Who We Are in Real Life Paperback – February 6, 2024

I admittedly don't read much YA anymore, but I discovered this book when I was just getting into DnD myself and now I NEED MORE BOOKS WITH DnD SUBPLOTS!! (Also, I adore the cover!)This book was great and light-hearted with a lot of heavy hitting topics like homophobic small towns and abusive relationships.When Darcy is moved to a small town she has to adjust to a new school, small town homophobia, a long-distance relationship, and missing her old Dungeons and Dragons group. A new classmate named Art invites Darcy to join his DnD group though and as their friendship grows everything is going to change.I thought this was a super fun book. (It may have really hit me in the feels because I too dealt with a big move late into my highschool life.) I loved the characters and the DnD aspect. The way Darcy stands up for what she believes in and enacts change against a small town's homophobia was beautiful. She has less success dealing with her own personal problems, but learns that making the right friends is a huge step in the right direction.Personally, I was just as invested in the Dungeons and Dragons aspect of this book as the main storyline, and I honestly hope more authors write stories like this in the future and hope more publishers pick those stories up.

This book is a fun read for DnD fans! Koops weaves gaming into real life, following Darcy and Art's journey. It tackles tough stuff—homophobia, hate crimes, and abusive relationships—but empowers and shows serious growth. Moving to Unity Creek shakes up Darcy's world, but her connection with Art, both big nerds, is heartwarming. Characters feel real, with biases and all. Despite some loose ends, it's a fun ride, celebrating DnD, personal strength, and growth.Thank you Victoria Koops and NetGalley for letting me read this book.

Who We Are in Real Life is a cute coming of age story that deals with some tough themes. The book has some good queer and size representation, and lots of geeky themes like DnD and gaming. The story moves between "real life" and "the game," and switches between Darcy and Art's POV.Overall, this was a good story, but fell a bit flat to me. The book felt like it skewed on the younger side of YA, and yet dealt with some pretty difficult themes like abuse and homophobia. The romance between Darcy and Art was sweet,but overshadowed by Darcy's relationship with James. I wish that element had been handled differently, allowing for a stronger relationship with Art. The geeky themes in this book were fun to read, and for fans of DnD and other tabletop games, this will really resonate. For me, the switching between Darcy and Art and their characters Poppy and Roman was a little confusing, but it did make for an interesting story. The themes of homophobia and abuse are important elements in the story, and I hope that younger readers can see the harm caused by certain characters like James, and be able to recognize it and reflect on it in their own lives, so this book serves that purpose as well. I think that for a younger YA audience, this book would be perfect.

I will start this with a caveat about this book. If you are not into role playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, half of this book will seem odd to you. That’s because half of the book is “in game”. If you try to skip that part of the story, you can still sort of figure out what is going on, but it makes it harder, because, of course, fantasy and reality are reflections.Darcy has two mothers and loves D&D. She has had to move from the unnamed city somewhere in the “prairies” of Canada (which is similar to fly-over-states in the US.), to a small town, about an hour or so away by car. She had left the city, which apparently everyone was not homophobic, or at least not to her face, to a small town where people are, including Art, the boy who tries to become her friend.Darcy is all teenager mode. Full of anger, and lashing out. Just because Art doens’t know the right questions to ask or how to deal with homophobia, she says he isn’t an ally.But when the both figure out they like D&D, and Art invites her to his game night, things move forward, and the romance part of the story happens. Only problem, Darcy was dating a “bad boy” trademark, and he thinks she is still dating him.All in all, the D&D parts of the story are interesting, and reflect the bad guy of the story, which so happens to be Art’s father in both cases. But, on the other hand, even in a small town, there were other queer folk for Darcy to get to know.I had trouble getting into the D&D parts of the book at first, but once I realized that they were important, I started enjoying them along with the rest of the book.

I'll make no bones about it--the content of Koops' debut novel is complex. There is a LOT going on. Having lived in a small, rural community for most of my life, there were times when I had to put this book down and think about what it must be like growing up queer in a place where some residents have all the easy answers except for the right one. I learned a great deal, and not just about D and D (about which I knew exactly zero). I enjoyed the IRL problems of Darcy and Art, who have armed themselves for the challenge of making their school safe for everyone. They aren't perfect, but that is what makes them so arrestingly and poignantly relatable. The strengths of this novel outweigh the occasional trip-up, and I look forward to whatever else might be coming down the pipe from this author.

Who We Are in Real Life tells two parallel stories.One is a contemporary romance between teens Darcy & Art. The other is a fantasy adventure that unfolds week by week as they play Dungeons & Dragons together.But real life and fantasy start to cross over, as the characters face challenges and villains in the real world that force them to draw on the strengths of their fictional alter-egos IRL.I couldn't put this book down! This is the nerdy teen romance that I wish existed back when I was a nerdy teen!