ARC Review: The Charm Offensive | Alison Cochrun

The Charm Offensive | Alison Cochrun

Page count: 368

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication date: September 7, 2021

Genres: Adult, contemporary, romance, rom-com

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.”

Thank you to Atria Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Charm Offensive was a very difficult book to rate! It started off extremely strong, but by the end I just lost interest. To be fair, it’s probably a “it’s me, not you” kind of situation because I have a lot going on right now, but I just couldn’t rate it any higher.

Dev and Charlie were so real. They’re complex characters with many facets and traits, and they feel more heartbreakingly authentic than almost any other book I’ve read. Their relationship is just as genuine as the characters themselves. If I was rating this book on the characters and their relationship alone, it would be a five-star!

The portrayal of mental health in The Charm Offensive was stunningly done. Charlie has OCD, panic disorder, and anxiety, while Dev has depression. That felt extremely realistic too, and it was well-executed. It made the romance take a bit of a back seat, so just be prepared for that going into the book.

All in all, this should have been a perfect book. It just wasn’t working for me for some reason, but I hope you enjoy it!