As someone who's never played a ttrpg before (but does love gaming) this book was a gamble and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The feel of this book brought back memories of movies in the 80's centered around high school, growing up and slowly moving into your adult life. I liked the mix of characters and the slight nerdiness that surrounded them, they came across as realistic.
The writer handles different topics like coming out, first love, discrimination and treats the characters with respect while also leaving the reader with a satisfied feeling at the end. The balance between the characters felt a little off for me personally...it seemed like Ben and Mooneyham had a more fleshed out character with growth towards the end of the book, while Celeste remained very superficial and Valerie had a little more depth but it did feel like she hadn't gotten as much attention as the two boys.
Nevertheless, I recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about new adults and their adventures. In real life and game life.

*** An ARC was provided by Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. ***

I'll admit I'm a bit of a geek, I enjoy conventions, and role playing, and dungeons and dragons. So when I saw the title of this book I thought "heck yeah, this is my jam." And ya know what? It really was. Sometimes I read fandom books and it's just so obvious that the author is trying to jam every single nerdy thing they can in there and it's honestly annoying, but honestly this just felt like a Friday night with my friends. I especially love Valerie, she's so funny and kind of self-aware. Like some vampire dude yells at her and she's just like "bruh." She's wonderful and I love her. Mooneyham is great too, like his intro is just bursting into the room and calling everyone fudge nuggets and I could not stop laughing. Although Valerie is my favorite character, I liked Mooneyham's story the best out of all the characters. And Ben and Albert were cute as well, I thought they had good chemistry. This was a really cute book and if you like dungeons and dragons and other nerdy things you should definitely check this out!

A unique story about a group of friends and their struggles in love. I enjoyed the good characters and fun plots.

76/100, 4 stars
Every Thursday Ben, Celeste, Valerie, and Mooneyham meet up at Readmore to play D&D. A new player Albert joins the group. Ben is living in a basement and reselling collector's items online. He's sweet and dorky but not my fave. Valerie works at the store the game is hosted at, she plays a bard and starts a rivalry with the vampire roleplaying group. She's my favourite, I liked her personality and wished we had a little more of her.
I didn't think I would like Mooneyham at first, he seemed like the kind of asshole rules lawyer I hate in my own game but I grew to like him. All these characters are distinct and well written.
Celeste didn't make too much of an impression because she doesn't really have a conflict like the others, but I liked her and related to her as a DM :) Though honestly the way all the characters acted reminded me of my own games, superstitions about lucky dice, the unique frustration of trying to teach a new player who isn't all that interested and just wants to hang out with their bf, forgetting what's in your inventory and not realising you have really useful stuff on you, etc~ not exactly writing or plot-related stuff just small details and references made me happy.
This book reminds me of things like LARPs the series or The Guild (which is what I was hoping for when I saw the title and read the description), where you'd think the story is about the game but its actually about the players and their relationships and the game affecting and paralleling things that happen in real life. I love how the awkward out-of-character dialogue comes through in the in-game scenes it's one of my favourite things with these kind of books/shows.
I read it in a day which is unusual for me with anything other than an audiobook so I can say with confidence the book is well-paced and doesn't drag on at all.
I don't know how much someone who doesn't play any ttrpgs would enjoy this but the book is written in a way where you don't really have to understand the game as it's not the main focus. There are personal conflicts for the characters that all coincide into one story thanks to the game. I am a prude so some parts were...not for me-so that's the only negative I have and I know that's just a me-thing so take that with a grain of salt.
The ending made me unreasonably happy, I was so worried about how things were going to end when the ebook said 99% but it all came together nicely.