⭐️⭐️ This book was fucking bad
The blurb for this book snagged my attention and set up my expectations for a fun story with a mystery to be solved. Rival vampire role players “working secretly in the shadows” and making moves on the LGBTQ D & D club? Sign me up! Only problem was that the story didn’t match those expectations. I kept waiting for a big mystery to unveil itself, but it never did. It left me disappointed. I’m not sure if that was a failure on my part or the blurb’s. Did I misunderstand/misinterpret that last line? Looking back at it, I don’t think so.
I greatly enjoyed the first quarter of the book. The setup was fun. Learning about the characters and their quirks made me want to read more. Ben is a loser who lives in his parents’ basement, doesn’t have a job at 25, and lives for role playing games. He recently had a crush on Jeff, a dude who treated him like shit, but when new guy Albert arrives at the weekly D & D game, Ben falls for him. Come to find out, Albert has hooked up with Jeff. Other characters include Mooneyham, a (mostly) closeted, buff gay banker who’s dating Huey, Celeste the trans game mistress, and the lesbian couple of Valerie and Polly. I’m not sure why so much time was spent on the side characters. Aside from Mooneyham, the other characters’ stories weren't interesting or relevant enough to give them POVs. Their stories didn’t move the main plot forward, and I was puzzled as to why the author focused so much on them when they had so little influence.
As for the Ben-Jeff-Albert triangle, I’m sad to admit that I hated it. I hated Jeff for being such a jerk to Ben. I hated Ben for being a massive pussy and not standing up for himself. I hated Albert most of all for toying with Ben and being so flippant about their “relationship.” He acted like a straight up cunt to Ben, stringing him along while unapologetically dating Jeff and constantly throwing it in Ben’s face at the worst possible moments. Albert acted like a catty fourteen-year-old girl who wants to have her cake and eat it too. I fucking hated him and wished like hell Ben would wake up and smell the fart-laden cloud of deceit that Albert seemed to stew in. A narcissist with no remorse, Albert rarely even recognized the damage he was doing as he toyed with Ben and happily went home to Jeff every night, and even when he did recognize what an asshole he'd been, he didn't give enough of a fuck to correct his shitty behavior. Ben wasn’t much better, but at least he was somewhat sympathetic—emphasis on “pathetic.”
The plot could use some work too as the conflict was largely nonexistent. Based on the blurb, I was expecting a book about vampire RPGers going after the LGBTQ group, but that never materialized. The moment I thought something exciting was about to happen, it fell apart with no resolution, no fight, no story questions. The plot went literally nowhere.
The ending left a lot to be desired as well. It was all tied up with a predictable bow. Ben "won" Albert (though, I wouldn't consider him a prize by any stretch of the imagination). There were no apologies from Albert, just blind acceptance on Ben's part. What a fucking door mat.
A final note: There were a couple scenes that made me cringe, the worst of which was when Ben and Albert went to the concert. The band and their theatrics were hilarious, but when Ben was dragged onstage and forced to don a costume, things went south. He CLEARLY didn’t want to be involved, and consent lines were crossed. Even though he eventually went along with and even enjoyed the theatrics, the initial part when he nearly had a panic attack over being up there really sent my hackles up. There were a few other places where consent should’ve been granted and wasn’t. They were glossed over quickly as if they were no big deal. Maybe I made too much of these scenes, but I felt squicky as fuck reading them. For the record, there was no forced sex (though, there was a kiss)—just situations where a character obviously didn’t want to be doing something/was embarrassed but was forced or coerced to do it anyway. Those scenes were gross.
In the end, the book didn’t live up to the blurb’s promise for me. I’d hoped for a more cogent story with relevant conflicts to push it forward. Sadly, it didn’t deliver.
* I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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