Review: Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

Dungeons and Drama
by Kristy Boyce

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Category: Young Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
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…

My Review

I picked this one up as I liked the sound of this one with the D&D theme. I also just want to say how much I love the cover and how well it fits the book and characters. Dungeons and Drama is told from Riley’s point of view. After taking her mom’s car without her permissions she has to work at her dad’s game store as punishment. There she meets Nathan and slowly begins to fall for him as they fake date.

This was such a cute romance story! I liked how vibrant Riley was, her character really shone and came to life and I liked her love for colorful clothes. Her love for musicals really came across as well and I liked reading about her passion. I also liked seeing her mend her relationship with her dad, although I would’ve liked a bit more depth about that and seeing some progression and scenes along the way as most of that was now focused at the end. And seeing her fall for Nathan as they spend more time together was so fun. They were so cute together.

I really liked the romance and that’s saying a lot as I usually don’t like the fake date trope. And while I still wasn’t a fan of it here, I did like how it was handled and it felt a bit different from most books with that trope. I liked how their friends actually knew they were fake dating, and they were the ones who could spot the real feelings developing as well. It also made sort of sense why they came up with the fake dating ruse and they both had a solid motivation to get into it. There was some conflict and drama toward the end that I didn’t really care for, but I liked how it got resolved.

There are some great scenes with Nathan and Riley, I especially liked the one were he gifts her dice. The car ride they take is also a fun one and ofcourse the ending was awesome. I liked seeing these two grow closer. I also liked the role the board game store played and how Riley learned more about it all from working there. The D&D sessions were also fun to read about and I liked how it made sense for Riley to join and enjoy it as it is acting as well. I also liked seeing Riley and her passion for musicals and her efforts in bring back her school’s spring musical.

To summarize: This was such a cute and sweet romance story. I liked the board game store and D&D themes. I liked Riley as a character, she was such a vibrant character and her passions for musicals was obvious. I liked seeing her and Riley grow closer and there are some great scenes between them. I am not a fan of the fake dating trope, but I did like how their friends were aware it was fake and spotted when real feelings became involved. There is a bit of drama and conflict I wasn’t a fan of, but I liked how everything got resolved.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.