This was a great story. I enjoyed this. Great group of characters. Great storyline. Would recommend.

This was a great book with a good storyline. I was surprised that I enjoyed it, but it had some interesting character development that I didn't see coming. I would definitely recommend people checking it out.

As a nerd, married to a games designer who works at Riot Games, I just couldn't really get into this. It was hard to suspend disbelief.

Loved this gaming romance. It was good to read something different with strong likeable characters.

If you're a fan of video games, Comic-Con and any con this is for you.

Morgan goes in place of her best friend's brother and goes to Comic Con. Her friends for the last couple of years have set her up on blind dates to get her back in the dating scene. But Morgan isn't looking to be in a relationship and definitely doesn't expect to fall for a gamer guy. Morgan's insecurities from the way her dad treated his work more than her reflected in her relationship with Dex.

He is the top gamer on a Championship winning team. Dex isn't prepared to want to keep signing the sign of a beautiful girl who's visiting ComicCon and going out his way to get her number. Their relationship was adorable, but undeniably a somewhat balance of give and take.

Final Thoughts:
Something terrible happened that I don't know shocked me, because nothing (like, nada) lead up to it or because it was so conveniently tied up. Other than that, I was satisfied with the overall book and would love to see a book about Simon and Gia.

DNF at 23%

So this is a first, recently the only books I'm not hating are NA/YA, particularly at the younger end of the scale - but this one is the exception.

Morgan is dragged by her 'friends' to Comic-Con. I use inverted commas because these are the sort of friends who call you bad names, drag you into bad situations and never have your back. Morgan is totally full of herself.
I don't ever admit this out loud, but I have a really nice pair of breasts. I know that sounds vain, but it's the truth. There is nothing worse that not being able to fill out that killer halter top you're dying to buy.
I mean really? NOTHING worse? Her friend also makes ridiculous sweeping generalisations which made me want to slap her and tell her she was an immature child (if that's not an oxymoron)
"Yeah. Basically, I can tell if a guy is worth the time in thirty seconds or less. It's all about eye contact. If a guy can't keep up the eye contact for at least ten seconds, he's weak. If he can, then I'm intrigued."
I hated Morgan's 'voice', I hated the constant "I"," I"," I", I know that "spaz" isn't an offensive term in the US, but it is in the UK and I found its use to be unpleasant. Overall, I tried to read this book three times and couldn't get into it. Even the insta-lurve when Morgan meets the worlds greatest gamer felt fake.

Maybe I'm too old for this but I just couldn't feel any liking for self-obsessed Morgan and the stilted self-absorbed first person POV.

3.5stars
Level me up is a sweet love story between a Gameboy and a normal girl. Morgan is instantly drawn to Dex when she visits Comic-con and for her luck, she sees him once again and is invited on a date. When she finds out that they live in the same city their romance begins. So Dex is a great guy, smart, nice, and productive. He is ok guy. Morgan, on the other hand, is weak, full of insecurities and fear that she will be left alone, so she drives Dex completely away with no good reason just her fear. And after two months of crying, she wants him back. She was frustrating and annoying. She had a guy who loved her, fought for her and she turned him down. Thank god that she came to her senses toward the end of the book.
I volunteered to review an ARC of this book for Netgelly

Ok, so here's the thing. I have a kinda love/hate thing going on with this book. I give the love parts a 5, the hate parts a 1, and average that out at a 3.

LOVES
the nerd/geek references
vintage video game night
light, fun, easy to read

HATE
characters were immature. They're supposedly college age yet are getting excited at the thought of holding hands?
I don't think there was a single conversation that didn't revolve around dating and relationships.

I WOULD HAVE LIKED
Morgan to have life outside of Dex. Show us her being awesome at work. Visiting her mums grave. Attempting to visit her Dad. It was almost as if she didn't exist except as part of Morgan/Dex. Dex got to have a life, why didn't she?

But here's the thing. For all the things that made me rage, I was utterly addicted. This book is like popcorn. Logically you know you shouldn't eat the whole bucket full. But you do anyway because it's just so tasty and awesome.

So by all means check this one out. Just don't expect anything deep or life changing.

I loved that the romance started at Comic Con and gave a great description of what it feels like to go there. Dex is a professional video gamer and meets Morgan at a signing at Comic Con. A few chance meetings later they both discover they live in the same city and it goes from there. While I realize this is NA I really wanted Morgan to grow up a little more. Dex was there being an amazing boyfriend and trying to make her happy, Morgan just needed to grow up a little. Ahh his family was adorable.

LOVED all the references to modern pop culture and some past pop culture. I hope Helms writes another story about the rest of the members of Dex gaming team.

Would love to read something by this author again! The story was well thought out and the characters were very likable!

I received a complimentary copy via NetGalley.

<i>A gamer boy+ a reader girl+embarassingly hilarious dialogues</i>= the lightness I needed to start my summer holidays!

The plot isn't very intrincate, the characters are adorkable and love is in the air. What else do I need to write to convince you to give it a chance?

I was excited for the chance to read Level Me Up because I wanted to read a gamer-themed romance! It sounded like a fun twist on the genre.

This romance between them is pretty sweet, and fans of the genre will probably enjoy the buildup and cuteness of it. Morgan has a great group of girlfriends, too, and I actually kind of want to read their stories.

I wasn't a fan of Morgan herself, though. She has a sad past, of course. After her mother died, her father lost himself in work and she feels like she lost both of her parents. Once she falls in love with Dex, she becomes needy and codependent and it is not cute. She loses it when he doesn't respond to her texts immediately when he's on the road, and she spends days curled up in bed crying. She's supposed to be in her early or mid 20s, but she read much younger.

Morgan is also a bit of a passive character, led around a lot by other people. All her friends and fans just kind of fell into her life--both of her best girlfriends just knew they needed to be her friend. 

There is a dual POV, and sometimes it's handled well! Sometimes Dex's chapters just repeated what had happened in Morgan's, so there wasn't much added to the story. 

Despite all that, I really did love the group of friends, and would give the next book in the series a chance.

If you are a nerd, read this book. If you are dating or married to a nerd, read this book. If you have a friend who is a nerd, read this book. If you have even been in love very young and it scared the crap out of you, read this book. The debut book by Lauren Helms is full of humor and romance and being a nerd who has been to a Con or two in my time, I found every joke, scene, and character not only spot-on but also entertaining to read. I really enjoyed Helms' writing style and look forward to reading more books by her hopefully in the near future.

Level Me Up caught my interest because it included gaming and references to TV shows and games that my husband and I both enjoy.

As a whole I enjoyed the story. I liked that it focused on a world very different than most YA and New Adult novels out there. I think the author did a great job integrating the gaming into the book. There was enough information for non-gamers to understand, but it didn't feel like too much info either.

At times, though, the word choice didn't flow very well or there would be an odd turn of phrase. When that happened I felt more like I was reading about teenagers than 20-something adults as the story is told in first person narrative.

I liked Dex and his gaming teammates a lot. It was great to see how supportive they were of each other, and it was awesome that their team had a female member.

My least favorite part of this book was unfortunately the main character Morgan. I understand that she has been let down in her life by those close to her before. However, she often came across as immature which was frustrating.

Overall, I would recommend this book and hope there are more books about the other team members!

Did not finish. I read about 17%. The book was too juvenile for me. The way protagonist is portrayed reminded me of my 14 year old daughter.

Level Me Up was SO good! I loved every minute of it. The banter between the characters was so good, and the chemistry between Morgan and Dec was amazing! I highly recommend!

I really liked this book.

This story just didn't quite work for me, the main characters came across as very immature, if they had been teenagers I think I could have understood their reactions to situations but they were supposed to be in their early 20s post university. The writing itself was fine, I just couldn't relate to the characters.

On the whole, I enjoyed reading this book but I wasn't sure for a long time whether it would be four or three stars. Despite the story being well-plotted and interesting, it was easy to put the book away for some time due to the moderate tempo of the book and the hero's lengthy inner dialogues at the beginning of the book.

It all seems to happen rather slowly and even though I liked the hero and the heroine a lot, I didn't really get emotionally involved that much. Considering the fact that our heroine and our hero, as in Morgan and Dex, have some really hard times to pass and things in the book get rather emotional more than once that is unusual for me.
Apart from that though, I liked the story and the characters, I loved to see Morgan have her "I carried a watermelon-moment" when she met Dex for the first time and I loved the interaction between the characters. Due to the interesting characters whom I would love to have as friends as well, as they are a really great lot. It's nice to see them care for each other and kick each other when some "inspiration" is needed.
Morgan's emotional baggage is not easy to digest when worst comes to worst but they are understandable when you know her story and I love to see her friends help her realize that she should try to leave that behind and to trust more.
Dex is sweet, even when he messes things up because, well, he is a guy, right, it's really not his fault that he makes a mess of all this emotional stuff.

In the end, I found that I was looking forward to hearing more about the other members of the team in future books, so that's why I decided to give the book four stars despite those points that I mentioned.

*I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I was so excited to get picked to read this book! I swear I'm always complaining about how most romance novels feature the bulky muscular guy, but rarely the normal dude. This is pretty close to a normal dude romance and I liked it even more because I like gamer guys ^_^

I also have a little bit of knowledge with video games and the scene because of my fiance who plays games (recreationally) and watches twitch streams. Unfortunately, one of the guys he watches is Summit1G.... a pro CoD player and therefore for half of the book I kept putting Summit's face in as Dex's face hahaha. It was a bit awkward.

<b>Anyhow on to my feelings about the book </b>lol
I was a bit frustrated with this book. Mostly because a lot was being told rather than shown... for example, I don't need to know upfront about a character's home life, it should come up naturally in conversation between characters. Let us get to know them as other characters do! So, some topics (Morgan's family) was brought up so often and repeated. It wasn't necessary. Honestly, the 'telling' was what almost made me drop this book even though I so wanted to read it!!

What kept in interested? The Characters.
I really enjoyed the group and their hangout sessions. I loved the sass and the bullshitting around. Although, with pro gamers their definitely needs to be more shit talking haha.
I liked how Morgan had flaws and knew about them, then confronted them...kinda. I liked how even though there was drama, there were always level-headed people around going 'wtf are you doing?'.
Link and Ruby are probably my favorite, although I'm surprised <i> The Legend of Zelda</i> has not been brought up yet.
I'm also a huge fan of cheesy actions or gestures, which this included!

As much as I complained about the book, I did enjoy my time reading it. I am seriously looking forward to the sequel, which I hope focuses on Ruby and Link (and possibly a third on Gia and Simon???? I need to know what happened!)