Love Points to You, by Alice Lin

When Lynda's father gets remarried and Lynda gains a stepsister, it seems like it is Lynda who always has to make the sacrifices.  While Lynda is always having to forego things, the same rules don't seem to apply to her stepsister Josie.  Josie gets a practice room to work on her violin, a private tutor to help her get ready for recitals, and the support of the family to help get her into an elite music program after high school.  While Lynda's Buncleaver series is a minor commercial success already, Linda doesn't get private spaces or private trainers.  And when Lynda brings up wanting to attend RISD, her father demurs that it's too expensive.  So, Lynda realizes that if she's going to succeed, she's going to have to do it all on her own, and in spite of her family.

Good fortune falls into her lap.  Angela, a classmate, is working on an otome game and offers to hire Lynda to draw the characters.  She'll even pay Lynda for the work.  With the hope of gaining exposure (as well as the money), Lynda jumps on board.  She's always been a fan of otome (a choose-your-own-adventure romance video game) and is excited to play a role in creating one.  As the girls develop the game, they also develop a romantic interest in each other.  However, Lynda's ambitions (combined with the resentments she carries from her family) threaten to derail the project and the relationship.

Lynda definitely has a difficult life, but it's one in which she does herself very few favors.  I found it hard to sympathize with her.  She's prickly and quick to jump to negative conclusions, prone to lashing out, and very self-centered.  Flawed characters can be instructive and interesting, especially if they grow over the course of the novel, but Lynda's growth comes late and while I sympathized with her sense of being unfairly treated, her treatment of others was equally horrid.

(I had never heard of otome before reading this story.  No real surprise there as I'm far removed from the target audience.  I enjoyed getting exposed to the phenomenon.)