Boyfriend Material

This came highly recommended to me as a readalike for [b:Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566742512l/41150487.SY75.jpg 61657690]. And I kind of think...that what happened here was that this publisher was like “we need a readalike for RWRB, let's rush this to publish!!” Because this book had way more typos and sentences with missing key words than I'm used to seeing in professionally published fiction. And it's not like that will totally ruin the experience for me, but it was like, every few pages.Anyway, I also feel like this book couldn't decide if it was supposed to be realistic or a satire? Like all of Luc's posh coworker seem like absolute cardboard slapstick people, to the point where it was hard to process any of Luc's interactions with them. Like: is Luc's POV exaggerating this for effect? Are these people joking? Are these people legitimately suffering from some sort of brain injury? WTF?I require very little buy-in to get on board for a fake dating scenario; this one seemed a little thin but like, sure, I'm here for it. And Luc and Oliver were both more developed characters than the side characters. (Obviously that's almost always the case but here it was so jarring to have these other characters who were SO unrealistic nothing cardboard people).ESPECIALLY since it came so highly compared to Red White and Royal Blue but it really does suffer in comparison IMO since RWRB did have such fun and compelling side characters and just felt like...more in touch with the world. Oh also, again not a huge deal per se but this book did have weirdly dated pop culture references like Season 1 of Drag Race and early episodes of Welcome to Night Vale? Like was this something Alexis Hall had been trying to publish since like 2012 and then all of a sudden RWRB became a hit and Sourcebooks was like “MUST PUBLISH THIS IMMEDIATELY no time to spellcheck or update the pop culture references!!!!!!!!”IDK IDK IDK whatever it's fine, it's fun, I just didn't like it nearly as much as Red White and Royal Blue and I wish I had not been led to expect that I would.