Rule of Cool

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

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.

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.

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!

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! =)

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!