On the surface this book is a bit of a cliché. High strung, hyper organized, former Debutant from a well off family moves to cross country on a romantic gesture whim in hoes of wooing a long time crush. She expected to have him as a roommate… but when she lands, her crush proceeds to instead tell her that he’s leaving because his band has an opportunity. And he’s also subleased his room to a completely random guy on Craigslist. To further complicate things, he’s also a male ‘pornstar‘.

I had very low expectations for this book because most people I am friends with or follow on Goodreads seem to not dig this one. It was actually just a coincidental spur of the moment situation where the audiobook was available while I’m waiting for other holds. And I was pleasantly surprised!

Is it Literary? No. But it’s also a pretty refreshing take because it’s not enemies to lovers, insta-love (despite what other reviewers are labelling it), and it’s not the typical bad boy trope either. It’s great at sex positivity, attempting to broaden people’s knowledge of the porn industry and porn itself, to some degree. Most importantly though, for me, it readily demonstrates the difference between sexual attraction and romance. Without judgement and without sounding like an after school special.

The relationship itself feels no more contrived than any other contemporary romance. I liked that each had raised hackles around vulnerabilities that were very believable. It’s a lot more smutty than I expected, especially by what the cover suggests, and I think it has little to offer in terms of pure genre tropes that the marketing material telegraphs either. So, I can see why some people would put it down. I guess it’s lucky that I knew nothing about it going in except for the cover.

It definitely surpassed my expectations and I think underestimate how great it is for a male pleasure professional, or whatever terms you like, to be humanized yet flawed. I like that it flips the script on the gaze and I liked the opportunities it took to go into how workers are exploited and how toxic porn can be—but doesn’t have to be. The B plots were great and fit each character well. I liked how the relationship formed, the sexual dynamics, and how matter-of-fact it is with all the content.

All in all, it subverted my expectations pretty cleverly and feels like it actually had some substantive things to say. And when it didn’t, it had some pretty smutty, steamy chemistry happening. A lot of people clutch their pearls with this title and I can see why, but that’s also what makes it effective, imo.