Quick Synopsis

From Cathy Yardley, author of Love, Comment, Subscribe, comes an emotional rom-com about two middle-aged gamers who grow their online connection into an IRL love story.

Publisher’s Synopsis

Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal―he’ll be more social if she does the same―she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.

Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while his brother plays house with Aiden’s ex-fiancée.

Bogwitch and Otter become fast virtual friends, but there’s a catch. Bogwitch thinks Otter is a college student. Otter assumes Bogwitch is an octogenarian.

When they finally meet face to face―after a rocky, shocking start―the unlikely pair of sunshine and stormy personalities grow tentatively closer. But Maggie’s previous relationships have left her bitter, and Aiden’s got a complicated past of his own.

Everything’s easier online. Can they make it work in real life?

Book Review

I was a little shocked earlier to discover that Role Playing is one of the New York Times’s best romance books of 2023. In fact, I picked up this book because I have seen praise everyone from bookstagram to published book reviews. I will be upfront and say that this book did not work for me as it has for so many others.

Role Playing is a “gaming-to-lovers” romance in which two middle-aged introverts, Maggie and Aiden, meet in an online gaming guild. As they develop a friendship, each thinks the other is a wildly different age, automatically friend zoning them. When they meet in person, there is chemistry… along with a lot of personal baggage.

I was excited to read a romance novel with older protagonists and with aspec and bisexual representation. Sadly, Role Playing ended up being all over the place. Cathy Yardley decided to throw all the ideas she had, along with the kitchen sink, into this story. As a result, I found the book to be unfocused with elements constantly pulling the reader in every direction. Let me name a few of the plot elements in this story so you get an idea: middle age protagonists, women in gaming, online gaming communities, small town gossip, divorce, empty nest syndrome, discovering your sexual identity and coming out, toxic family dynamics, aging parents who need care, a sibling marrying an ex, and more. While all of the different plotlines were entertaining, none of them were fully developed and left me missing resolution of them all.

A big reason I chose to read this novel was because it has demisexual representation. Aiden thinks something is wrong with him, because he is generally not interested in dating although he has dated in the past. Maggie just kind of ascribes labels to Aiden and suggests that he may be aspec, more specifically demisexual. And seemingly, he just accepts this at face value and does not look into it more or do any research. The entire plot point seems to be in the story simply to check a box. Demisexuality or asexuality are not explored in depth nor how Aiden really feels regarding these labels. It seemed like one more thing left unresolved and incomplete.

As I mentioned, there were a lot of little things that felt off to me about Role Playing. However, the biggest way in which this book did not work was the romance storyline. The characters did not feel like they had chemistry. There was no tension built prior to them getting together (which took three-quarters of the book so there was plenty of time). Consequently, I was unable to become immersed in their love story and thought it all fell flat.

I did like the Maggie and Aiden, although some elements of each were overblown making them feel like caricatures. I found it strange that Yardley chose to have middle age characters and then made them incredibly immature. It ruined any authenticity and was a real letdown.

I could go on and on about the strange execution of Role Playing. But instead, I am going to not recommend this book unless you like gimmicks. And hopefully, go find a better book to get lost in.

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