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If I Can’t Have You

Aden Polydoros

When heartbroken seventeen-year-old Kris scores the season’s hottest romance simulator, the Love Interest 3000, he doesn’t expect the perfect boyfriend to become the perfect nightmare.

A closeted queer teen, Kris decides to take the plunge into virtual reality after his friend, Helen, convinces him to buy a bootlegged version of the device from Jamie, the school outcast.

At first, his VoyfriendTM, Rowan, is a balm to his loneliness: kind, attentive, knows how to say all the right things. But things take a tragic turn when Helen dies in a grisly accident involving her own edition of the machine. In a fit of grief and rage, Kris destroys his LI 3000, ready to move on and live in the real world. But Rowan isn’t willing to let him go, and soon begins appearing in his life—leaving him menacing messages and hacking video screens.

Then Kris learns that Helen isn’t the only one who died in a so-called “accident” with the bootlegged machines. If he doesn’t find out who is causing the murders—and why—then his own life, the lives of those he cares about, are forfeit.

GenresYoung Adult FictionHorrorThrillers & SuspenseTechnology

320 pages, 2 editions

English edition · First published 2026 by Page Street Publishing · ISBN 9798890033895

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Editions

2 editions

English

  • If I Can’t Have You · Page Street Publishing · 2026 · ISBN 9798890033895 This page
  • If I Can't Have You · Page Street YA · 2026 · ISBN 9798890033888

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