Book Review: Ideal Life by Evelyn Skye

Fun Tech-Based "Magical Realism" Romance. This is a really fun "magical romance"... for the tech crowd - be they professionals (as our primary characters here) or "simply" enthusiasts. Set in Silicon Valley and its startup culture, this is one that takes a rather interesting spin on the "do over" idea and really uses it to examine a lot of deep questions and issues... while never actually feeling like it is diving so deep as to be a more philosophy tome ala say Atlas Shrugged. (Which is an awesome story itself, but also explicitly has an 80 page *actual philosophy tome* buried within its story.)

If you're looking for perfect people and a "perfect" romance... yeah, this aint that. These characters are flawed, but that actually makes them all the more relatable here, and it is worked within the story told quite well indeed. As with all other romances, if everyone was perfect with perfect communication, the 'story' would be all of about 2 pages or so. The flaws make the story, and here the flaws are done well and are atypical enough to be quite interesting indeed.

Also, *because* this book is set in mid 2020s Silicon Valley, it is all about current near-future tech... and some of its possible implications. If you have such a strong aversion to this that you can't enjoy anything that touches these types of techs at all... this book won't be for you. Leave it be just as you would any other personal hang-up. It is a you issue, not a book or book quality one. Claiming an author used AI to write a book just because you don't like its subject matter is a pretty fucking shitty thing to do and speaks more to you as a reader/ reviewer than anything you're claiming about the author or the book, so just leave it be if this is truly such a sore topic for you.

Overall, this is a really interesting and atypical book that does a lot of different things really well, and those looking for books outside the cookie cutter mold - while still being recognizable as a cookie ;) - should absolutely look to this one.

Very much recommended.

This review of Ideal Life by Evelyn Skye was originally written on August 26, 2026.