Cale Dietrich

In a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies, the stakes are high for two agents, Caden and Dylan, whose mission to compete for a girl destined for great power becomes complicated when Caden finds himself falling in love with his competition.

The Love Interest

I loved it. The story slowly develops at first, but then winds up moving faster the more the main character explores his feelings and life. 

Katheryn

Jamieson

I don’t exist to teach her a lesson, and it irks me that she thinks labeling me is okay now. Like, by liking guys, I automatically take on that role in her life. That I’m suddenly a supporting character in her story rather than the hero of my own.


it is a rough, rough thing to hold your most anticipated book of the year in your hands and feel so damn disappointed @past me: why did u gotta hype it so much ??

This book could have been so good and made so many good points and instead it all just fell flat


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Anyway, I spent a few days thinking about this book because honestly? I knew I was disappointed, but I also knew there was some things I liked and I didn't know how to address the book in it's entirety. 

I'll try my best to get everything down in a coherent way, but ya know how it goes - sometimes we struggle.
 
I think starting with the good things is an Idea because I don't think this book is 100% awful burn it to the ground right now at all

First of all, I think this book was just fun. It reads quickly, and the meta is funny. I liked the dramatisation of common YA tropes and structures and that it poked fun at so many tropes we see in books everyday. I think it just made it really fun and refreshing and kind of gave it a Carry On vibe. This new theatre/book trend of characters being somewhat aware of their status as characters and then deliberately addressing and subverting the structures of their narratives is something I am loving. Anyway, the lowkey snark towards these tropes which really do oversaturate YA was amusing to me and I enjoyed seeing them get dramatised. 

The subversion of the traditional love triangle was refreshing and fun. I liked that Dietrich took the love triangle to a new place, especially since that place gave a voice to lgbt+ people. The love triangle, aside from the fact it's annoying, always categorises people into tropes and I think that's really damaging. So to see those tropes actively presented and unravelled was really clever. I think The Love Interest genuinely did make a good attempt at exploring why attempting to categorise masculinity (or any human expression) is a bad idea

I really think the lgbt+ representation was nice. To have a gay character scream "I'm the protagonist, fucker!" was unbelievably satisfying. Dietrich said in an interview he was sick of gay characters being the stereotyped side character or the character that always gets killed and I think that came through. Caden explicitly talks about why it bothers him gay people are always tokenised and fetishised both in the media and in real life and I think thats an important discussion that needs to be had more often - gay people don't exist to be straight girls gay best friends and I'm glad this brought it up. Plus no #buryyourgays so nice. 

But I think this is where we get into the problems with this book. Because I think where this book fell down is that it tried to say and be too many things at once, so it ended up succeeding in representing none of them. 

I felt like this book had alot it wanted to point out, and it was trying to make a critical commentary but it never quite got there. Thematically, it came off vague and meandered to and from different points of criticism. It didn't really nail any idea and I think that hurt it, because it's hard to pinpoint exactly what I'm reading. Commentary on the flaws of YA? The dangers of categorising masculinity? the poor treatment of lgbt+ characters? feminism? dangers of an increasingly corporate driven world? 

The writing was also just a little messy not awful or unreadable but not great either. I think thats what damaged it for alot of reviewers. The characters were also just not developed enough and honestly some of the things that happened between them were annoying and unrealistic. I think Juliet and Natalie could have been good characters but ultimately were not complex or explored enough. Juliet was a smart and capable character, which I liked, but she ultimately only really existed to be a plot device. Natalie also had potential but wasn't really ever explored properly. (view spoiler)[ PLUS. I literally hate she's just like yeah k about Trevor cheating fjhgdkjgh (hide spoiler)] I wish this book hadn't normalised cheating. 

Plot wise, the world building wasn't enough and the plot had too many holes. You're telling me these kids disappear for days and no one notices? (view spoiler)[ the fact they take down a massive, wealthy and ancient corporation from a forest in like 1 day is ridiculous (hide spoiler)]

If felt like this book definitely needed more editing, like it felt like so many plot holes and plot conveniences and poor representation just sort of ..... slipped by? The charactrs were so okay with eachother being really shitty and thats annoying af. Because it should have been explored. 

I also think it would have benefitted from a dual POV because I basically know nothing about Dylan lmao. I also hate that there was a queerbaiting plot point URGHGHGJHK. Like, I think it should have been more clear about Dylan's internalized homophobia if that is what it was getting at. I felt like Dylan and Caden had the same dynamic as Philip and Lukas except without the finesse of eyewitness' discussions on internalised homophobia. 

basically me reading this

  


URGH. JUST. WE COULD OF HAD IT ALL !!!!
I don't think this was terrible, I really don't. I just think it's upsetting could have been soo much better and all that potential was wasted. 

It is a debut, maybe we are all being too harsh. I think hype totally got ahead of this one and made everyone so expectant of something beautiful and amazing. Hype is a genuine killer. 

I wish this was a series, because I think giving it another book or two would have been really allowed the author to flesh out his themes, characters and world and to slow down and stop rushing so much plot into one tiny book. 

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Raven Walker

I really wanted to be able to rate this book at least 3 stars. Even though it was incredibly disappointing, it wasn't entirely awful. However, the dialogue, and the writing in general, (but especially the dialogue), was so cringey that I found it almost impossible to enjoy this book. Also, I didn't particularly care for any of the characters.

Annie Saez

3.5 stars. God, in the beginning I was absolutely loving it, the LIC thing sounded interesting and the dynamic the protagonist went through was kinda fun, dunno how to explain it. It wasn't revealing or anything but it was fun.
The second half of the book just didn't do it for me. What can I say. Too much holes, didn't buy the relationship between the characters. But I liked it, it was a fun read and I finished it in less than a day.

jess

The Love Interest is not a book that takes itself too seriously, which I like. The hype around it might have disappointed some people, but I went into it knowing that, so altogether I was quite pleased with this book. It pokes fun at YA book stereotypes and writing - at best I would say it's a clever satire of the YA genre and its tropes as a whole. Generally, I did like the characters, except Dylan in That One Moment. The romance could have been a lot less rushed - (view spoiler)[it's like we get Dylan telling Caden he isn't gay, there's nothing in between that proves him wrong, and then at the end of the book, they're waking up in bed together (hide spoiler)]. The writing ... could have done with a lot less description of hot boys, but it was a bit silly and fit into the satirical aspect, so altogether I'm okay with it.

Emi Gilmore 

3.75/5 stars 
  "Like, wouldn't it be better to send us in when we're a bit older? No one finds the love of their life while they're a teenager.“

“You haven't read any YA novels recently, have you?" 

  
He's something you probably don't know about me. I love low budget movies. Anything with far-fetched plots, bad acting, and poorly done CGI is the closest thing I have ever gotten to drugs. I love low budget movies so much, that when I watch those box office superhero movies that everyone and their imaginary friend has seen, I get so disappointed. Good acting? Reasonable plot? Explosions that look realistic? What the frick are you suppose to make fun of? 

This book was the YA equivalent to a low budget movie. Within the first few pages, I realized this and changed all my expectations. This wasn't going to be a James Bond film. Instead, it was gonna be that one spy movie starring Hailee Steinfeld and the girl from  Game of Thrones . 

Within ten pages, I stopped reading for a well-written YA book, but instead started reading for something I can make fun of. Which was a great shift of attitude, as I ended up loving this book so much. 

So in this book you have Caden. Who has been raised by a spy agency to be the nice, boy next door. And Dylan who was raised to be the brooding bad boy. Why were they raised that way? Why did that have to be the nice boy versus bad boy? I have no clue but I don't even care. I don't question low budget movies. 

Well these two boys are sent to small town nowhere to make this incredibly brilliant girl named Juliet fall in love with one of them. And honestly, the only time Juliet is every brilliant is when it enhances the plot. But again, I don't care. Whoever she doesn't fall in love with gets killed, which seems like a waste of time and money to that spy agency but again idc. Whoever she does fall in love with will spend the rest of their lives spying and manipulating her. But hen plot twist! Caden and Dylan fall in love with each other and Juliet won't find her Romeo. 

 I am also now convinced that Jay-Z and Kanye West are Love Interests and you can't convince me otherwise. Other notable love interests: my boyfriend Kaz. 

Honestly this book can easily be mistaken for swiss cheese. Not only is it cheesy af, but there's so many plot holes.

Also all the characters are super flat and under-developed, but again. I don't even care. 

That's just my philosophy for this entire book. I don't care. Whatever.

allie

Tiffany Robinson

I didn't love this book as much as I thought I was going to. It still had a pretty interesting premise and it was a fast read.

ghost girl in satin

** spoiler alert **
           J'étais très curieuse de découvrir ce roman parce qu'il mêle deux choses que j'adore : le trop enemies-to-lovers et une romance "impossible" entre deux garçons... car les conséquences pourraient s'avérer mortelles. Au final, j'ai bien aimé ce roman, même si la fin m'a un peu déçue. Les trois premiers quarts du livre sont très bien menés. On découvre des personnages différents, aux caractères plus ou moins développés, et on croise les doigts pour que Caden remporte l'attention de sa cible tout en serrant les dents parce que ça voudrait dire que sa romance avec Dyl est over. Et la vie de Dyl aussi, en fait. J'ai bien aimé cette ambivalence émotionnelle que l'auteur nous transmet. On ne sait pas trop sur quel pied danser, et c'est pour ça qu'on continue d'avancer dans l'histoire en redoutant le pire. J'ai apprécié toutes les remarques philosophiques sur l'amour, le fait qu'on ne peut pas contrôler ses sentiments ni ceux d'autres personnes et qu'il naît parfois au moment où l'on s'y attend le moins. Par contre la fin m'a un peu déçue, dans le sens où l'une des réactions du personnage de Dyl, bien que compréhensible, m'a fait tiquer sévère au point que l'affection que je nourrissais pour son personnage s'est muée en colère. Et la mort de l'un des personnages m'a fait bondir au plafond. Je reconnais qu'elle était utile pour faire avancer l'histoire, mais je n'ai pas trouvé le "après" très développé. Les méchants sont assez caricaturaux, également, même si l'une des réflexions de la Tête Pensante était assez bien pensée, dans le sens où il ne s'excusait pas de ce qu'il avait fait parce qu'il considérait que c'était seulement son job, et qu'il n'était pas responsable des désastres que ses actions pouvaient causer. Il est bien connu que de grands criminels, notamment nazis, ont pensé de cette façon, et le fait de noter cette réflexion permet au lecteur de s'interroger sur l'éthique et la morale. 
Bref, ce fut une bonne lecture et je suis très contente d'avoir pu découvrir ce livre dont j'avais entendu beaucoup de bien, même si j'aurais apprécié un peu plus de détails sur la fin.

Jelke Lenaerts

I have been wanting a twist on the typical love triangle like this for a really long time. So when this book came out I was super excited. However, it took me really long to read because every review I had seen weren't great. I still felt a pull towards this book recently and I'm so glad I decided to pick it up. I had such a great time reading this book. It's definetly not perfect and I did have some issues with it but I was so pulled into the story and I loved the characters. I think this book played with the typical book tropes in a really interesting way. Just this whole concept allows for so many interesting insights into these tropes. Like said before I really liked the characters in this. Our main character was a lot of fun to follow but I also just really loved all the side characters. The cast was just so much fun. I also really liked the plot. I was really engaged while reading. There were also some plot twists in here that I just didn't see coming. I really liked the romance. I mean, there was a small part in it that I wish was not there but it's really minor. These characters did have a lot of chemistry together and I really shipped them. Anyway, I would have liked a bit more information on the love interest program thingy because I think the whole concept is super interesting. So yeah, I would really recommend this book.

Sophie Elaina 

The beginning starts off really strong, I love the concept and pacing of the story. The last quarter however felt extremely rushed and overall was very underwhelming to read. At 270 pages in I thought this was going to be a solid four star read for me, but things got really bad after that. The ending was predictable and cheesy, and I’m going to pretend that part didn’t happen. I have very mixed feelings because I really enjoyed the build up of the story, and it was a compelling read most of the time. But the big reveal that wasn’t a really big reveal, and the typical ending kind of ruined it for me.

Ariel Himboi

The Love Interest is a book that I saw on one of my favorite GoodReads "LGBT" list. I read the premise and was interested in reading it but I was a little worried about the less than stellar ratings. I often passed this book on the YA shelf of my Barnes and Noble. 

When I first started reading this book it was definitely more of a 2.5 stars. I really liked our main character, "Caden", a young boy who is trying to get out of the LIC, a place where kids are taken in and determined t be a Bad or Nice. If they are chosen, the Bad and Nice are meant to make the person in interest fall in love with them so they can gain and sell important information. Caden was raised to be a Nice and has perfected it to the point that he is chosen. However, like all YA novels, he will be the hero in this story.

The writing style wasnt spectacular and I wasn't too keen on the cliches involved. However, I found that there were large chunks of plot line that kept me reading. 

Overall it was unfortunate that I still found the characters 2-D. Even though we are in the head space and life of Caden, I still felt a lack of personality and it all seemed too "fine". If there's one character I loved, despite the issues with the writing, I was so happy to see strong female characters for once!

Juliet is a scientist gadget maker whose torn between choosing the Bad and Nice in this story, and I only wished they could've told a little more of her story. But I do understand that the main focus was on Caden.

I loved that Juliet wasn't all too worried about the romance and that sometimes her work was far more important and it felt like fresh air, not dealing with a cookie cutter female love interest whose there to bat her eyelashes and flaunt her body as something she wasn't.

This book definitely would have gotten a better rating if it were longer and more in depth as a adult novel, and if it were a series perhaps but it was cut short by plot points and characters that were lacking a certain "umph" factor. In reality they weren't that interesting to me and I found myself unsure whether or not some would just be killed off, and I probably wouldn't have cared as much. 

However, this book is definitely a good enough read and I ended up liking a lot of elements towards the end, ESPECIALLY the action. 

There is one more thing I didn't like. Towards the end and certainly in the middle you're made to believe that the Bad, Dyl, is using Caden's romantic feelings to win the race. While it is true, there comes a point in which Dyl completely shuts Caden down and says, "No I'm straight" until suddenly in the last few pages, Juliet days "No he likes you".

The relationship seems totally forced. We never really got the perspective from Dyl or anyone else so we arent aware of Dyl's feelings or actual intentions, and it seems kind of thrown together for a perfect ending. As someone who is LGBT it's a little baffling that it was grazed upon lightly and I never get the feeling that Caden is Gay, as he is labeled, and not the affirmation of when he had some romantic feelings towards Juliet in the book. Maybe I'm mistaken but I didn't think the representation was all too good.

I understand what the author was going for but it was definitely misplaced and all over the place. 

Overall it was a good book and I managed to finish it with a smile on my face! I suggest this read to someone whose looking to finish a book in a day with slight romance elements and action, but not someone looking for deep themes.

Kate Robinson 

Mackenzie Hackel

Rebecca Raven

kelsey

A thrilling YA debut about teen spies disguised as "love interests"—whoever gets the girl lives; but the one she rejects, dies. There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets. Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad? Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die. What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both. From debut author Cale Dietrich comes a fast-paced adventure that is full of both action and romance and subverts common tropes. Praise for The Love Interest: "This sci-fi young adult novel is the answer to all of our cliché love triangle woes. . . . If you’re looking for something funny, action-packed, and romantic this summer, then this is your next read." —PBS Newshour "There’s a Hunger Games vibe here to be sure—a deadly teen-on-teen competition—and this is packed with similar questions of morality. High stakes, well-developed characters, and an LGBTQ slant on the classic spy story make it all the more intriguing. Stock up—this one has something for everyone." —Booklist, starred review "In this subversive take on the quintessential YA love triangle, two guys—the clean-cut boy next door and the brooding bad boy—compete for a girl’s affections. . . . Dietrich’s debut is impressive, provocative, and a clever take on well-worn romantic tropes. . . . while the thriller elements add tension and numerous surprises." —Publishers Weekly "Caden is a spy. . . . His competition is Dylan, a dark-souled Bad who’s the dreamiest boy Caden’s ever seen. . . . Caden doesn’t intend to lose—but no one prepared him for the way Dyl makes him feel. . . . fans of spy fiction and LGBTQ titles will find the novel worth reading." —School Library Journal

abbie j

Nina

Emelie

There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets. Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad? Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die. What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both. The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich is a gay YA thriller that is non-stop action from start to finish.

The Love Interest

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