I read The Borrow a Boyfriend Club and here are my thoughts

 

So today I’m talking about The Borrow a Boyfriend Club by Page Powars which, honestly, was just one of those books that popped up in one of those things that was just suggesting books I might like based off of the other things I’d read, so I read the blurb and was like, “You know what? Yeah”.

The blurb says that all Noah wants at his new school is for everyone to see him and his true gender. His plan? Join a club with the word “boy” in it? Duh. Enter the Borrow a Boyfriend Club – a top secret club that provides fake boyfriends to their fellow students. But to join, Noah must pass three rounds of tests, the trickiest of which is fake-romancing the popular but prickly club president, Asher, to convince him he has what it takes to become a member. But as Noah gets closer to Asher, things start to get complicated. Because the club’s number one rule? Don’t fall in love.

So, in the first chapter, Noah is walking into school and sees this sign that’s been put up that says “fa la la la fuck this school” as he heads in to go to the administrative office because he’s wanting to join a club so that people can see him for the boy he is. He sees one called the Ferrari and Football Club, which conceptually and in name alone, is wild. When I read that, it immediately gave me good old boys club vibes. A guy walks into the office, and Noah notices his Prada shoes who says the president is pretty cool after Noah says they sound like a prick. Noah then ends up going to this Ferrari and Football Club and finds out that it’s actually the Borrow a Boyfriend Club and Mr Prada Shoes, Asher, is the president.

You see the reason that Noah transferred schools was because people at his old school conveniently would slip up in using the incorrect pronouns and by calling him the wrong name. And it got to the point where he started shutting down, so going to the new school was a new start for him. And sort of in this vein, you see that even though Noah’s parents are there in the physical sense, in that they’re happy to go along with the things Noah needs to do in his transition, they still call him N – a nickname they used before his transition they kept using as it still applied to Noah. It’s the case of even if they think they’re being supportive, by doing something like that, they were still hurting Noah, whether they realised it or not. The vibe I got from them was that they thought they were being supportive, so they treated Noah the same, not realising that could be an issue in of itself, since while Noah is the same person, like he’s still himself, he’s also not the same person he was before the start of his transition.

The whole borrow a boyfriend club, which is also conceptually wild, gave me very much rich people who have too much time on their hands vibes. Or like something that you would only find in an area where there are a lot of rich people. But after the interview that Noah has for the club, which he flops, he ends up overhearing that the club is heading for bankruptcy – wild considering how rich everyone is – so he offers to help the group win this talent show that has a $5000 prize. And on top of this he also has to pass three tests to get into the club, one of which is to romance Asher. When I read that, I immediately though did that mean Asher had every other member of the club romance him to get in? But sadly, you find out that Asher is a hard-ass and that since he became president no one has become a member. Anyway, in the quest of romancing Asher, he got Asher’s home address, trespassed, and then broke his window, just to ask him out – which is absolutely feral behaviour when you think about it. This did come after one of the club members, Lenny (who I quite liked), told Noah that he needed to be bold to get Asher’s attention, which ended up quite conveniently being kind of what Noah needs to be, or he thinks he needs to do, since what he wants to do for himself is to be bold and get people to see him for the man he is.

Asher came across as very cold towards Noah the whole time that he’s (Noah) is trying to join the club. My immediate thought was that this is the obvious trope that Asher is clearly into Noah, so was being a hard-ass because of that. And the fact that one of the club rules was literally don’t fall in love, it was very much skewing that way. At the same time, Asher was doing these big things against the school, like the “fa la la la fuck this school” sign, the whole time, which you do find out why he’s doing. So, while he comes across as cold, any time that he and Noah ended up alone together, like when they get trapped mid-escape room, those are the moments that Asher lets himself calm down a bit. I will say, you could definitely tell he was that kind of character that was doing that to keep something up about himself, you know, to keep up appearances whether he wanted to or not.

Noah has this whole thing where, since he is a trans man, his mindset is that he needs to be a typical masculine man, otherwise people will never see him as a man. You see him struggle with the fact (in the beginning at least) that maybe he shouldn’t dance or teach the borrow a boyfriend club members to dance, since boys don’t typically dance. I realise what I’m now about to say is going to sound so dumb, but I think I liked Noah the most out of all the characters. And it’s dumb since he is the main character. But his whole journey was that with his transmasc identity, he thought he had to be some kind of specific vision of a man, and then he was going on the journey to learn what a man really is – or at least what it is to him.

Also, because I’m a sucker for a romantic trope, there was definitely part of me that was sat there thinking (dangerous, I know) while I was reading that this would have been a good book for the trope where the two leads date, but they have to hide it for a reason. I was tempted to say forbidden romance, which it could be, but I’m not sure. Since the club had the rule of not falling in love, as well as having the members not being allowed to date – as it would ruin some of their rep – I felt that could have been an opportunity for Noah and Asher to get together in a different way to the one that they did. They could have gotten together like mid-way through the book and then have had to hide their relationship the whole time, only for it to blow up near the end just for the club to have to reconsider its rules – especially since one of the members and one of the admin gals were all but in a relationship throughout the actual book, there could have been layers to it.

I definitely found myself forgetting who some of the members of the club were. But I think that was simply down to the fact that only like two or three of them actually had any major weight to the story. There were a couple of times where Noah would talk to one of the members and I’d be so brain dead that I’d forgotten who was who. I remembered Lenny. He was one of the ones that was more pertinent and present in the story, and (I’m writing this bit a little after I read the book, so names elude me) there was another, like I just mentioned, who was all but in a relationship with one of the admin girls, I remembered who he was. But the others kind of became a mish-mash, and part of me thinks that was to do with, especially in the beginning, when the members were referred to by their types, rather than name. I realise that was done on purpose, and it made sense, but I’m dumb, and it just meant that I ended up forgetting who was who in parts.

Anyway, I really liked this book and would highly recommend it. That’s all I’ve got for a closer – you’re welcome.

Okay, bye!