backfires, PK might lose not just his fantasy book boyfriend, but his best friend.
This friends-to-lovers romance has a lot of miscommunication in it which, normally, would drive me up the wall. But, for some reason, PK’s inability to say what he really feels to the object of his affection was…well, I won’t call it delightful but it was understandable. Of course he and Art should have discussed their drunken kiss years ago (it would have saved so much heartbreak) but they each had their reasons for not wanting to talk about it. Namely, they were both scared that the other didn’t share their romantic feelings. Who out there can’t understand that?

The miscommunication was kind of also part of PK’s charm, shall we say. He’s awkward AF, which his friends embrace. But they don’t really seem to understand that some of their comments about his lack of emotions are hurting him. Just because he has trouble expressing his feelings doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any. I was so happy to read as he stood up for himself and explained why he acted as he did. His charm and somewhat squirrelly nature makes this first person story seem to be a bit all over the place to read as he’s very stream of consciousness (not unlike my book reviews tend to be!) but it just meant that the story was very much PK’s and really helped me understand him as a character.

I was very firmly Team PK even when he was acting like a bit of a dink and didn’t understand how his actions would or could hurt Art. That was the very last thing he wants and it was hard for him to see how misguided some of his attempts were. Art was lovely and they were a fabulous character to get to know and see on the page. But PK was the star and it meant some side stories, like the issues with Art’s brother, were a bit…out of place. Even if they did help PK understand Art and the world around him a bit better.

Book Boyfriend was an incredible joy to read. Kris Ripper’s latest novel is fun and swoony and laugh out loud ridiculous. It’s full of characters who haven’t been seen in nearly enough romance novels. And, fellow book nerds, you’re going to love all the writing and publishing bits of the story!

*A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher, Harlequin, for the purposes of a bookstagram tour and an egalley was provided via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

I was in the edge of my seat with this one and the ending was everything I wanted even if I wasn’t sure I’d get it until the final pages. This coming of age romance is a fun book club pick for romance lovers.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Book Boyfriend started out a bit rough for me. I found it difficult to get into the story and, frankly, PK annoyed me. I wondered what Art saw in him as a friend and the first person he ran to after a break up. I'm glad I stuck with it, though.

About halfway through, I began enjoying the story more. Perhaps it was the inclusion of additional characters that diluted some of PK and made him more bearable, but I did get invested. The failed grand gesture would have been a classic plot device in any other romance novel. I was pleased when it didn't follow the typical narrative. The fallout made for an interesting second act.

While I had high hopes for Book Boyfriend, coming off the heels of The Life Revamp, which I ADORE, my overall feelings were less enthusiastic.

Lovely concept, slow start, but a decent read.

This book was so good and it was a quick read too! The angst and pining was intense and I'm all for it! If you need a light and quick queer read, you should definitely add this to your reading list!

2.5 stars

I really wanted to like this book, I adore the premise and that gave interesting scenes but I couldn’t click with this book overall.

My main problem was the writing style here. The whole book is from PK’s first person POV and written in a stream of conscious style that just wasn’t for me in this extent. The writing itself was nice, we got a very deep insight into PK’s thoughts and feelings this way, and I can see how some readers will surely love this but sadly it just wasn’t for me. I sometimes have a hard enough time concentrating when reading as is and the jump-y exploration of PK’s brain really didn’t help with that. It also sucked up a lot of page space for plot to happen. The plot-heavier pages I did enjoy though but overall there was just too little plot overall for me.

I also would’ve really liked an Art POV because even though I’ve read an entire book from the POV of a person desperately in love with Art, I still do not really know who they are.

TW: overdose (mentioned)

PK has been in love with his best friend, Art, since practically forever. Then Art moves in with PK and PK deals with his feelings by writing (erotic?) friend-fiction about the two of them, and through his publishing connections, it becomes a hit release.

This book has a very distinct voice. We are deep in PK's mind the whole time, and PK is a chaotic mess. His narration is... a lot. It's frantic, and frenetic, and jumps around. He's unreliable, even to himself. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I usually enjoy a hot mess male narrator and this pushed at my limits of it. But eventually I eased into the chaos and got swept along with PK's fantasy about how Art knew the book was about them and how well PK's grand romantic gesture was going to go. It doesn't go how he planned.

Here's the thing, and it's something I didn't see right away.... PK is kind of a garbage man. He does not live in a grown up manner (he has three towels at the beginning! three!). He does not communicate with the people in his life. And he kind of believes the world revolves around him. But the book sees him begin to grow up and evolve.

For me, I enjoyed this book. But it's definitely not going to be for everyone. Author K.J. Charles wrote a review on goodreads that is much more articulate about this than I am, so please check out her review if you're looking for perspectives.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

PK was adorably clueless...

Okay, so I really adored this one… even though I felt like shaking PK more than once.

PK was one of my favorite kind of characters. He was adorably awkward and because of that, being in his head was quite entertaining. That’s a good thing, since Book Boyfriend was told totally from PK’s point of view. Although I love getting multiple POVs in one book, this wouldn’t have been the same story if readers had known what was going on from Art’s perspective.

Along with Art and PK, there was an entire cast of characters who really added to the story. PK had a lot of friends who tried to keep him straight. The really bad part was that PK thought he had things under control, until he realized that he really didn’t. I think I felt worse for him in that moment than I felt for Art, basically because he just didn’t get it – even when things totally fell apart. *sigh*

This is my third book by Kris Ripper, but stay tuned because it definitely won’t be my last. I have at least one that I’ve already added to my TBR pile that I missed at the beginning of The Love Study series and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for readers next. 😉

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of Book Boyfriend. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Book Boyfriend by Kris Ripper is a contemporary romance that is currently scheduled for release on April 26 2022. There are three things you need to know about Preston "PK" Harrington the third: He’s a writer, toiling in obscurity as an editorial assistant at a New York City publishing house. He is not a cliché. No, really. He’s been secretly in love with his best friend, Art, since they once drunkenly kissed in college.When Art moves in with PK following a bad breakup, PK hopes this will be the moment when Art finally sees him as more than a friend. But Art seems to laugh off the very idea of them in a relationship, so PK returns to his writing roots—in fiction, he can say all the things he can’t say out loud. In his book, PK can be the perfect boyfriend. Before long, it seems like the whole world has a crush on the fictionalized version of him, including Art, who has no idea that the hot new book everyone's talking about is PK’s story. But when his brilliant plan to win Art over backfires, PK might lose not just his fantasy book boyfriend, but his best friend.

Book Boyfriend is a book that hooked me right away, and then had me anxious through the entire read. I could relate to PK, but his choices and worries had me fidgeting as I read in nervous sympathy. I thought the story was well told, and I completely understood why PK made the choices he did- even when I disagreed with them. I liked the character building for Art and the secondary characters as well, and was glad to get to know them. I love when characters get a whole life on the page, not just moments specifically related to the romance.The family and friend dynamics and moments helped give a more rounded look at PK and Art as friends and more and their history. I would have liked to have seen inside Art's head now and then, I would have like to know what they were really thinking on several occasions in the story. That being said, if I knew what Art had been thinking then I would not have been quite so nervous for how PK's choices would play out. I really enjoyed the read, and think others will as well.

Book Boyfriend is a well written romance. Fans of the author will definitely want to pick it up.

In every romance there are two great moments: The first is when the hero realizes they’re in love (check: Preston is in love with Art and has been since college) and the second when they do an over-the-top, romantic gesture to sweep their one true love off their feet. Preston — please call him PK — isn’t so good at those. For a birthday, he once gave a girlfriend a car organizer because she always complained about losing things in her car. For a boyfriend, he got him a sparkling water machine (and while they broke up, the ex in question still uses it, thank you! He even posts pictures on his Instagram of new flavor combinations he’s made.) So PK is good at giving gifts. Just not great at romantic gestures.

When Art, PK’s best friend and forever crush, shows up at his apartment in the middle of one rainy night, upset over their breakup with Roman, PK is delighted. Roman wasn’t good enough for Art, didn’t know them the way PK does, didn’t treat them right. And now PK can. He can prove to Art that he’s the better boyfriend choice. He’ll listen and be the best friend ever — because only a creep would make a move on poor Art right now, and PK’s no creep. He also doesn’t want to be the rebound. So he’ll wallow in his unrequited feelings and try to figure out what the hell he’s going to do about them.

One night, when Art asks him to clean the bathroom, PK starts building up a story in his head. He’s been a writer off and on, and he gets this idea of two men living together, one of them being madly in love with the other, saying all the things that PK can’t say and finally getting the person he loves to love him back. Soon, a few pages turns into a handful of scenes, and then a half finished book, and finally, an actual book. A book about PK and Art — with details changed, of course, and a lot of creative alterations to events — and PK’s heart bared and open.

And when Art falls in love with his book? Calls PK’s character their book boyfriend? Surely it’s Art’s way of telling PK that they know he wrote the book, and that they’re in love with PK, too. So PK decides to do a grand, romantic gesture and let everyone know how he feels about Art. There’s a reason such grand, sweeping, all-encompassing romantic gestures work in movies and books. Because that’s how the author wrote them. But real life can be much more complicated.

Book Boyfriend is so, so, so good. And it’s the sort of book that I think will either work wonderfully for you, or not as well, depending on how you feel about PK. Let me explain. Preston Harrington the Third — PK — is one of the most voice-heavy characters I’ve read in a very long time. His personality is right there in your face the whole time, and I think you’ll either learn to love him, or grow very tired of him. He’s lazy. He’s selfish. He’s self-centered, thoughtless, smug, and walks that very fine line between obnoxious and earnest. His thoughts about how Art should have known he was the better choice than Roman, about how much better a boyfriend he’d be than Roman, can grate with the entitlement.

But when you look beyond that, you can see how some of this indifference is self-protection. PK doesn’t want to be hurt, mocked, or made fun of. When it’s revealed he wrote a book, everyone is surprised. Him? How did he write a book about romance? What do you mean PK has feelings? Does he even know what feelings are? Several times he’s hurt, once or twice quite badly, and he lets it slide. He feels the hurt and internalizes it and keeps moving on. For all PK’s flaws — and there are many — he is an honestly kind and good person who is so much in love, but who thinks that romance is what he’s seen on TV and what he’s read in books.

PK wants to be the book boyfriend, the unobtainable and unreal creation that makes Art swoon. He wants to say only what will make Art happy, do things that will make Art happy, and save the day for Art. Because that’s what romance is. It’s Mr Darcy sweeping in to fix all of Lizzie’s problems. It’s a grand gesture in front of all of their friends to show them how much Art means to him! It’s not about cleaning the bathroom. Or letting Art have friends make a mess in the living room. It’s not new towels, bringing lunch, or watching TV. That’s not what romance is, right?

There’s the Art in PK’s head, and the Art in front of him. The Art in front of him has sour moments, moody moments, moments where they’re obviously laughing at PK and not with him. It’s clear that Art, too, has unrequited feelings — small, subtle moments that PK doesn’t notice, too lost in his own world — and it’s also clear that they sometimes look down on PK. They’re smart, quick witted, an extrovert to PK’s introvert, and occasionally cruel. There are also moments where Art is fragile and vulnerable, afraid to take the easy compassion PK offers … and yet needing it at the same time.

Their relationship, the good and the bad, the romantic and the antagonistic, feel very real. These two have known each other since college and take each other for granted. They lean on each other, they lash out at one another, and they so obviously love one another. Every relationship in this book — PK and his work friend, PK and Wade (a childhood friend), PK and his parents, even Art and their brother and Art and their parents — is just wonderful. None of them are perfect. All of them have moments where they cause pain or anger or hurt, and bless PK and his self absorption for missing most of the amused glances cast his way, all of them have moments of forgiveness, too. Of people doing the work, of reaching out, asking for help or friendship or even just a moment of comfort.

This is such a good book, and PK is surprisingly charming. The only complaint I have is that this book is a standalone because I honestly wanted to spend more time with PK, Art, PK’s parents, and even Wade. Do yourself a favor, read this book!

Kris Ripper has a great way of writing characters and giving them so much personality that resonated through book pages, and this book definitely showed that skill!

Friends to lovers fans will rejoice over Kris Ripper's new book about unrequited love and book boyfriends (which we all have basically), and it's an ode to friendship and falling in love with your best friend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the earc in return for an honest review.

After reading the blurb for Kris Ripper’s Book Boyfriend, I was looking forward to reading a slow-burn friends-to-lovers romance about a somewhat hapless writer who has been in love with his best friend forever, who ends up pouring out his feelings on paper because he’s too scared to say them out loud. Well, that last part is largely true – but the romance and the love interest character are basically relegated to the background while the PoV character stumbles his way through life and into becoming a best-selling author through lots of inner monologues which, while they can be very funny, are also chaotic and rambling.

PK Harrington (who works as an assistant editor at an unnamed publishing house) is called to the lobby of his apartment building one evening to find his best friend and former roomie Art standing there, bedraggled (it’s raining) and looking very upset. Art has just broken up with their boyfriend – about which PK is secretly delighted, thinking that maybe, finally, this is his chance with Art, who he’s been in love with ever since they shared a drunken kiss one time when they were at college. PK offers Art his spare room for as long as he needs it (which he hopes will be forever), and before long, Art has properly moved back in.

PK is thrilled, obviously, but still terrified about telling Art he loves them, so instead, PK starts writing down a few ideas about how Art makes him feel – and soon those ideas have grown into an entire book based loosely around how he and Art met, the things they’ve done together and PK’s undying love for them. PK shows the manuscript to a friend at work, she loves it, takes it to her boss, who also loves it, and suddenly, he has a book deal. But he daren’t tell Art, because he’s sure Art will recognise that the book is basically about them and how PK feels about them, and starts to see it as the sort of grand romantic gesture Art professes to love and that happen in romance novels all the time – right?

Even though the book I read wasn’t the book I was expecting to read, I liked a lot about it. It’s funny and quirky, and very meta in the way it looks at how publishing works and the sorts of problems authors face. (And I totally agree on the author’s stance on the Grand Gesture!) I liked PK for the most part; he’s self-absorbed and clueless and basically needs to grow up (he’s, like, twenty-six but he reads, like, you know, much younger) but he’s endearing, and his stream of consciousness monologuing can be oddly relatable. On the other hand, it can be quite distracting; some of his inner ramblings are SO tangential and jumbled up that I found myself skimming them to get back to the point – and the story.

Art, as I’ve said, is really a secondary character, and we never get to know much about them other than their taste in nail-polish and books. Even though they move in with PK at the beginning of the book, the two of them have very little time together on the page, and they have zero chemistry; I had no idea why PK was so desperately in love with Art, and no idea of their feelings towards PK. There IS an HFN here, but it’s last-minute and unsatisfying.

I liked Wade, a childhood frenemy of PK’s – he’s snarky and really doesn’t give a shit; although I liked him less in the last third of the book when he lectures PK about what he’s done wrong, not only when he’s at a real low, but in a way that comes across as a bit preachy. And Art doesn’t exactly cover themself in glory, either, sometimes disparaing or belittling PK, and, at one point, ghosting him for weeks.

Being in PK’s head is both fun and exhausting, but I was please that, towards the end, he tries hard to understand what went wrong and works to put it right, learning to really listen and to talk meaningfully. Book Boyfriend isn’t a bad book by any means – but if you’re looking for a romance filled with chemistry and longing, you won’t find those things here, and that’s ultimately why I can’t quite give it a recommendation.

I greatly appreciate the realness of this book, but I've read significantly better books this quarter and this was lackluster for me as a whole.

I really liked this a lot.

Not going to lie, though, it was kind of a painful read at times. PK is an awkward guy, and I was half laughing, half cringing in secondhand embarrassment throughout the book. But the absolute worst was when, after keeping his best friend Art in the dark not only about his feelings for him but also about his book being published, PK reveals both at the most terrible moment possible. Just ouch! I had to put the book down a few times before I made it through that entire scene.

Also, use your words, PK!

So, PK is an emotionally constipated idiot with Art, which is annoying, BUT he’s also deeply and genuinely in love, and that made it easy for me to get swept up in his feelings. I actually felt somewhat bad for PK, because his friends and family seemed to think that he couldn’t understand his own emotions, when PK truly felt SO MUCH and couldn’t manage to articulate or act on it. Plus, Art isn’t always forthcoming with PK either, so their choices had a role in how everything played out between them. And PK is just so sweet and so anxious to make Art happy and so terribly sad when he finally realizes how badly he messed up, that I was cheering when he and Art FINALLY got on the same page (so to speak) about how much they loved each other.

It’s a slow burn story told solely from PK’s point of view that ends in just kisses, which won’t work for some romance readers. But if you like those things, PK’s adorably bumbling path to love is a fun read.

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

First off, this cover is so eye-catching and gorgeous! I’ve read several of this author’s books before and was very interested in zir take on a friends-to-lovers romance. While this book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, it was a very fulfilling (and hilarious) romance.

Preston’s been pining over his best friend Art since a drunken kiss in college. So when Art breaks up with their latest partner, of course Preston offers them a place to stay. But every time Preston imagines telling Art how he feels, he freezes. Until one night, instead of working on the Next Great American Novel, Preston starts writing a fictional version of, well, them – a story about one roommate confessing his love for the other. But when his publishing company picks up the book, he realizes this might finally be his chance… if it all doesn’t go wrong.

“In my head? Feelings were this loud, clanging, confused mass of noise. But for Art, feelings were colors and textures, things he could make sense of, could sort and organize. What would he see, if he read my book? Would he see chaos or order? Would he see me, or himself, or both of us, or neither of us?”


It was A LOT being inside Preston’s head. His is the sole viewpoint, and it’s obvious from the start that while others’ allegations of him having no feelings aren’t true by any means, there’s so much chaos in his head that he often acts, well, selfishly. It’s not what he intends – he’s truly a kind, loving person, but he spends so much energy trying to understand himself that there’s not much left over for the vagaries of other people. He’s insecure to the point of being painfully awkward and the secondhand embarrassment at times veered on too much. The breaking point for him, though, as when Art told Preston that he didn’t even known what romance is, basically trampling all over his feelings and leaving him searching for a way to prove that he can, in fact, be romantic. I mean, this is a person who thinks it’s easier to write an entire romance novel about how much he loves his best friend rather than actually have that conversation with them!

If I hadn’t read the author’s work before and trusted zir that the journey would be worth it, I could see where I would’ve DNF’d it. One of my favorite things about romance is the banter, and with Preston’s awkwardness, that was just not happening. That’s not to say the book isn’t hilarious. There’s absolute gems, like the parrot who lives in his work friend’s office or the “mom-towel”. And despite how anxious Preston’s inner monologue made me, I was also rooting for him, even when he was making obvious mistake after mistake.

Romance tends to have certain beats – the meet cute, the “oh no we can’t”, the bleak moment, and finally the grand gesture/grovel that resolves the causes of the bleak moment and ties everything up for the HEA. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler, because I think anyone could see this coming from a mile a way, but the thing most romances would use as a grand gesture? is actually the bleak moment in this one. What happens after is where things get really interesting. Some things – so many things – can’t be solved by simple apologies or standing outside someone’s house holding a boombox, and there’s a lot of frustration, hurt, confusion and downright anger on both sides. But it also lets Preston and Art start the process of having an actual conversation about their feelings, of learning how to successfully communicate with each other. I absolutely adored it.

Overall, while not what I expected, this was a funny, introspective and very unique romance, one that I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for something outside the usual beats.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This book deals with and touches base with a lot of different real life problems. While I found the book to be funny and charming, something about it fell flat for me.

2.5 stars

Kris Ripper is one of my favorite authors, which probably explains how I stayed up way too late reading a book I don't think I liked that much. The crisis point comes around 60%, right when I was about to go to bed, and I got legit choked up on PK's behalf and needed to know he was going to be ok before I could sleep. I sped through the rest of it because Ripper's storytelling really does work for me even when I don't love the story. 

But I wasn't a fan of the extreme stream-of-consciousness writing style used here. It's too heavy handed, and backing off even a little would have made this a much more pleasant experience. (The first time I picked it up, I read the first chapter, realized I couldn't deal with that right then and read a few more books before I came back to try again. I was able to get into the flow pretty quickly after that.)

I would have struggled with this one even with a different writing style, though.

It's supposed to be best friends to lovers, but there were large chunks of the book where I was convinced that while Art was PK's best friend, PK was not Art's. (It didn't help that you have Art telling PK in Chapter 1 that he came to PK's after his breakup because "You're the only person I know in the city who has a spare bedroom." And apparently they've barely even seen each other for over a year because Art was living with a boyfriend who didn't like PK. What kind of friendship is that supposed to be??) At one point, I genuinely thought PK's delusions about his and Art's friendship were going to be part of the storyline.

It's single POV, and I could feel and understand PK's love for Art loud and clear. But we just don't see them spend much time together, and we're so firmly embedded in PK's thoughts above all else that when they are together the only details we get are essentially "we spent a lot of evenings watching tv together after work that month" dropped into pages and pages and pages of internal angsting that really left the impression that there wasn't much else to say about those evenings.

There are only a handful of interactions over an 8-month period that have even a hint of Art caring for PK in *any* way at all, and we witness maybe two handfuls of interactions between them total, most of which show Art as completely dismissive of PK. It feels like a friendship Art is over on anything but a surface level, like Art is still friendly with PK and certainly sees him as roommate material but not much beyond that. I could even understand how they got to this place, since you get the impression that PK's emotional constipation over his feelings for Art caused them to drift apart -- not because Art realized it, but because it caused PK to practically shut down around Art since he couldn't figure out how to say what he really wanted so he ended up not saying much at all -- but mostly it just made me really sad.

There's finally a moment toward the end that convinced me Art actually does consider PK his best friend, and that it's just a flaw of the book that made me doubt it.

Unfortunately, I did not finish this convinced that these two will actually make it as a couple.

After this landed in my inbox as part of a larger round-up of upcoming releases by Carina/Harlequin releases I jumped to request it.* Who doesn't want to read a book about books and falling in love around the publication of a book?! It's basically catnip for book bloggers :-D

Unfortunately, the premise was better in my head than the execution in reality. That's not saying Ripper didn't have two wonderful characters and a decent story, it just was a struggle to get into and stay engaged with until the very end.

This is the story of PK, a hopeless romantic who doesn't know how to process/share his feelings (I think he may be on the Autism spectrum, but it's never explicitly stated), and Art, his best friend who just came out of a bad break up and crashes with him to try and get their life back together.

For me, the biggest letdown was the writing—you can only do so much text speak and internal dialogue before it starts to get old and it starts to get annoying, and this book reached that point WAY too soon. I 100% get and understand that Ripper was trying to put us in PK's mindset of being scattered and overwhelmed and living in his head more than the real world, but it just didn't work and was almost enough to make me stop reading.

Art loved romances. I'd never read an actual romance novel until Art introduced them to me in college, and then? I loved them. Not that I wanted to write them, but I couldn't stop reading his whole bookshelf because it opened this world of people having all these feelings, like I could get this contact high from reading about other people's intensity. It made me feel good. It made me feel . . . maybe a little voyeuristic, but also a little like I understood Art better. He had so many thoughts and feelings about stuff, and these books were my way of getting what that felt like in his head.

In my head? Feelings were this loud, clanging, confused mass of noise. But for Art, feelings were colors and textures, things he could make sense of, could sort and organize. What would he see, if he read my book? Would he see chaos or order? Would he see me, or himself, or both of us, or neither of us? (Chapter 10)

This was unfortunate because I think quite a few people will give up on the book before it shifts in the second half and becomes so much better. A lot of this was PK having to have real adult conversations with multiple people after seriously screwing up his chances with Art and it just was better written. I honestly don't know if PK is a neurodiverse character, but it sure felt like everyone was tiptoeing around it and that he might've been. It could've been an authorial choice, not to tell us and I respect that, but I feel like if it were acknowledged or even more explicitly discussed it might've helped me get into the book a lot sooner than I did.

All of this being said I was 100% pulled into the fantasy that PK had going on in his head and wanted to believe it so much, but as the book approached the climactic scene and Art found out everything the pressure in my chest was so painful because I knew it couldn't be any other way. It just hurt me so much to see them both get hurt and to have to grow from it and then to find out they were both carrying a torch for all those years, OMG swoon.

I'm not a depressive type person. Not that I never felt sad, just that I wasn't deep enough to be depressed, not really. I had simple emotions. Basic emotions. If you were going to compare my, like, emotional geography to an organism, it would have more than one cell? But not by much. It'd be early on in the evolution of organisms.

My ability to feel stuff was a creature that hadn't dragged itself out of the primordial ooze yet. (Chapter 16)

However, I want to end with a highlight. Ripper did such a wonderful job of writing non-traditional characters and really pushed me outside of my normal cis-white (for the most part) MM Romance novels and I very much enjoyed it. From Wade and Ray's beautifully queer relationship to Art's transition to using they/them pronouns to the scene when Art painted PK's nails and he immediately became obsessed with them and lost hours staring at the pretty holographic glitter, there were so many moments of brightness and wonderfulness that Ripper clearly has talent, ze just got a little bit in their won way. Somewhat, but totally unrelated, I love that ze uses non-he/she/they pronouns. I've been obsessed with alternatives since I read about "per" in Woman on the Edge of Time almost a decade-and-a-half ago.

Recommendation: I'm torn between read it and pass—there are some definite gems, but it might be too much of a slog for some people. PK and Art are wonderful characters and so many of the minor characters were also fun and well written. I struggled mostly with the over-internalized dialogue but understand why Ripper did it. The last few chapters when PK had to make big leaps forward emotionally saved the novel and bumped my rating up. I'll probably check out Ripper again in the future, but I won't seek out zir works.

*I received a copy of Book Boyfriend via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

PK is in love with his best friend Art. When the latter ends up at his door, crying because of a bad breakup with his boyfriend, PK is happy, sad of course because Art is sad, but happy because Art is here. Art asks for the spare room, PK is like mi casa es su casa.

Maybe now is the time to start something, only to find out Art isn’t interested.
PK dives into his writing and starts a book about a boyfriend. He throws his soul into this story.
What seems like a good plan, is just a disaster. Everyone can see it coming.

What follows is sweet agony, many awkward situations, nervousness, anxiety, humor, chaos, and a lot of crazy humor. The story is pictured through Preston’s eyes (read: mind). It’s an animated, chaotic narrative.
Overall an adorable, slow slow burn, quite exhausting story.

DNF 20%. I was very drawn to the cover of this book and really really wanted to like it, but I could not for the life of me get into it. I found the stream of consciousness writing style to be exhausting. It was humorous at times, but I grew so tired of our heroes not interacting on page even though they were living together. Because it was single POV stream of consciousness it made the fact that I never got to be in Art's mind so glaring and made me feel like I didn't know him at all. I may return to this book in the future, but for now it's not working for me.