The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich
Published by Feiwel & Friends on May 16th 2017Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 384
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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 who is dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose the 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.
I received this book from the in exchange for an honest review.
Review:
Caden, the Nice boy, is at odds with Dylan, the bad boy, in a game of life or death. The girl can only choose one. And the other has to die? So who will it be? And what happens when Caden and Dylan don’t play by the rules anymore?
Refreshing. I really enjoyed The Love Interest. I thought I was getting into a typical YA love triangle thriller but it’s much more than that. Caden is constantly having questions about his identity, which I found to be very genuine and realistic. I like how he second guessed himself and obsessed again and again, not only about Juliet and Dylan, but also about his own motivations and desires. I also really liked Dylan who proved he had a softer side, a romantic side, and up to the end, I wasn’t quite sure how Dylan was playing me. Or if he was at all.
The premise is a little far fetched. A company cultivates Nice and Bad boys based on their personalities to become perfect mates for promising young adult in society. There, once mated, they will be privy to all sorts of secrets and front knowledge, which the Love Interest will then report back to the company. It’s not a bad idea, though it does already set the unfortunate tone that a lot of the characters we meet will fall into one of these two categories, paper thin and flimsy. But that was not the case. Dylan and Caden became more than that and I have to say that the weakest character was actually Juliet, the main target for both boys.
The plots moves fast and the game of cat and mouse is always there, creepy and quite and suddenly, BAM. It’s sprung. I liked nearly all of it except the ending where I thought it was pretty unbelievable (sorry Juliet, I don’t think you’re quite that smart) but overall, if you can suspend your disbelief, The Love Interest is above all FUN. Fun fun fun. it’s fast and quick and romantic and refreshing, a YA novel that makes you think deeper questions about your identity and somehow makes the crazy company that is threatening to destroy you seem far in the background.
I’ve already recommended it to some friends who want to read something clever and engrossing.
Kimberly majored in Songwriting and currently works full time in the music industry. When she's not listening to music, knitting or writing, you can find her outside reading her favorite genres: Young Adult, Adult Fiction, Mystery, and Romance.