Review: The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich

The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich
Series: n/a

Genre: YA Contemporary, LGBT+

Publication: May 16th 2017 by Feiwel & Friends
Length: 384 pages

Format: ARC from publisher (Thank you!)

Goodreads

There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets.

Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad?

Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.

What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.

THE LOVE INTEREST surely caught my attention—the premise was interesting, I loved the m/m relationship, and the twists on classic YA tropes. This novel revolves around Caden, a Nice, and Dyl, a Bad, as they fight for Juliet in a heated love triangle.

I really enjoyed reading from Caden’s perspective; this novel is written in only his point of view so we as readers don’t get much information as to how the other part of the love triangle was going (Juliet and Dylan). My favorite part of the novel, hands down, was the relationship between Caden and Dylan—I loved reading about their nights together driving around and the tangible tension and how developed their relationship was. (As a note of the representation, Caden is gay, and Dylan is gay or bisexual, and I thought it was really good rep!)

My only nit-picky things were that the ending felt a bit rushed. After Juliet, Caden, and Dyl all go to the LIC, the action scenes just felt too fast and rushed. I would have loved more information about the inside of the organization and more closure for a lot of the characters (including Trevor, Natalie, and Juliet). I would have loved more information about the brutality and the messed-up-ness of the organization; that being said, if this book was made into two books, I think that would have worked to add more information about the organization as well as to spread out the last quarter of the book a bit more.

Overall, if you enjoy contemporaries infused with sci-fi and a twist on the classic love triangle/bad boy/boy next door trope as well as LGBTQ representation, be sure to check out THE LOVE INTEREST!

Thank you to Feiwel & Friends for providing me with an early copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own and I was not compensated for this review. 

Are you planning to read THE LOVE INTEREST? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!