This is just a perfectly sweet, no angst, nice romance. There's no drama. There's no curveballs. The characters are decent people. If you're in the right mood, and looking for something without angst, this is some great fluffy sweet goodness wrapped up in a nicely-packaged book.

Though a bit clunky in terms of dialog and entirely without drama, this book's massively sweet. Two hufflepuffs slowly falling in love over the internet. One MC is Jewish and blind, and there's also ace rep (both ro and aro).

By now, you should all know how much I love myself a schmoopy romance, especially a contemporary one. I don't know where it comes from, as I do not appreciate romance in real life.

I also am a big sucker for tropes, trust me. It's a problem I have. It's not one I'm seeking help for because well...I don't want to.

This book is totally adorable. And...ace representation! Representation matters, and the honesty within this book used to tackle the representation of the spectrum, as well as those who may have disabilities, is appreciated.

Sam is such a sweet character, I could picture him in all his red-headed freckled glory, and with a lovely Irish accent to boot. He is an introvert, more likely to spend tie at home than going out.

Then there's Dovid. Don't ever call him David. He is an extrovert. He is a big name Youtuber, and yet he lacks the ego I would've expected from this character, especially after reading the first chapter.

I will not tell a lie. I wasn't sure I would like this book because the first chapter was a bit much. The business of Youtube, while interesting, is not what I signed up for.

I am, however, happy that I stuck with it. This novel was sweet and had a touch of angst. It was a quick, easy read, and I would recommend it to anyone just wanting a little break.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*~~*ARC kindly provided from the publisher/author to me for an honest review *~~*

Full review to come

5 stars

Cute and Cheesey little romance book and it did have me with a cheesey grin on my face while reading! These are the sorts of stories that I enjoy so this one was a great book for me!

This book just missed hitting the mark for me.

I was looking forward to reading about a long distance relationship for a couple of social media users.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really find any story here though. I wanted there to be some kind of a drama - a conflict - anything really.

Voilà un roman qui me faisait très envie à sa sortie. Une fois démarré, j’ai eu du mal à rentrer dedans.
Je l’ai finalement mis de côté mais à chaque fois que j’essayais de le reprendre, je me forçais…

C’est dommage car le résumé était tentant, mais bon...

Je l’ai finalement abandonné définitivement après ma dernière tentative ce mois-ci.

It’s super depressing that I didn’t get the chance to download this book in time to read it 😭😭 but for some reason it wanted me to write a review.

Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity, sadly because of me I didn’t get to read this!

The premise sounded amazing and I really wish I would have read this.

Play It Again was a charming, cute book but overall felt rather lacking in conflict.

The characters are pretty adorable. I instantly fell in love with Sam and his quirky, timid personality. Both of the main characters are well-developed and the author's knowledge of them shines through. Dovid's sarcastic sense of humor and delightful internal thoughts made for such a fun read!

The idea for the romance is a great one but rather lacking in major conflict. Yes, there's a bit of a struggle for Sam towards the end but overall, it was mainly these two lovable dorks grappling with liking each other. I would have loved to see a bit more of a plotline. Play It Again is a great read if you're looking for a fluffy book after a hard day to curl up with, but not so great if you're looking for character struggle and complex plots.

The book has great representation handled really well and I applaud the author for the idea of this blind YouTuber and the whole concept of his channel - that may have been my favorite part!

I have nothing bad to say about this book.
It was so freakin' adorable i thought i was going to grin my ears off.
Dovid and Sam were so cute, and mushy and nerdy. aww <3
A very easy, adorable read!
I see people who has reviewed the book talk that it was annoying with the texting and /or youtube information, but that didn't bother me one bit, for me it felt very natural.

3.5 Stars
Play it Again is an interesting book that centers around two YouTubers. There’s a good look into the making of videos, the business aspect of being a YouTuber, and handing the fame.

Dovid and Sam have a majorly slow burn romance made through online interactions. Living far apart, the two young men get to know one another authentically, without any sexual chemistry getting in the way.

Dovid’s blindenss is an extremely interesting aspect of the story. The author does a great job of writing this with compassion and care.

This is a decent story but it definitely isn’t for everyone. I’d recommend it to any fan of YouTubers who are interested in a long distance online romance.

2.5*

I think my main problem with this book is that there were quite long paragraphs info dumping about what it's like to be a YouTuber and how to use other types of social media. It really took away from the plot and the romance which I thought originally was such a great concept and was the main reason I wanted to pick this book up. Within the first 25% I got so tired of the youtube and subscriber talk that whenever it was mentioned I just started to skim read.

I do think this book is brilliantly diverse although I cannot say myself how the representation of a blind character was written. The romance between the two Dovid and Sam was cute but sometimes felt quite young in thw way they spoke and acted. I assumed this book was closer to new adult age or even older but it did read for a younger audience.

I did like the texting format of the book because it did stop some of the info dumping slightly and it's not a format I see in many books which made it a quicker read.

I feel like I have to review this one even tho I didn't finish it.
And my reason for not finishing it isn't because of the book itself.

As a 42 year old woman, YA is very hit and miss with me.
I liked the blurb but I dont think I was ready (frame of mind) to really let myself get absorbed in the book.

I will read this eventually.

Its me not you book.

Mare~Slitsread

The blurb had me so excited to read this. An LGBTQA+ novel featuring long distance relationships and people with disabilities, hit all the right buttons, only to be slightly disappointed.

The story itself is very wonderful and fluffy. There isn't any drive that was emphasized, unless Sam's story was meant to be the main point - if it was, it wasn't well-established.

With a bit of editing and restructuring, this could have been a FABULOUS story; as it stands, it is a heartfelt, relax romance with little to no drama.

*Received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced positive modern love story.

I belong to a generation that didn't have much technology until we were already teens, but adapted to it really fast and then were full on internet-personas by the time we became adults (no judgement there tho). So if there's media about two people from different continents falling in love via text, calls, e-mail or youtube, that is something I can relate to and I also kind of dig.
This might even THE love story trope of our time, in a way.

But I feel like books that focus a lot on modern communication devices can also go very wrong and end up not really being enjoyable as books for multiple reasons.

In this case I think the author did a fairly good job.
The plot is not that unrealistic, I liked the three main characters and their dynamics and dialogues. I liked how it adresses social insecurities, problems with self-worth, main characters with different sexualities and mainly different views on sex itself, all while keeping the aesthetic positive and having all the main characters support each other unconditionally. It's really cute and fluffy and also a tiny bit angsty.

I don't have any major issues with this work, there're just a few points that could have made my experience a lot better.
For one, I think the blurb of the book has too many details and gives too much away. I have read the book and I enjoyed reading it, but if I'd summerize it I could only add like 3 sentences to the blurb and it would be the whole thing.

Then, the writing fell a bit flat on descriptions. The dialogues are really good, they feel very natural and the structure helps to give it the right flow it needs since it's mostly supposed to be text messages or calls. So endless unnecessary descriptions wouldn't have been a good fit for the concept of the scenes, but I still wanted a 'bit' more, like knowing what the characters feel and do while their chats are happening, not just pages full of chat screenshots (figuratively).

And this might be a bit of a difficult point to make, but I would have liked to be told more about how exactly Dovid manages certain things without sight - just in a technical way, like if he has special devices that help him out that I can not know about.
I totally understand that his disability shouldn't be the focus of this story and that it's not a 'how a blind person lives' documentary, but a) for me personally, as a sighted person, that would have been very interesting and definitely sth that would make the book stand out more. and b) I don't remember a specific example right now, but there were some points where it was said that he does something and I had to think 'the way I do it wouldn't work for him' but since it wasn't explained further I can't know if the author chose to disregard the description because that's not what this book is about or because they didn't think it throught/know it themself.

Aidan Wayne's Play It Again was an utterly charming romance that stole my heart. We need to see more representations of asexual characters in romance, and I felt that this was shown with sensitivity and truth, as was Dovid's blindness. Wayne engages with these characters and shows them, and critiques the way that society perceives them, without ever falling into the trap of becoming "preachy". What they go through in the book seems like a natural progression of their lived experiences.

I also felt that the way in which Wayne engaged with the idea of internet celebrity, and the pros and cons of such an experience, was really nuanced. The overwhelming-ness of having such a large spotlight suddenly shone on you must be quite scary, and I loved how Dovid tried to help Sam navigate it.

This isn't a fast-phased romance, and there was something quite lovely about being able to see everything unfold slowly, as the characters do. Dovid and Sam's friendship, and how it slowly blossoms into more was incredibly sweet. The stars of this romance are the characters, and that satisfying HEA.

TWs/CWs: parental abuse and self esteem issues relating to that, car crash, references to ableism and homophobia



Oh this was such a wonderful, warm, validating read. It felt completely tailored to what I needed.

First of all, if you’re looking for an action-heavy, plot-driven book, then this isn’t it. This is a gentle and slow exploration of emotions, breaking out of abusive parenthood and feelings of self-worth (or lack of), building up your career in doing something you love and consequently learning to love and respect yourself, and just people supporting each other.

The relationship between Dovid and Sam was so, so sweet. They respected each other, they listened and communicated. I burst into tears when Dovid told Sam that he was going to respect his asexuality and not push him into sex, because it was so beautiful and refreshing to see. The fact that they don’t, in fact, have sex in the book? Still seems unfanthomable to me. Romance folks tend to accept only the ‘I don’t need it, but I’m still gonna have sex’ asexuals, which has always been a source of frustration and bitterness for me. But no, Dovid really does respect Sam and never pushes him into anything he’s not comfortable with. I wish that wasn’t such a shock to me, but here we are.

I absolutely loved the content creator aspect of the book. As a content creator who is maybe a bit too much into the ‘behind the scenes’ of youtube video creation, this was so up my alley it’s not even funny. I was nodding along when they talked about setting up patreon and ko-fi and the technicals around building an audience. Does that drag for a readers who aren’t into such arguably niche details? Yes, probably.

Which brings me to the issues. While I loved all the content creator details and I think the author absolutely nailed the way people text, it can feel a bit tedious at times that majority of their communication happens over texts. And while that’s understandable for a long distance relationship, it’s not always exactly thrilling.

Ultimately, this book felt extremely validating to me as an asexual. Being sex-repulsed in the romance community can be a very lonely and sad experience sometimes, and this book is exactly what I needed to soothe my tired asexual soul.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I stopped at about 15%. The writing felt flat and somehow monotonous? This actually distanced me from the characters which really just made it hard to carry on.

This was an enjoyable and cute story that contained a lot of diversity, including disability. I think it was really interesting to read a book about someone who is blind and to get to know more about how it is to live like that. I do have to say that I have no experience, at all, with blindness so I don't know whether the representation is accurate or not. There was a little thing that really started to annoy me. Namely, the repetition when switching between Dovid's and Sam's perspective. I did notice that this slowly disappeared near the ending of the book. Another reason why I gave it three stars was because for me it didn't feel like there was an actual plot. For me it felt like it was just a plain story that wasn't really working towards anything.

I had the best time with this one! Plus now I'm three steps closer to understanding what's up with my kids watching other people play video games.

Play it Again is the first book I've read by Aidan Wayne and I'm definitely impressed. They developed the characters beautifully, there's humor and a bit of angst, and the romance is as charming as it gets. Well done!