Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Strap in, gents and lass, as we delve deep into a world where your wildest dreams can take flight. A world with paladins, and wizards; orcs and goblins all waiting to see your worth. Build your stats to enrich your experience and leave all the rest to the roll of a dice. Such is the world for four twenty-somethings and their Dungeon master in an all LGBTQ game of Dungeons and Dragons. Follow our heroes in game and out as they try to navigate love, acceptance, and fitting in.

This was a nice quick read with a solid story and characters. I wouldn't call this a romance book, as happy endings aren't guaranteed, but each of our main characters deals with romance in one way or another. I would classify this novel under New Adult as these characters at time make sexual comments, but nothing off-putting or pit of place. The pacing could feel a bit off at times and some story plot lines didn't really fit, but I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. There were some Dungeons and Dragons pieces that didn't really fall in with the rules, but that can be part of the fun of a homebrew based on your DM, so it's not really my place to judge.

I recommended this for anyone 20+ looking for a quick read and who loves Dungeons and Dragons. I wouldn't recommend it for young LGBTQ youth as some of the ways the characters become more comfortable in who they are could lead young impressionable minds to feel like they have something to hide or be ashamed of. Three stars for this one for me, I had a high persuasion DC and the novel just happened to role low.

Flat. So flat. I felt as if the author is actually a 15 year old imagining what his romantic life will be at 25. The main character, Ben is 25, unemployed with a college degree, selling stuff on the internet and living in his parents basement. Not a person I have much interest in as an escape in the pages of a book. He spends the entire book mooning over Albert, a charismatic guy in their new Dungeons and Dragons group who is employed at a local record shop, which also seems to be the place his previous crush also works. Oh and Albert is sleeping with that same crush. It's angtsy and in a way that doesn't draw me in enough to care.

We get a full rainbow flag of characters, trans, a closeted banker, 2 lesbians, and a flamboyant waiter who don't even really up the excitement enough to make you care. You almost don't understand why they even spend hours together one night a week.

I thought I was going to love this book, turns out I was quite wrong. The synopsis made it seem like this would be the perfect book for me and on some level I did enjoy this book, but the characters weren't relatable to me. I found myself being quite annoyed with most characters and not rooting for them. I guess this book just wasn't for me.

Okay, this was so cute!! I went into this thinking it was going to be a fantasy but it turned out to be a contemporary story about the people in that role playing club and them playing out some of the scenarios from their real life and I kinda fell head over heels in love with these doofuses! Found family and unlikely friendships always get me going and this was just such a nice example of that!
Definitely a great pick-me-up after a long week at work!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book to review.

After reading the book description I was interested in reading this book. However, as interesting as the description was, I feel like The Cleveland Heights LGTBQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club fell flat.

Ben is in a D&D group with some LGTBQ friends. He meets a hot guy that he wants to date. There is a creepy vampire man threating the group. Things get dicey when events unfold in their campaign and in real life. The plot description made it seem like there was a supernatural beings and connections making their way out of their game and into real life. This was not the case.

I liked the idea of the intersection of queer people playing D&D. I like the mystery of vampires. However, this was just a story about a guy having a crush on another guy and having the background be their D&D game. For such a short book there were too many subplots. Mooneyham and his boyfriend, Valerie and Polly, the vampires club, and the kiss-in... And then fully describing their D&D campaign play as full-on chapters was interesting to use as a vehicle for moving bits of the plot forward, but again, in a book that is less then 300 pages it was just too much to fully develop.

I’ve been thinking a bit about how to approach reviewing this novel. Let me be very clear, I absolutely loved it, and I really enjoyed the very raw and emotional struggles and triumphs Mr. Henderson very smoothly navigates in it.

My quandary comes from approaching this book without discounting the very heartfelt issues presented within. Yes, this is a LGBTQ+ focused story, but, while the viewpoint is presented from and about largely homosexual characters, the core story presents situations and feelings that are far more inclusive.

Plus, its about the amazing glue that a game of Dungeons & Dragons sticks people together with.

Ben is a young man of twenty-five who lives in his parents basement with his cat — Onigiri — and spends his time thrifting and selling old toys and collectables online. Ben is openly gay, but has never really had a real relationship. Ben is also a member of a gay gaming group at a Cleveland-area local comic book and gaming shop along with the other primary characters of this story.

This is the annoying part of any of my reviews where I tell you that I’m not going to tell you anything more about the story, but, in this case, I think that it is particularly important not to. The primary charm for me, aside from the amazing role play that happens during the gaming sessions, is how each character, and their story, unfolds in the context of where everything opens.

The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club (a title that I absolutely love and is an utter mouthful) is about how each of these individuals set up their personal orbits: how each of the characters sees themselves, and the whos and whats they surround themselves with.

Everything in this book seems so incredibly personal to me, and, while I started out trying to identify with it as a gamer, I realized very quickly that the identification really came from being a normal human with human doubts, fears and desires. This story loops way out into the day-to-day hopes and angst of just being a member of society in a harsh reality, and then circles right back in to the semi-controlled comfort of the Thursday night gaming session. There is even a little jab at discrimination that doesn’t exactly land where the reader thinks it might land.

This was a hidden gem for me. I really thought there might be more “in-world” parts of the book, but I found myself turning more from that aspect being the core of the story to seeing as the neutral ground each of the characters could work out their inter-personal issues with. Kudos to Mr. Henderson for presenting probably the most realistic — to my experience — gaming session presentation I have ever read about in a work of fiction.

This one is a real winner.

When I read the title of this book - and then the synopsis - I got so excited I talked to my own RPG group about it, hoping for the best. Sadly, it is with great disappointment I have to drop it at 44%.

"The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club" follows a group of D&D players that are all (kinda) friends and also LGBT, and despite promising vampires so far I’ve only seen weird goth people acting silly, adding to my list of disappointments with this book. It should be good, something nice to read since it’s relatable and original, but it overall felt really flat.

The descriptions all felt a bit weird; the characters are all introduced in a very impersonal way, and since it’s all a very Away 3rd person narrative, I felt like we didn’t really get to see inside the characters at all. Their dialogues felt weird too, awkward, and they all sounded the same, very flat. While the author spent quite a bit in each chapter describing useless things (like mundane items, or spaces I don’t think we’d come back to), while reading the characters interacting it was like they were suspended somewhere in the void, not really doing anything, not feeling anything, no inflection to their voices at all.

The characters also didn’t feel very likeable - I can’t say much about the other characters because they were all so flat and one-dimensional I can barely remember their names, but it was Ben I particularly disliked. It’s probably a very personal thing, maybe others could relate better to a 25 year old crying over not dating a boy he met Once.

The RPG Group scenes also didn’t add much to the plot, I think, at least not until I read. There were long narratives about what the character’s characters were doing in the fantasy world, and not enough interaction between the actual players, in my opinion. Also, the fact the author deadnamed their (only?) trans character didn’t make me feel very open to give it all a chance with an open heart.

It’s an interesting premise, and I think it could’ve been executioned better, but maybe if you’re looking for a light, quick read, without having to think much about plot details or anything in depth at all, it could be a good choice.

*Disclaimer - I only read 15% of the novel, and couldn't convince myself to waste any more time going further.*

Unfortunately, my high hopes for this novel were not meant. It's a great premise, and as a gay D&D player myself, I thought this would be right up my alley. However, the protagonists felt immature, and the story itself was told in a clunky fashion - it might have been better to start in the roleplaying world without Albert, to see both how the characters interacted with each other and what the status quo was before it got flipped. Ben came across as annoying and whiny, and nothing that happened made me change my opinion of that.
There were also details that came across as lazy writing, especially when they played their game, e.g. talking about hands brushing against each other when they rolled dice, when so far nothing had happened that would have required the players to roll dice.
It might be a fine/fun novel for high schoolers to read, but it was not to my tastes, I'm very sorry to say.

How could you not want to read a book called The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club? Doug Henderson’s new book had me from the title and fun cover. Luckily, I got an ARC from Netgalley and University of Iowa Press to allow me to write an honest review.

This book about a group of friends who play Dungeons and Dragons every week was a nice light book that was just what I needed during a dreary winter. Was it perfect? No, but I was willing to let the flaws slide. I wish Ben wasn’t written as the stereotypical nerd, but there is enough diversity within the cast of characters that he made up for it. There were actually too many characters in my opinion. and the storyline got muddled with things that weren’t important or necessary (ie. the vampire story). I think Henderson wanted to tackle a lot of issues from love to sex to discrimination to anxiety and more, which is great, but leads to us just getting a taste of each instead of a full meal. I don’t feel like I fully understand most of the characters.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I'll admit it, I have never played D&D in my life, nor I know how it works, but I was intrigued about the story of a queer group of friends who gather together on Thursday night to play in the back of comic store. I loved how the character's stories perfectly merged with the game and I loved the witty and iconic one-liners.

The characters were loveable and well-rounded and I was rooting for Ben and Albert all the time!

While the atmosphere was mostly fun and relaxed, the book treated some important themes like homophobia and hate crimes and I appreciated how the author incorporated them in a light but not ridicule way.

Henderson's writing was fluid and entertaining but it didn't completely catch my attention. I often felt the need for a thicker plot, even though the book was more character-oriented.

I recommend this to D&D players and people looking for a fun queer story!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy.

<b> The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. </b>

1/5 stars.

This book was supposed to be right up my alley. I love D&D, my friends and I who I often play with in D&D campaigns are LGBTQ+ (myself included). I had expectations for this book and I thought this could be great, also a nice book to give to friends to introduce them to D&D. It was an incredible concept.

Personally, the book just missed it completely. The characters, who were supposed to be 25ish (similar to me and my friends), all felt more like teenagers finishing high school. Some of the story arcs were interesting, I have to give Henderson that, yet just when they were about to grab my interest more... they turned weird. The jokes were very sexualized, uncomfortable even at times and I quote <i> ''Such was the life of a barbarian; always some slave girl or a princess clutching onto them. </i> (I don't know if this sentence will make the final book, of course).

As someone who should've been the target audience of this book, and I even discussed the things happening in this book with my LGBTQ+ D&D friends, I feel like this unfortunately for me fell flat.

TW: Homophobia

This title left me feeling.... shorted. I have several complaints:

The first mainly being the amount of sexual innuendo in the story. Yes, The Gays (TM) love a good sex joke, but this felt excessive to the point of stereotype. With how much queer folx have had to work to get out of the over-sexualized image we've had for decades, it's disheartening to see it reflected in a story that's meant to be for and about us.

Second, some of the story arcs felt very loose and out of place. The vampire subplot in particular I just did not understand and felt deserved it's own book alone. I don't know enough about the author, but this feels like a first-novel type of problem, where the author wants to include All The Ideas instead of focusing on a singular plot hook.

Some of the supporting characters felt flat. Particularly the feminine ones -- but I suppose I can let that slide a little since this is a book about gay male romance. But still, would've been nice to see some of those characters fleshed out a little more.

And worst of all -- I didn't want the two main boys to end up together. I don't know if this is a failing on the author to create characters I could empathize with and like (and thus hope they ended up together) or if it was a lack of writing good chemistry between the two. Either way, I thought Ben was kind of a whiny incel-type, and Albert was too far up his own ass. Again, there's a stereotype that people who play D&D all live in their parents' basements with zero friends -- and Ben kind of fits the bill for that, which might be why I disliked him. Albert is wishy-washy about what he wants and hurts Ben in the process, which makes me unsympathetic to Albert, so why would I want the two of them to end up together?

I really, really love the idea of a book centering around a queer-focused D&D group. Though it's a little bit niche, I feel like there's a lot of potential for compelling characters and exploration of a number of contemporary topics.... but I just feel like this one missed the mark and left me unsatisfied.

I wanted to like this. On the tin, it looked like it would be right up my alley. A bunch of misfits gather to play a DnD game. There is a story within a story as we get to read the story of their game, too. It had so much potential!

The whole thing fell flat for me, though. I think it would have worked better for me if we only had Ben's POV. Getting the other characters sitting at the table's POVs only ended up being a teaser that didn't end up delivering. We never got a full character arc for any of them and the pacing of Ben's arc fell flat. He didn't make any changes at all to fulfill his arc until the last two chapters. I was beginning to wonder if the novel would end before he got his shit together.

I found Ben wholly unlikeable. He is 100% the stereotypical creepy guy living in his parent's basement. And he stays this way for the entire book. No, just no. And there is a scene at a concert that is far and away the most bizarre thing I have ever read.

Sad to say that this one was a great concept poorly executed. I was left with more questions than answers. What happened to the vampire cosplayers? What happened to Mooneyham at work? Did the kiss-in even work at all or was it really just one big mess? I just don't know. I feel like the book could use another big round of edits before publication.

Thank you to the University Of Iowa Press and Netgalley for an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love D&D. I first started playing when I was in high school. I would always play a paladin or a ranger. My ranger was always named Ranger Rick James because, come on, if you have a good name, you stick with it. One night, we were playing at my house instead of our DMs. We played until around 5 AM in our dining room. Joel kept wanting a tower shield for no other reason than that it is cool. Bill made sure we were trap free as we ventured through a dungeon, constantly stopping to “check for traps!” He somehow found a toy magnifying glass in my house and, man, that was funny. Eventually, we were all goofing off when someone somehow rammed the back of their head into Ian, our DMs, face and gave him a real bad black eye. I found some frozen veggies for his eye. It was the most memorable game I played with them.

The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club by Doug Henderson took me back to those high school campaigns. The groups were full of angst and internal conflicts, but they all gathered for the love of their favorite game. The book focuses on three characters: Valerie, Mooneyham, and Ben. Celeste, their DM, introduces a new person into their group, Albert. He’s beautiful and cool and Ben doesn’t think he is there for all the right reasons. But, he’s also nice to Ben, something he isn’t used to. During their first session as a group, Ben’s character is killed. Albert, the paladin (oh yeah baby), wants to venture into the City of the Dead to bring him back. Of course, this is all the proof Ben needs that Albert likes him. Unfortunately, he’s dating Ben’s sort-of ex boyfriend.

Meanwhile, Valerie is being followed by a top-hatted mystery man named Varnec. He’s one of those guys who dresses up like a vampire and is just straight-up weird. All the while, she’s trying to adapt to working a full-time job for the first time in her life.

Mooneyham is closeted and works at a bank where he’s part of a group of guys who are aiming for the top. Things are going great until his boyfriend informs him that he was by a group of men while walking home from work. When Mooneyham finds out that one of the guys from the bank is in the group, he struggles with how to come out to these hyper-masculine idiots that he works with.

It’s a beautiful book full of love and humor and heartbreak and joy. Anyone who grew up against society’s norms can see themselves in some character of this book. Henderson’s understanding of not only the game, but of how people interact during a campaign is something to behold. I’m most likely going to pick this up when it comes out on April 15, 2021.

5/5, 10/10

Ok... this book is ridiculous, but also enjoyable. I don't know how, but it is, to me at least.

While the whole plot was enticing, there are details that still irk me, mostly the characters: Ben is a whiny fuck and his arc feels unfinished (despite being the MC); Valerie is just constantly being rude for no reasons at all. At some points, the whole story seems over-sexualized I'm not even sure if it's needed.

Still, I enjoyed the writing a whole lot. The author's choice of words was on point and I don't think it was poorly narrated or overly descriptive. The idea for this book was unique and enticing. Yet I feel like Mr.Henderson should have focused on some other events than the MC's pathetic love life.

Anyway, surprisingly fun read. 3/5

I’ll confess — I thought this book was fantasy when I saw the description; my brain obviously tricked me into thinking it was some kind of queer “the sleeping dragon”. What it is instead is a cute story about a group of LGBTQ friends whose real lives are reflected in their role-playing adventures. The real world climax harkened back to the queer activism of the late 90s and early 2000s, when kiss-ins and guerilla gay bars cast defiance at homophobia. While this book was not what I’d expected, it was what I needed - a reminder that every day is an adventure, that every one can be a hero, and that love is the real magic.

This book follows a group of D&D players as they deal with their daily struggles of life, romance, and coming out, and their meetings on Thursdays that deals with evil cults and sleeping gods. Things take a turn for Ben when the group gets infiltrated by a new, extremely attractive, way out of his league, not single, guy, Albert.

I must be honest, I don’t know much about d&d, I have never played it, but I’ve always been curious about it, so it was interesting to get to know the game though the love and passion these characters have for it. I did really like how the story setting completely changed when they got to the D&D parts, and it was those parts that felt the most thought out. I admit though, I still don’t 100% understand the game, but that’s on my peanut brain.

This book felt very pointedly targeted against an extremely specific demographic, male, gay d&d nerds who are in their mid twenties to thirties who also are constantly thinking about sex. Which me as a queer girl who isn’t even in her twenties yet had trouble relating to. You’d think since this book had a wlw couple, it would appeal to the queer women demographic on some scale, nope. No such luck.

I was not fond of any of the characters, Ben and Valerie both came off as whiny and entitled, and just stayed that way with no development. Mooneyham really is just another asshole and I never really got a feel of Celeste’s character. Huey really was one of the better characters in this book, but he barely showed his face.

Most of the relationships felt forced, Ben was always on Alberts tail, even though he had a boyfriend, and he acted like he deserved for Albert to like him back. Valerie was so overprotective of Polly that it almost came obsessive and honestly it did not seem healthy. The last straw was after she assaulted the vampire, she really had the nerve to think that she did no wrong. She takes zero responsibly of her actions and in the end she blames it all on the vamp.

I did however like the one scene with Mooneyham and Huey, where we got to see how they met. The scene was very short, but it was the only scene in this book that actually felt genuine to me.

The language was sort of brutal at times and weirdly constructed and the monologues felt forced. The story jumped around a lot and I honestly think the story would be easier to follow and more well rounded if it all was from Ben’s POV.

Book Details: Features a Dungeons & Dragons game, the possibilities of romance, and vampire people (who confuse me a bit).

D&D
If you have ever played D&D (or a related role playing game), you may enjoy this book! I think even if you’ve just played it once in your entire life, you may like it. Because it includes D&D, it ends up being a story within a story, which is pretty cool to read! The game play is blended in pretty well. And this book could be a really fun escape into D&D for those who happen to love the game. But if you haven’t played, it probably isn’t the book for you and may be hard to connect with.

Steam
So, this book managed to not really have steamy moments between characters, but also still had a lot of sexual comments / things, and that just wasn’t personally my favorite.

The Real World Portion
The synopsis sounded really intriguing, but I think it built the book up to be more than it is. The story that exists is perfectly fine, but the synopsis implied so much more drama would happen in the real world (outside of the D&D game). But it really was more about the players and their relationships. The extra drama wasn’t needed necessarily, but because I expected more, I kept waiting for additional things to happen. So, I think it is important to go into the book expecting the real world to be realistic (and the D&D story to contain the fantasy).

Overall
I’d say this book wasn’t the best fit for me as a reader, but it is a fast and creative read, so I can imagine it would be a fun read for others! I just wish they had taken the real world plot a bit farther and made a few less sex comments.

3 Stars - solid, but just not for me

Well, this was a bit of a frustrating read. I was really looking forward to this after seeing the cover and reading the blurb but it just fell kind of flat and did not make use of its potential.

This book felt like it was written for a very specific audience: queer (male) role-players in their twenties who are still looking for their place in life and also cannot stop thinking about sex.
Mostly with guys who are hairy.

And this is why I feel this was a missed opportunity. It would have been so easy to tell a story that every uncool dork who is kind of a misfit could relate to and this was admittedly just what I had been hoping for and did not find.
Also, I found the language to be a bit lacking in terms of a distinct voice or even melody.

Don't get me wrong, this was mostly perfectly fine. The characters are interesting enough, the role-playing elements are fun enough and it was not a slog. But this was not a page-turner either which made me realize that I could not really engage with this all that much.

So, this was just not the book for me, but not every book has to, I guess.

I was very excited for this book. A story about a LGBTQ+ DND group? COME ON! That's awesome! It had a nice set of interesting characters and it was a familiar setting. I too remember role playing in some nerd shop after hours. But what I got instead was a good idea that needed better execution.

The characters are really where this book was lacking. Mooneyham was just a jerk. Ben reminded me just a little too much of the painfully awkward nerd of my youth, but he also came across as too whiney. Valerie could have been a really cool character but she never gets fleshed out and her relationship with her girlfriend felt forced. I barely know Celeste, the Dungeon Master, and routinely forgot who she was. And finally there was Albert who was introduced to the story as a walking thirst trap for Ben, actually had more character development than any of the others.

But the fact of the matter is the characters were lacking and the plot seemed to be a secondary concern for Doug Henderson. There was a storyline between Valerie and some cosplaying vampires but it was pointless and didn't really have a conclusion. There was the relationship between Mooneyham and his fiance but that felt like it was tacked on just to have another love story. The only thing that actually felt like it got any sort of build up and resolution was Ben and Albert's relationship.

Also, the whole issue between the group and the pub where Huey (Mooneyham's Fiance) was bullied by some jerks felt like it got too much attention in the plot. Don't misunderstand, homophobia and being bullied is never okay. Ever. But a huge part of the story was dedicated to this when in real life, all it would take was just confronting the jerks instead of a big todo at the pub.

Overall this was a good idea. It had promise. But it was never executed well enough. This needs a rewrite where it gets fleshed out more because as it is, this is skippable.

I'd like to thank Net Galley and the University of Iowa press for allowing to read this in exchange for an honest review.