Lorelei Parker’s ‘Crushing It’ book summary: “To pitch her new role-playing game at a gaming convention, developer Sierra Reid needs to overcome her terror of public speaking. What better practice than competing in local bar’s dairy slam - her old entries about her completely humiliating college crush on gorgeous Tristan Spencer. Until the moderator says ‘Next up, Tristan Spencer!”
This contemporary rom com is a fun read! First time reading this author and one can tell she’s a gamer herself; has a lot of gaming references. I’m not familiar with MMORPG but I do know Mario Cart. The background setting is a small city that graduated colleagues from the same uni runs into each other. Main character-Sierra is lovable, quirky & witty. Even though she has a personal phobia, throughout the book we experience her anxiety to growth for self improvement. There is sort of a ‘love’ triangle at one point but moves on pretty quickly. The story plot flushing out pretty early in the chapters. So we, as readers can already guess the ending. There are some graphic sexy scenes if that’s not your thing - be warned. Overall, I like this novel about ‘What Ifs’ and second chances of friendship/romance.
*I was provided e-copy from Netgalley and this honest review is my own.

This was a fun and interesting book that drew me right in. The heroine is a video game designer. Even though I’ve never been into video games, I enjoyed having a heroine who was and who was talented in designing them as the main character. That was a nice twist.

Sierra’s problem is that she has paralyzing stage fright whenever she has to speak formally in front of a group. But she needs to overcome her personal weakness in order to represent her company at a gamer convention in Germany. So she accepts her best friend’s challenge to participate in a bar contest with people competing by telling their most embarrassing memories in a sort of American Idol-type competition.

And what a coincidence! The bar owner hosting the competition is a guy she had encountered and promptly forgotten from college. And one of the other competitors is the guy she had crushed on in college is also there and now he seems interested in her as does the bartender.

Sierra has to decide if her former crush is worthy of her attention ten years on or is the kind and helpful bartender the guy who really deserves her affections this time. And will embarrassing herself in front of a bar full of customers help her overcome her phobia?

I enjoyed her character and following along as she figures things out.

It's so nice to have a female main character who has an interest different from most female characters are into and to see her own it and it never be called into question by her friends and family. It's also nice to have a lead who embraces her quirky tendencies through her appearance and dress and to watch her really own that is so fun.All of these characters are so well-written and detailed. They all just seem like a group you'd love to hang out with, preferably at the local bar. The settings were so well done I was easily able to picture where everyone was hanging out and and spending their days. this book was so amazing i would read it all over again.

*Spoilers Ahead*

It was entertaining enough, but I did not love it. I love the representation of a nerdy girl lead who did not compromise on who she was. Sierra was living her best life living the nerd-girl dream of being paid to make video games. As someone who has been to a lot of comic book conventions I really appreciated this.

There was a good number of things that bugged me and the more I’ve thought about them the more they’ve bugged me. For example the “love triangle” was a bit too obvious. Is that the right word? It was very clear who she would end up with because the other one was an ass. Sierra’s continued feelings for the ass left me confused, because like yes he was hot 10 years ago in college but do you not see that he is a manipulative jerk? Also, I get that the plot was involved reliving past experiences, but like it seemed unrealistic for people in their thirties to be so obsessed with who they were ten years ago in college. And why did Sierra have such poor memory of a class that cumulated in a traumatic experience? Maybe this was just me not paying attention to earlier in the book, but why was it not mentioned until it was convenient for the plot that Sierra started and is part owner of the company she works for, like couldn’t she have just pulled rank and said she was doing the presentation without the drama of the contest? I really am probably overthinking this whole thing.

The book was a good fluff read. Would I read something else from the author? probably.

The story is enjoyable (some parts more than others) but I can’t stop thinking about the little details that bothered me. This is why I’m kind of undecided between 3 stars or 2’5 stars.

For starters, the characters weren’t my favourite. Tristan was a total jerk straight from the beginning, how could Sierra not see it? Is she so blinded by his good looks? Aida, Sierra’s best friends, is quite a unidimensional character whose only purpose seems to be criticizing every decision Sierra makes. Sierra herself was complicated… At the beginning, from her infatuation with Tristan and the nonsense of her fear of speaking in public but being capable of teaching a yoga class in front of many people, I found her a not very well-developed character. However, I will admit that her character growth throughout the book was quite satisfying. Quite honestly, sweet Alfred was the only character that totally win me over.

On the other hand, there were some situations difficult to believe, the main one being that Sierra barely remembers ANYTHING that happened to her in college. I mean, I can understand if you forget minor details, but she has (conveniently) forgotten every situation that would have made things clear in the current time of the book.

I appreciated the fact that Sierra is a game developer and a gamer herself, it’s a background not often seen in a woman, but it perfectly depicts many real women nowadays. I enjoyed the little references here and there to SAO, Ready Player One and Mario Kart.

One last thing I wasn’t able to appreciate was how, in the middle of a contest where the main point is explaining embarrassing stories about yourself, one man can explain an anecdote where he is masturbating and makes it to the next round but when a woman explains a story about unexpectedly getting her period, all men are horrified and she gets eliminated.

All in all, this book is a light escape, and I don’t regret reading it nor consider I wasted my time with it. I just know it’s not a story that will stick with me.

<i>*Thank you to Kensington Books & Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review *</i>

This book centers around Sierra, Alfie, & Tristan, who were all in a college comms class together and have reconnected at a bar open mic sort of competition.

I would probably put this closer to "it was okay" for me than "I liked it" (goodreads rating standards), but I do see a certain appeal for others that made me round it up to 3 stars.

<b>What I liked</b>

1) Sierra & Alfie were cute nerdy characters that had relatable characteristics. Especially at the beginning, I thought they each had potential.

2) I think this book will appeal to gamers because there's quite a lot of video game references.

3) The romance comes across as fairly realistic modern situation for the most part.


<b>What I didn't like</b>

1) I found this book to be pretty cheesy, particularly the further in I got. I felt like things that weren't that big of a deal got made into much bigger deals... For example, Sierra has this huge public speaking hang up from a presentation gone wrong 10 years ago..<spoiler>Here's the big event: While she was presenting, instead of her presentation deck, on the screen behind her there was a slideshow of pictures of Tristan being dumb & for some reason that made her SO MAD that she went fuming down the stairs – she tripped & fell and people saw her ass – ok that part is embarrassing but a) doesn't actually have to do with public speaking - she keeps saying it was awful having everyone laugh at her..they were laughing at pictures of someone else entirely, that makes no sense and b) it seems more embarrassing for Tristan than her? I felt cheated because there was this huge build-up to this major event from 10 years ago and then I was just like wow she can sure overreact and it made me lose respect for her character.</spoiler>

2) Following from that last comment, the big reveals in the plot were pretty lame in my opinion, so I wasn't that into the story or the characters by the end.

3) Sierra's crush on Tristan seemed really immature, particularly at age 29. I get it, it was a crush from when she was 19, but she sounded like she was 12, and then when she runs into him again, yes I get that it would be validating to have the cute guy now seemingly interested in you, but all the time dedicated to their interactions was annoying to me – I just wanted to fast forward through it. It seemed so obvious that he sucked – <spoiler>he called her Sara for days and was obviously trying to use her to get a job</spoiler>.

4) Sierra & Alfie's relationship felt kind of corny overall. I appreciated that there were some more realistic aspects, but I guess it just didn't feel very swoon-worthy to me.

I got this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review this book was pretty cute and the tile was interesting but I found that Alison got on my nerves a lot.
Alison green is a senior in high school and she wants to be valedictorian and gets roped into producing the school play midsummer nights dream which is my favourite Shakespeare play and I really wish we could have seen more of it. Though at some parts I wish it was show don’t tell, because you tell us something but not really showing it not really good.

I'm so glad this book exists. It's so nice to have a female main character who has an interest outside what most female characters are into and to see her own it and it never be called into question by her friends and family. It's also nice to have a lead who embraces her quirky tendencies through her appearance and dress and to watch her really own that is so fun.

All of these characters are so well-written and detailed. They all just seem like a group you'd love to hang out with, preferably at the local bar. The settings were so well done I was easily able to picture where everyone was hanging out and and spending their days.

Sierra and Alfie and Aida and all of the others are just so terrifically written. I really enjoyed this story and that it didn't have a super obvious story arc. I was genuinely happy with where everyone ended up.

In Crushing It by Lorelei Parker, a female game developer named Sierra struggles to overcome her fear of public speaking in order to pitch her new game at a Video Game Developer Conference. Following her attempt to practice this skill at an open-mic, this event sends her off on a wild love-story, complete with gaming references and a love triangle between two men she had known in college.

After reading the description to this book, I was immediately drawn in by the idea of a fun yet nerdy romance novel! Indeed, I was pleased to find a number of relatable references throughout the novel, however as I feared, some very too on the nose or cliche. Additionally, it was a struggle to read some of the love scenes as they were written in a very fantastical manner.

Regardless of these qualms, I found the novel to be very fun to read, with a spectrum of different characters. While Tristan, Sierra's longtime crush, ends up being the wrong choice, Alfie ends up the underdog in regards to Sierra's affections. Overall, it was a lighthearted and a neat nerdy girl read!

Book Review: Crushing It by Lorelei Parker (pub dare: 06/30/2020)

Thank you Kensington Books and NetGalley for this arc.

I give this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A story about Sierra, a passionate gamer and game developer who have a fear of public speaking due to humiliation she experienced in college. Guess who the culprit is? Her very own crush Tristan. Sierra wanted to present her new game to a Gamescon to be held in Germany and was signed up to a tell your “shameful/funny story” contest by her best friend to overcome her fear. The competition also has Tristan as a contestant and is being held in a bar owned by Alfie, who has a massive crush on Sierra back in college, which, by the way, has a huge secret as well. The world is indeed very small.

This story is charming. It’s like reminiscing and acting upon that huge grudge you hold against that one annoying classmate. It is very relatable and funny. It could've passed as your usual love story, but I like that I could see myself in Sierra and the way she had been handling her life and choices. All the characters are well developed and appeared to me like my own set of friends. It also has that flirty vibe and a bit drama on the side. I recommend this book if you want a lighter, fun, and easy read.

This was really funny. I know nothing about video games past the 1990 Super Nintendo we had but I didn’t feel like the game talk was too much in this - I liked the small bits about about how she codes games for her career. Sierra was awesome, even if she found herself in a few awkward moments. Cute little romance. There is a mild love triangle but it’s pretty clear who the reader should cheer for and I just adored him. A must have on your rom-com tbr!

Sierra is a video game designer, and gamer. She enters a contest at a bar that asks you to reveal your most embarrassing moments in order to help her get over her nerves for an upcoming presentation. The story she tells is about Tristen, the boy she had a crush on in college. She revealed all the embarrassing details of how she felt. What she doesn’t anticipate is that Tristen himself is the next contestant in the contest. The two y’all after, and eventually go out. As the contest continues, Sierra develops a friendship with the owner of the bar. And she starts to realize that he is sweet, and funny, and supportive.

This was a wonderful story. The characters were all well written and seemed like your friends. It was funny and sweet, and kept you interested page after page. I definitely recommend this book if you want a quick, sweet entertaining story.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of the cutest rom coms I’ve read in awhile. Sierra is extremely relatable, especially when it comes to Tristan. We’ve all been there liking a guy way more than they like us. I found the whole novel to be fresh and it snagged me by the first chapter. I enjoyed the character dynamics a lot and felt the author fleshed out the characters well. I loved this book and would definitely recommend it.

As a displaced Georgia girl I loved reading this book. It takes place in the Atlanta area where we find our main character Sierra. Sierra is a game developer. She has always dreamt of going to the gamers convention in Cologne Germany (another place I love). In order to get her coworkers to send her there she will need to present the newest game she is developing. The issue is, she is terrified of public speaking after an incident in college.

Her best friend Aida (a wonderful supporting character in this book) encourages her to sign up for an open mic night, of sorts, contest with the hope that it will help her overcome her fear. During the contest she meets a few more characters that I came to enjoy and a particular one that I did not.

I really loved getting to know the inner working of Sierra in this first person POV. I think Parker did a wonderful job with details and development. You can tell this is either first hand knowledge about gaming, or very well done research.

Dont let the gaming aspect veer you away from this story. It is so much more than that.

Thank you Kensington Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this one advanced. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Let me start with what I liked and then...well, let's just start with what I liked.

Sierra Reid is part owner of a video game development company. She's smart, confident and talented. She loves her work, spends her days in the office alongside co-owner/best friend Aida, and evenings at home with Aida and her husband Marco (who also works with them) in the house they co-own in an affluent, desirable Atlanta suburb. Sierra hasn't had much luck finding her own happily ever after, and prefers one night stands to actual emotional intimacy. Although their gaming company is successful, the venture capitalist who funded their growth is looking for a bigger return on his investment. Sierra thinks their newest role-playing game could be the big success he's hoping for. Unfortunately, their usual pitch-person - Aida - is pregnant and due to deliver any day...so it falls to Sierra to pitch the game at a big European conference. And Sierra - after a horrifying experience in college - is terrified of speaking in public. She's managed to bungle or mortify herself at every public speaking opportunity she's had since, and all signs point to another disaster.

Aida is sympathetic, and she wants to help. She encourages Sierra to enter a contest at a local bar that pits contestants against one another as they reveal their most embarrassing experiences. She'll get practice speaking in public, share embarrassing stories with a bunch of other people sharing their own mortifying history, and possibly win $1,000. Aida convinces Sierra to go to the bar, but it's Alfie, the owner of the bar and a former college acquaintance, who gets her on the stage. His quiet support gives her the confidence to go for it, and go for it she does. Reading a page from a college journal, she reveals the cringe-inducing crush she had on another student, Tristan Spencer, who barely registered her existence. Then, just as she's exiting the stage, the next contestant is announced. You guessed it. It's Tristan. Oops.

Friends, I loved this set-up. Plausible, funny, mortifying...

But then the story unfolds, and it's bad. Really bad. Tristan is thrilled to learn about Sierra's crush and Sierra is thrilled he's finally noticing her...and ignores the fact that he calls her Sara the first few times they hang out. Reader, it's obvious to EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH EXCEPT SUPER SMART AND BRIGHT AND CONFIDENT Sierra that's he's a user and a loser, but we're supposed to keep pretending we can't see it. Meanwhile, sweet Alfie is in the background (lurking); he's kind and awesome and SUPER OBVIOUSLY INTO SIERRA WHO WAS APPARENTLY FRIENDS WITH HIM IN COLLEGE BUT DOESN'T REMEMBER (Yeah, I liked her in the beginning, but her obliviousness grew old fast), and he's secretly rich (I have no idea why this is part of his characterization except maybe to contrast with Tristan?). Big surprise to absolutely no one, Tristan turns out to be a dick, and Alfie turns out to be a hidden gem.

There is a love triangle of sorts here that could be compelling...but it's clunky and predictable, and Parker tries to do too many other things with this story. The contest becomes this farce to advance the narrative, with cookie cutter personalities battling it out over stories that are alternately painful and unfunny, and obviously made-up attempts to get a laugh from the reader. Such a wasted opportunity!
And then we have Sierra's backstory - which actually isn't all that terrible, secrets, creepy descriptions of sanitary napkins, purple prose, underdeveloped characters, and sex scenes featuring waterfalls, rainbows, solar systems...OH MY GOD. It's all terrible and it totally tanked any interest I had in this story. The dialogue is wooden and lacks any sort of nuance whatsoever, and the author is obsessed with Sierra internalizing whether her interactions with the men in her life are either Eros, Philia, or Agape versions of love. Don't ask. IT COMES UP OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again and is based on some bizarre conversation she once had with her mother about sex and love. It made zero sense and yet Sierra thinks about it all the time.

I hated the misogynistic venture capitalist, struggled to buy into the bar owner who can take nights off and escape to his upstairs lair whenever he feels like it, predicted the ending long before we finally reached it. Such a disappointing end result from this very clever set-up.

Great premise, terrible delivery. And after all the colorful descriptions of Sierra's clothing, this cover is a 100% fail. It's an illustration! That's the best expression of Sierra in this story? Draw some gaming shit on the dress. Hard pass on the execution of this one from start to finish.

This was a really cute and fun debut novel by Lorelei Parker. I wasn't quite sure how I'd feel about the whole love triangle part since I usually don't like the whole 'dating 2 men at once' trope. But this wasn't really like that at all.

Sierra is a game developer and really wants to make the trip to Germany for her company to pitch the new game she developed. Only she's terrible at public speaking and botches a practice pitch with the person deciding if she'll represent the company at the event. So her best friend/roommate/business partner suggests she attend an open mic 'diary slam' at a local bar that will take place over several weeks. The grand prize of $1000 would pay for her to attend the event in Germany if her semi-boss wasn't willing to fund the trip. So she decides to read entries from her communications class diary from college - the class that led to her being embarrassed in front of the whole class and led to her being scared to speak in public again.

So when she starts reading the diary entry about her crush on Tristian, imagine her shock when Tristian is the next guy up to tell a story. She's embarrassed, he finds it charming and cute that she had a crush on him. They begin chatting and they go out a couple times. But something is off with Tristian. He's a bit smarmy and kind of a jerk when he doesn't get his way at times. I really didn't like him at all and was hoping she wouldn't end up with him, but on the other hand, I was kind of hoping he'd redeem himself and not be the guy he seemed to be deep down.

That's when Alfie comes in. He's the cute, charming, helpful bar owner that calm Sierra's nerves and encourages her to get up on stage. He also bears his own soul up on stage and tells some of his embarrassing stories, including some that seem familiar to Sierra (she didn't figure out they were classmates until later on in the book and didn't remember Alfie). He sees Tristian for who he is and he knew the old Tristian as well and how he was a jerk 10 years ago too. Sierra puts Alfie off quite often when he's flirting with her, but eventually she gives him a try at dating and it's so cute to see them together. Alfie is incredibly sweet and swoon-worthy. I just wanted to eat him up with a spoon.

Sierra did become quite annoying by the end. She was indecisive, naive and way too much 'woe is me' for me to really love her. She was good in the beginning, but I didn't like her much as a person by the end. So it's really Alfie who steals the show and makes the book.

In the end, they get their HEA, but it's not without a lot of drama. I look forward to more from the author.

This book was so amazing!! I laughed out loud at some parts and really fell in love with all the people in the story.

LOVED IT. It's a very fast read, well plotted and engaging. The main character is a developer at a video game company--a company she helped found, at that--dealing with a fear of public speaking that traces back to a bad experience in college. The love interests are well done, the side characters are beautifully fleshed out and interesting, and overall I LOVED it.

This book grabbed my attention from the moment I read the description. This book was hard to put down and kept me up until 4AM most nights. I loved the twist and turns as I followed Sierra in her journey to overcome personal obstacles in her personal and work life. There are plenty of comedic moments as cringe worthy excerpts are found throughout in personal narratives of other characters in the diary slam.

The only critique was in chapter 29, when Sierra said, "Capture Castle is a multimedia online..." Later in the chapter, Tristan said the acronym MMORPG. The statement above should have indicated that it was a "Massively Multiplayer," rather than just multiplayer. This elimination of the first M in the MMORPG can be a confusing discrepancy.

Thank you to Lorelei Parker, Kensington Books, and NetGalley for this complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review *

Crushing It overall a cute and easy read. I really enjoyed reading it. This was my first book by Lorelei Parker but it won't be my last!

Crushing it is about a Sierra a hardcore game developer with severe anxiety when it comes to public speaking due to an awful experience in her past. She needs to over come it so she can present a new game at convention in Germany for her company. Alfie is a bar owner and former college classmate who gives her the confidence boost she needs. Tristan is her college crush ready to prove he will do anything it takes to get what he wants. It's a modern day twist on the love triangle. That's jammed packed with video game references and some funny dialogue. Who gets the girl and can Sierra finally overcome her fear of public speaking?