Review: Great part one!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 19, 2014
PlotPlay Me had an interesting plot. I revolved around Kira, a gamer who was part of a gaming team with three boys: Alex, Ollie, and Ethan, who leaves them for her boyfriend at the time. However, things turn out not to go well with Kira and her boyfriend and now he’s after her so she turns to her gamer friends for help. They let her in to live with them but a lot of things have changed.I enjoyed the plot of this novel because it kept me interested. It mainly revolved around the romance aspect of it: Kira trying to get Alex to let her in. There was also the suspense part of it with Kira’s ex-boyfriend hunting her which kept me on edge throughout the entire novel. There was also a  splash of mystery as we tried to figure out what happened to Alex that changed his personality so much. The facing was just right: it was a happy medium of not too much and not too slow either.Leading LadyI actually didn’t enjoy Kira as much as I was hoping. She just wanted to be wanted, which is how she ended up in the situation that she was in running from her abusive ex-boyfriend. She didn’t realize that she had had three boys who wanted her. She was practically blind to the fact that they were all wrapped around her finger. She was actually pretty bratty in my opinion and she was just adamant on not accepting Alex’s help. But on the other side, she didn’t want them pulled into her crap. I liked her because she admits that she was wrong in what she did those years ago and wanted to reconcile with Alex. That was her forgiving trait.Leading Male“The cruelly handsome, scarily intelligent Alex Dumont. He braces a toned, muscular arm on the doorframe and scans me with intense green eyes, his perfectly symmetrical features evident even in the low light. Long lashes flick as he looks me up and down, an unreadable expression on his stone-hard face. I can see the calculations as he watches me, takes in every detail and processes it at light speed. He’s more super computer than human, a gamer with perfect reflexes and the ability to strategize on a dime.”Alex was the main guy in this novel. He was cold, distant, stoic, and secretive. Those are the best words to describe his personality. He was hiding things from Kira. He was intent that she knew what had happened when she honestly didn’t and that bothered me a bit. We have them, who were supposedly the best of friends a few years prior and he couldn’t tell that she was being truthful? I think he just wanted reasons to push her away. He wanted to isolate himself. I understand that he went through some tough stuff, but I really don’t think that that makes his behavior in this novel okay. He was hot and cold and I just didn’t know how to feel about it.RomanceThere wasn’t really much romance in this novel in the traditional sense. There was that I want but I won’t/can’t have feel to this one. Kira and Alex obviously still wanted each other but Alex was intent on it not happening. There were a few moments of lapsed judgment but no outright romance. But the tension was enough to keep me satisfied and I can’t wait to see Alex break.Other CharactersOllie and Ethan were the other two gamers in their group. Ollie was the caring and serious one. He would do anything to keep Kira safe. I liked him the best out of all the boys because he was level-headed. Even if he liked Kira (which I actually couldn’t tell) he didn’t just put it out there. He was like the middle man. Ethan, on the other hand, was blatant about his want for Kira, which put him and his best friend Alex at odds. Ethan was the flirty and goofy one. Your typical frat boy. He was there for Kira, though, which is more than what can be said for Alex, but I didn’t think that him and Kira would be good together.ConclusionPlay Me was a great part one in this novella series: it introduced us to the characters, the predicament, and the tension between the two main characters. I’m interested to see what happens in part two, especially with the cliffhanger that Ashcroft left at the end of this one.