Playing Her Secret Crush is a cute, friends-to-lovers YA romance. The "playing" in the title refers to the online RPG that Katie and Alex play as part of a team--it's actually a huge part of the story, even though the blurb doesn't really reveal that. It was a fun part to read--probably even more fun if you're a gamer yourself :)

The biggest roadblock to Katie and Alex being together was the fact that Alex's older brother had (kind of, maybe? He seemed a bit fuzzy on the details at times on this) said he liked Katie just before he died, which for Alex seemed to mean that she was therefore forever his brother's girl--this was more than a little annoying. Since pretty much all of Alex's self-destructive tendencies came from what he thought he "should" do for his brother, though, he fortunately gets over them all at once in pretty dramatic fashion--and just in time, of course.

New gaming teammate and neighbor Lexi provided a fun distraction throughout--geesh, though, Katie and Alex were super slow to figure out what was perfectly obvious to the reader--she got an HEA of her own too (probably, we didn't really see it all to the end but it's strongly implied) which was a nice touch.

This was my first book from this author, but probably not my last!

Rating: 4 stars / B

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book. ( )

Alright. Let me start with this. I'm a huge fan of some of these tropes: enemies to lovers, identity reveals, and the BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS storyline.

Playing Her Secret Crush is basically that, but with an extra hint of video games. Katie has been crushing on her best friend Alex for forever. But this year, she's determined to be more confident and more outgoing. Then, Alex asks Katie to help him get a girlfriend, and suddenly - everything becomes that much more confusing.

I really loved the video game subplot, which actually is a much bigger part of the story than the blurb lets you believe. Overall, however, I did think that it was still too predictable. It had a very Disney movie-esque happy ending, and the romantic plotline was also quite unsurprising. I felt like the official blurb, in addition to the sometimes third person omniscient writing style may have revealed too much. Knowing that Alex and Katie already liked each other and were going to end up together lessened a lot of the anticipation and the "slow burn," which is what I usually read these sort of books for. A lot of things that happened in this book were also pretty cliche in general.

I did like the characters, and the author indeed explored the backstories of the two main characters. I still wish that those histories and character developments could have played a larger role, rather than just appearing when it was convenient for the romantic plot.

The writing style was quite good; the book read like many typical YA contemporary romance novels by authors such as Kasie West or Morgan Matson.

Overall, this was a fun read but I did find it a little too predictable to be memorable, and therefore I can't round up my 2.5 star rating. ( )