Boyfriend Material

The middle stretch runs long enough that some readers say the book could lose fifty to a hundred pages without losing anything, and one describes the back half as “like watching a movie without audio,” admitting “I felt like I was crawling through the second half.” The premise's central trope stops carrying weight once both leads admit real feelings, since “the 'fake' dating was never actually fake” for most of the book, and the late conflict that finally shows up reads “contrived and drawn out” rather than earned. Oliver's family material mostly surfaces in the last few chapters instead of building throughout, and one reviewer flags a supporting character, coded on the autism spectrum, as a stereotype the book never questions.