*4.5

This was really cute. The moment when Nathan asked her if they could fake it all the time instead of just asking her out for real was so funny. I love two stupid high schoolers who don't know how to voice their feelings for one another.

I received an arc through netgalley.

All Riley wants is to direct musicals including her high school one. However, everything goes awry when Riley gets punished to work at her father’s game store and then finds out the musical is cancelled. Not to be deterred, she has to bring the musical back, even if it means working with Nathan. She gets a chance to save the musical while he gets to make his crush jealous. It’s a win-win, right?
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Boyce has created the perfect YA romcom for theater and game lovers alike not to mention those readers that love a fake dating trope. While mostly hilarity ensues, I was surprised by the depth of emotion this story brought out particularly in terms of Riley’s relationship with her father and the struggle between what they each believe balanced with Riley’s relationship with her mother. Not shocking at all though was the great banter between Riley and Nathan. The chemistry between those two was intense even when they think they’re just pretending. If possible, the supporting characters were even better than the banter. The D&D group was just so wholesome and fun. However, I must say I feel attacked by as a magic wielding D&D player who’s favorite move is to cast fireball. If you’re looking for a great fake dating YA romcom, add this to your TBR pile.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

I am honestly kicking myself for pushing off reading this one so long - what a perfect little romcom! As a musical theatre nerd who also plays DnD (and is a sucker for the fake dating trope), I felt so connected to all of these characters. This book is perfect for all the warm fuzzies, laugh out loud moments, and embracing your nerd-dom moments it brings.

I Loved this book and this book just worked for me. I think as both a theater kid and a former dungons and dragons player. This book gave me both the saving element and also a a enemies to friends to more. I Also loved the complicated family dynamics and also the found family elements. I will not lie i def teared up a tad and just felt so connected to these characers and felt for the theater show they were trying to save! i would love to see more books in this world.

***Thank you to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for sending me an advanced reader copy of Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce! All thoughts are my own!***

BEWARE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Riley is a lover of all things musical theater and aspires to direct a Broadway show. Riley takes her mother's car without permission to see a Broadway touring production of Waitress with her best friend Hoshiko, and is grounded. Her parents stick her with the worst possible punishment she can think of: working after school at her father's gaming store, Swords and Board Games.

Riley can't waste her time working at the store when she has to save her school's spring musical from being cut from the budget. So she convinces Nathan, a nerdy employee from her school, to cover her shifts. They both exchange to fake date to prove to Riley's ex, Paul, that she can get a boyfriend after their relationship, and to make Nathan's gamer girl crush, Sophia, jealous.

But Riley didn't realize that working at the store would mean joining Nathan's friend group in their Dungeons and Dragons sessions, or that she would actually having fun playing it. But maybe acting to be together is not as hard as they both thought.

Ok, let me start off by saying I LOVE THIS BOOK! This story really related to me in so many ways. I was a theater kid growing up and I wasn't interested in Dungeons and Dragons until I met my husband who introduced me to the game when we were dating. The entire group of friends were so authentic, they reminded me of my friend group that I got to know when I started playing. And the dedication Riley has to keeping the spring musical going is so inspiring. I loved the moment when Riley got her first set of dice that Nathan chose for her (was kind of hoping we were going to see her becoming a dice goblin, cause I can totally see her loving dice collecting.) There is nothing like getting your first set of dice and using them play a character you really love. It was great seeing Riley's parents and their love for her and support for theater. We also got to see the relationship between Riley and her father grow over the course of the book, since they kind of drifted apart after her parents divorce, due to different interests. Her and her mother had the love of musicals, where her father just loved all things gaming. Toward the end, I started getting teary eyed when her father was in the hospital since their last conversation did not go well. It was great to see that in this high stress situation, they were able to reconcile. Seeing Riley's elaborate plan to save the musical succeed was amazing. Seeing how not only her friends coming together to help her, but the entire community, including the customers at the game store help her was absolutely heart warming. Riley and Nathan's fake dating throughout the book was so convincing, they were really selling it, but it was great for them to stop letting everything outside affect them and realize they should be together. This book just stole my heart.

I will absolutely recommend this book to anyone who loves theater or Dungeons and Dragons. Even if you only like one over the other, this book will really make you enjoy both aspects of this book.

Dungeons and Drama is available January 9, 2024!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

This book was an absolute joy to read. Who would have thought that musicals and gaming would be such a perfect pairing in a fake dating rom-com? I adored Nathan and Riley and how their snarky banter and flirting evolved into real feelings. The side characters were a hoot too! This book gave me all the warm fuzzies and deep happy sighs.

4.5 stars

This review is short and sweet. Such a fun read, very cute. I loved this book. I am looking forward to reading more from Kristy Boyce. Thank you to Random House Children's and NetGalley for this e-arc.

This just wasn't for me. I tend to be really picky about YA romance books so I'm not shocked this didn't work out. I wanted to like this one a lot because I found the concept so interesting and the cover was just SO CUTE, but it was just okay.

I really enjoyed this book. It was fun to see Riley’s passion for theater and Nathan’s interest in gaming come together as they learned more about each other. I also really enjoyed the relationships between the two of them and their friends and seeing how a Riley and her dad grew closer. I would definitely recommend this book.

A cute, sweet, funny, and musical ya romance that I loved! There are so many wonderful relationships both romantic and not making it a book full of love in on way or another. There’s our main romantic relationship between Riley and Nathan with it’s fake dating. Their relationship is full with plenty of banter, tension, and the awkwardness of a high school romance. I loved their relationship so much and was just waiting for the moment when they admit that they like each other. The other romantic relationships are just as cute and high school. One of my other favorite relationships in this book is between Riley and her dad. It’s not perfect and we get to see them make it better during this book.

Overall, this was a cute ya romance that I highly recommend!

Read if you like…
•fake dating
•opposites attract
•hate to love
•musical theater
•dungeons and dragons

Riley has a passion for musical theater and a big dream to direct on Broadway. That's why she takes her Mom's car without permission-or a driver's license-to see a production of Waitress with her bestie Hoshiko. When she is caught, she is grounded for two months and forced to take an after-school job working in her dad's game store.

Riley is less than enthused. She doesn't have the slightest interest in gaming and her relationship with her dad has not been the best since her parents' divorce.

She reluctantly takes on the job and clashes with Nathan, a high school classmate who works for her father. Nathan has a crush on Sophia, a girl who frequents the Dungeons and Dragons group at the store and Riley is eager to make sure her ex-boyfriend Paul knows that she is not pining away for him. Riley strikes up a deal with Nathan to "fake" a relationship with each other. Hopefully, their ruse will rouse Sophia's jealousy and cause her to gravitate towards Nathan and have the desired effect on Paul.

Riley and Nathan launch their fake relationship and Riley joins the Dungeons and Dragons group to make it more believable. Soon Riley meets fun new friends and realizes that there is a whole world of gaming that she didn't realize and to her surprise-and her father's delight-she enjoys it.

Riley also realizes that faking a relationship is more complicated than it seems. When she begins to experience very real feelings for Nathan, she isn't sure if she is alone in her feelings or is something very real happening between them.

I loved the representation of characters, the foray into the world of gaming, and the serious themes that are interlaced throughout the narrative. Boyce creates a perfect YA rom-com that you definitely need to check out!

Nerds unite! I found our utterly adorable, smile inducing, heartstring pulling YA romcom. Not only do you have some of our favorite tropes in these pages, but nerd culture galore is sprinkled throughout that just had me giggling with delight! Dungeons and Dragons? Musicals? Monty Python? Warhammer? Pokémon? LARPing? YES!!

As you can tell, I love all the gaming/musical theater references but there is so much more to this story that I enjoyed. Watching Riley and her dad come together and work through there misunderstanding was a huge win for me. I love watching their relationship flourish. The D&D group members all hold a special place in my heart! I think they all need their own books! I NEED MORE!!

I will say before you get into this, it is truly a book that falls into the YA genre. There are no blurred lines here. We have teenage drama, miscommunication, and problems but I still enjoyed every word as an (almost) 33-year-old.

Pick this one up if you like:

-Dungeons and Dragons
-Musical theater references
-Fake Dating
-Mutual dislike to friends to lovers
-ALL the nerd culture references
-Game store setting
-Repaired parental relationships

My romance loving heart wishes there was a teeny, tiny more moments between Riley and Nathan once they worked past those dreaded miscommunication issues, but it did not take away from my overall love of the book.

Thank you #NetGalley for the advanced copy of #DungeonsandDrama in exchange for an honest review.

This is a delightful YA Romance between a gamer boy and a theatre girl. As the parent of kids who are both theatre kids and gamer kids (and as a 80s D&D/theatre girl myself), I loved the setup for this book a lot so much so in fact, it felt like this was written for me. This book was sweet, funny, and a bit emotional too. As soon as I finished the book, I immediately rec'd it to my musical theatre mom group to get for their romance reading kids. This book has fake dating, D&D, musicals, and Monty Python so basically it appealed to all the nerdiness in me! Finally, as a mom whose daughter's college musical theatre program was just cut and someone who has seen so many HSs and colleges making cuts in the arts (specifically musical theatre arts), I felt so much of what Riley & her classmates felt and their determination was very realistic (having just watched my daughter and her MT and Acting cohort attempt to do the same thing). Schools should be putting more money towards the arts, not less. Theatre is where people learn empathy and we could use a whole lot more of that in the world today.

I could go on and on about how much I loved this book. The board games, movie nights, drama rehearsals, DND campaigns, and belted musical numbers were everything I didn’t know I needed it in a YA novel; it felt like it was written just for me.

I really appreciated the side plot about Riley’s relationship with her divorced parents. I appreciate seeing representation of healthy and mature parenting, especially in a YA novel. At the beginning of the book, her relationship with her mom is strong but she has very little relationship with her dad since she feels like he chose the store over their family by getting a divorce. I really liked how it took a while for her to see her dad in a different light and realize that it’s not a betrayal to her mom to love both her parents.

The romance was SO cute. I saw someone describe their enemies to lovers relationship as nice nasty and I think that’s spot on. They do NOT hit it off right away but slowly move toward friends through their fake relationship. Riley wants her ex to get that it’s over and Nate wants a girl that seems to only want what she can’t have. But Riley and Nate’s flirtation starts to feel a little too comfortable and right…

This book had great humor and amazing side characters. I will be heading out to buy this one on pub day because I need it on my shelf.

Thank you to Delacorte Press for an eARC. All thoughts are my own.

I can admit I added this to my TBR solely because of the cover lol I loved all the little details and I don’t even play (or know anyone who plays) IRL. The dice? Her colorful clothes? The games? His ears? I loved it. But by that time I was already sold.

This book was so cute! I think my favorite part of this was the gaming. I was a little worried about it because like I said I don’t actually play so I was worried, thinking it was going to be heavy on the gaming aspect of it. But it wasn’t at all. It gives an overview of how the game is and what they have to do when playing. And it’s not info dumpy at all. The author makes it as an explanation to Riley since she’s learning how to play. And I loved that.

This entire book was so fun! I was not expecting to laugh as hard as I did in so many places. I have to say after reading her debut and not rating it super high, I’m super glad that I didn’t realize that this was by the same person. Because I don’t think I would have been so keen on reading this. But now that I have, I’m so happy I was able to read an early copy of this! It was so much fun! Riley is a theater kid, so she’s already artsy and let me tell you she is hilarious. And the way Nathan couldn’t stop her charm was also hilarious too.

The romance was hella cute too. As a self proclaimed hater of enemies to lovers books, I was not super set on this part of the book. But as it turns out, it wasn’t that bad. Riley is way too fluffy of a person to be actually mad. And Nathan was too much of a nerd to be mean. The two of them were nice nasty to each other and I loved it lol Like when she accused him of stealing those cards lol She was trippin. And the fake dating? Yes there was something in it for both of them, but I think her reasoning was actually funny. Because all she really had to do was tell that idiot to mind his own damn business lol But watching the romance turn real was cute.

The plot of this was also super cute. Although I couldn’t imagine getting in so much trouble to go watch a musical! But she gets sentenced to work in her dad’s store and is expecting to hate it. But she meets a terrible person who she can’t stand. And then then suddenly they’re fake dating. And I was not expecting to cry. Yes, I cried at the end. There was a lot that had to be done, and seeing that they did all that, and in that short amount of time, AND things that they didn’t even think of? It was so cute.

The only thing about this book I didn’t like was the way it seemed like none of the serious stuff that came up during the story got wrapped up. Like even the thing between her and the adult seemed like it was only talked about it again because of what happened. It was like 2 sentences and that was it. Idk maybe it was written that way because it was a rom com and the author didn’t want to get too heavy, but I think if you’re going to do it, then you should DO IT.

Idk what I was expecting when I read this, but whatever it was, it blew my expectations out of the water. I WISH I could go to this store. It really seems like it would be so much fun. And to hear Riley belting out her songs from the back of the store! I hope y’all pick this up and fall for this nerdy rom com like I did!

This was such a cute rom-com of a novel! I loved the enemies to lovers aspect, and how the author really showed the emotional connection growing and deepening throughout the novel. I would definitely recommend for a light YA romance read!

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...

Want to start your new Year out with just a fun cute teenage romance read this.
I enjoyed this book it bought me back to High School and all the boy crush’s I went through. We follow the cute Riley who loves Music and theater but finds herself grounded by her dad and has to work in his store feeling her life’s over she finds a way out. This is just cute and funny and might just bring you back to those HS crushes you had. This has all the good troupes.

Enemies to Lovers
Fake Dating
Dungeons and Dragons
Young Love
Drama
Thank you @netgalley

Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the ARC! Dungeons and Drama is a sweet, fake dating YA romance. Musical lover Riley gets into a bit of trouble after driving (without a license) with her best friend to see the touring production of Waitress. Her parents punish her by making her work at her father's game store. There, Riley ends up working with her classmate, Nathan. While the two have never really connected, when Riley needs a cover to convince her ex she's moved on and realizes Nathan needs a way to make his crush jealous, the two agree to fake date. But as the two spend more time together (including Riley joining Nathan's Dungeons and Dragons campaign), their fake feelings start to feel too real. Fun and charming, this book is the perfect choice for those searching for a soft, contemporary romance.

Let me just start by saying I knew I was probably really going to love this book when I spotted the cover and read the description alone (because how could you not?? It's the cutest 💕). But I am still in shock at how much this one ended up making my heart race in all the best ways! It was the perfect blend of funny, nerdy, witty and sweet. The way Kristy Boyce writes... There's something in it that made it nearly impossible to put this book down! It was such a quick and easy read for me. I was cheering on Riley and Nathan ALL the dang time. And fake dating isn't always my thing because so many factors in that trope have to align for me to get into it story-wise, but honestly Kristy ticked off every single one in her writing. Especially so with the banter and romantic tension between these two... *chef's kiss* I would have swooned if I knew any guys like Nathan when I was in high school. I thankfully ended up meeting my nerdy partner while I was in college, but I would have loved to even just know a really tender-hearted, thoughtful guy in high school like him.

Not to mention the FOUND FAMILY in this book! If I could pick one trope to live and die by in a non-romantic sense, it would be Found Family. It's just like the feeling of being wrapped in a comfy, cozy blanket to me. I was in love with Riley's found friend group. It was just top tier for me, overall. This book is pure joy in book form!

A huge thank you to Delacorte Press (Random House) and NetGalley for this e-ARC! This was my first ARC novel read through NetGalley and I really am so grateful for it. Can't wait to talk this one up to everyone I know now that it comes out in less than a week! Especially think that this story will speak to so many of my nerdy friends' (and likely also their equally-nerdy partner's) high school/young adult experience. BIG fan of this book!

4.5 stars I loved every second of this read. Now while I read this book last month I was sick for half of December. Do I highly recommend this to everyone? Yes I do and I will be writing my review on goodreads on publication day.