The Boyfriend Candidate

" ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/4"

"Finished November 21st. I really enjoyed this one! "

"One night stand turned into fake relationship. Trying to help a man running for governor save face. "

"I was really liking this book in the beginning but towards the middle-end I friggin hated it. First it got so overly dramatic that it wasn't sweet it was just annoying. And on top of that the miscommunication going on was ****** me off. It was really unnecessary and dragged out for a long time. Second the fmc was likeable enough in the first part of the book but as the book went on she started getting irritating. Like she was really selfish in the fact that at least 3 times she did something that could jeopardize his campaign and the was like "sorry I wasn't thinking it was a mistake" and the mmc just forgave her immediately. It was painful to get through the last few chapters which was annoying cuz I really liked it in the beginning. Honestly couldn't care less about the end tho."

"3.5/5⭐️"

"A sweet, funny, spicy, grumpy sunshine slow burn rom com. Character are charming and lovable, with great banter. Has some spicy moments."

"I picked this one up on a whim at the library and I am so glad I did. Easily one of my new favorites. I laughed and cried. Such a feel good story about two people finding their way in the world. "

"This is such a great book. Well written fmc and mmc. Laughter out loud and recommend to anyone who will listen!"

"<strong>If you like politics in romance</strong><br/><br/>I really enjoyed this book.. So good.. Logan was such a great make character from the beginning. I really like the story was recommend it"

"2.5/5<br/><br/>I feel so awful for saying this but…Logan Arthur had to carry this book on his gorgeous, gubernatorial shoulders. <br/><br/>I tried so hard to really enjoy reading from Alexis’ point of view, and to love her as a character, but I just couldn’t click with her. And it’s wild because she’s my ideal main character: introverted librarian that’s deeply insecure about being uninteresting and overthinks to the point of self-sabotage. I mean, that’s literally me, sitting here right now, writing this review. <br/><br/>Maybe it’s a case of hating what you reflect. But I didn’t hate her, I just didn’t have any strong positive feelings towards her. She’s kind of whatever. I could take her or leave her. And I hate that. I want to love the MC, especially in a romance where I’m meant to be rooting for them to fall in love and live happily ever after. I’m supposed to want to keep reading after the story ends. But I’m not interested in ever reading from Alexis Stone’s perspective again because unfortunately, she is exactly what she feared at the beginning of the book - boring. <br/><br/>I thought about measuring the success of character by whether or not you’d be willing to read about them in another book or in another setting. For me, Logan Arthur makes that cut. I would absolutely read from Logan’s POV in another book, or just about him in another romance (with a different love interest, sorry, Alexis!). This couple has a big 80/20 personality problem, and I’ll let you guess who’s who. <br/><br/>But honestly, it’s not like Logan was such an amazing character. Or that he was written exceptionally well. It’s just that he was single-handedly the most interesting thing happening in the book. Which sucks! I want to be equally invested in both main characters, or at least 60/40. And I want to care about the side characters too. Ultimately, I didn’t find anyone all that lovable aside from Logan.<br/><br/>It’s so weird, because I can pinpoint what specifically made me so disinterested or indifferent towards these characters, Alexis specifically. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’s passionate about teachers and libraries and children and writing - all things I can relate to and fully get behind. But clearly all of those things do not a personality make. I didn’t find her annoying, necessarily, because I didn’t find her to be much of anything. She frustrated me, sure, but that happens in every book. You need dramatic irony in a story to keep it interesting, and characters are going to make mistakes and choices that you wouldn’t.<br/><br/>There’s just something missing in this book. Like a void. I read 80% of this quite passively and I didn’t always feel invested in the plot. I think Alexis avoided talking about how she felt about Logan so much that I started to think she really wasn’t all that into him after all. It’s her internal monologue, we should see that struggle between fake dating and real feelings more often. She would mention the way Logan acted towards her but dismiss it so quickly as being for the public that I never felt like she was passionate about him or the romantic gestures. <br/><br/>And then it seemed like Logan was really pining after her which made me feel bad for him. And by the time Alexis caught up and started admitting more feelings towards Logan (internally), it was almost too late and the romance just felt rushed.<br/><br/>I also hated the way Ashley Winstead handled the passage of time in this book. She would skip over huge amounts of time or big events with a few sentences and it could be really jarring at times. You’re telling me nothing of note happened in the three days that Alexis had to navigate with Will and Logan during the bachelorette weekend? My skin was actually crawling from secondhand embarrassment during that whole scene though, so I didn’t any more of that. Just an example!<br/><br/>It just seemed like whenever she (meaning Ashley) didn’t want to write a scene or didn’t know how to write a scene she just skipped over it. I don’t necessarily want pages and pages of Alexis putting together a rally, but it would be nice to have something between “Let’s do a rally.” and BOOM! the rally’s been fully planned, everyone’s there, and Alexis is moments away from giving a prepared speech.<br/><br/>If the romance had been better, or if Alexis had been a more compelling character, I probably wouldn’t have cared very much. But all the little things I didn’t like about this book stood out more and more as time went on. The chemistry between Alexis and Logan was never fully there, and that’s the biggest crime you could commit in this genre. If I’m not rooting for them wholeheartedly, what’s the point? This book made me miss my [insert IP here] AO3 romances with so much heart and humor and hurt/comfort I’m sobbing on the floor at 3am.<br/><br/>P.S. I should not have read this right after Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams. They share so many similarities and yet PMP is far, far superior. It just made all of The Boyfriend Candidate’s flaws stand out so much more. But if I could get Logan Arthur in a Sarah Adams story, I’d be Hannah Montana.<br/><br/>P.S.S. Ungoverned Advocates is a clunky name and I kind of hate it, but I’m glad they have their little found family working together!"