Book Review: "Love, Hate and Clickbait"
Liz Bowery's debut gay romance novel is a run riff on the enemies-to-lovers trope, with lots of spice and even more heart.
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Y’all know that I’m a sucker for a good gay romance, and so any time I get the chance to read one I truly devour it. This certainly happened with Love, Hate and Clickbait, the debut novel from Liz Bowery, which immediately caught my attention and kept me hooked. In fact, I finished this book in almost record time, managing to make it from beginning to end in just a couple of days. Even for a romance, and even for a faster reader like, that’s quite an accomplishment! In other words, it’s everything I could have wanted, with lots of banter and sarcasm, some hot gay sex, and some genuinely touching emotional beats.
When the book begins Thom is a suave but callous political operative working for the Governor of California who, in turn, has aspirations to run for president. At the same time, he also has to contend with his ungainly and abrasive co-worker, data analyst Clay. When his boss makes a gaffe involving the gays–and when a reporter captures an altercation between the two of them that’s misinterpreted as a lovers’ embrace–they’re forced to pretend to be dating in order to give the campaign queer cred. As their “fake” relationship gets ever more intense, however, it soon becomes clear that there’s more to their dynamic than at first meets the eye. The jaundiced and cynical Thom finds himself falling for Clay, and Clay has to reckon with his own deepening feelings for his erstwhile enemy.
As this description makes clear, this is very much an enemies-to-lovers romance (with some fake dating thrown in), and so it hits all of the expected beats. The two do seem to genuinely despise one another at the beginning, though Thom’s displeasure is the greater, since he resents Clay for his political ineptitude. Clay’s feelings for Thom are a bit more mixed, and it’s clear that, however much he might dismiss him in public, the truth is that he feels a spark of desire.
Thom is, I think, the more interesting character, precisely because he’s the one who has to grow and change the most as he contends with the fact that his feelings for Clay go from a charade to something far deeper and more troubling. It’s worth noting that the book literally begins with him breaking up with his girlfriend at her sister’s wedding because she doesn’t want him to leave to attend a work thing. This is clearly a man who puts his career above all other things in his life, even though they haven’t really brought him much happiness. Indeed, time and again we see the extent to which Thom has created the persona that he thinks he needs to succeed in the world, while ignoring everything which might make him a truly happy person. Clay is the catalyst for his true change, and it’s truly a delight to see the change that comes over him as a result of his relationship.
For his part, Clay also has some growing to do, and he goes from being a gangly and off-putting dork to a gangly and adorable one. Like Thom, he doesn’t really seem to have any hang-ups regarding his sexuality though, unlike his lover, he is (I think) gay from the jump. However, he still has to contend with the many complexities and aggravations that come from falling in love with a man like Thom, but he proves to be more than up to the task of penetrating that glossy shell, even though he knows that it’s going to take a toll on his heart to do so.
You might not guess it from the cover–which, like so many other recent rom-com covers, features two cartoonish men standing on opposite sides–there’s some very frank depictions of gay sex here. For me, this was a definite win, because I’m always happy when a book dispenses with the stigma that all too often still attaches itself to gay sexuality, and believe me when I say that it doesn’t pull its punches in this regard. If you’re looking for a M/M romance with some steamy and very erotic sex scenes, then Love, Hate and Clickbait is definitely for you. I know that I was fanning myself while reading it!
This isn’t to say that there aren’t deep emotional moments here, because there are, quite a few of them, actually. Clay might be a bit of a dick sometimes, but he’s a sensitive soul, and he is much more honest with himself about his feelings toward Thom than the other way around. Indeed, while the stakes may not always feel as high for him-since, unlike Thom, he’s already sensitive to begin with–it’s still clear that falling in love with someone like Thom is nevertheless a tall order and exacts its own price.
Thankfully, everything turns out okay in the end. Even callow assholes like Thom get their happy endings, and even self-righteous dunces like Clay have room to grow.
I don’t have hard evidence, but I get the distinct impression that this book began as a piece of slash fiction for Veep, as Thom is a dead ringer for the sexy but soulless Dan and Clay bears more than a passing resemblance to the lumbering and exasperating Johah. This isn’t at all a mark against the book; in fact, it gave me a good way of visualizing what these characters looked like and how they acted. Likewise, It was quite easy to imagine Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the role of their domineering and callow boss.
I know that some might avoid this book due to its rather dismal score on Goodreads, but I would definitely encourage you to check it out. It hits all of the right notes for a book like this one, and by the end I really did find myself cheering on these two deeply flawed people. I don’t know about anyone else, but I personally like it when my romance characters aren’t perfect people. Hell, I like it when they’re downright assholes, because it gives them room to change.
Love, Hate and Clickbait more than lived up to its promise.