Sam wants a boyfriend. But having exhausted all known possibilities (specifically his ex-boyfriend and now best friend, Landon), he feels like he’s out of options. Maybe, he muses, he should give up on love entirely and focus on his creative writing instead.
When his other best friend Meg, a practicing Wiccan, suggests a love spell, a skeptical Sam decides to give it a try. He composes a “Perfect Ten” list of the top 10 characteristics he wants in a beau and burns the list at midnight in a spooky cemetery ceremony.
Enter a parade of prospects, including a sexy French exchange student, a quiet and intense painter, a just slightly dangerous lead guitarist . . . and Landon, who wants another chance. Could any—or all—of these suitors be Sam’s Perfect Ten? Or is the whole idea of a Perfect Ten list the wrong way to think about finding the right guy in the first place?
Rather than being an angst-ridden story about coming out, Perfect Ten is a romantic comedy that happens to be about boys dating boys. Don’t think too much about where the line falls between realism and campy wish-fulfillment here: Like its literary godparent Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, the point of L. Philips’ lighthearted story isn’t to reflect reality so much as to enhance it. A fun, sweet and sexy summer read for anyone who’s ever sought (and maybe even found) that special person, perfect or not.
