A review by popthebutterfly
Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 
Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own. 

 

Book: Dungeons and Drama 

 

Author: Kristy Boyce 

 

Book Series: Standalone 

 

Rating: 5/5 

 

Diversity: MM romance side couple, South Asian character 

 

Recommended For...: young adult readers, contemporary, romance, D&D, Musicals, RomCom 

 

Publication Date: January 9, 2024 

 

Genre: YA Romance 

 

Age Relevance: 13+ (romance, underage drinking) 

 

Explanation of Above: This is a romance book, so there are some cute romance moments but nothing PG+. There are also mentions of underage drinking. 

 

Publisher: Delacorte Press 

 

Pages: 304 

 

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... 

 

Review: This book was so cute. It was so cute that I went out and bought the book recently because I could not stop thinking about it. And I'm also really excited for the second book in this little series. Anyways, this book focuses on our main character Riley who is a big theater geek. She loves musical theater and a lot of her references in the book are devoted to musical theater, but particularly those of classical musical theater and not modern musical theater, which... Eh not a fan. Anyways, in the book our main character is trying to figure out a way to save her school's theater program and she gets grounded from taking her mom's car to a theater performance and ends up at her dad's gaming shop where a group of employees and other kids play D&D on the regular there. The main character meets with one of the other employees whose name is Nathan and yeah it's a YA romance, what do you expect lol. I thought the book was really cute and it did so well at developing all the characters and building this really big story. The world building felt really well fleshed out and I just can't wait to dive back into the world of this book. I also love that the author merged both dungeons& dragons and musical theater in this book. It would seem like a really unlikely pairing, but… ya know bards exist lol.
 
 My only slight thing that I didn't like about it was that the ending was a little quick in my opinion, but also all of the musical references being classical rather than modern. I feel like that's more of a me thing though because I'm more of a modern musical theater lover than a classical musical theater lover, but you know I would have liked to see a little more RENT rather than a little more Hello Dolly. 

 

Verdict: I loved it so much. New fave.