Book Review :: Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce
ISBN: 0593647025
on 9 January 2024
Genres: Romance, Young Adult
Goodreads

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...

Last updated on 4 August 2024

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What is Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce about?

Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce is the adorable tale of Riley, who gets into trouble with her parents she and her friend drive to another town to see a show … without a license. Her punishment is to go and work in her dad’s game shop, where there are a few geeky guys from school who play Dungeons and Dragons in the back room.

As Riley works at the shop, she eventually becomes friends with the guys and joins in their D&D game, but not before joining up with Nathan to fake date. She’ll help him get the girl he likes, and in exchange, he’ll work some of her shifts so she can work on her school musical.

After a little time, Riley discovers that she doesn’t actually find it that hard to fake flirt with Nathan.

My thoughts on Dungeons and Drama

I really enjoyed Dungeons and Drama. While it did take me far too long to read due to the fact that it was auto-returned to Libby twice (!) because all my holds had come through at once and I stupidly didn’t push them back.

But when I eventually did get to it, I really did enjoy it. It was nice to go back to a young adult novel that felt like a classic YA. You had the school drama, the high school musical, the prom, the school friends … and then you had strained family dynamics with recently divorced parents and a whole new hobby or slice of life happening, in the game shop.

It was a classic young adult novel but with a bunch of stuff that I really like: games and musicals. Even on the front cover of the book, there are hints of games that I love. You’ve got Settlers of Catahn, Azul, Ticket to Ride, Code Names … and I love that cover. Well done to whoever designed it.

While I haven’t played proper D&D before, I have played Gloomhaven, which is sort of like D&D for newbies. You don’t have to make up a character, but you still go on quests and fight monsters and things like that. So there were lots of things in that part of the story that I understood and I actually got into it a lot more than some of the other parts of the book.

The other aspect was musicals, and it was a lot of fun, as a big musical fan, to have that running through the book.

The relationships between the characters were really sweet, and while there were characters you weren’t really meant to like (like Nathan’s crush, and even Riley’s ex, Paul), there weren’t really any characters who you really hated, which made for a nice, easy, chill read.

If you like YA, with some fake dating, some geeky things like board games and D&D, and musicals (what a mix!) then pick up Dungeons and Drama. I’ll definitely be picking up the next book by Boyce, Dating and Dragons.

Have you read Dungeons and Drama? What did you think?