Boyfriend Material

Boyfriend Material (2020) Alexis Hall

I don’t care that I just read this.

I managed to hold off before re-reading, and then tore through it, no better able to put it down in a second read than it was on the first read. In fact, I’m lucky I didn’t just go back to the beginning and read it all over again.

I love this book SO. MUCH.

(W)hile most of us would say that homeless people are human beings and therefore deserve to be looked after, Dr. Fairclough would argue that homeless people are human beings and, thus, plentiful and ecologically somewhere between insignificant and a net detriment. Unlike dung beetles, which are irreplaceable. Which is why she looks at the data and I talk to the press.

Luc is an unbelievable disaster, but he’s a disaster I identify with so hard.

I was in my head, and that was the worst place for anyone to be, especially me.

“(H)ow can you not be miserable living here?”

I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I’m confused. What on earth has given you the impression I’m not miserable?”

But despite all that, this is the bit that just broke my heart.

Twenty minutes later, the James Royce-Royces appeared, James Royce-Royce with an actual picnic basket.

“Oh, Luc.” He gazed around in dismay. “I hadn’t realised it had got this bad. I’m not sure I’ll feel safe eating in here.”

“People eat in fields,” I pointed out. “Like, places where cows shit. No cows have shit in my flat.”

“Are you familiar, sweet pea, with the term ‘damning with faint praise’?”

The reactions of his friends to seeing how bad things had gotten, and how they had missed it just breaks me heart. But even as it’s breaking my heart it’s still making me laugh.

It’s just perfect.

“You’ve been through a lot today,” he said. “There’s no need to diminish it.”

“Yeah, but if I don’t diminish things I have to face them at their normal size, and that’s horrible.”

Publisher : Sourcebooks Casablanca
Rating: 9.5/10

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