In A World Just Right is a Romance novel by Jen Brooks, with doses of Urban Fantasy and Disaster Movie.
When Johnathan Aubrey was a kid, he survived a plane crash that claimed the life of his entire family- both his parents, his little sister, and his aunt. His Uncle Joey was the only one left to care for him, which he did rather poorly, due to his own grief over losing his wife. At school, the other kids called him "Frankenstein" due to the scars and burns he suffered in the crash, ruining his social life permanently.
In his pain and loneliness, Johnathan wishes so badly that he could live in another world, one where he's a hero, where his scars are badass, and he could rally everyone to fight an army of space invaders, that it somehow becomes reality. Johnathan discovers he has the power to create new worlds with different rules and conditions as he sees fit, and can travel to them at any time he wishes. However, time continues running in the real world, and once he's created a world, he has no further power over it.
After using this power to create a world where his dream girl, Kylie Simms, is madly in love with him, Johnathan thinks he has everything he needs to keep himself going. But when he somehow fails to enter the other world and tries to kiss the real Kylie, everything starts to unravel, and Johnathan learns startling realizations about his power, and the implications it has on both his life and the world at large.
Jen Brooks' published the story as her debut novel in 2015.
In A World Just Right provides examples of:
- A God I Am Not: Johnathan uses his power merely to soothe his own loneliness, not because he wants power over other people. However, as time goes on, he begins to see his power as more and more god-like, which only makes him want to abuse it less.
- Alien Invasion: The entire conceit of "Johnathan-Aubrey-Is-A-Hero" world.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Due to his scars, most other kids were terrified of Johnathan when he first came back to school. Now he's a Senior and they still give him the silent treatment.
- Bittersweet Ending: Johnathan wipes out the world where he and Kylie ever met, and where he ever had a relationship with his Uncle. However, thanks to being able to live in that world, he gets his Highschool diploma quickly enough, and joins Kylie at college.
- Domestic Abuse: The old woman Johnathan meets at the end reveals that this is what led to her having the world creating power.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The real Johnathan saves another family from dying in the crash. Doing this resulted in his coma being near permanent, leading him to create Protagonist!Johnathan.
- Oh, Crap!: When Johnathan realizes he just tried to kiss the real Kylie in the middle of a school hallway in front of all her friends, all he can do is ditch school and run home.
- Old Shame: In-universe example. When he was thirteen, Johnathan created "Johnathan-Aubrey's-Smoking-Hot-Dance-Club" world to live out his adolescent fantasies. He now doesn't use it out of loyalty to Fake Kylie, but he enters it after he tries to kiss Real Kylie, to make sure his powers still work.
- Power Perversion Potential: "Johnathan-Aubrey's-Smoking-Hot-Dance-Club" world, created when he was thirteen years old, and wanted "experience." He doesn't really use it anymore thanks to Kylie-Simms-Is-My-Girlfriend world, but he does use it to make sure he can still enter worlds when he accidentally tries to kiss the real Kylie. Later on, his sister takes him to it to teach him what he can do with his powers.
- Skipping School: Johnathan spends about half his classes in "Kylie-Simms-Is-My-Girlfriend" world.
- Tomato in the Mirror: This Johnathan isn't the real Johnathan. He's a new-world copy, created so that he could have a life where he woke up from his coma after the crash.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Johnathan's power emerged in the wake of him losing his family, and getting scars that alienated him from his classmates. There are others who gained the world-building power this way too.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: After Johnathan's disastrous attempt to kiss the real Kylie, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to him, while the fake Kylie becomes more distant and annoyed at him. He doesn't like the change and wishes things would go back to normal. Eventually he learns that the Kylies have begun to merge because the two worlds intersected, and he has to facilitate their combination, lest they destroy each other.
- What Have I Done: When Johnathan confesses to fake Kylie about what he did, she heartbrokenly asks him if he loves the real Kylie. Johnathan has a moment of crushing realization when he says, "I don't even know her." Fake Kylie breaks down in tears.
