I am so behind on writing book reviews! For example, I finished this book two and a half weeks ago and have forgotten most of the characters’ names. Oops.

I received a digital advance reader’s copy (ARC) of Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce. Since this version is just a proof and not the final version, I won’t quote directly and will keep my comments general.

In Dungeons and Drama, Riley is a theater kid through and through. She wants to become a director on Broadway someday, and her high school’s stage productions promise to be a stepping stone for her. However, when the school cuts the theater budget, so they can’t put on the spring musical, she is devastated—but determined to convince them to change their mind. However, when Riley finds herself grounded for borrowing her mother’s car without permission, she is punished with having to work at her dad’s gaming store after school. There, she finds a world entirely foreign to her. She doesn’t understand the gaming world, nor does she understand her infuriating coworker and fellow high school student Nathan. But when circumstances bring them together, they agree to pretend to date each other: to demonstrate to Riley’s nosy ex that she’s moved on, and to make the girl Nathan has a crush on jealous. But of course, real feelings soon get in the way, and Riley realizes that maybe role playing isn’t so bad, when you’re with the right person.

This was a super cute young adult story! Riley and Nathan are pretty well written characters, with relatable high school struggles, as well as family drama and insecurities that add layers to them. I quite liked how their relationship progressed, even if it was extremely predictable. I also liked Riley’s interactions with her parents and friends.

There is, as you might imagine, a decent amount of theater life and gaming life in this, both portrayed really well. I liked watching as Riley got to know the world of D&D, something I’ve dabbled in, and how she came to appreciate this different flavor of nerdiness. The scenes tackling her theater program were great too, and an empowering example of how change can be made when a group of people come together. Sure, it’s a little too easy, a little too rose-colored-glasses, but it’s a YA romcom, so who cares? I like seeing teenagers, even fictional ones, get to achieve their goals.

I didn’t love the storyline that involved Nathan longing for a girl, and Riley helping him make her jealous, mostly because I really didn’t understand why he was so enamored of this girl. She was rather flaky and didn’t treat him well, two things which every character told Nathan more than once. And yet he spent a good amount of the book still staring starry-eyed at her… why? I don’t know, maybe I just don’t understand the mind of a teenage boy.

But in the end, Dungeons and Drama was super cute. It’s a light read, and you know where it’s going pretty much from the beginning, but the characters are (for the most part) sweet, the themes of friendship, family, and first love are earnest and well-written, and the nerdiness is presented with so much love. It would be hard for a romcom fan not to have a good time reading this.

(All that said, though, the biggest plot hole in this is that Riley somehow went all seventeen years of her life living in America with a huge nerd for a father, and she somehow had never heard of Weird Al Yankovic?! No way.)

Dungeons and Drama is available now!