Book Review: "10 Things That Never Happened" is a Mixed Bag of a Queer Rom-Com

The new novel from Alexis Hall starts out with a promising premise but struggles with the lack of chemistry between its leads.

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As regular readers of this newsletter no doubt well know, I love a good gay romantic comedy, whether on the page or on the screen, and there are few writers working today who have been as adept in the genre as Alexis Hall. I remember swooning and falling in love with his book Boyfriend Material, even though I was less enamored of Husband Material which, I wrote a few weeks ago, was a very good illustration of the dangers of pursuing happily ever after. 

I recently finished 10 Things That Never Happened, which takes place in the same universe as both Boyfriend Material (it’s part of an extended universe dubbed London Calling, which I have to admit is kind of cute). You don’t have to have read those other books to really get this one, though it is rather fun to imagine the sorts of crossovers that might emerge in the future. While I enjoyed this new outing and found it a quick and pleasurable read, it suffered from some of the same problems that afflicted Husband Material. 

When the novel begins Sam Becker is working as the manager of a home goods store in Sheffield. Though he loves his job well enough, he’s not especially good at it, and so he’s summoned to London to meet with his boss, Jonathan Forest. When he falls and gets a concussion, Jonathan blames himself and believes Sam has amnesia, which leads to all sorts of hijinks as the latter tries to find a way of saving both his job and that of his colleagues, even as he finds himself falling for Jonathan and becoming a part of his sprawling and very idiosyncratic family.

Now, on the one hand I appreciate that the novel devotes so much time to Sam’s mixing with Jonathan’s family. They are the perfect mix of lovable oddballs and kooks and decent people, and the fact that the story takes place during the Christmas season gives us plenty of time to see how easily Sam fits in with them and how much they love him. Indeed, some of my favorite parts of the book were the ones focusing on the family.

However, the downside of all of this is that we get far less time with Jonathan by himself. As a result, we get to know a lot about Jonathan’s relationship with his family–and, very near the end, more about Sam’s bond with his family–but we don’t always see how they relate to each other. I’m not sure how any others may share this opinion, but for me it took far too long for the real romance plot to kick in, and by the time it did I was starting to just wish the book was finished. 

More importantly, the chemistry just wasn’t there between the leads. There are glimmers of it every now and again, but every time I think that we’re going to get some real connecting time for Sam and Jonathan, something or someone steps in to interrupt the whole thing. This is in marked contrast to, say, Boyfriend Material, which gives us plenty of time to fall in love with the idea of its leads as a couple. If anything, there’s more of an emotional bond between Sam and his employees and Sam and Jonathan’s family than there is between Sam and Jonathan. I don’t think I need to tell you that that is not a good thing when this is the couple that we’re supposed to be cheering for throughout the novel. 

It doesn’t help that Sam is a bit of a dunce sometimes, particularly when it comes to the people that he employs. Yes, I get that he’s supposed to be sympathetic and to care more about people than metrics, but Hall sometimes paints his characters in such broad strokes, and makes them so insufferable, that I frankly don’t blame Jonathan for taking Sam to task for not discipling them properly. At the same time, there’s no question that Jonathan is himself a giant dick, as literally all of his employees can attest. While there are some moments where we get to see a softer and more sensitive side of him, the fact that we don’t get to spend much time with them being intimate with one another makes Jonathan appear more insufferable than he might have otherwise. 

This isn’t to say that there weren’t many things about the books that I genuinely liked. I thought that the amnesia plot was absolutely absurd, of course, but that’s precisely what makes it work. It’s just plausible enough that you, the reader, believes it, even as you’re incredulous that an otherwise quite sensible person like Jonthan would ever fall for such a ploy. And the intimate moments, both physical and otherwise, do work when they appear, and the final moment when the two lovebirds finally reconnect is affecting and swoony, even if it doesn’t land with quite as much effect as it should.

And, as with any work by Alexis Hall, the book is populated by fascinating secondary characters, many of whom often threaten to steal the show from our leads. Some are irritating–one of Sam’s employees is truly infuriating to read about—but for the most part they’re the kind of characters that you would want to meet in real life. Hall is also quite skilled at capturing the humorous quip or jibe, and there were a number of times when I literally laughed out loud while reading.

Overall, I’d say that 10 Things That Never Happened is a mixed bag. There’s a truly fun and exciting romantic comedy buried somewhere in this book as is, but it too often gets lost in the other bits and bobs that Hall throws into the mix. I had a good time while I was reading this book, but I sadly don’t think that it’s going to be one of those great queer rom-coms that stays with me past the final page.

Oh well. Better luck next time!