DNF @ 51%

The good: this story has a realistic portrayal of what life is like for many women, especially women of color, in the game development industry, even down to the ways the women themselves are almost always blamed for the harassment they receive.

The bad: I didn't enjoy the writing itself, Melody's character, the total lack of chemistry between Mel and Nolan, or Melody's parents being raging assholes for comedic effort (like when she calls them out on being rude to Liftr/Uber drivers, one of her parents says to the other one something about "that Black person driver" and literally NOTHING is said about it — like it's a joke???).

Also, please correct me if I missed something or just didn't read far enough into the story to get to this point, but... is Melody a gamer at all? Her motivation for getting into the industry felt like she was less interested in gaming and more interested in being able to say she did it. I never really understood why she wanted the job and it never felt like she had any passion whatsoever for what she was doing. I don't remember a single mention in the first half of the story to her actually liking video games. I went into this book expecting a gamer as an MC, but didn't feel like I got that at all.

All of this combined had me wanting to stop reading anyways, but then it reached a point where I realized I just wasn't even remotely enjoying the story enough to justify how miserable the harassment plot line was making me. It's all 100% valid and very true to life, so don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the way it was written — I just didn't want to read it.

As a woman who's been in the gaming community, especially online, basically my entire life, the kind of shit Melody was hearing (aside from the racist elements, which I'm very aware I can't relate to but make her experience much more terrible than any experience I've had) was stuff women who game have been hearing as long as I can remember and it wasn't something I wanted to read about in my fiction, too. It was just bringing back WAY too many traumatic memories and I finally realized it was better for my mental health if I just put the book down.

I felt like this message was one I could have enjoyed more if I wasn't a gamer myself. I also couldn't help but be bothered that (again, in the first half — please correct me if this changed in the second half) we literally only see ONE dude in the entire company who isn't a raging piece of shit, and much like our MC, there is NO mention at all of him being a gamer (he only works there because it's his uncle's company), which I feel like paints some sort of idea that the gaming community has no safe spaces at all for women and that the entire thing is a lost cause. Loving a community is holding it accountable, yes, but it also needs to allow a little room for celebrating its successes, and I didn't see that happening anywhere here.

I didn't mean for this review to be so long or frustrated. I guess I'm just so immensely disappointed in this book and I had such high hopes that I can't help but vent. I think plenty of other people will love this romance for what it is, but it wasn't for me.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!