This book was honestly the coolest book I've read in a while. The concept/premise of the book is so unique and entertaining, and I really enjoyed reading it. The premise of one day coming home to find your favorite character from a book series you love standing in the middle of your living room definitely drew my attention and led me to requesting the ARC of this book on NetGalley because who wouldn't love if this happened to them in real life? The author's writing really brought the characters to life in this story and the book made for a highly entertaining read; some parts of the book made me want to keep turning the pages to find out what was going to happen. The ability for Enzo to be able to manipulate the portal in the story was particularly interesting to me and one of my favorite aspects of this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Only a Portal Away by Akira Varma starts with an intriguing premise and a strong opening that drew me in, especially in the first few chapters of the book. However, as the story progresses past this point, the dialogue tends to become repetitive, and you can tell the author is truly excited about their work and is trying to convince the reader as well. I think I would of enjoyed the story more without all the over-explaining of minor details. I truly think with some editing and more focus on character development/plot the story would be amazing and I can't wait to see what this turns into after it is published.

I had to DNF about a quarter of the way in. The repetition was sadly giving me a headache. Unfortunately this is just not written in a way that I truly can get into… thank you for the chance to read it, it is appreciated.

I was hoping for more romance from this book. I liked the characters and the overall plot but was expecting a romantasy

I found many issues with this book but what bothered me the most was:

1.Poor Communication

There are several instances where Enzo doesn’t understand what Aliya is talking about and instead of just asking what a certain word means or what an object does he simply does… nothing. He dismisses the problem telling himself and I quote “that’s a question for another time”. Please don’t? Ask her now and learn more about this new world you found yourself in!

There was plenty of time where both could have in depth conversations but that never happens. How are they supposed to get to know each other, build a friendship if the end goal is for them to fall in love? Their first trip to the author’s house takes hours, that entire chapter was a missed opportunity for Enzo’s character growth and for Aliya to explain to the readers her motivations and show more of her personality. Unfortunately we get none of that.


2. Enzo and Aliya’s relationship.

Enzo’s infatuation for Aliya just didn’t make sense to me. “He’d only known her for a couple days at most, but Aliya had already become one of the people he cared about the most” How? Why? His motivation was to return home, why the sudden change and affection for this person he only met a day ago? It felt forced and unrealistic.


This story reads as an early draft. I liked the premise, that’s why I decided to give it a chance and I 100% believe it could’ve been an excellent book. Sadly it didn’t meet my expectations.

This book had a good idea but did not follow through. I am not sure if I just wasn't in the right mind set for this book when I read it but I did not finish this book. I am usually very easy to please with books so I am open to trying this again in the future but for now it was a DNF.

I wasn't able to finish this before it expired but I was able to read some of it. I enjoyed what I was able to read and look forward to finding a copy of this book so that I can finish it.

2.5/5 ⭐️ So, here’s the thing. You can tell when an author is excited about their material and is trying hard to make you like and believe in it like they do. And that’s good! Unfortunately that’s pretty much the only good thing I can say about this one. Most of these reviews hit the nail on the head about the issues so I’ll try to be brief, but outline what stuck out to me.

1. Crazy repetitive. This was the first thing I noticed and it made it almost impossible to read, from the dialogue to how many times the author repeated the FMCS name, especially in the beginning. It drove me crazy, I’m sorry to say, and made me genuinely surprised this wasn’t the authors debut.
2. Poorly written characters. The insta love was too sudden to be believable or captivating. No way the MMC went through all he did and somehow fell in love with some girl with a creepy shrine to him immediately? He just gave in to the whole situation so soon it was unrealistic and made it hard to care at all about their relationship. Side note: the constant harping on how obsessed she was with him was not only realistic (we all have fictional boyfriends but her thing was just too much tbh) and cringey. Wouldn’t she care about any of the other elements of the book that much, any other character, or just this side character prince?
3. Flashbacks. I honestly feel bad about this but I found them so incredibly boring it was hard to read. They should have been so much more interesting and gripping for what they were and it just… wasn’t.
4. Unrealistic. I’m not talking about the portal jumping stuff. I mean the details. How can you discuss for so long how an author is incredibly reclusive & hard to find, and then the next morning you’ve suddenly found BOTH her home addresses without any explanation? Not even a sentence for how this hard to find author was found by an amateur sleuth on google? Lol.


Overall, hard to read and not enjoyable. Apologies if this comes off as harsh, but I truly believe with some better editing and feedback this author could give us something quite good. Until then, I’m not impressed.

—Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. 🤍

I was really excited to dive into "Only a Portal Away" with its cool premise, but it just didn't deliver for me. The idea of a fictional character showing up in the real world had so much potential, but the execution was pretty disappointing.

The dialogue was a major letdown. It felt so forced and awkward that I found myself cringing more often than not. The interactions between Aliya and Enzo, which should've been engaging, just didn't feel natural. It was hard to connect with them because their conversations felt so stiff.

The plot also fell into a lot of clichés. While the story had some imaginative elements, the twists and turns were pretty predictable and lacked originality. There were moments that were supposed to be dramatic or emotional, but they just ended up feeling over the top and unconvincing.

I understand that this book has still not gone through its bouts of editing yet but for the sentences to be so repetitive it’s actually quite impressive. E.g ‘enzo lit the candle. Aliyah could finally see as the candle was lit by enzo’ over and over again. This made it quite hard to read and stay engaged with the story.

In my opinion, the plot and characters weren’t very credible. I feel like writing about a character that is based on the book’s reader takes away from the magic of a fantasy book. Perhaps the lack of escapism wasn’t for me but I couldn’t get lost in this at all.


Characters

Aliyah and enzo - their connection felt very forced to me due to the insta-love trope. The problem here is that the book takes place in a very short span (2 days I believe?) and that is in no way enough time for two characters to build trust and speak about one another as though they’ve known each other for a long time (or even at all!)

Sierra seemed mysterious at first glance but then quickly turned into a one dimensional character like the rest. I think there’s a lot of potential there to add personality to her in the future.

Aliyah’s character was very YA-damsel-in-distress. Always gasping and clutching her pearls and personally I think her fear could’ve been conveyed a bit better. Not every character has to be strong and fearless, especially when they don’t have that kind of background, but it gets annoying for the readers to read as we’ve seen this many times in this genre.

Lovely book cover design though. Unfortunately the plot and writing just weren’t for me, and that’s okay.

The Codex of Indresal. Ravendoore. War Torn Kingdoms. Fae. Ancient Elves. Magical Worlds.

This book takes the bookworm's dream: taking the reader's favorite character from their favorite novel, ripping them from their ink and paper world into the real world? He is wounded, dumbfounded. Aliya is a Junior at Georgia University. The favorite character: Crown Prince Enzo al'Deran of Ravendore.

Aliya wants to believe that the Prince came from her fantastical, magical, beautiful fictional world. To prove she isn't losing her mind, Enzo creates a portal to prove that the magic he weilds is real, that he is flesh and blood.

The Prince asks for Aliya's help. Enzo wants to take his reader into the world of Indresal. No pressure, along with learning of the fact that Enzo is being chased by the villain; and the villain is now in the real, tangible world.

Aliya must decide if she is willing to risk her life in order to save Indresal and the Crown Prince. She could either be going crazy, or she must save her favorite beloved fictional world. I needed this fun light-hearted read. There is so much fun whimsy.

There are dark moments, like when Crown Prince contends with terrible nightmares of the war. Blood, war, anger, screams, cries. The banter is witty and sweet. The silliness of Enzo slowly learning of Aliya's world is humorous and adorable.

I do believe this novel could have done much more with the plot, with more developed character arcs. The elements I loved were: the slow burn romance, a romantasy, and elves. Who doesn't love Elves. However, I still am not a fan of dual POVs. Also, I am just not a fan of the timeline constantly shifting back and forth between storylines. Overall, a good read. I would give the next book a chance to see where the adorable, whimsy couple does next in their fictional adventures 🌟🌟🌟/5 Stars!

What happens when you come home to find your favourite character from a book is in the middle of your living room.
This had a good premise and an interesting start. I did however find it difficult to like the characters. Perhaps it was the pacing of the story, which I found to be rather fast. Also the character development could have had more time devoted to it. We had lots of chasing and insta attraction which with the other points lead to a bit of a superficial story. Not my favourite.

What would you do if you met your favourite character?

Such a great premise and a great start, I thoroughly enjoyed the first 30% of the book.
At around the 30% mark I found a lot of dialogue became repetitive and sometimes over explaining, getting bogged down in minor details, while not delving deep into character development.

A quick revision and removing some details while fleshing out more and this book would be a winner, I was totally invested in the premise, the stories and Indresal.
Thank you to Netgalley and the author for this ARC.

3.5⭐️

I received an ARC copy of this book for an honest review.

Aliya (FMC) meets her favourite fictional book character who she finds injured in her home when she returns home from work.
This is definitely a very interesting concept, as I’m not sure I know a single reader who hasn’t fantasised about meeting their fictional boyfriend/s or girlfriend/s, or their favourite girl boss, etc.

While there were comedic portions of the book it was quite a fast paced book (over the space of 2 days) and it was a bit repetitive at times. I think it could have done with some expansion so we really got to know the characters, as well as the book that Crown Prince Enzo al’Deran came from.

The cliffhanger at the end of the book will leave you impatiently waiting for the new instalment!

Oh my god I loved this book so so much I just couldn't put it down.. Need to know the rest because that end is not okay... No no no.. Seriously the interactions between the characters were amazing and Enzo and Aliya made me laugh so much.

I was...not going to finish Akira Varma's <i>Only a Portal Away</i>.

About 29 pages in, I decided this book was very poorly written and therefore not worth my time. When I reach this point with a book, usually my first stop is to read the reviews, confirming to myself that it's not about to get better any time soon. And of the reviews I've read thus far, I genuinely do believe this was an accurate assessment.

That said, I also can't in good conscience rate this book a well deserved one-star if I DNF at 11%.

Let me just say that forcing myself to finish this was a chore; but I believe it was necessary because, if nothing else, I think this book does call for an in-depth explanation for why a reasonably good concept just isn't working out and potential readers deserve to know what they're getting themselves into...

<i>"No fictional character should know the extent you love them. Aliya pursed her lips. Her eyes widened at the thought of all the fanfiction that she had read of Enzo. Aliya bit her lip as her breath hitched. Trying to control her emotions was futile at the moment. Her mind raced with all the images from the times she'd imagined Enzo...

He wasn't supposed to know that!

No one was supposed to know that!

That was supposed to be between her and her grave!

He already teased her about the hearts around his name in the book series. What would he even think of her if he saw her browser history? The thought itself was daunting. No hole would be deep enough for Aliya to dive into to escape the embarrassment. He didn't need to know that.

And if she had any say in it, he wouldn't have known any of this.

But she didn't. And here she was, desperately hoping that the hearts around his name were the only thing that Enzo saw."</i>

When I say that the entire book is like this, an offhand and disjointed stream of consciousness that jumps from one thing to the next and then circles back to repeat itself all while never actually showing readers <i>anything</i>, I wish I were joking. This small excerpt alone literally repeats itself again with just a single paragraph in between that describes the her fictional crush looking at his hands. And then we get <i>pages</i> of her embarrassment because the author just can't help herself from describing all the things Aliya either owns or has done relating to this favorite character of hers. And then we get repeats of how good this guy looks.

I can't even begin with how many times I groaned at those repeats. My word, they <i>never</i> ended!

And this is without even bothering to get into the abject ridiculousness of assuming someone from a fantasy realm would understand anything about browser history.

<i>Only a Portal Away</i> desperately needs a team of editors to sit the author down and explain all of the cuts it needs to be functionally readable and then discuss how to add content that will move the story along without making it feel rushed. We didn't need to be in Aliya's head <i>this much</i>, rather we needed to <b>see</b> her reacting and learning. We needed to see how these characters might grow to actually feel for each other; Enzo, especially, but yes, even Aliya! There's so much you can do with a plot like this and at every turn Varma just failed.

I did not need to be getting direct thoughts from Aliya through the whole novel literally <i>telling</i> me what was going on in her head, I needed the author to <i>show</i> me. As it stands, with all the cuts I would have made due to ridiculous redundancy, this book should have been half as long as it ended up being. The problem with this, of course, is that you've got little more than an outline of your story's plot masquerading as the book as a result.

And this is precisely why the world building and character development felt so lacking—when you fill your novel with pages of useless fluff to meet the word count goals, you have precious little space for the actual story. There's no showing readers evolution of thought or character development when you've spent twelve paragraphs alternating between internal embarrassment and ogling the other character.

Let me put it this way: Enzo's realization of the realities of his situation should not have been something he reached in approximately nine sentences of his dialogue. Just like so much else in this book, <i>"What? [...] Uh, yes I am. Are you really sure that I'm fictional? What world is this? What even made you think I'm fictional? Who wrote this book? How do they know so much about this world? Do you know where the writer is? [...] Take me to her,"</i> should have taken pages to evolve, especially when a mere minute prior, Enzo had thought the book was a collected written history of a past war.

And I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn that this entire exchange, including the questions in verbatim, repeats several times in the subsequent pages.

I do genuinely believe that this had potential...but for the love of literature, if an author is going to self-publish, they need to spring for a team of good editors. Traditional publishing has them for a reason!

This book had such a promising premise (like who hadn't dreamt of their favourite fantasy book bf suddenly turning up at their house?), but unfortunately, the execution felt very poor. So much lost potential.

The plot wasn't very fleshed out, many things felt forced, like the insta love Enzo had for Aliya or how ready she is to sacrifice herself after knowing him for only one day.
The writing also could have been better. The story was more told than shown and I couldn't have cared less about the history and the many wars. It lacked at lot of development of the world and the characters. Many things weren't explained good enough for the reader to keep up. At times it felt a lot like a movie script for a rushed YA film (I immediately had to think about Abduction or Percy Jackson). Some things were quite unrealistic, like how fast Aliya found out the home address of an author who couldn't have been more private and hidden. There were also too many plot holes and mistakes.

2 ☆ stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review :)

This was an amazing concept but horribly written. I was drawn to this story by the blurb because it was so unique. Your favorite book boyfriend suddenly appears in your living room, which starts a quest to get him back to his world? Come on- that should be an instant five star read. Unfortunately, this read like a really bad fan fiction.

The writing was clipped and disjointed. I’ve never been so upset with the line writing in a story. I understand that what I was given an eARC, but there’s no way the entire book would be so heavily edited by release that every sentence that started with a conjunction would be fixed. Her writing was very repetitive. She’d mention the same thing in the same paragraph, but worded it differently. The author tends to focus on useless things, such as constant back cracking and a whole page about struggling with grocery bags.

The prologue was pointless and confusing. Nothing from the prologue is ever eluded to again.

The characters had so much potential but lacked suitable development. Aliya had the least amount of development. All I know about her is that she’s an engineering student at UGA who lacks the intelligence to understand that what she says to Enzo makes no sense because he is literally from another world. Enzo and Sienna had a decent amount of character building, but Enzo did not come across as likable. There’s even a POV from the villain. I understand him more than I understand the female main character.

I really enjoyed the concept but holy moly, the writing made it an absolute struggle to finish.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC.

I really loved this book, except for the ending. I NEED a book two immediately. I really liked the switching point of views, and the switching between our reality and a different world. The storyline and plot was amazing, and this book is the kind of book that will keep you awake till 3 AM. An amazing fantasy and just all in all perfect

Only a Portal Away by Akira Varma is a fun filled, action packed with magic and romance.
I enjoyed it tremendously!
I was sucked in by the first page and I thought the flow of the book was perfect, and it made for an easy read.
The world-building was nicely done. It was easy to understand and there was no info-dump, which was nice. The story was fast-paced, held me captive the entire time, and wrapped up nicely.

Thank You NetGalley and Publisher for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!