witchbuns

Shameez Patel, 2026

3.5 Stars for Nostalgic Play

The premise and setting of this story are pure jellybeans and cinnamon candies – bite-sized, munchy, and bingeable. Lincoln is a grumpy engineering god, a singular talent who builds freeway structures and holds high standards for urban planning. In real life, he has anxiety, ADD, and a swath of personal issues that make him closed off and irritable. At night, he games as Link and chats with Lily, a sarcastic companion who he begins to trust beyond anyone else in real life. In this dual POV, his was the story I wanted to return to because he showed such personal growth letting in his real-life friends and learning to trust in himself. He balances being the only son, worrying about his mother, and never feeling normal. Lincoln feels like a very personal character and he’s a true neuro-STEM hunk to root for. His support group of gamer friends weave into the story via weekly game nights, and they love and rile each other up continuously, making the gamer setting even more believable and fun to jump into.

What was less believable was Elizabeth, the stepdaughter of a billionaire tech titan who works to keep that side of her personal life hidden as she forges a career in engineering. We love that Elizabeth works hard to compete with her main peers, but the other parts of her life felt less tangible. She’s a former model, has a dating past, etc, with big grey eyes and butterfly clips in her hair. I think you can see where I found this love story unbalanced. What Lincoln overcomes to fall in love are personal feelings of grief, issues related to neurodiversity, and cultural and familial pressures. Elizabeth is battling a supervillain jerfkace father who is too powerful and controlling to ever go away, and she’s frequently seen as having undeniable beauty. Her best friend is her grandmother who is a fun spark plug, but she really doesn’t have anyone else to build more layers within her character. Having Lincoln fall in love with her when she’s his junior and his intern was tougher for me to enjoy. Elizabeth is kind to everyone, self-reliant and hardworking, but I wish that she was actually more ordinary. Why did she need to exceed beauty standards at such an elite level? It’s hard out there for women in gaming, and her being notoriously pretty felt unsettling for me, because it was one of her primary characteristics. 

In the workplace, the commentary by the male engineers objectifying Elizabeth and belittling her talent were also tough to read. That theme of sexism and double standards could have been illustrated even if she was less beautiful and less famous. The sexism at work would be more impactful if she was just a normal woman who was being underestimated because she had a nice smile and the required body parts. You know, cute glasses and freckles would probably be enough to make her objectified, the bar is that low. We can also imagine that past the epilogue, Elizabeth is still going to be underestimated because the setting of that engineering firm was trash to her, and that’s not a happy ending. Because her beauty and social status was so heightened, it made the happily ever after hard to picture. 

But let me circle back – this is still a fun book and the setting in gaming feels very lived in and authentic. This book does a great job of depicting gaming in real life as a daily refuge, and the chats prefacing each chapter are rooted in a very relatable curbed honesty between Link and Lily. Where I want to go next is into Shameez Patel’s first book Playing Flirty so that I can spend more time with Rose and William’s story. Overall, Next Level Love was supposed to be over the top with fated lovers and IRL complications. I just wished the female character had a softer belly, a few contemporary friends, and maybe a dog. Something more real to make their love story feel rooted and sustainable.

Thank you to Shameez Patel, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.