An accidental meeting and a misunderstanding lead to a life-altering connection.A new job, a new city, and hopefully a new life. When chubby gamer Oliver Barnaby receives a job offer from the best boutique game developer in the country, he leaves his family and his less than spectacular existence in Oklahoma without a second’s hesitation. Determined to change more than his career and his … his career and his geography, Oliver implements a plan to finally land a boyfriend. Step one is improving his skills in the bedroom.
A life that looks perfect on paper, but feels empty in reality. Attractive, successful, charismatic Jaime Snow has a life other people envy. His already booming business is growing. He isn’t lacking in friends. And he has no trouble finding a date. But there’s an emptiness in Jaime’s heart and a hole in his life that only the right man can fill.
An accidental meeting, a misunderstanding, and falling in love. When Oliver and Jaime end up at the same bar at the same time, they each see something they want in the other. Going to bed together that first night is easy. Building the lifetime relationship they both desperately crave will require trust, time, and a little misunderstanding.
Word count: 55,872
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Oliver is one of the sweetest, kindest, most selfless characters I’ve read in a long while. He also has a poor view of his own worth. Positive no guy could be interested until he loses weight and gains some skills in bed. Jamie grabs hold of the chance to get to know Oliver. I like how insightful and in tune he is to Oliver’s needs and motivations. His attraction for Oliver is from the first glance and only becomes more intense as they spend time getting to know one another. These two have chemistry and Jamie is determined to fix the misunderstanding he’s allowed to grow between them. The ending is sheer perfection.
Audiobook: fantastic narrator
Audible Review
Overall 4 out of 5 stars
Performance 4 out of 5 stars
Story 4 out of 5 stars
Sweet
This was an all around sweet story. I liked that the characters weren’t perfect specimens of male beauty, although I think Jamie might have been close! I thought there would be a bit more drama when the thruth was revealed, but Oliver is such a sweetie I should have known better. I liked how patient Jamie was with Oliver, he really took the time to make sure Oliver knew how special he was to him, that he truly cared about him. It was nice to see Oliver gain a little confidence as the book went on, with Jamie there as support. I really enjoyed their love story.
Not A Game was a feel good bit of escapism, perfect for the times we’re in.
Michael Ferraiuolo does a fine job with the narration- his voice is very soothing. He was able to give Jamie and Oliver their own distinct voices so I never had trouble differentiating who was speaking. I loved how he was able to portray Oliver’s vulnerabilty. Secondary characters were also done really well. A very enjoyable listen all in all!
***Thank you to Cardeno C for offering free audio codes!
Audiobook review:
Overall 5
Performance 5
Story 4
A very sweet love story with fantastic narration.
Not a Game is a wonderful, sweet, low angst love story. It’s kind of a reverse Pretty Woman story. Oliver has self-image issues due to his less than perfect body and his last boyfriend didn’t help matters any by saying he was bad in bed. Oliver hires a paid escort to teach him how to please a boyfriend, if he can ever find one.
Enter Jaime who is a gorgeous man but he doesn’t intimidate Oliver much because Oliver is paying him. As they spend more time together Oliver begins to fall for Jaime but he has doubts that someone who he paid to date him is really the right kind of person for him to fall in love with. But Jaime isn’t exactly what Oliver paid for.
It wasn’t hard to figure out Jaime’s secret but that didn’t detract from my absolute enjoyment of this story. Michael Ferraiuolo’s performance is outstanding, as always; he is in my top 5 favorite audiobook performers. I never have trouble telling who is talking when listening to a book he is reading. He has so many different male and female voices that I never feel like he’s reusing the same ones over and over again from book to book.
My only regret is that I waited so long to finally listen to this story; it’s been in my Audible library for over one year.
I would highly recommend it, if you are a hopeless romantic like myself….