When I first learned about Dungeons and Drama, I was shocked it had taken me so long to pick it up. It combined my loves of D&D and Broadway musicals, had all of my favorite romance tropes, and the cover was so cute I felt like it was meant for me. However, as I read it, I had a pretty intense realization: this was a book meant for me...back when I was in high school. My teenage self would have loved this book, swooning over the different tropes and debating when the characters would get together. But my adult self? Not so much. However, I think that's a good thing, and why I still highly recommend this book despite it not being my thing.
The story follows Riley, who after stealing her mother's car and driving without a license, gets grounded and forced to work in her father's game store. Not only are things strained with her father, Riley has felt he chose the store over her when her parents got divorced, but she knows nothing about the different games her father sells. On top of it, she finds out her school has cut the school musical - a tragedy considering her goal in life is to be a Broadway director, and being able to be the student director was the first step in her career goal. And the worst part? She has to work with Nathan - and the two immediately have a mutual dislike of each other. However, the two of them start a fake dating plot to help Nathan get the attention of another girl in his D&D group, all while Riley is secretly working behind her parents' backs to save the school musical before her dreams are gone forever.
I think my favorite thing about the book was it was truly what YA fiction is supposed to be. The adultification of YA has been something I have had a problem with for a long time. So many publishers decided to cater YA books to adult audiences. Ages went from 15 and 16 years old to 18+, explicit content kids didn't need to read started slipping in, and adult themes teenagers couldn't relate to were prominent. Dungeons and Drama, however, had none of these issues. These were teenagers dealing with teenage problems. They were realistic, cringey, and overall exactly what today's teenagers need. As this is a recent release, it gives me hope that the publishing industry as a whole has remembered that YA books should be written with teenagers in mind, not adults. And that is something that truly excites me.
However, I think one of the biggest problems this book had was the way the high schoolers acted as a whole felt wrong. There were no modern pop culture references and the few slipped in were popular when I was in college...over a decade ago. TikTok was only mentioned one time - and that was the only time social media was mentioned in the entire book. I've been teaching long enough to see how times have changed with the demographic of students and I absolutely could not make myself believe this was a story set in modern day because the teenagers didn't act like it. I feel like if Kristy Boyce had written the exact same story but had it set in 2014 instead of 2024 it would have been so much better. I'm not sure if she was calling on her own high school experience and didn't realize how things had changed, or if she didn't do a lot of research into the pop culture, slang, and attitudes of how students are these days, but overall, it just didn't work for me because of how wrong it felt.
Overall, I was not the target audience for this book - and that is okay, I was not supposed to be! It's a fantastic way to introduce teenagers to some of the most common romance tropes, all while being age-appropriate and relatable to issues they have in their own lives. I am so glad this book exists, even if it was not personally for me, and I truly cannot wait to recommend it to my students. I'm pretty sure they are going to adore it.
Dungeons and Drama is available through Penguin Random House