Level Up

by Cathy Yardley

[Angie]

Level Up is a cute, geeky romance with a side of lady gamer trying to break into a male dominated career. Tessa and Adam are friends, roommates, and coworkers. It's never been anything beyond that, but things are changing. Adam's friends and teammates bet him that he can't get a girlfriend before they hire someone to round out their team. Meanwhile, Tessa is yearning for a promotion to that very open position. Needless to say, her attempts to grab her dream job bring her closer to Adam, thus getting him the perfect girlfriend.

Level Up has a few of my favorite tropes at play. Of course, there's the geeks falling in love! Geek can be sexy and find love, too! The friends to lover aspect was cute, and I truly believed that Adam and Tessa hadn't looked at each other as anything more than friends until that point. An innocent kiss to make a jerk back off turned into something more, and I loved how they didn't just dance around it, but talked about it and got back to kissing! The best part of all was the stranded together scene! I love when the love interests are awkward and then circumstances force them to spend time with each other!

I also liked how there was new friendship developed in Level Up. Tessa doesn't really get out much. She's focused on honing her coding skills and moving up in her career, and she's just not that comfortable around people. But then she agrees to go out with someone from work, meets her friends, and they all become friends! Tessa also offers to help them win a contest that will draw attention to their failing bookstore while also showing off her coding skills. I wish the book had been longer so we could have seen more of them together.

What made me drop my rating for Level Up was that three of the plot threads completely disappeared. The first being the bet, which is how everything even gets started. Obviously, Tessa and Adam end up together, so he won? Maybe, because he said the girl wouldn't be Tessa, so I don't know. Second: did Tessa get the job on Adam's team? That's what she had been working toward! Third: what happened to the bookstore?! I know that's not important in terms of the romance, but it was still a driving force in getting them together. I do suspect that following books will be about those sisters, so we'll find out. But there should have been something about how the contest affected their business.

I definitely still recommend Level Up though! It's a fast, fun read and I really enjoyed watching Tessa show off her skills in the face of adversity. She is not going to let the boys win! There's also plenty of kissing, but there could have been more in between, as the transitions between scenes were kind of jumpy, so at times the physical romance seemed to come out of nowhere.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.