Mercedes loves fixing cars with her father and their employees in her family shop, but even she needs a little bit of downtime with friends. She spends most of her free time in an MMO with her guildmates, and they go on crazy adventures together. One of her closest friends is her guildmate Takashi. Mercedes wants to give up on love, as the 7 dates she’s had in the past 5 months have ended after the first date, stood her up, or flat-out admitted that they don’t date people with cybernetic. She believes that no one will be able to look past her arm and actually see her. Takashi wants to show her that he can and that her arm doesn’t mean she isn’t able to be loved completely. Can Mercedes learn to trust him?
I love LitRPG, but I have never read a LitRPG novel with a plot focused on actual romance. The romance kept me interested in the story when the RPG portions started to die down from time to time. Then, when the romance got to be a bit much, I was able to see Mercedes chatting in-game with her friends or questing with Takashi for fun. This type of plot kept me engaged throughout the story, and I read the whole 500 e-page story in about two sittings.
Also, I liked the fact that this book was on the longer side! I hate romances where it seems that the two almost immediately go from being friends to being lovers. The length of this book allowed for the two to really be able to learn about each other’s personalities and lives. Some of my favorite scenes were Mercedes and Takashi just sitting and talking to each other, telling stories about their lives.
The character development and description in this novel were crazy. I loved reading about the different friends that Mercedes and Takashi had, and I even enjoyed hearing about Mercedes’ employees! Most of the time I was focusing on their growth just as much as the main characters. Pemrick truly pays attention to everyone in her stories, and no one was just thrown to the side as a “side character.”
The world-building was also incredible. Little details such as the history of the destruction caused by one boy’s girlfriend in Mercedes’ shop, Mercedes’ advanced AI in her car named Tasha, and the kind owner of a restaurant that Mercedes’ frequents come together to form a very detailed and unique world. I wanted to visit it as I was reading it, just to spend some time in the game and ride around in a car with a virtual personal assistant in real life.
There were no editing errors that I noticed in my advance copy, which meant that no small errors removed me from the story.
I saw that this book is one in a series, and I can’t wait to read the next story! I hope it focuses on one of Mercedes’ friends and their love lives.
I would recommend this book to lovers of romance, LitRPG, or both. If you are also into science-fiction/fantasy, this book does take place in the future with a lot of new technology and it might interest you.
I received an advance copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 6/5
