I was sure I would love this but it fell flat for me. It was way too long for me for a romance book. I‘m sorry but 300-400 pages is enough for romance in my world. Anyways, there was also a lot of drinking and I hate that in books. Being drunk all the time is not a flex and makes it dislike a book very fast.
I‘m sure this book will find it‘s audience but I‘m not part of it.

I love fake relationships that turn into real relationships. This was not that quick of a read, but it was pretty good. I'll read more of Barker in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I had a hard time connecting to the characters in this one. While I loved elements of it, namely the fake dating and the Hollywood setting, I just couldn't get past the use of slurs and the way that the mental health issues were handled.

This wasn't bad or good but I wasn't as engaged with the leads as I had hoped to be. There were moments that were lovely

Honestly I didn’t end up finshing this. It was way more drama than romance for something marketed as romance. And it relied too much of stereotypes.

First of all, thanks to NetGalley and the editors for this ARC in exchange of an honest review.

I think this book shouldn't be catalogued as a romance. The blurb makes it seem like it's an 80% romance an 20% drama, but it's more like 45-55. Of course, a dose of drama once in a while is great, more so if it's celebrity gossip. But I asked for this ARC because it was a romance...

The thing is that this book is too centered around one of the MC's scandal, and even though the relationship between the MC's is essential for it to make sense, I feel like it should be labeled as something else, not romance.

That being said, I enjoyed a lot the first half of this book, because it's more about the couple. But then, the second half was very dense for me because it almost seems like a thriller.

I must say that I haven't seen anywhere the TW (SA, a lot of drugs, alcohol, death, cancer, suicide, bullying...) myself, and tbh I would've thought about reading it in the first place if I knew.

To end up with a positive note, I liked a lot the author's writing! The characters are also very well written, even though there are some side characters that start a plot and never finish. But overall, it was an interesting book to read.

I left a goodreads review when I finished it.
It took me a little bit to get into this book, but I'm glad I stuck it out. I loved Will as a character and James and Theo too. The Chapman family and their friends were entertaining side characters.

Yikes. Yikes is the buzzword for me on this review and this book apparently.
Honestly, I very nearly DNF'd it right at the start because yikes, yikes, yikes, the first chunk of this book is bad, but I was mildly curious and sometimes you just need to read a bad romance.
This is gonna be a long review so the TLDR is: There's a lot in here that was pretty cringy and uncomfortable, in a bad way, and that I do not agree with but I'm giving it 2 stars because it did get marginally better and I think the story was decent. There's a lot in this about forgiveness, of yourself and others, and learning how to be with your messed up family and move on with your life that was nice, and I think the love story and the premise were fine. It was just buried under all the "yikes".

So the story is about Will, who had a promising acting career at 18 but lost it all when he supposedly nearly killed his co-star, Derek, 10 years ago. As penance for his actions, his father -Robert Chapman, a famous actor himself- told him to bide his time for a decade and then they'd stage a comeback. That time is now, even though Will doesn't really seem to want to go back into the spotlight since everyone still hates him. At Will's brother's bachelor party, he meets James a jack-of-all-trades type who has one goal, make sure Will doesn't get a part in the movie that is being made from his deceased brother's memoir and starring Will's father as the lead in what will be his last role, a part that ultimately goes to Derek, the co-star that Will attacked. But of course, things don't go as planned for James when Robert "needs" Will on set to run lines and to stay at the house where James will be staying while he works as an "assistant" to Will's mom, a producer of the movie. They decide to start the ruse that they're dating to boost Will's appearance and to somewhat disarm Derek and maybe get some answers about the Incident. From there, things are revealed about what happened on that night ten years ago, and Will and James both deal with things from their past and troubled relationships with their family.

Will is a bit of a complicated character, he's pretty impassive for most of the book, just letting everyone else make the decisions for him and he just reluctantly goes along with it and then is sort of a 'sad sack' when something happens. He's also an alcoholic but that's not discussed at all.
James is older than Will (by at least a decade I think?) and has done every and any odd job that you can imagine to take care of Theo (who I'll talk about further on), his nephew that he's raising. Currently, he's trying to get onto the set of the adaption of his brother's memoir, which is about their father suffering from a rapidly degenerative brain disease, one that his brother also had before his death and might possibly have been passed to Theo. I felt like when we were on their individual chapters and in their POV they acted/thought one way but then when we switched to the other person's POV they were completely different.

If it wasn't for pop culture references I would have thought that this was written 10-15 years ago with the casual slurs and language just thrown around. Maybe if the characters were older, not that makes it okay at all, it wouldn't have been so odd to see but no, Will is twenty-eight/nine which is a year younger than me so honestly he should know better. It's really rough, most women are referred to as being psycho, or a slur, homophobic language and slurs are thrown around pretty casually, a child with Autism (referred to as Asperger's) is also referred to as a psycho, there are some really unhealthy views on mental health and body image (Will is expected to send daily nudes to his trainer and roommate Miles to make sure he's not getting fat). There was also a lot of toxic masculinity, "You need to be a man, act more like a man and not a wuss" and such.
Then there's Theo...
Theo is a really sweet and caring kid and he deserves better than what life has given him but good lord his language is foul. All he talks about is sex, like pretty graphically, to anyone who would listen and I mean anyone. I'm all for sex-positivity and all but yeesh he made me so uncomfortable! He was obsessed with an older man, an actor working on the movie, and constantly talked about wanting him and what can be done to make Ryan want to have sex with him, a minor. He was even encouraged to do so by James and everyone else! Then there's the scene where everyone starts sexualizing him even after these grown men find out he's sixteen "oh, you're so hot, call me when you're legal" and again, James just... goes along with it.
I can't believe that an editor read this and went "yeah okay".
Like I said at the top.
Yikes.

Love on the D-List is an ambitious effort by author JR Barker. The main character, William Chapman, is an intriguing and well-developed character. Although there are many likable characters in the novel, two stand out for their negative characteristics. By this I mean William's father and the 16-year old Theo. The father is just an ass, Theo is immature and obnoxious. Barker wants a long novel that lets all of the characters play out, but it did seem a bit much.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

Honestly this book I had to end up DNFing it,
There was just too many bad stereotypes and offensive language used in it when it pretty much could have been avoided all together.
the way that mental health and its forms were portrayed and spoken about throughout the novel, and the creepy 16 year old who made overly sexualized comments about the actor he is attracted to

I love a good Hollywood romance. This was such a fun fake dating story which also talked about important topics.

Thank you to NetGalley & the author J.R. Barker for allowing me the opportunity to read a copy of "Love on the D=List".

I have so many conflicting feelings about this novel, so let's just get right into it, shall we?

Pros: fake-dating, slow-burn, queer representation

Cons: the way that mental health and its forms were portrayed and spoken about throughout the novel, and the creepy 16 year old who made overly sexualized comments about the actor he is attracted to

Overall, I rated this novel 3/5 stars.

Love on the D-List is such a rollercoaster of a book. I genuinely loved it and I think that readers are going to love this story. One of the first things to note about this story is its slow burn. I was waiting and waiting and waiting..... However, the payoff is so worth it. This story was real and it felt so fleshed out and juicy.

Will is a reformed movie star. The son of a prominent actor, Will is much as you imagine, lost and a little aimless after a scandal previously in his life. James, our other protagonist, is a man of many trades (master of none). These two find themselves in a fake dating situation in order to present a more unified front to the media and the rest is as you say - love at first fight. I would highly recommend this story to any friends that love queer romance and those that enjoy a good fake dating trope. This is the first book that I have read by JR Barker but it definitely won't be my last!

Spicy Rating - 4/5

Love on the D-List by J.R. Barker was a major disappointment. The plot was predictable and lacked any real substance. The characters were shallow and unrelatable, and the dialogue was cringeworthy. The attempt to tackle serious issues such as assault and redemption felt forced and insincere. The writing style was unimpressive, and the editing was sloppy. Overall, this book was a waste of time and money. I do not recommend it.

I started this book but did not finish it. I really struggled with the tone and language in this book. It was clearly not very thought out and needs certain references to eating disorders, mental health and phrases similar to 'man up'. I chose not to finish this as it was not something I felt the need to read or was enjoying at all.

I was really excited to read this from the blurb, but it’s not what I was expecting at all. While the author was going for romantic comedy, it fell flat for me. Mostly due to the tone of the novel along with the authors choices of jokes / language. Also it’s 2023, stop including HP references in gay romances. There are 8 instances of a particular slur used in this novel. This was unnecessary. It’s possible to reflect a characters dealing with homophobia without using slurs. Most people reading romances don’t want to read that because we deal with it enough in real life. Overall, I couldn’t care about the characters because of the narrative choices the author made. I suggest further editing.

this was offensive and I didn't like it at all. It had many slurs and bad words and I felt like the writing was very juvenille. it was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for allowing me to read an arc of this book.

When I first read the synopsis for this book, I was reminded of Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall, a book which I loved, and so I requested it right away. Unfortunately this book couldn’t be farther from that if it tried. I had to DNF this book. I made myself read 123 pages just to see if it ever got better, but in the end I had to stop.

This book uses ableist language and slurs, has frankly alarming levels of body shaming and unrealistic body standards. There are glib comments about mental health, eating disorders, Dissociative Identity Disorder (which was referred to as ‘multiple personality disorder’ which is an outdated term) autism (which was referred to as ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ which, again, is an outdated term) there was a Harry Potter reference, which has no place being mentioned in 2023, especially in a queer book.

There is also a sixteen year old boy who regularly makes extremely sexual comments and references, including wanting to ‘look swole’ for an actor he is attracted to, who is in his twenties and nobody seems to have a problem with this.

I tried so hard to find positives with this book, but reading passages like how James only had to deal with “gay or straight” as options, and now there was bisexual, pan, poly, asexual, aromatic, trans, gender nonconforming, cis…these sexualities and gender identities have always existed, and it’s extremely closed minded to think otherwise. There were also multiple uses of the phrase “be a man/like a man” which made me cringe.

I’m not sure if any of these characters have a sudden change and stop being offensive, but I couldn’t make myself read more to find out. I hate leaving negative reviews, but this book made me so uncomfortable that I found it impossible to find any good points.