I’m so obsessed with nerdy YA romances!! A book about competitive esports?! It’s like was written for me. Add on the the FMC has a color-coded binder planning out her high school into college path? Yeah, I felt seen.

Don’t Hate The Player is adorable, geeky, funny, and heartwarming. The romance is there, of course. But there’s also so much about other relationships: found family, team dynamics, high school friendships, parent relationships. There’s so much but it never feels overwhelming; it fits so seamlessly into the story of Emilia and Jake, and also Penny and Matt and Unity and everyone in between.

A bit about our main characters:
Emilia Romero is a type A superstar. Amazing grades, field hockey, Model UN, and more and more and more. But those aren’t necessarily things she loves. They’re things she feels she has to do — to be ‘great’, to get into a good college, to make her immigrant parents feel like she’s taking advantage of the opportunities they’ve given her. On top of that pressure, Mrs Romeo (mother, field hockey coach, and life planner) has Emilia’s life planned out as much as Emilia does. But GLO, or Guardians League Online, is Emilia’s thing. She chose it. She loves it. Yet, it’s a secret from literally everyone in her life.

Now enter Jake Hooper — nerdy, shy, lover boy. Jake has had a crush on Emilia since he first saw her playing Knights of Darkness at an arcade birthday party. The fact that she was really, really good only made him fall harder. The two continued to meet at parties, always playing together, laughing, and having fun. But then they didn’t see each other any more. So when Jake transfers to Emilia’s high school, you can imagine the shock when he realizes she goes there and that she’s insanely smart and incredibly involved in the school. To Jake, they have nothing in common anymore. Except GLO.

And that’s where our story really picks up; Emilia’s secret esports team Fury is in a GLO competition and one of the competing teams is Unity, Jake’s team and best friends. And this is my favorite part — the world of competitive esports (or at least a glimmer of it), with a side of young love!

This book was fun! It was cute, it made me happy. It’s nice to read about things I enjoy, and to see badass women fall in love while the backdrop is incredibly nerdy (read: STEM for Ali Hazelwood, DnD for Kristy Boyce, and hopefully many many more). To see girls be treated kindly and equally in nerdy and male dominated areas heals the middle and high schooler (and even early college kid) in me who never wanted go admit I watched anime, or played video games, or loved Lord of the Rings because girls didn’t like that stuff. It was for boys and 1) they’d be sure to tell you that you didn’t belong and 2) girls would make fun of you. And of course that’s covered in this book and similar ones as well, because it’s reality. Emilia has a really tough time a girl playing GLO, both before and during her competitive esports time. But there are also people like Jake, and Penny and Matt, and all of team Unity who just like that Emilia is doing something she likes, that she’s good at it, and nothing else matters. It’s a good reminder that good people exist along with the bad.

LOVED:

LAMENTED:

LONGED FOR:

WILL I READ THE NEXT ONE? : Yep. I'm glad the next book is about Ivan and I hope he gets to redeem himself (though the next cover is disappointing compared to this one).