The Love Interest
An actual YA novel where the main protagonist in a non-stereotypical gay character with actual development and feelings? Yay! However, that joy was short lived, and I will tell you why.
Unfortunately, gay characters in YA tend to be side characters, painfully clichéd, dead, or left out all together. When “The Love Interest” made its appearance on the Barnes and Noble website, I almost wept for joy-something new and different! Spies! Boys falling in love with each other instead of fighting over a girl!
However, the plot and unrealistic nature of the book often left me cringing or just downright questioning how the novel was published in the first place. I have read numerous One Direction fanfictions better quality than this garbage. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s start with the positives. The idea is novel and rather intriguing. Involuntary spies raised since their capture to be deadly love machines to high profile people. Caden, our “nice” narrator, brings us the story of a rather sad, horny teenager who has dedicated his life to fall in love with his love interest, a female scientist who the higher echelon has deemed “dangerous” and “one to watch.”
Because of this, Caden begins a competition to the death with another love interest, “bad” boy Dyl to win her heart and essentially enslave her for the rest of her life by maintaining a relationship controlled by higher ups and founded upon lies. Interesting no?
As the book jacket will tell you, Caden soon finds himself falling for Dyl rather than his assigned subject. Cue the oohs and ahhhhs.
So, to credit Cale Dietrich, his idea was interesting, his use of main LGBT characters was refreshing, and his mockery of the stereotypical “boy next door” and “bad boy” were downright funny and essentially the whole basis for his novel.
Now on to the negatives. The writing was choppy and often completely unrealistic. Many of the conversations were awkward, incomplete, or just downright robotic. I never felt very attached to any of the characters, and the main girl, the one both boys are trying to win over, the brilliant effervescent scientist, seems to be as dumb as a doorbell.
The ending was a spectacular mess; I haven’t seen an author waste that many pages since Breaking Dawn. It was as if Dietrich realized he was 300 pages in without being close to the end and rushed it down to a few chapters where a group of four teenagers literally took down an untouchable organization that has been unchecked for centuries, immense in size, and unfathomable in power.
Way to make me realize what I was reading was complete fiction.
Overall, “The Love Interest” is not a bad read. It took me three days to read and at one point, I even found myself thinking about it outside of the actual pages-a success for any book in my opinion. However, it is a forgettable one.
Writing this review two weeks after finishing it had me looking up the main character’s name because I had forgotten it. If you want quick, cheap entertainment, a simple summer read so-to-speak, this book is quite good. If you want an excellent read that will leave you in tears, heart thumping, mind mangled and soul rendered apart, this book is better off as kindling for your firewood.
Recommendation: If you’re on a family vacation and have time to spare and nothing else to do, this book is for you.
Score: 5/10
