Play It Again: A Slow Burn Romance

Play It Again: A Slow Burn Romance (2019) Aidan Wayne

Dovid Rosenstein and his sister Rachel run the popular YouTube channel Don’t Look Now, with Rachel behind the camera and Dovid starring in the videos–many of which focus on accessibility and anti-bullying, since Dovid has spent most of his life navigating a sighted world.

Dontlooknowdovid: Oh yeah? Anything you can talk about? Or want to talk about? I’m all ears.

Dontlooknowdovid: (literally; I use a text-to-speech function)

Sam Doyle is a Let’s Play gamer, whose accent and way of describing his play appeals first to Rachel, and then to Dovid, who develops a bit of an instant crush on him. A long-distance friendship slowly develops, and grows into something more.

They were using an awful lot of emoticons with each other. Were they flirting? Was this flirting? If this were anyone else Dovid would totally consider it flirting. But he really liked Sam, and Sam was just so nice. Maybe Dovid was just projecting. He didn’t want to say or do anything wrong by accident.

THIS STORY IS SO SWEET!

Dovid is pretty open and straight-forward, but Sam is a shy introvert, so Doivd (and we) slowly learn about what makes him happy–and what doesn’t (his job first and foremost).

And did I mention how sweet it is?

“Oh, well, actually, I found something very interesting to read? Although a bit… erm…”

“What? What is it?”

“Did you know there’s fanfiction about us?” Sam blurted out.

“What!” Dovid yelped. “You found that?”

I highlighted a good deal of this book, except that now I’m done, I realize almost everything I quoted would give away so many of the things you slowly discover over the course of the book, which would ruin so much of the joy of reading the book.

So here’s what I can tell you up front: There is Ace and Bi representation in this book, lots of discussion about consent and boundaries, and… did I mention how sweet it is??

I will quote something that hit me particularly hard, but I’ll hide it, so you won’t see it unless you want to, after you’ve read the story.

SPOILER (rot 13)

Fnz unq arire dhrfgvbarq ubj uvf cneragf vagrenpgrq jvgu uvz. Ur unq bayl jvfurq gb or orggre, fb gung znlor bar qnl gurl jbhyq… jbhyq yvxr uvz zber. Ohg ur unqa’g qbhogrq gung ur’q qrfreirq gurve qvfcyrnfher. Ur unq orra n obgurefbzr puvyq, jung jvgu orvat fb pyhzfl naq tnatyl, naq unq tebja vagb n qvfnccbvagvat nqhyg jub gurl xarj jbhyq arire unir n fgnaqbhg wbo be oevat ubzr n crefba (jvsr) gurl nccebirq bs be… be nal ahzore bs guvatf.

Naq ur xarj nyy bs gung orpnhfr…

Orpnhfr gurl unq gbyq uvz fb.

END SPOILER

It’s just a sweet and lovely story, and it’s full of things I adore, and I highly highly recommend it.

Publisher: Carina Press

Rating: 9/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• Bloody Acquisitions » »
• « « The Bellingham Mystery Series Volume 2