This was my first LitRPG and I loved this audiobook! Felicia Day does an amazing job with the narration. Raze, the main character, is quirky and full of spunky energy!

I was drawn to this book because I love Felicia Day and was surprised by how much I enjoyed Rule of Cool. I would definitely read LitRPG again in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley for the audio-ARC!

What a wildly fun adventure. The action was fast-paced and this was a great family listen. Matthew Siege created a really fun world, with a lot of humor and adventure.

Felicia Day is a great narrator. She bring so much fun and spirit to the work, and really made it an engaging listen.

It doesnt support or open after I download the protected pdf version of it.

It's also not showing in my shelf in netgalley and I cant open it to read

Please look into the issue and if you can send me the pdf in my mail ID- taniagungunsarkar@gmail.com

I cant read the book from here.

Please look into the issue and deliver me the book to review properly, moreover i was pretty excited about this book

⭐⭐⭐💫
Thank you to NetGalley and Podium Audio for a free copy in exchange for a review.
I have never read a litRPG novel before, but the story concept sounded fun and it's narrated by Felicia Day so I really wanted to check it out. The main character, Raze, and other Gearblins/commonfolk aren't allowed to level up or own anything of value, and spend their days in service to the heroes. Raze's friend Patch has a dream about how to become a hero (which to her is ridiculous because only heroes are supposed to be able to dream). But he then uses the knowledge from the dream to make them both heroes, and over time, she discovers her destiny: to defeat the heroes and take back what was once theirs.
I will say that it took a little while to get used to, there's a lot of stat reading like in an actual game, which made me think this book could have been a lot shorter at first. And Raze was pretty sexually forward with her male friend, Patch, and I'm not sure if that was the result of male writes female character, or if the author was trying to go for a "we're all dudes" vibe for this species. But like I said, I did eventually get used to the "that's what she said" type banter of the book and enjoyed the rooting for the underdog aspect of the story. If you are a big fan of nerd culture or want a group of underdogs to root for, then I think you will like this book.

Rule of Cool is one of the newest LitRPG novels out there and its audiobook was narrated by the one and only Felicia Day.

The story is set in a dystopian world where noob Heroes rule the world while Non-Participating Citizens can’t make opposed rolls against Heroes.

Our main character is Raze who works as a Gearblin in the only arcade in town. While she hates her job she keeps her head high and does her best to survive in an unjust world.

One day everything changes when her crush and best friend, Patch dreams about an ancient code that helps them resurrect the ancient order ‘The Rule of Cool’. That’s when the real adventure and epic battles start.

Felicia did such an amazing job at narrating the book and all the characters. The story is interesting and is filled with all the great LitRPG elements fans know and love.

https://asianacircus.com/best-litrpg-books/

*Thank you for the ARC! =)

Raze is an NPC in an RPG world. When another NPC stumbles on a way to turn himself into a hero, Raze jumps in too. Using their new hero status, Raze and Patch set out to finally rid their town of player heroes and bring back the “Rule of Cool” corporation. The audiobook is read by none other than the wonderful Felicia Day and she does a superb job. The story itself is fun and silly and hits on many tropes in the world of role-playing games. Only real complaint was how much real-world modern pop culture is referenced throughout the story - Amazon, Spotify, etc. Overall though a quick light-hearted read perfect for the video gamer in your life.

Felicia Day is the perfect narrator for Rule of Cool; she suits the main character, Raze, and the humorous writing style of the book. Filled with dialogue that sparkles, Rule of Cool is an action-packed quest starring Raze and her dreamy crush, who thinks he’s a Hero. She doesn’t believe him, but he says she can become a Hero, too, and escape the drudge work she’s been doing all her life, with barely enough food to survive. One moment she’s chained to a desk, issuing quests to Heroes; the next she’s preparing for the battle of a lifetime. It’s unpredictable, hilarious, and just plain fun. Plus: Felicia Day!

The Summary:
If you like LitRPG, snark and sexual innuendo, relatively recent pop culture references, and stories that show you the flipside of a narrative, I think this might be a good read/listen for you. There was one mechanic that I'm not a fan of, but I'll get into that in my actual review. The fact that I only have that negative to call out should indicate to you that I liked just about all the rest of this book, because that is the case.

Quick aside, thanks NetGalley for letting me read this, even after its publication! You can also read this review on my blog (https://hipkec.wordpress.com/2021/04/09/review-rule-of-cool/) or Goodreads, with a bonus Audience Participation option!

The Review:
Let's just get this fiddly bit out of the way first, shall we? Yes, this book is narrated by the awesome Felicia Day. I bring this up not because I'm a giant fanwoman of M. Day, but because she does have a large following and there's bound to be some people who only picked this book up because she narrated/performed it. Honestly, I'm not judging, I've done that for other narrators. I will judge those people though if they come in with "this book sucked, because i don't like these types of books, i just picked it up because Felicia Day!" which I don't really expect, but I just wanted to be clear. To be even more clear, this book, regardless of who narrated it, did not suck in my opinion.

As called out in the subtitle, this book is LitRPG. I've read other books in the LitRPG genre (Ascend Online and Spells, Swords, & Stealth, I'm looking at you) and I've liked them. This book has a lot of the things I've liked from those books, especially the Spells, Swords, & Stealth series by Drew Hayes because in both, the NPCs get a chance to change their role and the books are about how they deal with and do that. I'm not going to get into a compare and contrast because I'm just not. If you want that, lemme know and I'll see what I can do.

As I said in my summary, the one thing I didn't like a lot does come from the LitRPG-ness though and that is that until maybe more or less the halfway point of the book there is a lot of information about the character's rolls. As nerdy or geeky as I am, and I am, I only started playing D&D last year with probably quite a few other people for pandemic entertainment/socialization. In this case, that means I understood how the mechanics for some of the rolls, but for others I had no idea what was going on. For those with more nerd/geek cred than me (not hard to do in this arena), maybe that made sense. Regardless, it was interesting a few times. After that, it was just part that I kind of tuned out, until the "success or failure" decree was made. I liked that the actions taken depended on the success or failure of the rolls, but I really didn't need to know what kind of rolls they were, what the scores were, what the other character rolled, etc. I would've liked to just know that Raze's roll failed, so she got stabbed or that Raze's roll succeeded, so the other character got (insert action here).

Otherwise, I liked most everything about this book. I liked the characters, the humor was spot on, the plot, the whole shebang. I liked that the reviled NPC's got to rise up. I liked the teamwork and cooperation between the characters. I felt bad for the NPC's that their home had been invaded by basically jerks, to use as a starting point for their quest to become even bigger jerks. I liked the pop culture references that came from the Rift. You could say that those references were possibly an updated play on Ready Player One but, they didn't really play out that way.

This was my first read of a litRPG. I liked it but I was not always into stopping the narrative to talk about each roll. I would still recommend it for people to try out. Thank you to NetGalley for the copy of this audiobook!

One thing I've discovered over the last few years is that, to my own surprise, I'm not really a fan of the LitRPG genre. I think it's mainly because if I'm going to read about someone playing a game, I could instead just go play a game myself instead, so I tend to stay away from the genre these days. I have to say though, that I'm glad that I made the decision to give this book a try. The Rule of Cool by Matthew Siege was a fun book and pretty much everything I wanted from the LitRPG genre when I first discovered it a few years ago. I planned to slowly listen to this book on my walk to and from work every day for a couple of weeks and instead ended up staying awake all night to finish it in a single sitting

There's been a lot of books written over the last few years either told from the PoV of NPC's in a video game or TTRPG, or from the dungeon itself, but this is the first one I can remember seeing or reading told from the PoV of a "monster" race. Raze was a fantastic character and I enjoyed every moment spent listening to her and her crew's story. I don't know if this is meant to be a stand-alone book but I really hope not because I would enjoy finding out what happens next! I don't have many complaints about this book but the one I do have almost made me stop listening to it a time or two out of annoyance.

I know this is a LitRPG book and the author is really trying to get the TTRPG aspect/feel of it across, but there were just SO many dice rolls and stats read out over the course of the story that it honestly got a little annoying. I DM twice a week right now and I can't help but feel like if I forced as many rolls and read out as many stats as happens in the Rule of Cool that my players would revolt or just quit my campaign. But, as I said, I'm not a fan of and haven't read a lot in the genre and maybe that's normal for these books and I just have to adjust to it.

As much as I ended up enjoying the story of the Rule of Cool, I do have to say that the best part of it was easily Felicia Day's narration. She's always such an amazing actor and she just absolutely killed the narration of this book. I think it could have been the worst book in the world and I still would have enjoyed it because of her. I hope there's more in the series and I hope that she narrates them all!

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

It was fun but needs some fine tuning.

The game aspect of this LitRPG needs some better explanation because sometimes it seems like it uses the D20 system like D&D while other times it seems like it uses a D100 system like Dark Heresy. Sometimes big numbers won the roll while other times small numbers did and it was never clear. I don't care if the author creates his own system but at least make sure the reader can understand it.

Also early on in the audiobook, Felicia Day's voice acting was a bit off. Twice she used one characters voice for another and while that's not a deal breaker and it's an easy mistake to make, it's quite sloppy for whoever was editing.

The story was basic and has a sudden ending which could use some teasing out. I didn't want the battle to end and then have the book end moments later. At least hint at where things will go afterwards.

All in all this was fun. I've read worse but I've also read a lot better.

Rule fo Cool is a fun mashup of many things I love: video games, LitRPGs, and abundant pop references. Oh...and Felicia Day! The book tells a fun story of a lowly little Gearblin learning that she doesn't have to be a lowly nothing, that anyone can be a hero if they are brave enough to try. The book features an excellent cast of characters and a rather enjoyable story. My only complaint (and it's a relatively small one) is that in the early parts of the books the narrative plays up the RPG aspect a little too hard, with every action bring broken down with detailed 'rolls' on actions success/failure. Saving that detail for special attacks/moves/abilities rather than almost all actions would have IMO made there story flow a bit smoother. But as I said it's a rather minor complaint. While I have listened to Felicia Day narrate her own books in the past, I believe this is the first time she has tackled a fiction project and she did a spectacular job. I hope she'll narrate more fiction in the future. I'd like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to ARC copy of this audiobook.

I have never read or participated in this genre before but I have to say it’s a lot of fun, I soon found myself completely immersed in this story (I didn’t always understand it but I laughed at it) the narrator was superlative and I found myself mesmerised by her voice, I can’t recommend this book enough, it’s a bright light in a dark world at the minute

I love everything Felicia Day narrates! I was a bit confused at first as the goodreads page described Raze as a male NPC so I took me a while to reconcile a female narrator and the character descriptions but then I realized that Raze was female and it made a lot more sense! It also took me some time to figure out the world building/game aspects. In the end, the character development and RPG aspects grew on me so I enjoyed the story. I’d give the book itself 3 stars and 5 enthusiastic stars for Felicia Day, which averaged out to 4 stars on the whole.


Review date: February 5, 2021
Release date: February 16, 2021
*This audiobook was provided to me, with thanks, by the author, Podium Audio, and NetGalley