The nice thing about the explosion in modern romance titles, particularly with those demonstrating more diversity and geek acceptance, is that you can find a book that makes you squeal “it’s for MEEEEEEE.” Such as Role Playing by Cathy Yardley.
Maggie is a newly empty nester, divorced, and generally grumpy, with some social anxiety. She works from home, and she games online. Her two best friends are someone she went to school with that she talks to every couple of months, and someone on social media whose real name I’m not sure she knows.
Aiden moved back to their small town when his father was dying, and he’s stayed because his mother needs help she won’t accept or admit to. He’s hamstrung by gossip, with his mother’s community not letting go of whom he used to date. And he looks like a soft ginger lumberjack. They’re both middle-aged, with the concerns of trying to take care of either parents or kids.
I really wanted to know Maggie. She seems like someone I’d like, someone who’s gotten to the point of not giving a fuck any more, because she spent too many years trying to be someone more socially acceptable. She’s worried, a bit, about her isolation, but mostly because she doesn’t want to set the wrong example for her kid, now out on his own.
She joins an online gaming guild, full of students from the local community college, all younger than her, she thinks. Yardley clearly knows the online world. There’s a section where Maggie walks the reader through what she has to get through — using a lesser-powered character to see how the boys treat a new female player, being tough and scaring them out of being sexist. Things on the internet are different for women.
Aiden and Maggie meet briefly at a football viewing party, but they get to become friends online. Only Maggie thinks he’s a twenty-something college kid, and he thinks she’s his mother’s age.
There’s so much going on here: the importance of friendship, how hard it is to find friends when you’re older, when and if a friendship becomes a relationship, different sexualities, how history shapes people… I enjoyed this read a lot. It’s full of clear-eyed optimism, with emphasis on the realistic view, which makes it all the more rewarding.
English (US) · 