Level Me Up (Gamer Boy #1) by Lauren Helms

  Level Me Up  by Lauren Helms

Blurb:

The last thing Morgan Lawson is looking for when attending Comic-Con is love. But even prior to exchanging first words, Morgan is drawn to Dex, a drop-dead sexy gamer boy who lives and breathes video games. Before she realizes it, Morgan finds herself caught up in all things Dex.

Dex Roberts knows from the moment he first sees Morgan, he wants more. He falls hard and fast but isn’t surprised when his job as a professional video gamer takes a toll on their relationship.

Once Morgan decides what truly makes her happy, there’s no time to waste. But without warning, life threatens to destroy what both Morgan and Dex want most... each other.


On the whole, I enjoyed reading this book but I wasn't sure for a long time whether it would be four or three stars. Despite the story being well-plotted and interesting, it was easy to put the book away for some time due to the moderate tempo of the book and the hero's lengthy inner dialogues at the beginning of the book.

It all seems to happen rather slowly and even though I liked the hero and the heroine a lot, I didn't really get emotionally involved that much. Considering the fact that our heroine and our hero, as in Morgan and Dex, have some really hard times to pass and things in the book get rather emotional more than once that is unusual for me.
Apart from that though, I liked the story and the characters, I loved to see Morgan have her "I carried a watermelon-moment" when she met Dex for the first time and I loved the interaction between the characters. Due to the interesting characters whom I would love to have as friends as well, as they are a really great lot. It's nice to see them care for each other and kick each other when some "inspiration" is needed.
Morgan's emotional baggage is not easy to digest when worst comes to worst but they are understandable when you know her story and I love to see her friends help her realize that she should try to leave that behind and to trust more.
Dex is sweet, even when he messes things up because, well, he is a guy, right, it's really not his fault that he makes a mess of all this emotional stuff.

In the end, I found that I was looking forward to hearing more about the other members of the team in future books, so that's why I decided to give the book four stars despite those points that I mentioned.

★★★★