Conventionally Your is a cute, poignant romance with main characters who slowly became to have such profound impact on me. Conrad and Alden are so different, but they also have a lot of things in common and it's absolutely fascinating to follow their journey and the realisation of how intertwined their feelings are. The two point of views are equally compelling, although I did relate to Alden a bit more, with his hung-ups on social interactions and not making friends easily. This is rivals to lovers type of story, where first impression and years of competitive gaming together has moulded Conrad and Alden's opinions of each other. It's fascinating to see them to get to know each other better during a road trip to a convention, and to witness how years of preconceptions began to fall apart.

If you're not familiar with the game Odyssey, which Conrad and Alden actively play and attend a gaming tournament, don't worry, it will not hinder the enjoyment. I have never played Odyssey, only vaguely heard the name, and never been into gaming and its community. Albert beautifully weaves the gaming into the story without info dumping anything concerning the game, but still explaining enough through the characters actions and reactions that the reader can keep up. Therefore, I can highly recommend Conventionally Yours for everyone - it is a riveting romance, full of heart-warming and funny moments, as well as deep, absorbing conversations.

Aside from the adorable factor, this book managed to sneak in a lot of relatable and important things. You don’t often find romances with characters who have real traits, whether they’re struggling with poverty and homelessness or characters who are anything but neurotypical. It was fantastic to see this in a fun, enemies to lovers romance book. Albert also incorporates gaming and convention culture seemlessly, so that all of the elements to this story make it more enjoyable. This was a cute, fun read that I’d recommend to anybody, rather than a book I would recommend to people with it’s character’s traits in mind, and that’s why it’s genius. It shouts to the world that people are different and people have struggles and they still have their adorable, romantic happily ever afters.

I really loved this nerdy book, although I was kind of stressed about what was happening occasionally (COMMUNICATION, BOYS, COMMUNICATION). Besides that, it was super amazing and the ending was just perfect! I am so glad I was able to read this book! <3

I was so sad to DNF Conventionally Yours at 26%. I was really excited for this one (MM! Theres only one bed!), but I struggled to feel connected to the characters. They honestly felt a lot younger than they were supposed to be? I may try reading it again in the future, but its a DNF for now.

What a well done story. I so like to read something other than the conventional romance and this book achieved that for me. I look forward to reading more from her.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

Conventionally Yours is well written, but it just isn't my taste. I am not a gamer so it's story is lost on me.
I suspect fans of gaming will enjoy this book.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! I'm super nerdy and love going to conventions, so this setting was a perfect reading experience for me. The friends to enemies to lovers trope is great, and I loved that this was a realistic LGBT+ portrayal of romance. It focuses on the "after" of coming out, so it was nice to have that perspective in a book. I really enjoyed this!

I really enjoyed this book! It was sweet!

These frenemies find themselves road tripping together to the nations biggest convention/competition where they will both compete for a spot in the professional league.

They both NEED the win for very different reasons but both are important. They both learn so much on their road trip together can they really accept each other once the competition pits them against each other

I really enjoyed their story, it was cute and sweet and honestly just a nice fun summer read.

This book was just so absolutely adorable!

Card game rivals, Conrad and Alden find themselves unexpectedly road tripping together to a huge Odyssey game tournament. Both guys have their reasons for needing to win, but their relationship unexpectedly changes over the course of their adventure.

This book was just so sweet and fun. I loved hearing from both these gamer guy's perspectives. I think each of them were written with their own distinct voices, something I appreciate in multi-perspective stories. I also found the scenes in which they played the card game to be quite entertaining.

This book moved quickly and I couldn't put it down once I started reading it.

This book was super cute! There were portions of it where I felt it was a little long, or taking a long time to get to certain scenes, but overall I loved the story. I've never known much about tabletop gaming, and even though this was a fictional game created by the author, others have said it's realistic, and it was an interesting introduction to the gaming world for me! More than that, the romance at the center of the story was very sweet and realistic. I really enjoyed it!

Thanks to Sourcebooks Casablanca for the free advance copy of this book.

Conrad and Alden are both top-level players of the card game Odyssey and they do not get along. Their former professor regularly features them, along with a few other friends, on his YouTube channel "Gamer Grandpa." When their professor presents them with tickets to an upcoming Odyssey convention and the chance to play in a tournament with the prize of a slot on a pro tour, Conrad and Alden both jump at the chance, before realizing this means they've committed to a long road trip with someone they hate.

CONVENTIONALLY YOURS is both super sweet and super thoughtful. Both young men in the story are already out and in their early 20s, so rather than being a coming out novel, it focuses on post-outing life, both the good and the bad. Conrad struggles with being disowned by his family and having to scrape together rent every month, and Alden, who seemingly has it made with his two moms, struggles with people constantly misunderstanding and trying to "fix" his neuroatypical qualities.

I also appreciated that this was a hate-to-love romance where the two leads realized the error of their ways and fell in love slowly, over the course of many conversations. Though their initial physical attraction was strong, it was really the kindhearted way each showed the other they were worthy of love that made this book special.

Content warnings for homophobia, getting outed, neurodivergence, chronic poverty.

This was such a cute read! If you are a fan of gaming conventions, road trips, and enemy to lover stories, this is the book for you! The ending was perfect and I loved the character development.

CUTE ALERT! This book made my stone-cold lil heart so happy. M/M gamer enemies to lovers relationship serving all the laughs, cuteness, and steam 👀. Conrad and Alden are stuck in a vehicle together while they road trip cross-country to compete in a tournament. I absolutely loved the parts where they are on the road. The back and forth, the exploration of their backstories - *perfection*. Honestly, these two have my heart forever. The tournament portion of the book is fairly short, and while it did seem to drag a little, you don’t need to know how the game actually works to enjoy the story. And I absolutely loved the ending - which does not happen very often. ⁣

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher. I have enjoyed reading this. Love it so much! Wonderful storyline and great characters.

Ahhh this was so cute! I am not a gamer or into comics or anything of the sort and was worried I wouldn't be able to enjoy the story but everything was so well done. My favorite part of the entire story was how casually queer it was. While yes the two MCs are gay, there were a ton of queer side characters who just were. We had Peyton, who uses they/them pronouns, Professor Tuttle and his husband, another professor's daughter is casually mentioned with another woman and the term partner, and identities such as aromantic and asexual were mentioned. And this type of behavior was ALL over the book and it was glorious. I wish more books would start to normalize queer lives because we exist and we don't always need big stories or fancy coming out plots, but just acknowledge that we're here.

As for the actual story, I loved Alden and Conrad and their complex lives. Personally, I like characters who have histories and flaws, not ones who have picture perfect lives. I can't speak for the neurodiverse rep in Alden's case and urge you to look to ownvoices reviewers for how that representation was done.

I did listen to the audio after the book was released and absolutely love one of the narrators and that could've swayed my opinion slight'y but overall I really enjoyed this. It was nerdy and cute and I was pleases to realize it was NA not YA which was quite exciting.

Awwwwww......I liked this book. It made me feel like I understood a little bit about tabletop gaming and it’s culture. And I feel a bit better informed about neurodiversity, too. I can also say that I really dig me a gay love story. Who knew? This book had so many warm moments and sweet, yummy feel good things to enjoy. I dug it. 💜📚

I adored this book. The two MC's slow burn into relationship-land was written so well. I enjoyed the plot, and the not quite friendship/friendship between Alden and Conrad was wonderful. It was truly a journey of two young men finding themselves and each other.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for my complimentary copy of this book. I really enjoyed Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert. In Conventionally Yours, Annabeth Albert creates a m/m romance that combines elements of a road trip with gamer convention. I found these elements to be a fun combo. I really know very little about the card game industry so learning more about all of that was great.

The story switches viewpoints between Conrad, a happy, go lucky extrovert who is struggling with a family who has cut him off completely, and Alden, a neurodiverse gamer who has a hard time relating to other gamers. The story follows these two on an epic road trip from New Jersey to Las Vegas where the two will participate in a tournament for their favorite game, Odyssey. In the book I think Albert does an excellent job of connecting the reader with both of our heroes. She shows their strengths and weaknesses and you can't help but love both of these flawed individuals.

Another aspect of the story I enjoyed was how the story explores different quirky little places as part of the road trip. I've done enough road trips myself that it was really fun to see where the guys would stop on their adventures.

So if I had to pinpoint a weakness for the book I'd say that the road trip part of the book was a little long. I think it is a vital part of the book, it is pivotal in getting to know the characters, I guess I just wanted to get to the tournament faster. (I will acknowledge here that I often feel this way with road trip or quest type books, I start get distracted if they take awhile.)

In summary, I think this is a fun, enjoyable m/m romance that would really appeal to people who enjoy relatively low angst romance. If you are a gamer, I think you'd love this book. If you are someone who likes a lot of action, this may not be the choice for you.

I hate to do this but this was a DNF for me. I felt the characters acted younger. It read more like YA rather than new adult. This book had the potential- one bed trope, convention and road trip. I am sad that this was a miss.

One of my favorite things about her books is how, even though there’s a happy ending, no one has to compromise their individuality to get the HEA. It’s okay for the couples to have different aspirations or reservations about the relationship; they’ll work through it in the end. She does nerdy queer romance with a happy ending very, very well, and that is my jam. There’s some light angst here, mostly of the college-students-finding-their-way variety, but it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows—she does touch on heavier subjects as well. It’s new adult, so there’s not as much heat as in her adult books, and I feel like the emotional connections between MCs in the adult books are also stronger. And the “aha!” moments they each had at the con seemed a little affected. But this was a super cute book, with some of my favorite tropes (Enemies to lovers! Stuck on a very long journey with only each other for company! And the hotel room only has one bed!), and I devoured it.

This one is somewhat similar to her #gaymers series and it definitely helps to have some idea of how gaming works. I am vaguely familiar with D&D (like, that third cousin twice removed you see at family reunions and could maybe pick out of a crowd but you don’t know anything else about them kind of familiar) and I didn’t fully grasp the strategy of Odyssey. And even though this is a cute new adult romance it is also very much about playing Odyssey, so if you’re not into learning the ins and outs of a fictional RPG being played at a professional level you might not want to begin your Annabeth Journey with this one.

And! It’s the first of a series! So there will be more!