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3.08 AVERAGE
3.08 AVERAGE
I'll admit I'm a bit of a geek, I enjoy conventions, and role playing, and dungeons and dragons. So when I saw the title of this book I thought "heck yeah, this is my jam." And ya know what? It really was. Sometimes I read fandom books and it's just so obvious that the author is trying to jam every single nerdy thing they can in there and it's honestly annoying, but honestly this just felt like a Friday night with my friends. I especially love Valerie, she's so funny and kind of self-aware. Like some vampire dude yells at her and she's just like "bruh." She's wonderful and I love her. Mooneyham is great too, like his intro is just bursting into the room and calling everyone fudge nuggets and I could not stop laughing. Although Valerie is my favorite character, I liked Mooneyham's story the best out of all the characters. And Ben and Albert were cute as well, I thought they had good chemistry. This was a really cute book and if you like dungeons and dragons and other nerdy things you should definitely check this out!
Too boring, don’t care about the characters
adventurous
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Death of parent
I loved the way the author did the RPG portions of the book. They blended this game into the story and wrote it as if we're actually happening instead of "they played D&D and fought about what to do next."
The main character was a bit dramatic, but in a believable way. The interactions between character felt genuine, but I did feel we could have explored more with Valerie and Celeste.
The LGBTQ aspects of the book seemed forced at first. The author seemed to be yelling "look we're gay!" It got more subtle as it went on and overall I liked the book.
I'd recommend this to all your RPG gamer friends and your nerdy gay friends, as well!
The main character was a bit dramatic, but in a believable way. The interactions between character felt genuine, but I did feel we could have explored more with Valerie and Celeste.
The LGBTQ aspects of the book seemed forced at first. The author seemed to be yelling "look we're gay!" It got more subtle as it went on and overall I liked the book.
I'd recommend this to all your RPG gamer friends and your nerdy gay friends, as well!
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I think this book does more harm than good
there is no character development
the relationships have no driving force
extremely minimal character motivation for anything
there are incredibly low stakes, for anything
features a coming out plot that appears to shame the character for not coming out earlier in an actively hostile and homophobic environment
the dnd is flawed and doesn't excite non dnd players / dnd enthusiasts to get more into dnd
plays into stereotypes with each different character in various weird and problematic ways
slightly transphobic? and xenophobic? and biphobic?
weird character conflicts that don't make sense?
the book is written for a very specific subsection of queer community that is not wholly representative and does not endear that section of the community to the rest of it. I slightly cared more for Ben as the story development due to prolonged exposure, but he doesn't actually grow as a character.
This book is frustrating because it has good foundations and a good premise, but the way that it's executed is simply meant to fail.
The dnd sessions were simply a place for them to air out their real life grievances and thus not all that enjoyable?
but the formatting of them was fun
there is no character development
the relationships have no driving force
extremely minimal character motivation for anything
there are incredibly low stakes, for anything
features a coming out plot that appears to shame the character for not coming out earlier in an actively hostile and homophobic environment
the dnd is flawed and doesn't excite non dnd players / dnd enthusiasts to get more into dnd
plays into stereotypes with each different character in various weird and problematic ways
slightly transphobic? and xenophobic? and biphobic?
weird character conflicts that don't make sense?
the book is written for a very specific subsection of queer community that is not wholly representative and does not endear that section of the community to the rest of it. I slightly cared more for Ben as the story development due to prolonged exposure, but he doesn't actually grow as a character.
This book is frustrating because it has good foundations and a good premise, but the way that it's executed is simply meant to fail.
The dnd sessions were simply a place for them to air out their real life grievances and thus not all that enjoyable?
but the formatting of them was fun
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
lighthearted
**This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.**
2 stars
Initially, this seemed like an excellent book for me. I’m a queer nerd, and I love a book about a group of wildly different people joined together by a shared interest. In fact, I think that had I read this book as a high schooler, I would have really connected with it, particularly because the book focuses a great deal on feeling adrift and unsure of the future, and searching for a connection with another person when you feel ‘different’ from everyone else.
Reading it now, however, I didn’t find myself enjoying the story as I had expected to. Although all of the characters save one are in their early- to mid-twenties, most of them (save Mooneyham, who along with his boyfriend Huey was easily my favorite) felt much more like teenagers. None of the characters were particularly developed, and I was disappointed that the book leaned into stereotypes about the type of people who play tabletop games.
I was also perturbed by the amount of isolation the nerdy characters felt due to being nerdy; the story is clearly set in the present day, but apparently in this fictionalized Cleveland, D&D is still treated like leprosy. In actual fact, the game has enjoyed enormous popularity and growing mainstream visibility in recent years. Geeks are cool in 2021… except in Cleveland, apparently. And that wasn’t the only ‘out-of-time’ aspect of the story that jarred me; a number of mannerisms and setting ‘color’ seemed more at home in the mid-2000s than the modern day.
There was also a subplot about vampire LARPers that didn’t go anywhere and felt unfinished. These characters were such sketched-in stereotypes that they felt like they’d be more appropriate as background antagonists in a nerdy webcomic than actual characters in a novella.
I think this book would appeal primarily to a Young Adult audience, particularly young queer teens struggling with how to juggle all the different aspects of their identity along with the confusing expectations of rapidly-approaching adulthood. For many people, this could be a new favorite book. For me, however, the characters and writing were lacking.
2 stars
Initially, this seemed like an excellent book for me. I’m a queer nerd, and I love a book about a group of wildly different people joined together by a shared interest. In fact, I think that had I read this book as a high schooler, I would have really connected with it, particularly because the book focuses a great deal on feeling adrift and unsure of the future, and searching for a connection with another person when you feel ‘different’ from everyone else.
Reading it now, however, I didn’t find myself enjoying the story as I had expected to. Although all of the characters save one are in their early- to mid-twenties, most of them (save Mooneyham, who along with his boyfriend Huey was easily my favorite) felt much more like teenagers. None of the characters were particularly developed, and I was disappointed that the book leaned into stereotypes about the type of people who play tabletop games.
I was also perturbed by the amount of isolation the nerdy characters felt due to being nerdy; the story is clearly set in the present day, but apparently in this fictionalized Cleveland, D&D is still treated like leprosy. In actual fact, the game has enjoyed enormous popularity and growing mainstream visibility in recent years. Geeks are cool in 2021… except in Cleveland, apparently. And that wasn’t the only ‘out-of-time’ aspect of the story that jarred me; a number of mannerisms and setting ‘color’ seemed more at home in the mid-2000s than the modern day.
There was also a subplot about vampire LARPers that didn’t go anywhere and felt unfinished. These characters were such sketched-in stereotypes that they felt like they’d be more appropriate as background antagonists in a nerdy webcomic than actual characters in a novella.
I think this book would appeal primarily to a Young Adult audience, particularly young queer teens struggling with how to juggle all the different aspects of their identity along with the confusing expectations of rapidly-approaching adulthood. For many people, this could be a new favorite book. For me, however, the characters and writing were lacking.