marin reads

marin reads

in which Marin reads The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall.

The No-Girlfriend Rule
Christen Randall

“The person Hollis was when she played Secrets & Sorcery was someone she liked being. Honoria had a part in that; it was much easier to feel like a badass when she could pretend she actually was one. But Gloria did, too, with her encouraging smiles and how she always made Hollis feel worth including. So did Iffy, with all the time they’d spent together in study hall or the front seat of the Accord or one another’s kitchens. And so did Aini, with her stupid brown eyes and her stupid big heart, making Hollis believe she was brave enough and beautiful enough to go and do something like kiss her.”
– The No-Girlfriend Rule, Christen Randall

Lately, I've extremely burned out from work. Booksellers here don’t really get ARCs much anymore, and while I still get excited about books all the time, it’s rare for me to (1) even afford the books, or (2) have time or the mental energy to read. I wrote the first iteration of this review as a way to procrastinate a bit as I was swamped by hundreds of emails and dozens of spreadsheets. The No-Girlfriend Rule was one of the books I immediately thought I’d love, promoted as much as I could, saved up to get a copy, and then got too distracted by work and gaming to read it. That was, until I did a buddy-read with a couple of people in my D&D group, which helped me push through.

This book follows the story about Hollis, whose friend group consist of her boyfriend Chris, and his gaming group. Despite all of them mostly having grown up together, she never felt like she belonged, because they play Secrets and Sorcery (kind of like their D&D analog, with lots of the same spells and rules) together and there's a "no girlfriends at the table" rule, which, as Chris was the only one with a girlfriend, was really a "no Hollis rule." Wanting to fit in better, and hoping it would give her an in to their game, Hollis decided to learn to play Secrets & Sorcery by herself.

So she goes to a game shop... and if you’re an anxious af AFAB and/or femme-presenting person and have gone to a game shop alone, you might understand or relate to what happened next. (Or you could be lucky and find awesome people immediately, in which case, I’m jealous.)

Hollis' first try at Secrets & Sorcery was a disaster, and she was almost going to give up, when she found an ad for an all-girls group starting a new campaign. What follows is a story about Hollis finding a safe space to play, an amazing group of friends, and seeing the kind of person she could grow to be with the right kind of support. The support, I have to add, she wasn’t getting from her boyfriend.

This is also a story about how TTRPGs offer a safe space to explore queer identities, to find ways to bond with friends, and how, at its best, nerd culture and all it entails can change your life.

Reading this with my D&D group, most of our conversations were about how much we hated the guys Hollis was "friends" with – Chris, and Landon (especially Landon), and Marius. They're incredibly homophobic, and misogynist, and they treated her so badly. I've seen GR reviews talking about docking stars because of how unrealistically "bad" these guys were, but as someone who swore off game shops in my late teens, I've met too many of them to think that they're unrealistic. I still know a couple of guys like them now, now that I’ve started going to game shops again. Of course, things now aren't as bad as they were when I was younger, and I've also met a lot of great people to game with since.

There is really a lot more going on in this book, like discussions of mental health (Hollis’ anxiety, and one of her new S&S friends Fran has ADHD), body image, and of course, the central love story (Aini and Hollis' romance is just so cute), but most of my friends' and my discussions revolved around the girls' friendship and game, and how it helped all of them in little ways, and how much we all wished for a Gloria Castañeda (their GM) in our lives. (I have been told that I am a Gloria, but I could only wish I have Gloria’s high wisdom stats. I may be a cleric main in games, but irl I’m more of a socially inept wizard.)

As a group that had recently gone through a shake-up in our dynamics, reading this solidifies how the people you play with is what makes or breaks your game.

Update: I don't know about a Gloria, but I have met a group of magical girls in early 2026!

CW: this book contains transphobic, homophobic, and misogynist language, as well as fat-shaming and ableism (all portrayed as negative.)

* Originally posted on my book blog, in July 2025

Pushkin Children's, March 7th 2024, 9781782694465

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