Book Boyfriend – book review

Book Boyfriend
by Kris Ripper
Release Date: April 26, 2022
Publisher: Carina Adores
Standalone
Number of Pages:  294
Contemporary Romance
Ages 13 and up
CW: drug overdose & addiction secondary character
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There are three things you need to know about Preston “PK” Kingsley:
1) He’s a writer, toiling in obscurity as an editorial assistant at a New York City publishing house.
2) He is not a cliché. No, really.
3) He’s been secretly in love with his best friend, Art, since they once drunkenly kissed in college.

When Art moves in with PK following a bad breakup, PK hopes this will be the moment when Art finally sees him as more than a friend. But Art seems to laugh off the very idea of them in a relationship, so PK returns to his writing roots—in fiction, he can say all the things he can’t say out loud.

In his book, PK can be the perfect boyfriend.

Before long, it seems like the whole world has a crush on the fictionalized version of him, including Art, who has no idea that the hot new book everyone’s talking about is PK’s story. But when his brilliant plan to win Art over backfires, PK might lose not just his fantasy book boyfriend, but his best friend. 

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This book was a slow starter for me. While I love the main characters, PK and Art are very rarely shown on the page together for a big chunk of this story. They are living together and do things together, but the reader is told these things, not shown them. So it’s very hard to get a feel for their chemistry and figure out if there is an actual connection there or if PK is just romanticizing his best friend.

PK makes some bad decisions in terms of keeping things to himself throughout this story. He not only puts himself in the position of lying to Art multiple times, but he also robs himself of being able to share some major life accomplishments with anyone let alone the person he loves. Of course, it all comes back to bite him eventually. That doesn’t happen until well over halfway through the book, and that’s when the reader is finally shown how much these two mean to each other instead of just being told.

There was a lot growing up PK needed to do, and I appreciate the journey he took. He is very scattered and immature still. He’s still super loveable as his heart is absolutely always in the right place. His insecurities hold him back and make things all the more discombobulated in his world. He creates his own chaos by trying to hide away from the hard stuff.

It’s really too bad this couple doesn’t spend more time on page together. In my mind, it would have gone from an okay book to an amazing love story.

3 stars