Cathy Yardley

I. Loved. This. Book. It’s a geeky, queer, slowburn of a story with older main characters who are confident in who they are yet still learning things about themselves, and I was rooting for both of them from the start! The whole vibe of two people who feel so different yet click with one another so quickly based on friendship first is such a special experience, and Yardley writes it so well! Everything about this book just worked for me. 10/10, and a new-to-me-author I’m going to read more by.… (more)

Synopsis: Maggie starts playing an online game with a guild led by Aiden. She and Aiden start a friendship. She assumes he is the age of her son and he assumes she is the age of his mother. Then they meet and realize she is 48 and he is 50. This deepens their friendship and slowly that friendship turns into love.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I love the idea of a couple meeting because they both play the same video game and I equally love when characters get to know each other and fall in love without it just being all the lusty feelings.

Maggie and Aiden were complex characters who both grow as people over the course of the novel. Both have issues and trauma to work through and I appreciated their growth. I love how Maggie is a no nonsense person who doesn't put up with others treating her or the people she cares about badly.

I loved the representation in this book. I won't go into detail because of spoilers (though I also wish it was in the synopsis so people looking for this sort of representation can find it).

I have two main issues with this book. The first is that it is incredibly slow. The romance is a SLOW burn and it totally makes sense why it has to be but at the same time I felt like the pacing in the initial book was also very slow. I struggled to pick it up initially but once we got more into the story I couldn't put it down. Aiden and Maggie take a long time to get together and we really don't spend much time with them once they are a couple. They decide they like each other, have some spice, have a bit of family drama, then we get an epilogue.

My other issue is that almost all the side characters are awful. Aiden's mother is the worst. Deb, who is sort of Maggie's friend and the woman Aiden's mother keeps foisting on him, has no sense of boundaries. Deb's sister's whole personality is someone who likes to start drama. Aiden's bestie is a crude dude who acts like a teen boy. Aiden's brother doesn't have a backbone. Maggie's son barely gets any page time and most of that doesn't show him in a great light. Maggie and Aiden are the only decent characters in the book who we spend any time with and I felt that let down the story because the side characters almost became caricatures.

I also felt that the video gaming played less of a role in the story than I wanted it to.

Overall, I thought this was a good read and I enjoyed my time with it but I would absolutely warn readers coming into it that it is very slow.… (more)