Dungeons and Drama

By: Kristy Boyce

Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky

Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

A national bestseller!

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...

©2024 Kristy Boyce (P)2024 Listening Library

Critic reviews

"Gamers and nongamers alike will find much to enjoy in this sweet romance."−Kirkus

"In this boisterously geeky romantic comedy, Boyce delivers a feel-good tale of love and laughter."−PW

"Fake dating is everywhere in YA, but this nerdy take is lots of fun—and even a little magical." —Booklist

really cute

it was really cute I wish there was a little more at the end then just quickly cutting to six months from then

Narrator did a fantastic job

This was a great read and the narrator did a fantastic job. Normally I only like duel narrated audiobooks but this was very good

Great Book!

As a lover of both the theatre and all things geeky I loved all the references. This was a great book I could not stop listening sorta sad that I finished it so fast :C Love the character development of the main character just found it hard to believe that the main love interest fell in love with MC when he says he did but aside of the. Great story!

Fun and Quirky

I loved this book for several reasons! I loved that DnD was incorporated into it, I honestly wish more books were like this one! It was super cute and had me blushing like a little girl with a crush 🥰 A lot of the aspects felt really close to home and was really relatable to me personally. I loved the way this book made me feel with emotions. Felt like I was young and in love again with my now fiancé and how we got close and started playing DnD together 💕

Expectations

I like that the author shows that people are not always what you might expect.

Cutsie Highschool Love Story

This story was easy to listen to and easy to follow with cute moments and moments that make you tear up.

Cute and Fun to Listen to

The characters were fleshed out and very likable. The banter is very cute as well and I found myself smiling often as I listened. Adorable story and good character growth.

Easy Listen and Cute High School Romance

Riley is a theater-kid who has dreams of being a musical director on Broadway, and Nathan is a gamer who plays Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. After Riley is punished by her parents to work in her dad’s game store, she meets her new co-worker Nathan. Their personal interests couldn’t be any more different. Circumstances arise where Riley and Nathan agree to fake-date each other to help make their crushes jealous. Will it end up morphing into something more?

This book somehow overlaps two vastly different areas of fandom that I personally have. I am a huge gamer of all kinds: I play Dungeons and Dragons on a weekly basis and I also play a variety of video and board games. On the other hand, I currently have season tickets to touring Broadway musicals at a nearby theater and a Playbill binder to collect all of the shows that I have seen. I really enjoyed the geeking out references that were included in this book: both gaming and musical theater. Should I be ashamed that I somehow knew all of the musical numbers that Riley sang in the book? (Though they aren’t all shows that I’ve seen– I have looked up soundtracks). This book also brought to my attention my true need to go see Spamalot. It’s a very cute high school romance story and the characters felt like their age. I listened to this on audiobook and it was a very easy listen for me. It’s not an overly complex plot, and the characters and their romance was cute. I really enjoyed the references, even if I was able to point out some flaws in them. I don’t fault the book too much; it was only a handful, and what kind of nerd would I be if I didn’t have a few "...But actually” moments?

I certainly recommend this to the teenage audience that it’s written for, especially if you are part of the fandom of at least one of the bases represented. For adults, I’d say if you still enjoy cutesy high school romance stories, and especially if you are like me and enjoy both gaming and musical theater.

Honestly wish I could rate it better.

I swear the author has no idea about what she is writing about you get a few minutes about DND in the whole novel then nothing. It’s a fade out of OH YEAH WE PLAYED DND. I was really hoping for more out of this, the story is cute in that drama geek meets dnd geek sort of way. But when Clerics got described as just healers (note that’s how a lot of people play them but that is limiting them so much.) I normally really enjoy this author but this books ball got dropped in the research department. What did you watch an episode of critical role and feel like you knew everything about dnd? I wish you had been more honest about what this book was. I still would have read it, I still would have enjoyed the tale. But what was written really let me down.