** spoiler alert ** 
 3.5 stars. 
 I have some... mixed feelings about this one. Mostly because it fell a little short of my expectations. Now, don't get me wrong, this was entertaining as hell at times and I read it in about 4 hours--which kept me up until after midnight to finish it. So keep that in mind. 
 Let's start with the good: 
 The Love Interest does a superb job of lampshading the classic YA romance tropes. The way the world is constructed around this and the way it causes some of the scenes to play out is, at time, magnificent. There were times where one or both boys were involved in some ploy for Juliet's attention and I went, "Hang on... I've read this scene somewhere before." And then could go through the other YA books I've read to pinpoint the similarities. It was glorious. 
 The book also offers a really interesting look into the concepts of the masculine ideal and heternormativity. At the beginning especially, but even as the book progresses there's this pervasive idea of the boys being "hunks of meat"--Caden mentions it more than once. And how it twists his self concept and how he feels about himself as a person, or rather, as something less than a person. Also, the whole idea that comes up at the end with gay people needing LIs too, so why didn't Caden just make his orientation known? But that wasn't possible because he didn't really understand it himself--straight until proven otherwise was so ingrained that it almost didn't occur to him. That was a really powerful message, I thought. 
 And holy smokes, there were some plot points and scenes with Caden and Dyl that made me wonder if Dietrich had ripped them straight out of my head because they were exactly what I wanted. 
 Unfortunately, now we come to the disappointing: 
 Despite all the great themes and potential here, I felt that it wasn't developed as much as it could've been. Toxic masculinity, sexual orientation, consumerism... we were on the cusp of something, but never quite followed through to it's maximum potential. 
 That and despite all the great romance trope lampshading, the back third of the book sort of tripped and fell into a pile of unrealistic dystopian tropes and couldn't really navigate through them. Like, I understand the need to have your group of plucky teens take down the big bad corporation for the sake of LOVE but to do it in like two days book time and less than a hundred pages? Really? 
 I felt like some of this could've been solved in a longer book. Or maybe a series. As much as I gripe about series and do enjoy a good standalone, I think parts of this book suffered due to the relatively short length. Like the exploration of Dyl's real feelings, for one. 
 And I really would've liked it if Juliet wasn't so one-dimensional. I've seen people complain that all the characters were like that, but I totally get the purpose of Caden and Dyl feeling like that. But Juliet? Sort of gets railroaded by the plot and shoved aside, despite the fact that she's supposed to be the most important person here. And again, I get the twist here, since Caden's really our protagonist, but I wish she'd had more depth all the same. And I feel like there was a real missed opportunity to make better use of Natalie as well. Explore some other angles of the LIC from her perspective. 
 Lastly, unfortunately, is some of the writing. First of all, this book is not going to age well. The pop culture references are all there for a purpose, certainly, but even already some of it was kind of cringeworthy. It's just not going to age well. It also doesn't feel super rereadable. Which is kind of a shame. And also, some of the dialogue felt really weird and awkward. I get the point of that during the scripted side of the conversations... but even beyond that, some conversations didn't have a natural rhythm to them, didn't flow. 
 So final word: I liked this. I liked what it was trying to do, but it fell short of the mark in some big ways. Still, it was entertaining and easy to read. Give it a try if you want to see some YA fiction tropes turned on their head, but maybe get it from the library.