Q: What is your last 5 star read?
__
The Charm Offensive
Alison Cochrun
#arcreview
Pub date: 9/7/21
__
charm of·fen·sive
/ˈCHärm ˈôˌfensiv/
noun
a campaign of flattery and friendliness designed to achieve the support or agreement of others.

Dev Deshpande is a producer on Ever After,  a reality show that helps the Prince find his Princess/Bride out of many contestants. He has loved The happily ever after since he was a boy. He wants to help everyone find their true love.

Charlie Winshaw is trying to makeover his reputation after a public falling out at his tech startup that caused him to get voted out. He has become a liability so his PR BFF thought this would be the perfect idea to get him on Ever After. Even though he has limited social skills, is a germaphobe and doesn’t like to be touched, he’s gorgeous with a hot body. Lol TV is all about the looks.

Dev has his work cut out for him as his handler as he tries to get Charlie comfortable by taking him on test dates. Charlie is more comfortable with Dev than he is with any of the contestants and he is learning a lot about himself.

The slowburn romance was so clumsy and real and authentic and slam you to the wall hot. I just loved all their little moments that added up to their love story.  OMG I loved it! I just melt all over these books!

This book takes a look behind the curtain of reality shows. As Dev realizes that the point of the show may not be love and may just be drama and he just had his rose colored glasses on.

It also talks about mental health and the stigma behind it. There is nothing wrong with needing help. There’s something wrong with forcing neurotypical on people. I think it makes conditions worse and spiral when there is no down time and they are forced to mask continuously. Just because you don’t feel these things doesn’t mean they aren’t real. We are all made perfectly and are all made differently.

I will say it again: I would watch a LGBTQ bachelor. Like there are so many different series branches c’mon!

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thank you atria books and net galley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

Synopsis:

Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.

Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.

As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

In this witty and heartwarming romantic comedy—reminiscent of Red, White & Royal Blue and One to Watch—an awkward tech wunderkind on a reality dating show goes off-script when sparks fly with his producer.