The Love Interest / Helen Comerford / Book Review

THE LOVE INTEREST

Jenna Ray is prepared for the end of the world. She would have to be. There's an apocalyptic prophecy foretelling doom for her seaside town, after all. Everybody's prepared for something bad to happen this year. There's even a souvenir shop where Jenna works selling apocalyptic merch to tourists before it's too late.

What Jenna isn't prepared for is being saved from that deadly electrical storm by the world's newest hero, Blaze. Not just being saved. Being his very first rescue, which in the eyes of the public means only one thing: Jenna Ray is his brand new Love Interest.

Jenna doesn't want anything to do with Blaze or the HPA, the organization in charge of heroics across an environmentally unstable planet. She doesn't want anything to do with the Villains who keep threatening her life, either. But with paparazzi swarming and something more cataclysmic than an electrical storm brewing on the horizon, Jenna might not have a choice but to enter this world of heroes and good deeds gone wrong.

THOUGHTS

I absolutely adored this book. Superhero stories aren't really my thing, but this book absolutely captivated me. Jenna's narrative voice is perfect, so engaging, and the plot is so incredibly fun. This is a great read, a wonderful escape into a harrowing world of environmental collapse and newly arisen Heroes and Villains.

PROS

Great Narrator	This book is so voicey, and I loved it. I was sucked in at once to Jenna's narrative. And she's a great character, too, especially in such a masculine-dominated genre. Jenna knows what she wants (and what she doesn't want), and she won't let anybody else tell her who she is supposed to be or what she is supposed to do. She isn't one to politely decline. She stands firm in her convictions and expresses herself, even when that expression might be a bit, well, rude (though only rude for a girl like Jenna, you know?). Jenna is wonderful.
Great Concept	In a market saturated by patriotic American superheroes, it is nice to have a heroic story centered somewhere else--here, the UK. It's a fun shake-up to all those NYC-set superhero stories. And the idea of these heroes emerging as the world grows more environmentally unstable--as the "EV" mutates humans and animals alike--is also very fun. It's a climate change apocalypse full of superheroes and their supervillains, with a side of environmental catastrophe and mutated monsters as well. And I love that.
Great Formatting	Not enough authors experiment with how a book will look on the page. And I get it. We read so many books that look the same way once we move out of actual children's literature that it is easy to forget that we can, you know, do something a little different. This book plays with font sizes, with word alignment, and with overall style in a way that emphasizes rising emotion and rising tension. And I really love that.

CONS

Jenna has to be in this alone, for plot reasons. And I get that. But boy if her family didn't get on my nerves! They're too stuck in their ways to even entertain anything she has to say, and that's just irritating. Because it isn't like Jenna asked for this to happen to her, and the least they could do is be a sounding board (even if they ultimately come to the same conclusion). If a book where communication issues cause more problems than not isn't your thing, this one might not be for you.	Unreasonable
Overall, I think Helen Comerford really nails her characters here, with one major (and ironic) exception. Blaze doesn't quite stand on his own two feet. He's wishy-washy in a way that doesn't feel intentional. His characterization is all over the place, and it didn't feel consistent. It didn't feel like there was a strong central character behind these conflicting decisions and actions, and that is unfortunate.	Inconsistent
I read an early version, so this issue will hopefully be resolved before the book goes to print. But the conversion here from a UK style guide to a US style guide felt lazy. And by that, I mean the use of "ctrl-f" and "replace all" was very obvious. UK publications generally use single quotation marks for dialogue where US uses double quotation marks, and there were times that an apostrophe was changed to a double quotation in this copy. Similarly, it is more common in the UK to say someone "came round" to something, where the US prefers to say that someone "came around." But every instance of "round" in this book was changed to "around," even when "round" was acting as, you know, an adjective. Whoever did the formatting for this new publication market did it the easy way, without checking for singular instances. I do hope this will be corrected before the book goes to print, but since it was published first in the UK (and fully edited there, obviously), I do have some concern that the US publisher won't think to do a real edit before sending it out. Which might mean that first editions of this book are littered with conversion errors.	Bad Conversion

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
9/10

Those who enjoyed Infinity Son by Adam Silvera will like this new twist on heroes and monsters. Those who love Marissa Meyer's Renegades will like this new world of superhero justice.

Details Publisher: Bloomsbury YA Date: November 12, 2024 Series: The Love Interest Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.