LOVE, HATE & CLICKBAIT, fake dating in the political sphere with added gayness

LOVE, HATE & CLICKBAIT
LIZ BOWERY
MIRA Books
$15.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Shake some hands. Kiss some coworkers.

Cutthroat political consultant Thom Morgan is thriving, working on the governor of California’s presidential campaign. If only he didn’t have to deal with Clay Parker, the infuriatingly smug data analyst who gets under Thom’s skin like it’s his job. In the midst of one of their heated and very public arguments, a journalist snaps a photo, but the image makes it look like they’re kissing. As if that weren’t already worst-nightmare territory, the photo goes viral—and in a bid to secure the liberal vote, the governor asks them to lean into it. Hard.

Thom knows all about damage control—he practically invented it. Ever the professional, he’ll grin and bear this challenge as he does all others. But as the loyal staffers push the boundaries of “giving the people what they want,” the animosity between them blooms into something deeper and far more dangerous: desire. Soon their fake relationship is hurtling toward something very real, which could derail the campaign and cost them both their jobs…and their hearts.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Sarcastic psychopath meets delusional dork (probably on the dyspraxic spectrum), picks on him mercilessly until they fall in love after becoming a cute internet meme that helps their tin-eared sociopathic boss in her presidential campaign. Except hijinks ensue and the boys get together. Oh...the psychopathic one? He starts out using/abusing women, this is his first sexual anything with a man. So there's that, too.

It's mean-spirited a lot of the time, which I honestly count in its favor. Author Bowery obviously knows real people like this, she's way too good at both guys' pathologies not to. And the campaign staffers are just *perfect* in their utter and complete soulless indifference to things like others' feelings. It isn't like I have to spend time with them in real life so I can enjoy the terribleness of their callous uncaring ways.

Clay, the delusional dork on the dyspraxic spectrum, is the butt of many jokes and always has been, as we're made aware. I'm not advocating the treatment Clay receives as a come-on or a stay-away quality. I think a lot of socially awkward people would cringe in recognition but I don't know exactly if it would be cathartic or traumatic. It's that much of a toss-up in my mind whether the author's also laughing or making the laughing clods look even worse by not shoving her own reaction at us readers. I actually give points for that. You are left to make up your own mind. I approve of this.

Thom the psychopath, though, isn't played for ambiguity. He has this complex of symptoms, acts out, and is held up as an awful person...until he isn't. Because he's falling ever so slowly in love with a certain tall, dark, and dorky dude. Who seems to be leaning in to their fake wedding (don't ask, just go with it) and the way Thom can make his archenemies freeze to the floor with some truly sick, volcanically hot burns.

Mostly, the beginning of the story is there to set the stakes in romantic fiction. There are enough stakes to go around as these two unappealing people peel off their mannerisms to get to the man inside the ever-baggier suits of fakery. There's a guitar-and-waffles moment when it's all coming together, and they're really connecting over the ordinary stuff of life. Of course Something Happens, and their little moment is lost. I got honestly invested at that point.

The leisurely path to the real relationship is, to my surprise, through the bedroom. There's no little authorial squickiness, either, just two eager, horny men. Sex between men who won't, can't, or don't identify as gay is (as I trust y'all who've been here more than once to know) no news whatever. Been goin' on forever. But these two, in this situation? It's hard for me to figure out why Author Bowery didn't pull the veil over the events but instead she chose the direct path. Did herself proud, too. Her characters don't shy away from the physical responses that real people have, like Thom having a moment's ickiness over the aftermath of sex. It was handled right. It didn't interrupt the story's flow but channeled it closer than ever to the goal of getting these guys past their initial misconceptions about themselves, and therefore each other.

Every step of the way, as Thom felt himself feel for someone else what he's never felt for himself, he fell a little lower in my estimation. He kept being horrible! Truly terrible! And, well...that fall from a height that pride goeth (and pride goeth) before? Pride wenteth. Thom and his belovèd Clay each lost illusions. Clay gained so much self-respect and honest power from losing them! Thom, sad little naked waif huddled in the rain, won much more when he finally realized that standing up means laying down the weapons that defended your badly designed walls.

It's a romance! There's HEA in the social contract of reading them! The wonderful part of *this* HEA is getting there. How it looks? Who knows if this could happen or not...but I'm willing to say it should happen.