This was such a cute romance! I loved the characters (especially Eli) and had such a fun time reading. Loved the trans rep in this! Such a feel good book, even though the 3rd act breakup was pretty predicable.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for a copy of this ARC.

4.5 stars!

I have to say that I really enjoyed this book! It’s a bit predictable but quite charming! I enjoyed the writing style; I found it quite vivid and engaging. I also enjoyed how well-rounded the characters were! The book could be funny, but there were some really deep moments that touched me emotionally. I wish I had more to critique about it, but other than the slightly predictable plot—and by this, I mean that I wasn’t surprised by anything in particular or couldn’t figure out on my own how the story would end—I found myself quite engaged throughout!

I completely recommend giving this book a go if you enjoy this genre or even if you don’t!

Did not finish... A very promising start, but once Eli began interacting with Peter, he became kind of insufferable. I know the set up is for both to experience character growth through their relationship and learning from each other, but the way Eli's personality switches up and he begins to use Peter that really rubbed me the wrong way. Not my cup of tea.

Sweet, fun, and full of emotion, The Build-a-Boyfriend Project is a heartfelt novel that is really relatable for the current dating and work culture and actually makes GREAT use of a fake dating trope in a way that feels authentic and also makes you giggle.

Eli is a wannabe journalist looking to break through at his dead-end job who is having a hard time getting into the dating scene after being broken up with by his long-term boyfriend (who else works at the same agency and is seemingly having more career success, oof). When Eli is set up for a first date with a friend-of-a-friend named Peter, the night ends in complete embarrassment with Peter making a disaster of the night. But upon hearing how horrid the date is, Eli's boss positions Eli to write a series of stories about how bad Peter is at dating. Seeing his big break, Eli instead propositions Peter to go on these dates but to write about Peter's life as a queer person of color from a small Southern town and his new experiences dating. Naturally, they fake date to get everything accurate.

I can't understand how sweet this story is. Mason Deaver's voice is strong in the novel, and they bring to light a lot of perspectives throughout the story that are sometimes overlooked or not thought of when writing romances. I appreciate that Eli and Peter develop great boundaries with each other throughout the story, and how they show Peter's growth (as well as Eli's). I also appreciate the exploration of selfishness and the idea of needing to take control of your own life, even when things feel stacked against you. I think Deaver's also love and honesty about the American South is also an appreciated part of the story, and Deaver's own personality shines through in the novel.

The third act of course is a bit predictable, but I think how it was handled still was heartfelt and was more honest of the mistakes Eli or Peter made along the way.

I understand this is Deaver's jump into adult fiction as well, so yes this is adult! I know the cover looks similar to the YA books but just a side note.

The Build-A-Boyfriend Project is like the book version of the non-binary love child of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Hitch.

Eli is working as an assistant at a magazine dreaming of becoming a staff writer. They long to write hard hitting, substantive articles like what was produced in the hey day of the magazine. Unfortunately for Eli, the magazine is more likely to focus on gossip than tough journalism.

Enter Peter. After a disastrous first date with Peter, Eli's boss convinces them to write an article about teaching Peter how to date. Peter agrees to help Eli with their article, but Eli doesn't quite tell Peter the whole truth of what the article is about.

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book. I already knew that I find Mason Deaver's writing style easy to read and enjoyable. You can tell they put a lot of themselves into this book. I liked the build up of the relationship between Eli and Peter. They're both flawed people which made them feel realistic. Eli is somewhat self-centered, which unfortunately felt pretty accurate for their age. I liked watching them grow throughout the book, often stumbling before finding their way through.

At times I found myself frustrated by Eli. They seemed to be in their own way a lot and refuse to see that they already have to solution to their problems available if they would just be willing to make a change.

This wasn't my most favorite book by Mason, but it was still good read.

I received an eARC of this book from Avon Books and NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This book was really cute it is very "How to Loose a Guy in Ten Days" but in reverse kind-of. I do recommend it as a good read. While it doesn't take away from how good the book was, didn't understand what the movie title chapter titles were about. Were they chosen because they had special meaning to Eli, or just because they are good movies? They didn't seem to have anything to do with the plot of that chapter, with the exception of the final chapter.

Eli, an assistant to the editor at a Buzzfeed-esque mag that's fallen from hard-hitting articles to listicles, has given up on dating. However, he hops back on that horse for one last first date with Peter. It's a cringe-worthy abomination of a date. But what if Eli turned Peter, guileless and unpracticed at dating, into a project and wrote about it so Eli can finally make the jump from assistant to staff writer? And what should Eli do when his evil himbo editor demands a schlocky takedown demeaning Peter's inexperience instead of the careful exploration of growing up gay and Korean in small town Georgia that Eli has planned?

A poignant read with a smidge of spice (not closed door - yay!). Definitely will check out Mason Deaver's future books.

I never rate books that are . 75 cents (3.75) haha but it just wasn’t a 4 star read for me. I didn’t like the miscommunication at first. I can’t get past someone that’s 15 minutes late much less an hour+ in the real world so I didn’t care what Peter had to say. I didn’t care about Eli’s workplace and it had to do a lot with that. The best explanation I can give this book is based upon two movies. Hitch mixed with Mr Deeds. I didn’t grow a connection with Eli and Peter as much as I thought I would. I do love how each chapter incorporated movies. I’m a movie fanatic so I really enjoyed that and it was very original.

I’m rounding this up to a 3.5-3.75, I really haven’t decided yet. Overall, this was a fun read, I enjoyed it a lot! I really liked the representation in it, I thought it was done really well and highlighted really important topics along the way. I wish we got to see more of Peter showing more interest in the relationship, like I mean I know he was super shy and didn’t know how to express himself well, but sometimes I felt like Peter was really just going along with the experiment to gain experiences, the feelings that were developed kind of felt like they came out suddenly. Also, I could see the third act conflict from a mile away, in a way it was good cause I wasn’t stressed while reading it but again I wish we got more of Eli and Peter at the end. This book reminded me so much of How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, and I love that movie! Lol. Also I really liked how the chapters were different movie titles. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, and I would probably recommend to others.

i’ve been reading all of mason’s work for years now and they keep finding ways to impress me. everything gets better and better all while maintaining the staples of what makes their books so good.

everyone loves some fake dating, and it takes a lot of skill to make such a well-known trope feel fresh and exciting. but mason does a great job of implementing that in a rather original scenario, allowing for the really interesting part of the story, the characters and their development, to grow and change.

Eli and Peter had such a wonderful romance full of awkward moments, intense pining, uncertain feelings, and euphoric releases. the way their journey is plotted was perfect and each beat it hit at the right time. i really enjoyed their developing friendship before everything turned fully romantic.

and all of this wouldn’t be effective without characters you can root for and love. Eli and Peter are two excellent people that i felt a connection to. i loved their journeys and the lessons they learned. i loved the themes of taking charge of your own life and fighting for the best you deserve.

just a really, really wonderful and important book.

Mason Deaver truly does know how to craft a compelling and engaging love story that is equal parts hilarious and soulful.

The Build a Boyfriend Project is a fake dating rom com with a healthy dose of self discovery, fucking up and finding out, and oh so many feelings.

What I adore most about this book is how it balances humor and stereotypical romcom shenanigans with deep and meaningful conversations about identity, community, and self worth.

The plot is predicated on Eli - our MC - writing an article about "making a better boyfriend" out of Peter when, in reality, Eli wants to interview Peter about growing up gay & Korean in the southern US. Deaver explores how a lot of big city coastal & northern queers are quick to write off the South entirely. They talk about the problems in the South - the racism, the homophobia, how those things can make one miss out on so much - while also reminding the reader that these issues are not isolated to the South.

I've lived in the PNW my whole life, I'm used to living in a place with pride flags on every other street corner year round. So I found myself in Eli's shoes, listening and learning alongside him. Being reminded of how easy it can be to write off a place as "backwards" and "wrong" when you don't talk to the people who actually live there, who come from there. When you don't live there, you don't always know that the good memories are indeed possible and can exist in abundance.

This novel is a reminder to the big city coastal queers (like me!), that not everyone got to be out in high school or even college. Not everyone had parents who "get it" or queer teachers in school. It's a reminder that some people are "late bloomers" because they weren't given a chance to bloom until now. And a reminder that regardless of reason, there isn't anything actually wrong with being a "late bloomer."

In the acknowledgements, Deaver thanks the people that made it to The Pink Pony Club a little later in life. Thanks them for being here now, no matter how long it took them, because them being here is what matters most.
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Now, we side bar for a moment so I can talk about one specific line that altered me chemically:
"[Eli] knew he should never look at his body as anything other than a work of art. Because it was, because he'd gotten the chance to make it himself."

The way Deaver writes trans bodies will always be famous to me. This line made me cry and has been rotating in my mind ever since I read it. Trans bodies are works of art, transness is an act of intimate personal creation, and I love seeing that voiced in stories.

Ok that is all, back to our regularly scheduled book reviewing.
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When we zoom out and take in the rest of the novel, what do we see? We see a romcom that is honestly just so fun and funny. And it's never at the expense of depth, nuance, or drama. This is not a book full of empty laughs, it's a heartfelt love story that also had me fucking wheezing.

I love a shenanigan filled love story. If you talk to me for 0.2 seconds you'll quickly learn that I adore Mason's other work but specifically The Feeling of Falling in Love. I love TFOFIL for the fake dating shenanigans, and the poignant discussions of self and community, and the portrayal of trans bodies- all things I also adore about TBABP. TBABP feels like a natural progression for Deaver as an author, it's their first adult romance and it has everything I love about their YA work but obviously more grown up. TFOFIL is for the trans kids who don't think they'll ever get a love story, and TBABP is for the queer adults who feel like they're falling behind.

In short, I adore this novel. And - unsurprisingly - recommend it wholeheartedly.

The Build-a-Boyfriend Project is my first book by Mason Deaver—but I know it won't be my last. Deaver turns "practice dating"—an oft-used trope that could in a less skilled writer's hands feel tired—into something that feels warm and charming, like coming home with two incredibly charming and real main characters who worm their way into your heart.

The book follows our protagonist, Eli—long-suffering assistant at a publication who's hoping to make a break into a staff writer position. He began working at the publication with a lofty idea of it—the old days, where articles that meant something were prioritized; unfortunately, since then, the site has gone the way of so many other modern news outlets, prioritizing clickbait headlines and ad revenue traffic. In the midst of all this, he's set up on a blind date with a man named Peter that goes horrendously wrong; Peter's late and constantly checks his phone, ducks out early to work and spills half the meal on Eli.

What begins as Eli's pitch to cover Peter's struggles with dating as a gay Korean-American from the South becomes shaped by his boss as the titular "Build-a-Boyfriend Project", where Eli and Peter will fake-date in an effort to teach the other man how to become boyfriend material. Eli just learns along the way that, while he might have been rough around the edges, Peter might have been made of the right stuff all along.

I ate this book up. There's no better way to put it. In one night, I'd read a good helping—then the next, a bit more. But once I was about 40% of the way through, I couldn't stop. Fake-dating for any reason is a trope straight out of fanfiction—for good reason! It's charming! You know that the couple is going to catch real feelings long before they do! But for the same reasons, it's often overdone and worn out. But Eli and Peter were written so deftly, with experiences and struggles of their own that made them stand out as characters that it hardly mattered that I knew where they were going; I was captivated by every word. They were both incredibly unique characters that broke out of typical archetypes, and when they came together, the dynamic between the two was so believable that it was easy to watch them inch their way into each others' lives.

Because they were so well fleshed out, it was also so easy to not feel so frustrated when the characters made mistakes. They made mistakes because they were humans with their own motivations and struggles and wants and flaws, not because the book required a little bit of conflict. It's something I struggle with a lot in books—bumps in the road feeling forced—but all of the ups and downs in Eli and Peter's relationship felt honest to who they were as characters and the way their relationship had been built.

Sure, there are things I wish we'd seen fleshed out a little more—Eli's boss at the publication he worked for felt a little one-note (it's traffic! we don't care about hard-hitting journalism anymore! clicks, clicks, clicks!), making Eli's clinging to the hopes of the future sometimes feel exasperating. Similarly, Peter had dreams aligned with writing that I wish we'd dug a little more into—the way that tied into where his character ended up felt a little too easy. But you know what? It hardly mattered to me, because I was so pleased for them as if they were my own friends instead of characters I was reading on a page. I yelled at Eli the way I'd yell at a friend to get out of a dead-end job, I cheered for Peter the way I would one of my dearest friends achieving their dreams.

BRB, making a Letterboxd list of all of the films featured in the chapter titles and doing a marathon just to chase these feelings all over again.

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager for an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

This charming romcom features lovable characters and a captivating plot that will delight any romcom fan. With great LGBTQ representation, it's a refreshing and inclusive read. While it is a bit spicier than I usually prefer, it was still manageable and enjoyable. The perfect slow-burn romance makes it a fun and entertaining read for any romcom enthusiast.

Mason Deaver, the writer you are. I'm so glad they are getting into adult romance. I needed a romcom and knew this was going to hit the spot. Spoiler (not really): It absolutely hit the spot. The Build-a-Boyfriend Project is exactly what I want in a queer romance and I can't wait for Mason Deaver to reach an even wider audience with this book.

Would have given 4.5 if that was an option. I received this book for free as an eARC in return for my honest review. Having read other of Deaver’s books I was excited to give this one a read. Eli and Peter are lovely characters. I found Eli hard to like at times, but I think that was the point of his character. His flaws made the story. Going into this knowing the “fake dating” trope, I expected the pit falls. While I truly appreciated was how the story was wrapped up. That deviated from the norm a bit. Overall, my big wish would be to have had more depth from Peter. I would have loved for this to be dual POV and gotten to see a bit more from him. Otherwise. Loved it!

Deaver's adult debut is so close to perfect that I'm happy to give it five stars anyway. Perfectly aged up plot, voice, characters, and sentence level craft. The plot to Build-A-Boyfriend Project is predictable in a way that makes the entire story SO exciting to read, because it's a love-letter to all of the romances that came before it. I knew going in exactly what I was about to get out of it, and Deaver managed to execute it in a way that still had me giggling and kicking my fee the whole time.

I loved Peter's character grown, and Eli's, but Peter's specifically. My only criticisms in that after the third-act break-up, it feels like Deaver is maybe OVERLY concerned with making sure the reader understands that Eli is at fault, to a point where I feel like Eli is taking on more of the blame for what happened than he even deserves— as in, Keith gets off entirely scott free, after knowingly and purposefully doing something so beyond morally and ethically deplorable. Why did Eli end up the ONLY bad guy in that situation, to the point where I as the reader felt like I wasn't supposed to be upset by what Keith did?

Eli can learn his lesson without taking on the entirety of the blame for the article going out there! Keith doesn't get the moral superiority just because he wasn't afraid to do something hurtful to advance his own career and teach Eli a lesson. Justice for Eli, a little bit.

Anyway, that is the only criticism I had, everything else was so good that I couldn't put this book down even while I was supposed to be working. Devoured it in two days.

This was so good! I really loved the love story, and I wasn't angry at the third act conflict. A realistic third act conflict is so important to me. I loved seeing the growth of the characters even though we were only in the head of one character. I don't really know how to describe this book except to say if you like romance, you should read it. If you like well fleshed out characters that you would love to meet in real life, you should read this book. I have read two books by Mason Deaver, and I have really loved both.

4.5 stars. Containing the same heart and swoon that any good romcom should have while also remaining grounded and nuanced, The Build a Boyfriend Project is an incredible adult romance debut from Mason Deaver that leaves me excited for more to come.

A charming romcom with lovable characters and great development! Eli’s fake-dating scheme with awkward yet endearing Peter turns into something real, forcing him to face his fears. Though predictable at times, the humor, heart, and slow-burn romance make this a fun and entertaining read for any romcom fan!

Mason Deaver’s The Build-a-Boyfriend Project is a heartfelt and hilarious rom-com that blends technology, friendship, and self-discovery into one delightful package. With their signature warmth and wit, Deaver crafts a story full of awkward missteps, unexpected feelings, and tender moments. Perfect for fans of quirky, character-driven romances, this book is as charming as it is uplifting—a true joy from start to finish