I really enjoyed this one! I originally requested it because my friends were discussing starting a DnD group (hasn't happened yet, but there's still hope!), so the gaming aspects caught my eye. But, by the time it got delivered to my Kindle, it being YA was worrying me. I'm so happy I finally took the plunge and started it though, because I enjoyed every minute of it! I did have some minor irks with some of the characterizations (Riley's fashion choices and Nathan's messy car), but if I ignored those, I really liked the characters. I'm not the biggest fan of fake dating, so by the end, I was ready for it to end and for things to be real, but again, that didn't bug me too much. The DnD campaigns were so fun, and now I'm hoping my friend group gets ours up and running. I'd recommend this!

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book was adorable. I’m typically not a fan of the fake dating or miscommunication tropes but given the characters ages (high school) and personalities, it really worked and was on brand here. This was such a fun read and really brought back memories of high school and what it was like to be a teenager going through relatable teenage drama. Also as someone who played D&D with a group of friends for a couple years, I really enjoyed those added elements. If you’re looking for a feel good read that does hit too deep but is sure to be enjoyable, look no further.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy of this book!

If you like fake dating, musical theater, gaming, or a combination of those, you're bound to love this book.
When Riley's punishment for an ill-advised night out is working in her dad's game store, the last thing she expects is having to team up with fellow coworker and schoolmate Nathan to help him win the girl he likes and help her avoid condescending comments from her ex.
With lots of funny moments and a bit of tension paired with some miscommunication and true friendship, this book is fun, easy and entertaining.

I received an arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.
I really enjoyed this book.
I loved all the characters.
At first, Riley got on my nerves but as the story went on, she really grew on me. I also had to remind myself that she's still pretty much a kid. Her character really grew throughout the book. I ended up really enjoying her journey.
I loved her dad. He was one of my favorite characters. Everyone at the game shop was someone I could easily picture at my local game stop. One of the scenes towards the end with Riley and her dad had my tearing up. It was very lovely.
I loved all the theatre and dnd references.
As a theatre professional and dnd lover, this was a great book for me! It was a really feel good book.

Absolutely adored this.
It’s definitely your normal fake-dating-to-make-someone-jealous situation BUT against the backdrop of gaming nerds and musical theatre geeks, it’s perfection.

The writing was super fun and the story moves quickly. I literally loved every single character and pop culture reference.

Happy to be finishing the year on a such a great read!

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy!

This book is SUCH GOOD FUN. Outside of being a seriously swoony romcom, it’s got nerd appeal across several different subcategories of geekery—the D&D kids, the musical theatre kids, even LARPers! Main character Riley has a fun, infectious joy through her narrative perspective, making this read quick, exciting, and full of big feelings. This would be a perfect read for anyone who has ever played D&D, sang a show tune, or thought about doing either. I can’t wait for this to hit shelves!

This was a cute YA romance. I've always been interested in dungeons and dragons and have a lot of friends who play it(will def be recommending this one to them!) I really like how because she was a singer her character is a Bard, that fit so well with her character and showed how you can combine interests in this game to have more fun. Fake dating is also one of my favorite tropes. This felt a bit short though

I absolutely loved this book. It was such a cute YA fake dating romance, and what drew me in was that it involved D&D and musical theater. I'm a total amateur regarding both of them, but I think the book greatly executed the subjects. The characters were well written given that most of them were of high school age, even though they may seem annoying at times (which is true of teenagers!) The side characters were also great; it was cute seeing another relationship blossom between the two main characters' best friends. This was such a fun read!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children's for the ARC!

DND & theater kids? Say less. This YA story was amazing! It was funny and emotional at the same time! This warmed my nerdy lil heart!

Five out of five stakes!
This book has actually made me want to check out D&D it sounds like so much fun.
Definitely pick this book up if you like musicals and D&D the author heavily mentions a lot of both. Different musicals and such and D&D terms and what not. Also mentions Taylor Swift I think a couple of times.

Anyhow when Riley and Hoshiko get busted for driving to the musical Waitress thats when the fun begins. Ha
Riley's parents decide her punishment for driving thr car without a license is to work at her father's gaming shop for 8 weeks. And no after-school musicals or hanging out with friends.

While there she is met with a group of kids that hang out at the store playing D&D and such. When her ex shows up with his new gf Riley immediately says she has a boyfriend now. Enter Nathan, i liked him from the start. He just seemed so nice and he sounded like book boyfriend material. When he agrees to be her fake boyfriend to throw off Paul the ex and get the girl Nathan likes Sophia lines become harder to read. Is it all just for show and fake?
Or will these two admit under all that teasing they havw feelings for one another?

This book is lots of fun and if you like the fake boyfriend girlfriend books and shows and movies this one is for you. If you liked To all the boys I've loved before then you will surely like this book. I know I did, I really enjoy these types of books. Also this is a perfect quick read. Although I'd like a second book just saying.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Children & Kristy Boyce for a digital ARC of Dungeons and Drama.

This book was absolutely adorable! My inner nerd was screaming with joy! I remember when I was in high school, many years ago, there used to be a group of students that played Dungeons & Dragons in the cafeteria at lunch every day.

Both Riley & Nathan were so cute & so loveable and their relationship was very realistic to that of a typical high school crush romance.

Riley is on a mission to save her schools musical program & needs Nathan to help cover her shifts at her family's game store so she can work on an amazing musical to convince the school board to keep the musical program. In exchange, Riley flirts with Nathan to make the girl he is crushing on jealous.

We all know how this will end! It's predictable, but exactly what I was looking for. It was a nice, clean teen rom-com that would be perfect for all teens and in school libraries. I highly recommend it!

It's just a great feel-good story with characters you can fall in love with and wonderful writing style. Just enough Rom & just enough Com!

Solid 4-Star read!

This is flipping adorable! Such a sweet romance YA read! I can not wait to check out this authors backlog! I am so charmed by this story!

Theatre
Dungeons & Dragons
Fake Dating
Angsty

I’m not able to post a review on Amazon at this time as it has not released yet. If you would like to send me an email reminder I’ll ensure it’s done! This was a fantastic book!

Riley and Nathan seemingly have nothing in common. Riley is a bright and energetic musical theater nerd, and Nathan spends his days quietly working at Riley's father's board game shop and playing D&D with his small circle of friends. But when circumstances throw them together into a fake dating scheme, they seem to be a little too good at acting like they have real feelings for each other despite their differences.

As a nearly 30 year old Fantasy reader, I don't read a lot of YA Contemporaries these days. But as a former high school theater nerd and a current adult nerd who enjoys tabletop games, the concept of Dungeons & Drama seemed tailor-made for my inner child. And I'm so glad I picked it up! It was the cutest darn thing I've read in quite some time.

This was such a wholesome, adorable, heartwarming novel about two dorks from different spheres of dorkdom, working together to pull off fake-dating hi-jinks and to save the spring musical. Honestly, I wish somebody had told me when I was a teenager that theater geeks and D&D players were an unstoppable match, it seems so obvious after reading this book.

I had such a great time with this story, I was smiling and giggling the whole way through. Highly recommend, and I can't wait to check out more from this author!

Riley is grounded, but it was so worth it. OK, so she did happen to take her mother’s car and drive it without a license, but to be fair, it was to do her favorite thing ever: watch a musical. Now, however, as part of her punishment, she’s stuck working at her dad’s game store for the next few months. Unfortunately, Riley knows nothing of the games, and is constantly confused at the Dungeons & Dragons games taking place in the back. What’s worse is that a boy from her school, Nathan, also works at the store and she just can’t stand him. But when her ex-boyfriend stops by and is condescending toward her, she makes up a new boyfriend on the spot, claiming that it’s Nathan. Nathan is originally reluctant to go with this plan, except that he’s crushing on a girl who only seems to chase what she can’t have. Now, Riley and Nathan are looped into a fake-dating scheme, and Riley has even joined the DnD game! But as Riley gets to start loving the game, playing a bard of course, she also starts to realize that her feelings for Nathan might not all be as fake as they originally were.

I received an advanced reading copy of Dungeons and Drama in exchange for an honest review.

Dungeons and Drama is a young adult novel by Kristy Boyce. As soon as I heard about it, I knew that I had to check this book out. I’ve only been playing DnD for about seven years, but since I started, I’ve joined at least four different campaigns, listened to hundreds of episodes of both Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, and convinced several other friends to play too. So, of course I had to pick up this book where the characters play my favorite game!

Dungeons and Drama was so fun. I knew I was hooked when I caught myself smiling early on, the first time Riley started playing, and the rest of the novel did not disappoint. While the main story is the fake dating going on between Riley and Nathan, which gets off to a rocky start especially since they can’t stand each other at first, there’s a lot more going on in this novel. For one, the school musical, which Riley loves to participate in every year, has been cancelled, and Riley is determined to find a way to save it. For another, now that Riley is working at the store, she’s finally spending more than just the weekends with her dad.

That was actually one of my favorite parts of the novel. Riley is the daughter of divorced parents, and she’s very close to her mother all while not understanding her father at all. I loved her working in the store, slowly learning more about his world, and realizing both how much she’d missed and how much she and her dad have left to figure out. But, then again, you guys know I’m a sucker for family relationships in any novel, especially if they’re complex and messy.

Speaking of relationships, I’ll talk a bit about Nathan and Riley here, shall I? Well, I hope this isn’t a spoiler to anyone, but Riley’s feelings soon start to get deeper than she expected, but I really liked how organic everything felt throughout. Sure, Riley and Nathan get off on the wrong foot, and are kind of “annoying coworkers” at the start, but as the book progressed more and more, and once their desperate scheme began, you really start to see when they cross the bridge into “friends,” and start inching even further. I thought it was very natural, helped especially by both the DnD group and Hochiko, Riley’s best friend. I was rooting for them to get together from the moment the scheme was hatched, but of course I can’t tell you how that worked out. I would hope, though, that considering that this is a romantic book, that you might be able to guess.

Dungeons and Drama was a quick and fun read. It’s the kind of book you can easily finish in just a couple of sittings, but that will keep you grinning throughout. I’d recommend this to fans of DnD or musical, to fans of fake dating and enemies to lovers, or even just fans of a good rom com.

Dungeons and Drama will be released on January 9. You can preorder your copy from Delacorte Press here.

This is a first for anything Netgalley has sent me. I gave it 31 pages before I had to stop. I hate the female lead character. Spoiled, self centered, entitled...hard pass. I realize this is young adult but oh my God! I'm sorry to the author I'll have to watch exactly what I ask for from now on. I truly thought this would be right up my alley but I was wrong.

This was a very cute book, and I loved that the main characters were "nerdy" but had such confidence in themselves and each other and really embraced their passions. Someone who knows more about gaming and Dungeons and Dragons may understand some of the references more, but as someone who knows zero I did not feel like that hindered my ability to enjoy the story. It was easy to root for Riley and I loved the development of the relationship with her parents.

I want to thank NetGalley and Random House Children's, Delacorte Press for sending me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Riley's epic adventure at the end of summer may have landed her in a heap of trouble with her parents, but it was totally worth it. That is, until she faces the consequences of working at her dad's nerdy gaming store. Then she finds out her school cancels the spring musical due to budget cuts, and then to top it all off her ex-boyfriend, (who Riley is definitely over) shows up with a new girl on his arm at her new lame job. Worst senior year ever. Until Riley stumbles onto a scheme that she's sure will make everything alright, and finds that lying gets better with practice. But who is she really fooling? Her ex? Her fake-dating partner in crime Nathan? Or herself?

I absolutely loved this story. An easy read full of young love, high school and family drama, and let's-make-them-jealous fake dating. Riley and Nathan, our FMC and MMC respectively, were both realistically well-written teenagers. Each character had flaws and quirks that I found endearing and really made me root for them.

I like video games and watching musicals, but I've never been obsessed with these hobbies, at least not like our two mains. That being said, the book doesn't go heavy into these interests and stays light enough to introduce some elements without it overtaking the story. The focus is definitely on the characters, and their personal growth as they face challenges. Riley faced a heap of external and internal crises and I just wanted to give her the biggest hug at the end.

This is a PG romance: flirting, hand holding, and kissing only. There is a sunshine x grumpy trope, which is one of my favorites to read about.

All in all, I definitely recommend reading this book. You will not regret it.

At it's heart, this story is about perspective. Seeing your life, and the ones you love, and their passions, from another perspective. And it's beautiful.

Also, very funny. Riley is made for a romcom musical, and Nathan is the best romanceable bard character in the game.

Honestly, I adore D&D and watching my kids play/stream/tabletop. This book is a nat 20.

*Received as a free ARC*
To be honest, I kind of found Riley insufferable. That being said! I appreciated how she buckled down to get her musical back. I also really enjoyed the ending when everyone came together to support her. Maybe I'd have enjoyed it more if I was in the target age demographic, but it wasn't terrible.

Dungeons and Drama was a cute, quick read! I think this book will connect with all kinds of high school students because it includes characters who are interested in drama, DND, etc. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.