This one didn’t work for me. I probably wouldn’t have finished it if I hadn’t generously been given an ARC. It leaned into the hyper-reality of a world where people communicate clearly and properly which reads as inhuman to me, but seems to be a trend in fiction. I appreciate how seriously the authors took abuse and recovery. I liked both of the main characters well enough, they both did feel like fleshed-out people, but their chemistry didn’t land. A lot of their conversations didn’t make sense to me and it’s probably because I am missing an internet degree that would help me out. It felt like it could have been a lot shorter and I wish some of the conversations felt more natural instead of one-dimensional easy statements about capitalism and gender that felt out of place and only there to make it clear that they were Good People. It falls into how there was no real grey area to anything. There were good people and bad people. There was no real tension because of how obvious everything was. There were positives that I think will make it enjoyable for other people. The writing was solid, I liked their setup of the bet but wish the tension of how they felt was held onto longer, and I appreciated how detailed the created world was. However, it unfortunately didn’t work for me.

If i’m completely honest, this book wasn’t for me. I felt that the plot had real promise and I loved much of the dialogue between the two MC’s when they were speaking casually. Their banter about the High School teacher that their bet was over was a real delight. However, I felt much of this book felt unnatural when discussing anything with the characters personal lives. For instance the conversation about pronouns at the beginning of the book felt extremely forced. I think many of these conversations wouldn’t necessarily take me out of the story if it weren’t for the characters ages being in their thirties. Overall, i think the romance of the book just fell a bit flat for me personally.