I loved this book. I went in expecting to like it, but not love it, simply because I am someone who knows little to nothing about gaming. I've never been into it, even when I tried games everyone else seemed to like. So, I didn't think I'd care much for that aspect of the book. I thought I'd like the overall storyline, hopefully connect with the characters, and enjoy the differing voices with the alternating POVs. Well, I did like all those things but also I actually enjoyed the gaming aspect. Don't get me wrong, I still don't understand video games or watching other people play them. There's something one of the characters says that makes a lot of sense. She tells us it's just like watching sports instead of playing them. Not everyone likes that either, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be something people do or enjoy. I know people are probably like "why would you read a book about gamers if you don't like them?" Truthfully, I'd heard good things about the author and I wanted to know what everyone was talking about--because my twitter timeline was full of people talking about this book. And with good reason. A lot of books about people in certain industries can tend to feel like they're only for people who like those things. This one didn't do that at all. Instead it made me feel connected to the characters despite the fact that I'm no gamer by any means.
But it wasn't just that I could relate even as someone who isn't a part of that world. It was the overall messages the book sends. I felt every instance Div felt unsafe. I was with Rebekkah when she was reliving her trauma. I could see myself in the moments of their strength standing up for what they loved and believed in. The decisions they made for themselves and for the overall bettering of their lives were decisions I've seen my friends and myself struggle with all the time. And we aren't internet famous. I loved that the book wasn't trying to tone down the realities faced by prominent women online, or play them up in such a way as to seem totally unrealistic. I've seen both and, let me tell you, not a good look from an author. Smith did great here.
Also, Aaron was adorable. Such a good, supportive boy. We love and support his character forever. Ryan, too, was a highlight, even just a side character. They were done well (though Div will always be my favorite).
I 100% recommend this book to anyone. I don't care what you normally read. You need to at least try this book. Because it's worth the read in every way.

Divya, or D1v as she is known on the internet, is a popular streamer for the game Reclaim the Sun. Divya relies on the money she makes to help keep her family afloat: her dad abandoned them, her mom is in her last year of graduate school, and money is hard to come by. Divya depends on the money she makes, so it is heartbreaking when a pack of trolls target D1V's online presence and try to destroy her.

Aaron's parents don't understand his obsession with video games . His mom wants him to become a doctor, but he loves video games - he even dumpster dives to find better parts for his gaming setup. Instead of being a doctor, Aaron longs to write video games, and is even working on an indie game with a few friends. To escape his parents' expectations, Aaron gets lost in his new favorite game, Reclaim the Sun. The universe is enormous, but he stumbles upon D1v on an unnamed planet and the two become friends.

The trolls start harassing Divya is real life, and things get scary quick. But Divya isn't going to let a group of bullies stop her, and Aaron isn't going to let her face them alone.

This was such a good book. I tip my hat to Eric Smith, because his writing made me FURIOUS on Divya's behalf. Being a woman is hard enough, but Divya has to deal with being a woman in the gaming community. That scene in Quarter Slice Crisis is too damn real.

The issues this book covers are so pertinent and so well written that you feel every bit of defeat and triumph on Divya's behalf. The cast is diverse, and I love how Aaron is written; he's sweet and emotional and has a savior complex and tries too hard sometimes, but he's a little cinnamon roll.

If only we had more people like Nikki Watts to catch all the asshole trolls running around online under the protection of anonymity.

10/10, read this book now.

While I’m not a video gamer (something central to these characters’ lives), I still felt like they were real people I could know, and would want to be my friends.

When I picked up this book, I expected contemporary fluff. What I got was a great story about believable characters with real lives. Divya loves her gaming, but she needs the paydays it’s generating for real world survival. Aaron just games for fun, but he longs for a career in writing and development of the games he enjoys. This doesn’t line up with his mom’s dreams for him.

The book incorporated struggles with racism, sexism, and female empowerment. What could have been a more simple story of online relationships and boy-accidentally-meets-famous-girl-online took on a lot more depth. The characters experienced real problems of harassment, assault, and doxing (a new one to me, from dictionary.com: to search for and publish private or identifying information about a particular group or individual on the Internet, typically with malicious intent).

Overall, I’d give this book 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it to anyone who enjoys contemporary YA fiction, or readers with YA people in their lives. It was an interesting perspective on online gaming and internet security influencing a player’s offline life.

I loved this book! I really loved that I didn't have to be a gamer to get into the book or the game itself. This isn't overly heavy on the gaming lingo and game play. Even though the characters spend a lot of time playing the game, it isn't overly technical. I do think the author did a really great job building out the world of the game and describing the game and how it was played so you could really enjoy that aspect as the characters were playing without needing to be a video game expert. I also loved that this covered a lot of really important social aspects and did it really well. Both of the main characters are persons of color and have their own struggles. The main female character and her best friend deal with misogyny, racism, cyber threats, and physical threats. The main male character has to deal with those things from a completely different angle, which leads him to really think about who his true friends are. I thought the author handled the social commentary issues very well. The only thing I really think I would have liked to see is Divya giving a statement about what happened to her and Rebecka and that it shouldn't be allowed to continue and have the gaming community as a whole support her. I do love that he created the Angst Armada to stand behind Divya in her time of need and that they never left her.

This book follows two perspectives Divya, a female gamer/streamer who goes by the online personality of D1v and Aaron an aspiring game developer. Divya streams so she can help her mom make ends meet and pay the bills. While she has plenty of fans in the online community, a small group of trolls decides that Divya is unworthy of the popularity and sponsorships she's gained as a gamer and streamer. She and her best friend Rebeckah have to deal with a lot of ugliness as female gamers, but when the threats leave cyberspace things get much more intense and dangerous for both of the girls.

Aaron games for fun and wants to write scripts and develop games in the future. His parents want him to become a doctor and take over his mom's family practice. He is working with a local game developer to build a new game, but things get a little sketchy when paychecks and contracts never seem to materialize. To blow off steam he plays the same game D1V plays, and ends up meeting up with her in the game. They end up striking up conversations and building a friendship over the internet. Aaron is able to support Divya as the trolling incidents get worse, and eventually a little romance sparks between them.

I was provided an advanced copy of this book for and honest review from Harlequin/Inkard Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a bit to get into the story, but after that I was hooked. I am not a gamer, but still found the story interesting and easy to follow (unlike some others I've read). I think this book will appeal to many teen readers and look forward to recommending it to teens at my library.

Don't Read the Comments is a gamer story, told in alternating viewpoints. Female protagonist Divya Sharma is a pretty big deal. She has a following, sponsorships, and is one of those cool people who can actually earn money live-playing a video game. But she's not doing it for fun and games - she's helping her struggling single mom pay for a graduate degree and supporting their household of two. So her sponsorships literally pay the rent.

On the other side we have Aaron Jericho. Gaming IS his life, despite the fact that his doctor mother is demanding he follow in her footsteps. Instead, Aaron is pursuing a career as a writer for video games, and he thinks he has it made working with a small indie called ManaPunk.

The two meet in the game they both play, when they duel over naming rights to a planet, and a friendship-and-maybe-more is born. Though they only know each other virtually, they build a strong alliance. When a group of trolls calling themselves the Vox Populi start attacking Divya not only in the game, but in the real world, things get very complicated.

Smith's story is contemporary and a little bit scary - the Vox Populi track Divya's apartment down despite her carefully avoiding exposing her real identity online. The pacing of this story is amazing and the details Smith sprinkles in show that either he's incredible at research or he has vast knowledge of the gaming world (or both).

This book was an "I can't put down" for sure - and the fact that both Aaron and Divya are minorities makes this even better for me. Please go buy this book like now. It's a really, really FANTABULOUS read.

I freaking adored this book! I'm not a gamer so I didn't expect to gobble it up so quickly but I read it in 3 days. ⁠⠀
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The characters are so memorable and Divya is my hero. Aaron is the very definition of a cinnamon roll charter. What I loved most of all how genuine and real all these characters are. They feel like your friends or neighbors. Writing characters like that is an underappreciated ART. ⁠⠀
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The pop-culture references are amazing. Also Reclaim the Sun needs to be a real game, it sounds amazing. ⁠⠀
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Thank you to Eric Smith Inkyard Press and Netgalley for a review copy! ⁠⠀
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Don’t Read the Comments tackles some heavy subjects, cyber bullying as one of the main ones. But it’s done beautifully, and though the subject matter is that way, it didn’t make me feel heavy while I was reading it.
Eric Smith does an absolutely marvelous job at writing from a first person female POV. His excellent writing style, as well as the pace that perfectly suited the story, made the book unputdownable.
I really enjoyed the characters. They felt fresh as they were developed excellently. The dialogue is excellent, it felt natural and flowed really well. All of it put together kept the book feeling dynamic, and entertaining throughout.
This is a read that you definitely shouldn’t skip.

Gamers are sure to feel at home in this contemporary, but even if you’ve never held a joystick, Don’t Read the Comments is for you. This novel tackles the struggles of existing as young public figures and creators in an incredibly sensitive and caring way. I felt so strongly for Divya and Aaron throughout, and I commend Smith for creating a romantic yet realistic idea of their worlds.

My favorite part of Don’t Read the Comments is the characters. I liked the dual-perspective used, and I enjoyed getting to know Aaron and Divya as they met each other in Reclaim the Sun. Both struggled with family issues and the ways in which gaming and technology impacted their lives, and Smith portrayed them incredibly sympathetically. I don’t even think I had a favorite among them, which is unusual for me.

I liked reading about Divya’s goal to put her mom through college with gaming, and her determination in the face of the trolls is inspiring. Her story is all about the dangers of modern-day celebrity, especially for young adults seeking to exist positively in online spaces where doxxing, real-world harassment, and racism are the norm for those who want to tear them down. I can’t speak to whether or not Divya’s experience is true to the gaming community because I’m not a gamer, but I will say that I was truly scared for her at times.

Aaron has a different issue: his mom wants him to become a doctor like her, but he just wants to write games and pursue his passion for development. He doesn’t want to let down his mom, but he also wants the freedom to choose his career. It was super rewarding to watch Aaron navigate this relationship while learning more about the darker side of gaming and indie game development.

The romance was totally adorable. Divya and Aaron have great chemistry, and despite the fact that their relationship is mostly online, we never miss out on any characterization. I especially liked the scenes where they gamed together in Reclaim the Sun, conquering planets and sharing resources. Those were moments in which I felt their happiness shine through the page, and I loved how their connection to the game allowed them to escape “real life” for a bit and just get to know each other.

Overall, Don’t Read the Comments is a cute yet thought-provoking novel about online communities, and the balance of danger and opportunity they provide. I recommend this book for anyone who needs an afternoon away with two very special characters. 4/5 stars.

This little gem of a YA book centers around the online gaming world while diving into topics of misogyny, doxxing, toxic masculinity, assault, harassment, and racism. For a book that covers such things, it doesn’t feel nearly as heavy as it could. It’s not trying to hit you over the head with lessons but instead takes a very realistic look at problems often faced by female players in the gaming world simply because they’re women. There are a variety of relationship dynamics, a splash of that young love high, and enough gaming goodies to satisfy any nerd, all wrapped in a storyline that felt real and incredibly prescient in today’s world.

Don’t be put off if you’re not a gamer. I’m not at all and enjoyed it, even though it’s a little game heavy in the beginning. I’ll occasionally grab YA books to screen before recommending them to my book-obsessed teenage niece. I think she’ll enjoy this one.


Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an early copy for review.

It took me a little while to settle into a rhythm with this book, but I stuck with it and am glad I did. A contemporary about two gamers named Divya and Aaron, it weaves in a bit of a sci-fi flavor with the virtual reality games they play. The book covers serious topics like sexism, racism, etc while also being a super fun read.

3.5 stars

This is a new-to-me author so I wasn’t sure what to expect. And, to be quite honest, I don’t read an awful lot of male writers. That’s not intentional, it’s just that my most read genre (romance) is majority female writers. I wasn’t sure what to expect so I tried to go in with an open mind.

While this story was a slow starter for me, it did end up hooking me about 1/3 of the way into the book. So hang in there! I felt as though both Divya and Aaron got lost in thought with inconsequential details a bit too much in the beginning. That is something that goes away as the story continues.

There are actually a lot of things I love about this book. The first being that the main characters, who are potential love interests, have a small age gap where the woman is actually older than the man. That isn’t done often in YA unless an issue is made out of the ages. It’s not even addressed and I love that!

As much as I wanted to know a bit more about Divya’s parents and what happened there, I soon found it didn’t matter. I enjoy her unity with her mom and the fact that she recognizes all the sacrifices her mom has made through the years. Her mom is a wonderful character that we don’t see quite enough of, but this story isn’t about her.

Divya’s best friend, Rebekah, and Aaron’s best friend Ryan, are the perfect sidekicks (for lack of a better word) for these two. Compassionate and supportive, they also serve as each character’s Jiminy Cricket…their little conscience on their shoulders.

I am not a gamer, but still found myself enjoying this story quite a bit. I couldn’t help but wonder what my (now grown) sons would think of the story. They are both avid gamers and I may get this one for my oldest, who also enjoys reading. Whether I can get him to read a YA book when he’s almost 26 is another question. Not quite his wheelhouse, but he is curious by nature so I may convince him.

This story has more going on than gaming. With everything that is done online these days, trolls aren’t relegated to gaming only. There’s a bigger picture to be looked at here, and I believe this story alluded to that. Which makes it a good story for teens; it’s possibly a good guide to how to handle trolls. Rule number one…don’t keep trolling a secret from those who care about you and can help you. And Don’t Read the Comments! (Sorry not sorry.)

[BLOG TOUR] Thank you to Inkyard Press and NetGalley for the e-ARC to read and review.

Everyone should read "Don't Read the Comments" because it highlights issues in the gaming industry, has great characters, and the story is so relevant to today. I loved this book more than I originally thought. The way Eric Smith weaves the story between Divya and Aaron's POVs was done really well, which made the story richer in idea and (reading) experience.

First we have Divya - D1V as she's known in the online streamers space - who unfortunately gets targeted for online harassment from an unknown (as usual) trolls. I think they target her because she's woman commandeering a large following in a "male only space." Based on what they were saying to her, it also seemed like the trolls used her gender as a scapegoat. Whatever the reason, the story brings up important issues faced by not only women in gaming but also toxic online bullies/harassers/trolls. Like everyone else, she is a person before she is a online personality.

Divya is a very caring and strong person. I loved the ways she tries not to become a victim and how she tries to protect her best friend, Rebekah, from reliving similar horrors. I genuinely love Divya's character for helping her mom live her dream while they are struggling financially.

Aaron I like yet I felt so bad for him. He doesn't feel his dreams are being supported by his mother and (kind of in a way) by Jason, the developer he's "working" for. He doesn't see his self-worth for much of the story until everything comes tumbling down. I didn't want it to come to that before he realized things. Through Aaron we also get another issue in the gaming (really any) industry; in essence, copyright and protecting one's work.

The author packs in a lot of pertinent issues (in work, gaming, home life, etc.) and sometimes that can be cause for confusion while reading. I'm impressed  by the author's ability to talk about so much but not let the reader feel overwhelmed by it all. And all the issues connect together under the same umbrella.

I felt more connected to both characters - Divya's noble nature and Aaron writing stories for games. They both stand up for what's right for the greater good. I'm glad the romance element between the two MCs wasn't at the forefront of what was going on or awkward. It was a sweet romance that slowly built beneath all the chaos.

"Don't Read the Comments" is was really really good. We need this important book in these increasingly advancing technological times. The issues brought up are things many people are facing today, especially with cancel culture and double standards. "Don't Read the Comments" is inquisitive and compelling - a must read for 2020.

Don't Read the Comments by Eric Smith is a fun quick read!

At first, I was concerned that this story would only appeal to gamers, with terms like doxxing, trolling, and streaming. (Doxxing--or doxing--means, according to Google: "searching for and publishing private or identifying information about a particular individual on the Internet, typically with malicious intent.") But even with gaming description and terminology, this story will appeal to all fans of young adult literature.

With diverse characters, a captivating plot, and unique settings, Don't Read the Comments kept my attention from the first to the last page!

I enjoyed almost all the characters, except for Divya's mom. She relied on Divya too much and had huge blinders on when it came to Divya's needs. And, actually, Aaron's mom, too, was not my favorite. I wanted at least one mom who encouraged and facilitated their child's dreams. But the story wasn't necessarily about the moms. It was about the teens who wanted to enjoy and pursue their online gaming experiences without being harassed by stupid Internet trolls. Seriously, don't those people have better things to do with their time?! They need a worthwhile hobby or a team sport to better utilize their energy! I do wish the characters had been developed a bit more with richer, fuller arcs. Specifically, I wanted Rebekah's inner demons resolved. Aaron, by far, was my favorite character!

The sections that feature gaming details read like a science-fiction novel. It was fun to have a sci-fi element embedded within a contemporary novel. For example: "With a hum, the landing pads extend, emitting a soft rumbling under my feet."

However, some of the gaming references and details felt like commercials for products. "...plugins courtesy of Samsung."

If language matters to you, there are a few f-words spattered throughout, but overall there are minimal cuss words.

There were sections that made me gasp. Such as the moment Divya realizes just how close the trolls have gotten to her in the real world: "I click it. It opens. And I see a photograph of my apartment building. My breath catches in my throat. How? How could this have happened?"

Overall, I highly enjoyed Don't Read the Comments by Eric Smith. The writing is terrific and the story is fun.

I really just adored reading Don’t Read the Comments, which manages to be both lighthearted, sweet, and funny at the same time as it examines some important issues that can be anything but lighthearted. It’s a perfect balance of a sweet, blossoming virtual friendship/relationship and bringing attention to prejudice faced by, especially, women and POC gamers. It’s a great choice for someone who likes to read about real-life issues but doesn’t want a heavy “issue book” (I enjoy them, but not everyone does).

The characters are great; Aaron is a sweetheart, a bit naive, and just wants to write stories behind role-playing games, and Divya is a strong, fierce young woman who has amassed a huge following by streaming her gaming adventures. My favorite secondary character is absolutely Aaron’s best friend, Ryan, who is funny as hell and also wise beyond his years. He is 100% behind Aaron, but he is also never afraid to call out Aaron for potential problematic behavior (e.g., the “need” to be a girl’s white knight).

This book is like a love letter to gaming, and it’s pretty immediately clear that Eric is a huge fan. I am not and have never really been a gamer, though I know a very tiny bit about gaming via my husband and my 11-year-old son. I also wasn’t really in tune with “gamer-gate” at the time it was happening, though I’ve learned a lot about it since. But even though I don’t know a lot about actual gaming, I never felt lost, and I enjoyed every minute of reading this book. If you *are* a gamer, I think you will absolutely LOVE Don’t Read the Comments!

Thanks so much to Inkyard Press for letting me take part in their blog tour and tell you all about this fun new contemporary novel from Eric Smith. I hope you’ll pick it up, and let me know what you think!

Rating: 4 stars!

**Disclosure: I received an early e-copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of this blog tour. This review is voluntary on my part and reflects my honest rating and review of the book.

This was a sweet and surprising read, a modern take on gaming and the troll community surrounding it.

Divya is a top streamer on Glitch and works hard on it not for the fame and glory but to support herself and her mother after her parents rocky divorce. Diyva is of Indian descent and a girl gamer so naturally that makes her the perfect target for trolls on the internet who feel that she doesn’t deserve her success and are out to make both her online and real life hell.

Aaron lives in Philadelphia with his parents and younger sister and longs to write for games but his parents wish for him to become a doctor and will only pay for college if he chooses to follow in their footsteps.

Divya and Aaron’s paths collide on the online game Reclaim the Sun and they battle both anon hate and lurking monsters via oculus.

Absolutely loved this book. It was nerdy, funny, and could definitely relate to it in all kinds of ways. I’m not a streamer and my blog isn’t big enough to get hate comments but uh, I am pretty sassy on twitter and have been suspended once , twice, perhaps five times for bickering with the trolls so I get it. It’s never gotten to the point where I’ve been doxxed thank god but we all know about that and how crazy and hateful people can be.

Especially towards women and women of color. I really loved how this book remarked on that because it is true that women have it so much worse than men for no reason at all.

The dynamics of the characters were great and there were a lot of laughs in this as well. I throughly enjoyed myself.

Thanks very much to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy of my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is probably going to be very hit or miss for people. I’ve seen some people say if you don’t like gaming this isn’t for you – but I don’t like gaming and I loved it so much! So, as always, YMMV. Honestly, I couldn’t even believe this was written by a man because Divya was so well written. She’s this massive gaming star with sponsors that pretty much everyone in the gaming world knows. But she has a very difficult home life and when she begins to experience targeted harassment and bullying in the game world it’s too much for her to handle – and the way that is all expressed in the book felt so true to life from every experience I’ve had or seen of other women online.

Aaron has to deal with his familial expectations and working on a huge project he’s proud of, but can’t share with them because of those expectations. I thought that Smith brought Divya and Aaron together in the game in such a cute way and anyone who’s grown up with the internet can relate to their relationship grow purely online. This whole book felt like a major love letter to gaming but also to online friendships and to nerdery in general, and I really feel like that’s relevant to so many interests of my reader friends that I hope a ton of them check it out.

Actual rating: 4.5. Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC!

I’d like to think I’m pretty down with the young people of today (even though I realize that sentence proves quite the opposite, lol). I’ve been teaching teens for over 27 years and I’m a mom of a twenty-two and a nineteen-year-old. I try hard to remember what it was like to be young (reading YA helps quite a bit in that department) and I’m good at viewing circumstances through the lens of a teen. But there’s one thing I just don’t get and I know I’m not alone in this. How is it entertaining to watch other people play video games??? What’s with these kids today watching YouTube for hours on end, just viewing their favorite gamers narrate while they play?? How is that fun? Wouldn’t you just rather play the game yourself? We Gen Xers just don’t get it. Well, after reading Don’t Read the Comments, I actually get it. You will never hear me ask those questions again. After reading Slay by Brittany Morris last year, I predicted we would start seeing more and better and better books written around the plot of gaming and here is Eric Smith DELIVERING. Don’t Read the Comments is freaking awesome and I can’t wait to put it in the hands of all kinds of teens (some adults, too)!

Divya (D1V) is one of the hottest streaming gamers. D1V She has thousands of subscribers and sponsors. That’s a good thing because she and her single mom have it rough. They rely on her sponsorships for food and to pay the bills. So it’s NOT COOL that trolls threaten not only her gaming but her livelihood. Because she is female and because she is an Indian-American female, the scumbags trolling her are a special kind of awful. They work hard enough to discover her name and address and things get dangerous. Aaron is all about gaming. He is passionate about writing games. He and his BFF (an artist) have spent countless hours creating a game with a local developer. This developer keeps putting off paying them and is getting sketchier and sketchier by the day. In the meantime, Aaron has to deal with working in his mom’s medical office since she INSISTS he go to med school. One day, while casually gaming, he ends up on the same planet as D1V. She doesn’t normally communicate one-on-one with players but she’s got a feeling about this guy . . . Divya and Aaron become online friends and the two become a lifeline for the other. All the trolls and developer tension culminates at Comic-Con in epic showdowns and I AM SO HERE FOR IT. I may have made many audible grunts and cheers while reading.

I read this book in two sittings and could easily read it again. In fact, I just discovered there’s an audiobook so it’ll be next in my queue of listens! It’s a no brainer for Gateway and any other state award list. You’ve never read a book quite like it.

Divya has the motto of not reading the comments for the lives she does for a new game. While her popularity grows, so do the haters, but she needs to keep going to help her mother with the house. That's when she meets Aaron, who just plays the game for fun but want to be a game developer one day even though his parents oppose it. Divya prefers to keep the internet world separate from her real life, especially now she's under the attack of cyberbullies, but it's Aaron, her internet friend, who'll prove to be one of her biggest allies.

This is one of those books I didn't notice it was written by a guy, save for very few moments. His portrayal of Divya was very good. And I think the whole gaming + streaming world also sounded verisimilar. At the same time, it should be relatable enough to those who aren't into streamers, at least it was for me. Because Divya is into keeping her privacy, she's not some famous internet celebrity and she gets to lead a normal life—as normal as her parents' divorce allows it. At the same time, there may have been some intense describing of the world of the fictional game they play that felt way too long and not that necessary; that I don't dig much but it's not bad and I'm sure lots of readers do.

Be aware, romance isn't the main thing here. We have some and the interactions between the two main characters are cute but they also take time to happen.

I'd say there were many great things about this book. First was diversity without the author putting it there, they're just diverse and that's how it is. Also, as I said the two are really cute together and also very different, round characters. The side characters were also well built to a point I was searching to find out if Aaron's friend's story came from a previous book so much it seemed like he had a whole other life we didn't know of (in a good way and not in a plot hole way). Last, the cyberbullying on Divya was super scary. I wasn't comfortable with their reason to do it, it sounded too much for too little, but aside from that, the writer knew how to build it all up to a point I confess I had a nightmare with it. It's not very easy for a book to get to me and this did.

This is a book for those who like romance but don't want it as the priority of the story.

I’m not even sure how to write a review that will properly do this fabulous book justice! I picked it up, knowing I had a blog tour review to write in the near future and expected to read a chapter here and a chapter there but as soon as I started reading I didn’t want to stop! To be honest, Young Adult books can be hit or miss with me, particularly the characters, but I absolutely adored Divya and Aaron. Smith managed to construct separate stories for each and subtly weaving Aaron’s presence into the background of Divya’s story rather than making him a staple. I loved that she had a chance to shine. It's not often when I get to read a book that apologetically celebrates all things geeky, nerdy, and game-y and this was perfect. The Mass Effect and Dragon Age references brought me so much joy.

Most important, however, is the topics Smith chose to explore through Divya’s story in particular. Being a gamer as a female can be frightening and even more so if you are a streamer like Divya is. Trolling and doxing received a lot of attention a few years back but it is still too relevant today.

This was such a delight to read and I’m eager to pass it on to some of my reader pals to see what they think! Reading this also made me desperately wish I had time to play games again… maybe in a few years!