For the Gods of the Gates fans, it was a kiss that launched a thousand new fics.
Spoiler Alert
by Olivia Dade
Genre: Romance
About: April likes to get her hands dirty - in contaminated soil as a geologist. In her spare time she writes explicit fanfic of her favourite tv series. But after a picture of her cosplaying goes viral, she's invited on a date with the lead actor from the series. Marcus, who plays the demigod of her dreams, wants to meet her. Unknown to them both, they've already met online and shared several thousands words of steamy, emotional angst. But online is not real life and things are about to get REAL.
The Good
This is a fun read. April and Marcus are easy characters to like and the story is that unicorn mix of cute and sexy. I love how body positive the story is - April is plus size, and not in a wide hips, curvy sense, but actually heavy. She's described as being fat and she rocks every sex scene. I also enjoyed that in between the story, you get snippets of steamy fanfic, so-bad-they're-good scripts, as well as little group chats. None of it really adds much to the plot, but they're funny and act as a wink to the reader to just shut your brain off, slap a smile on and enjoy: it ain't that serious.
The Bad
We're given two POVs in April and Marcus and, while I like them as characters and definitely they have chemistry, they kind of felt like the same POV. And an overly sensitive POV at that. Neither have a single bad thought and are painstakingly earnest in wanting to see things from the other's perspective. Not exactly realistic in a new relationship (or even a many-years-down-the-line relationship). I don't need or want to read a toxic relationship, but I think they could have disagreed on SOME things at least. I mean Marcus didn't have to be an asshole exactly, he just could have had more of a guys take on things. As is, it kind of felt as though the author was afraid of her characters having a bad take on anything at all.
The Somewhat Iffy
There is so much iffyness, but also it doesn't really matter as it's not the kind of story where you read it for its realism. However, some of things I couldn't overlook were: 1. Marcus has a fake persona not just for the public, but also to his co-workers of seven years and his parents. That's pretty therapy-needed extreme. 2. All the friends are totally pointless. No tension with any of them, no attraction, nada. There are no subplots here. The only slight exception being the Alex thing at the end but we don't read the consequence. 3. The pressure of dating in your mid/late thirties feels kind of important. Kids aren't even mentioned once, and it's pretty unrealistic for a thirty-six year old woman not to have thoughts on that subject.
Overall
I went into this wanting a cheesy, smutty kind of story and that's what I got. It's well written (if sometimes repetitive on certain phrases) and fulfils all the promise of the premise. Cute and sexy one thousand percent.
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