An interesting concept for story.
Ann has a corporate job and is struggling with a client audit. In her free time, she plays a game called Ani-min, that takes you out to places to find objects and have battles. Rachael is a flustered single mom that also plays Ani-min as a way to get some kind of time for herself. They meet in a park one day.
Since I was always a big ‘gamer’, I thought this story sounded intriguing. A nice change of pace from all the formulaic romances that are being released. But this didn’t meet my expectations. It had several issues that took me out of the story.
The dialogue felt very adolescent and bland to me. We are in the head of Ann the entire time. And I couldn’t help but not like her. She frustrated me a lot. It felt as if she was infatuated with getting ‘a girlfriend.’ Not having a relationship or falling in love. Over and over she vacillates between are we girlfriends or almost girlfriends or just friends? She brushes Rachael off a million times because of work, and then has the nerve to think that the relationship would be progressing better if Rachael cared about her more.
Another thing that seemed immature was that they constantly have conversations via text message instead of talking in person. Literally anything important happens over text.
You can tell the author is super excited to be writing about this game. Nets and creatures and whatever. But it didn’t translate as fun to the reader. It was as if this was written for only people who already know of this game. I couldn’t get into it.
I definitely think the author has promise. The concept was good and the writing was OK. There is an opportunity to work on matching dialogue and actions to the age of characters.
I recommend to adults that enjoy games, romance, climbing the ladder, and dogs.