It’s a tantalizing idea. The wonder and delight of character from your favorite book is suddenly there, in your room, talking to you. And then the guilt and shame of having them see just how much you like them; the collectibles, the numerous copies of the series, the merch, the art, the fanfic. How would you handle that? How would your character handle that?

Toss in instant love, instant acceptance of the situation, a character with no other purpose in life than to worship the fictional character and a fictional character with no other purpose than to worship his female fan … and there you go. That’s this book. An interesting idea, and — for me — a poor execution.

The writing is a fractured stream-of-consciousness with broken sentences, sentence fragments,and a fanfic style of writing that style that doesn’t appeal to me; the itself book feels both overwritten and, at times, incomplete and muddled:

“He lifted his hand clutching his ribs towards his friend.”

So, is he offering up his ribs? Did he drop them first? Then there’s the constant doubled repetition. On one page, Aliya ‘sighed again” twice, two pages later it’s mentioned twice how the groceries are in front of the door; likewise falling unconscious before she falls unconscious. One one page we learn she bought a prop dagger at a con; only to behold a moment later she bought the prop dagger at a con. Enzo thinks: “Teasing her was almost becoming too addiction. She was making it too easy to tease.”

This after having just — while sleeping — teleported back home, endured a breakdown from the realities of the war he just fought in, then going right back into combat where he watches berserkers kill soldiers and healers … but his thoughts are instantly on Aliya and how much he loves her. Neither character feels like a real person, and the romance is … well it’s there. It’s there because this is a romance story, so the characters will — step by step — do the things that characters in romance novels do.

I’m sorry, I wanted to enjoy this book but the writing didn’t work for me on any level, the characters were nonexistent, and nothing felt earned. Whichever world they were from, every character talked the same; whichever world they were from, every character reacted the same — which is to say not at all. while I want to thank Net Galley and the publisher for letting me read an ARC of this book, I honestly can’t recommend it.

The premise of the book sounded right up my alley but I did feel it didn’t live up to expectations. It felt a bit too fast paced and I wanted to know more about the characters in the end. The book feels like a good first draft that should be worked through and could be rewritten into an amazing book.