ARC Review: Dungeons & Drama by Kristy Boyce

Title: Dungeons & Drama
Author: Kristy Boyce
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA/Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: January 9, 2024
Edition: Kindle Edition
Source: NetGalley
Pre-Order: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Powell's | Thriftbooks

 

 

 

 

Synopsis:

   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...

   When it comes to romance, sometimes it doesn't hurt to play games. A fun YA romcom full of fake dating hi-jinks!

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   This book was heckin' cute. I'm not a musical theater person. I enjoy some of it, but I'm far from being an enthusiast, and I've never played D&D. All that aside I still enjoyed this book. The characters behaved like teenagers, which was a nice change from how teenage characters in other YA contemporary romance books I've read in the past. Although, I don't know exactly how old they are supposed to be, 17 I think?
 
 I didn't really like Riley much for most of the book. She didn't have a lot of depth to her personality until she started getting more hobbies. I didn't do theater in school, but it's healthy to have more than one hobby. Even the theater kids at my school played sports or were in band or choir in the "off-season" of a school play. Some did all three. She also didn't seem to understand the weight of her actions that got her grounded. I know she's a teenager, but I also think she's old enough to know what the law is.

  I liked Nathan as a character a little more than Riley, even if he was initially hung up on a girl who wasn't into him unless she could get something from him. I just found him to be slightly more mature than Riley in some aspects. I wish there had been POV chapters for him. I think it would have enhanced the story to see things from his perspective. I don't like just seeing one side of stories like this.

They were cute together though, before they were both willing to admit how they felt, I thought they were cute. Great foils for each other. They balanced each other out. I am much older than the target demographic, but I think this book is good for anyone who likes light-hearted romance, and it's great for teens.