THE PERFECT GUY DOESN'T EXIST

Ivy is obsessed with the television show Hot, Magical, and Deadly, and she has a huge crush on Mackenzie, who, due to a recent argument, is unfortunately now her ex–best friend.

After she became captain of the volleyball team, Mack no longer seemed to have time for Ivy; now, she has absolutely zero patience for Ivy’s obsession with the H-MAD fandom. But when Ivy’s home alone during a thunderstorm, she manages to magically manifest Weston Razorbrook, the dreamy main character from the show, directly into her bed. She’s forced to team up with Mack and Henry, a new fandom friend, to figure out what to do next. The trio soon learns that this version of Weston is directly taken from Ivy’s self-insert romantic fanfictions, tropes included. Unfortunately for Ivy, the tropes she loves in her stories are a lot less romantic in real life. Despite Weston’s volatile nature, Ivy wants to keep him in her life, against Mack’s constant insistence otherwise. This nerdy love story with queer protagonists is enjoyable, although at times it feels superficial: The plot-driven story would have benefitted from further development of the characters and setting. Ivy’s reactions to the manifestation of a turbulent man from her fanfictions doesn’t always seem believable. Ivy is cued white; Mack reads Black.

A cute, if lightly developed, queer friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance.