NetGalley Review: Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce
Hey all, Sam here.
I had a 5 day blog streak and then I broke it…because my brother-in-law dropped by for a visit. He had been discussing the possibility with David but everything was still just ideas and possibilities, but the other day he texted and basically said “see you tonight,” so we had all of eight hours to get everything ready for him to show up.
Of course, it was lovely to see him again and to have him over for a few days, but it knocked my plans for a loop, as life so often seems to do, so I missed a few days of blogging. I’m still trying to figure out a new work/blog/writing/life balance for this year, and it hasn’t been happening as easily as I’d hoped.
But anyway, I’m trying to start really getting my reviews up for the books I’ve been reading, and here I am with the fourth book I read in 2024 (book three’s post will be coming on Friday as it is a writing craft book). I read 20 books in January and didn’t review any of them, which means that now we’re cruising to the halfway point of February and I have most of my January reads and now all of my February reads that I still need to talk about. Oops…I might end up having to do some creative scheduling to get myself caught up, but we’ll see what happens.
All right, enough babbling about life. Let’s jump into the review.
My Thoughts
When it comes to romance, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to play games. A fun YA romcom full of fake dating hijinks!
Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway. Crucial to this plan is to bring back her high school’s spring musical, but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she’s grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop.
Riley can’t waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous.
But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan’s Dungeons & Dragons game…or that role playing would be so fun. Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn’t require as much acting as she would’ve thought…
Rating: 4 stars
First, this book was released January 9th in the US, so it is available now. I had actually intended to review it for release day, and obviously I wasn’t really blogging last month, so it didn’t happen.
If it hasn’t already been established by now, if a book talks about the characters playing TTRPGs, then I’m going to pick it up, and so long as the author actually either knows how to play or has done their due diligence researching it well enough to fake it, then I’m going to enjoy it. Oh, and I’ll also say that I’ve read three D&D books this year, plus one at the end of last year that comes out in March, so if you love D&D-style books, we are in for some pretty nice times……..especially if I can get my own book written (I hope).
For the first 30 percent or so, this book was just okay for me, but it really started to pick up from there and I really got pulled into it. By the last 5-10 percent, I was definitely having some emotional reactions to how the story had built up. So yeah, not my favorite story with D&D in it, but overall it was still pretty good.
Now, I will say that the book synopsis is actually misleading, because yes, Riley agrees to flirt with Nathan to make his crush jealous, but she does it because HER ex comes into the store with his new girlfriend and flirts with her. So to try and make him think that she’s moved on, Riley needs Nathan to be her pretend boyfriend. The shift covering doesn’t happen until after they agree to fake-flirt/fake-date while around Nathan’s crush and Riley’s ex.
I can definitely say that Riley acted like a teenager. I’m not complaining about it, especially since I am a 35 year old woman, and I know that this book is not written with me as the target audience. It is aimed at young adults, and the teen years are sometimes known for big emotions and drama and what seems like immaturity to adults, but teens are going through a lot. I remember it feeling like a lot when trying to figure out who you were going to be and what you were going to do with your life, especially heading towards graduation and people are asking about life plans as if you’re supposed to have it all completely planned out already.
So yeah, I’m not going to complain about Riley’s dramatics…she is a theater girl, after all.
I really enjoyed getting to know everyone at Riley’s dad’s game store. Since we get so much of the story from Riley, it was interesting to see her views and opinions change on everyone as she got to know them. Because, at first, I admit that I was ready to put the book down because of how she was describing and thinking about people who frequent game stores. It was that negative stereotype view of things, and as a loud and proud geek, I did not like it. Thankfully, I gave Riley a chance, and was happy to see her views shift. Because, in the end, this book really shows off the awesome community that is built from a shared love of these geeky hobbies.
I got a bit emotional towards the end, when everyone started rallying together to make something awesome happen in spite of the hurdles and speed bumps thrown their way…and I say this in a vague way to not actually spoil the details, but it honestly made me want to have more stories, possibly following some of Riley and Nathan’s friends. It probably won’t happen, because this does feel very standalone-y, but if it led to a series of inter-connected standalones, I wouldn’t complain.
Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
