Dovid’s glowing shout-out on Don’t Look Now, his own successful channel, sends Sam’s subscriber numbers skyrocketing overnight. He has more comments than he can read. And while the sudden surge in popularity is anxiety inducing, Sam decides it’s only right to dedicate his next episode to Dovid…which soon leads to a heart-pounding exchange of DMs.
They may have never met in person, but Dovid’s never felt this close to anyone before. What they have feels worth exploring—no matter the distance. But is it possible to already be in love with someone who’s half a world away? (Pub Date: Apr 22, 2019)
A long-distance romance between a new Youtuber and a Youtube celebrity, what could go wrong? This one did, unfortunately.
2.5, but it deserved being rounded up for the healthy message it includes, and the first part actually went well.
Dovid—not David!—is a Youtube sensation, mostly for his reviews on accessibility and the fact he's blind but can still joke about his situation. Sam is a gamer who's just starting on Youtube and is really happy to have his hundred followers to interact while he plays. When Dovid's business partner and sister finds out about Sam, she has to show it to her brother. The result is both siblings can't resist how adorable Sam is, and their followers agree. As Dovid helps Sam navigate through his newfound fame, their feelings also grow, despite the possible backslash they might get from their viewers and the distance between Seattle and Ireland.
I realize my summary sucks, I guess I'm not very inspired. It's just that even though that was the idea the author had, there's very little in the book you'd expect from the trope. Either if you got it for newbie falling in love with celebrity, or if you chose this for the penpals becoming romantically involved. I'm not saying this book lacked clichés, it's always great when writers try not to use them. What I mean is that the focus was different. It was borderline didactic. One can't say this author didn't make his research—I'm not visually impaired but I do follow Youtubers and everything he mentions seems accurate enough for both aspects.
Summing up, this book wasn't exciting. The beginning is cute, the thrill of imagining the moment their paths will cross was sweet too. But everything else doesn't live up to it. Which is a big pity, because both characters were nice. Okay, I was a little put down about how much Dovid worried about being politically correct—now I'm gonna be afraid of assuming people I'm in love with are sexual—, but he was overall okay. And as I said, the story is exciting too.
And then it becomes a tutorial. As if anyone reading is actually a starter Youtuber. And well, I think if I were, it wouldn't be in a m/m novel I'd be looking for advice. As if there wasn't schooling enough, because Dovid is so worried about acting right for Sam, sometimes the focus of the story was that Sam might be asexual—even though this had never been a problem for the person himself. All this evolves to how Sam's parents treat him, which wasn't a conflict in the beginning either. Yay for Dovid solving all of Sam's conflicts the readers never knew to be issues.
I'd edit out most of the "How to become a Youtuber" advices and what I just complained out, I'd actually make it be a problem from the start. As it is, the way the book presents it was too random for me to care.
I feel bad for going on so much about it all, because I kind of liked the book. I recognize its worth. If only anything big had happened... I'm sorry that I can't really recommend, but I wouldn't deny reading the writer's next work.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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