I Think They Love You by Julian Winters Published by St. Martin's Publishing Group on January 28, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Romance / African American & Black, Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ / Gay, Fiction / Romance / Romantic Comedy
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781250326256When Denzel “Denz” Carter’s workaholic father and CEO of 24 Carter Gold unexpectedly announces his retirement, the competition is on for who will become his successor. To convince his family members that he’s capable of commitment, Denz impulsively lies about being in a serious relationship.
Now Denz needs to find a fake boyfriend to seal the deal on the CEO position. Denz is forced to turn to the last person he wants to be in a pretend (or any) relationship with: Braylon, the man who broke his heart.
Braylon’s sudden reappearance in Denz’s life turns everything upside down. But, apparently, he needs Denz’s connections to the mayor to win his own promotion. So, they strike a deal. It’s all business until the funny texts and the confusing kisses leave Denz struggling to separate this temporary arrangement from the affairs of his heart. I Think They Love You is a celebration of love, queer communities, big families—in all their beautiful complications— healing, and, most importantly, falling in love with the person you’re becoming.
I have never felt the need to go and yell at a fictional family more than I have in this novel! Every time I finish a novel, I go and look at the reviews to see what others say about it (really how different are their thoughts from mine and did we even read the same book). So many people kept bringing up how unprepared and disorganized Denz is throughout the novel, along with the amount of mistakes he made, and I’m not saying they are wrong. But can we also acknowledge and remember that he’s only 24/25 and how well did any of us have it together at that age?! Cause I know I did not!! Plus, who’s really at fault here for how Denz handles everything. I’m not saying that Denz shouldn’t take responsibility for his mistakes (he definitely should, he’s an adult and that’s part of growing up) but maybe instead of letting his son enter to become CEO his father should’ve sat Denz down and talked with him.
Yes, at the end of the novel, they do have that talk in the coffee shop. However, it’s all beating around the bush and never actually saying what really needs to be said: “Denz you are enough, and my love for you is not contingent on if you perform at a certain level in your work.” Hell, I would’ve accepted this from anyone in Denz’s family. Yes, Braylon says it to him many times, but it really needed to come from one of his aunties or even better his father.
On the subject of some of Denz’s mistakes, the one about the mayor’s husband’s dietary restrictions being missed by Denz and fixed by his sister, Kami. Ummm, isn’t that how a business is done? Humans are not machines who can circumvent every mistake. Do I agree that Denz dropped the ball in missing that email cause of the other distractions in his life? Yes, of course he did! But it wasn’t noticed by the client, everything turned out great for the event, so who the fuck cares who covered the mistake.
Of course, I don’t think Denz should be CEO. Not only because of his age and inexperience, but for the fact that he didn’t really want it. I was really glad the novel went with Denz quitting the job at his family’s company and becoming a social media coordinator for other companies, including Skye’s the Limit.
The romance was fun and cute. I mean I kept getting distracted by wanting to yell at Denz’s family to truly care about his relationship. Plus, I thought Braylon’s reason for leaving could’ve been discussed more. At minimum, the novel could have done better as a dual-POV to see both sides of the relationship in the past and now. Having only Denz’s side made me less sympathetic towards Braylon. It also seems really weird that the family correlates Denz’s dating life to him not caring about his work. I just don’t see how showing your family your in a committed relationship proves you’re responsible. I get that it was a ploy to do the fake dating, obviously, but it was weak. Personally, doing well at your job shows your responsible enough to take over, which funny enough it was the fact that Denz was distracted by his relationship with Bray that made him make more mistakes (on both fronts).
Anyways, if you need me, I’ll be researching how to jump into a book to yell at some people!
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