The story takes place in a virtual reality world known as the Escapist Dream, where all kinds of geeks can live a life of superpowered adventures based on their favorite film, comic, anime, novel or video game characters.

Charlie and Jim would soon find out how the bugs have caused madness in this place, and must now work together to protect themselves and save the Escapist Dream.

[4][5] In his own words, he stated, "I created this novel as a homage to the comics, anime, movies, books, series and video games that I grew up in.

The writing style of Escapist Dream is noted to be more interpersonal than other similar books of the same genre, where there is a primary focus on character emotions.

"[4] Joanna Kane Larius of Booksie praised the book, saying, "When it comes to writing about geek fiction and culture, Escapist Dream is the king.

Even if you take away the pop culture references and its geekiness, it is still the superior book that details the mental and emotional struggles that its characters went through.

But, as a first time author (besides the fan fictions and blog posts he’s written), Bulaong told a captivating story without trying so hard on pop culture knowledge for it to make sense.”[10] Escapist Dream has been cited by several critics as one of the best of its genre.

He added, “Of all GameLit books in history, none is as grand in scale as this one-of-a kind novel.”[5] Sam Fletcher from Book Notification also ranked the novel at #2 in his list of "5 Next-Level GameLit Style Novels", calling it an "underrated modern classic" and adding that it "demonstrates the genre’s true potential.