I went into The Boyfriend Sessions with fairly low expectations. The premise sounded familiar, the cover promised rom-com vibes, and I assumed I’d get something light, quick, and forgettable. What surprised me was how grounded the characters felt and how thoughtfully the story explored relationship patterns without tipping into melodrama.

The Cover

The Boyfriend Sessions by Belinda Williams also features a cover design by the author. The cover successfully conveys the genre, setting, and cute rom-com vibes. Three fonts are too many for a single cover like this, and it is a bit of a miss in coherence. The palette is on-genre if low in contrast. The balance and rhythm of the design are not dialed in. The visual buzz around the characters makes it clear that these figures were cut from another source and are not well blended with the background. Overall, the cover has a good concept, but the execution could be improved.

Interior

The ebook formatting for The Boyfriend Sessions was simple and easy to read. There were no glaring formatting errors. Flashbacks were clearly delineated with an italicized text. A cute airplane icon marks story breaks within chapters.

Did the design affect whether I bought the book?

I can’t honestly remember buying the Kindle version of The Boyfriend Sessions. It has been in my library for some time.

When I began The Boyfriend Sessions, I expected flat, generic characters, but what I found was a fairly realistic group of friends who were different enough from one another to bring about perspective, yet had realistic reasons for knowing each other. I liked that there was a degree of nuance in the character building and that the FMC, Christa, was on a personal growth journey (that was semi-forced on her by her friends). The character-driven story allowed for a noticeable character arc. This made it easy to invest in the outcome and to get “the feels” along the way.

Williams’ writing was easy and fun to read. The FMC and MMC have some fun, flirty banter that isn’t over the top and flows really well with the people that they are described to be.

Basically, The Boyfriend Sessions outlines many different ways that relationships can go wrong. This may have some triggering effects for some readers. The point being that by confronting and dealing with past trauma, you can learn to accept and love yourself, and potentially open your heart to new relationships.

The Boyfriend Sessions did have a couple of issues that stood out to me. One was a silly continuity error that most people probably wouldn’t notice or care about, but being a close reader, I picked up on it. Early in the book, we learn that Christa and Cate share an apartment and that Cate pays 60% of the rent because she has the primary bedroom with the ensuite bathroom, and that Christa allows her use her car, which is parked in the single designated space for the unit. Toward the end of the book, Christa points out that she hadn’t seen Cate in a few days because she (Christa) had mostly been in her room, which had the ensuite (so she hadn’t come out). Silly thing to get hung up on. It absolutely did not impact the story in any way. These things just snag my brain.

The other item is that at the beginning, Christa embarked on extended travel, like months spent abroad, on a fairly low-level graphic designer salary. This is unlikely, but I’ll suspend my disbelief for the plot.

The group tends to eat a lot of Thai food when they are together. This might have been intentional, but it seemed weird to keep calling out that they were ordering Thai.

I liked The Boyfriend Sessions more than I thought I would. The characters were endearing. It made me wish that I had a group of friends like these ladies.

Rom-com lovers, give it a go with The Boyfriend Sessions. This one is fun, but also heartfelt. Some spice.

Rom-com readers, weigh in: do you prefer light and fluffy, or do you want a little emotional growth with your banter?

May your life be as full as your bookshelf and as long as your TBR list.

Happy Reading!