#cathy yardley

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Role Playing

Cathy Yardley

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Love at first knight

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December Book Reviews: Role Playing by Cathy Yardley

Comfort reread. In Role Playing, Maggie is forty-eight, recently divorced, and in an empty house after sending her teenaged son off to college. To keep him from worrying, Maggie joins an online gaming guild and quickly forms a bond with another player--who turns out to be a man her age rather than A Teen.

Role Playing is my favorite of Yardley's books, and it's lovely on the reread too. A lot of romance novels lose me because it's clear the only thing keeping the couple together is attraction, and without it they'd vaguely despise each other. That's not the case here--without the romance, I think Maggie and Aiden would be fast friends, and their attraction forms another layer of complexity in an already close bond. Both of them have had past partners where the other person didn't understand their hobbies at all, and I like that their relationship centers bonding over fandom and just getting each other. Particularly for two fifty year olds.

Another element I thought was well done was Aiden's sexuality. He comes out as demi over the course of the book, and it's well-done compared to how most romance books choose to handle demisexuality. Aiden isn't extra special and romantic for only being attracted to one or two people during his life. He'd be perfectly happy staying single, and people note that and think it's weird. One of the driving plot points is his family attempting to harass him into dating because he's spent too many years without a partner and there are small-town rumors that he's Gay.

A lovely gentle romance about two people finding each other later in life through the unlikely medium of a n online gaming guild Perhaps it's a bit obvious, but I'd pair it with the other gaming mistaken identity romance, Looking for Group by Alexis Hall.

[bookcub]

Ace Review: Role Playing by Cathy Yardley

a contemporary romance novel focusing on two video game nerds (affectionate) who meet online and fall in love

they are both over 45yo, which is rare in this genre

aiden is bi and aspec! his relationship with his sexuality is sooooo important to me

i loved the nerdiness of this book!!!

i also liked that they are both caretakers in a way. maggie is a mom of a college freshman and he is a nurse taking care of his mother because of her health conditions.

100% a friends to lovers story (finally!!!!)

i had a blast reading it!! i will be reading the authors other books!!

[bettslovesromance]

[bookishlyvintage]

Role Playing, Cathy Yardley [thoughts]

[deathsweetblossoms]

THIS BOOK HAS DEMISEXUAL REPRESENTATION. IM LOSING MY MIND. IVE NEVER EVEN SEEN THAT WORD USED IN A ROMANCE NOVEL.

[qbdatabase]

Role Playing by Cathy Yardley Maggie, an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit, joins an online guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch. Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an escape from his family drama. Bogwitch thinks Otter is a college student, while Otter thinks she's eighty. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

[mydarlinginej]

read my full review of love, comment, subscribe by cathy yardley here.

From award-winning author Cathy Yardley comes Love, Comment, Subscribe, a fun, feisty romance about high school frenemies turned unlikely collaborators.

Back in high school, Lily Wang wanted to be popular, but she considered herself lucky to be part of a tight group of oddballs and honors students called the Nerd Herd. Now, at twenty-eight, she feels like she’s finally on the cusp of succeeding as a beauty influencer—if she can hit five million subscribers, brands will take notice and she could get her own makeup line.

Fellow Nerd Herd alum Tobin Bui has had a lot of success as a YouTube gamer. But the road to online stardom has been rocky. First, he disappointed his parents by dropping out of college, and now, after years of pranks, skits, and playthroughs, he’s struggling to come up with new content to satisfy his ever-growing fan base. His agents say he needs cross-audience appeal, a new twist.

When Nerd Herd frenemy Lily approaches Tobin about teaming up to do a video to bolster her brand and reinvigorate his, he agrees. But when their first collab video goes viral, their relationship heats up too. With the whole internet watching, will these two former misfits finally realize they’re perfect together?

my review:

I was already interested in this book because of the summary, but then I read that the hero was half-Vietnamese. I’m always interested in reading about more Vietnamese characters in romance, so I was even more excited to read this book because of that. Love, Comment, Subscribe follows a sweet romance as well as examines the endless grind of being a content creator.

Once high school frenemies, Lily and Tobin are now relatively big YouTubers, Lily a beauty vlogger and Tobin a miscellaneous jokester. When an opportunity arises for them to collaborate, they reluctantly set aside their high school animosity to expand their subscriber counts. They quickly realize that the two of them have more chemistry than they previously thought, as they grow closer with every video.

I really liked the protagonists! Lily is organized and ambitious, while Tobin is more willing to go with the flow. They have to reconcile their different posting approaches while collaborating. This felt realistic when you think about the way Youtubers have different posting schedules and video types.

read my full review here.