The Book:
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
Published September 7, 2021 by Atria Books
Date read: September 9, 2021
The Characters:
Dev
Charlie
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
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.
The Review:
The Charm Offensive takes the show The Bachelor and twists the storyline so that instead of falling in love with one of the many women he’s dating, the lead falls in love with his male producer instead. I love books that provide a behind-the-scenes look at “reality” shows, so I knew this one would be right up my alley.
I absolutely adored both of these main characters. Dev and Charlie were the sweetest couple, and although neither of them are perfect, they have an uncommon ability to provide each other peace. I’m usually not into insta-love, but I thought it was so well done in this case. The characters really seemed to have a true emotional connection, and it worked well for me. I couldn’t wait to see how Dev and Charlie’s romance would play out in terms of the TV show.
I loved how bluntly this book addresses mental health. It’s actually pretty much the main focus of the book, and sometimes even the romance takes a back seat to the mental health storyline. One main character suffers from clinical depression, and the other suffers from severe anxiety. There was also an abundance of representation of different genders, races, identities, and invisible illnesses in all of the side characters.
If The Bachelor is your guilty pleasure but you want to imagine a more interesting and adorable plot, The Charm Offensive is for you!
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