*I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley. I am mutuals with the author on social media and we have exchanged messages in the past.
DNF at 72%.
I w*I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley. I am mutuals with the author on social media and we have exchanged messages in the past.
DNF at 72%.
I wanted to like this story so hard but it’s an odd one and no mistake. Here we have a sort-of-romance, sort-of-paranormal drama featuring Azrael, commonly known as Death, and Molly Molloy, the human woman he accidentally leaves alive. Initially ‘Dee’ attempts to fix his mistake by convincing Molly to give up on her life, only to fall gradually and deeply in love with her. Molly, meanwhile, can’t help but be drawn into the orbit of this strange, awkward, endearing not-really-a-man, who has learnt all his human culture from old magazines and the final moments of the dying.
There are some honest to goodness lovely moments - like when they try to go to the movies together, or when Dee stops time to let Molly (who works two jobs) get a good night’s sleep. I’m a sucker for any story where a person learns to love for the first time, and Dee is a lonely, touch starved person who really wants to be seen for himself. I mean, that’s my catnip right there.
But there are some weird choices: the hard-to-understand cosmology, which reminded me of The Good Place; the decision to completely isolate Molly from any human relationships (she couldn’t even have a friend?!); Dee’s self-made magical penis; and - most of all, the thing that made me DNF - the surprise unwanted pregnancy. This is a trope that I hate anyway but here? It’s extra icky because Molly has been told it’s physiologically impossible and convinced not to use a condom as a result. Even if Death acted on this in good faith, I can’t get on board with the authorial decision. I started to feel increasingly leery of the ending and how everything was going to resolve, since Death and Molly can’t be together in any meaningful HEA. Maria Vale has been clear that this isn’t a romance in that respect. I decided to put it aside, knowing it was going to give diminishing returns.
CWs: death (a lot of it on page), including death of a woman from sexual violence and the death of a child from burns; suicide (of a past lover, described); death of parents in a car accident (described); death of grandparents (described); unprotected sex; descriptions of body modifications, including creation of a functioning penis. ...more
I was drawn to this because of the 14th century setting and the queer romance. It’s 1360 and *I received an e-ARC via Netgalley for review.
DNF @ 17%
I was drawn to this because of the 14th century setting and the queer romance. It’s 1360 and Raff is accompanying his younger sister Lily on her way to marry William de Foucart, the heir to an earldom and key to cementing his family’s interests in the south of England. Raff is restless, unsatisfied with his life as a younger son, and straining against his responsibilities. He’s happiest alone, in the forest. When he discovers a beguiling young man named Penn in the woods outside de Foucart’s castle, on the night before his sister’s wedding, he has no idea that he has met - and, in a moment of risk, kissed - the bridegroom. When William is nowhere to be found the next morning, jeopardising the alliance, Raff sets out to find him - still entirely unaware that William is actually Penn.
Despite the appeal of this premise - medieval queers! Forest adventures! Mistaken identity shenanigans! - the style and delivery of the story didn’t work for me at all. Although Raff is 26 years old, and Penn is also in his 20s, both of the POVs read as much, much younger. The tone of the narration, the extent of their understanding, is more like mid-late teens. It’s also pretty bland. Other than the fact that Penn and Rafe are both feeling trapped by their privilege, and some very basic physical descriptions, I didn’t get much sense of them as individuals. That made it hard to build rapport or investment in what might happen to them.
The medieval setting is similarly undistinguished and the attempt to build a sense of time and place (beyond ‘there are castles and woods here’) is minimal. It’s not that I was looking for a rich and precise historical fiction but some specificity would be nice, especially when the story arises out of a dynastic marriage.
Hence, the DNF - this was never going to be for me....more
This book had so many red flags in the first chapter that I DNF’d almost immediately. From the chortle-chortle eccentric colonel’s ‘gruesome Indian waThis book had so many red flags in the first chapter that I DNF’d almost immediately. From the chortle-chortle eccentric colonel’s ‘gruesome Indian wars’ to the antisemitic stereotyping of the hero to the colonialist racist BS about Africa, this was historical romance at its most objectionable. I would steer clear and avoid. ...more
DNF @ 18%. Nothing about this is clicking, from the writing to the characters. Both Nell and Beatrice are difficult, brusque sorts of women, with signDNF @ 18%. Nothing about this is clicking, from the writing to the characters. Both Nell and Beatrice are difficult, brusque sorts of women, with significant personal and ongoing trauma, and I’m certainly intrigued by how they reach a HEA. But the strange combination of resentment, bitterness and insta-lust in their interactions doesn’t work for me. I also find the active domestic abuse of Beatrice’s mother by her father, and the emotional and psychological abuse that she and her siblings experience, quite triggering. It’s not something I can work through in a romance at the moment, especially not when the central pairing isn’t working for me. ...more
DNF @ 50%. There were parts of this that shone for me early on - the confusion and the pining between the two main characters, the found family and frDNF @ 50%. There were parts of this that shone for me early on - the confusion and the pining between the two main characters, the found family and friendships. But then it started to feel long and fretful and overwrought to me. Bear’s voice was messy, sometimes poetical, sometimes direct. The angst overload was too much even for me, and I decided to quit while I was ahead. There are three more books in the series and the likelihood of me continuing was diminishingly love. I will be trying Klune’s more recent work though. ...more
Not for me, this one. The errors went beyond typos - words missing, words repeated, sentences confused - and it got in the way of my enjoyment. DNF atNot for me, this one. The errors went beyond typos - words missing, words repeated, sentences confused - and it got in the way of my enjoyment. DNF at 33%...more
This was a DNF for me, which is a shame because I’m seeing some great reviews of it. It suffered from being read a) on my Kindle and b) as a terribly This was a DNF for me, which is a shame because I’m seeing some great reviews of it. It suffered from being read a) on my Kindle and b) as a terribly formatted Netgalley file. But whether I’d have enjoyed it more otherwise is questionable. I found it quite flat and dull, insipidly peopled, with very little to exercise my mind over. I think this is probably a case of book-reader mismatch though because, as I say, excellent people have liked it a lot. ...more
I’ve never had a success with JCO but I wanted to try this one after some positive reviews. I made it to 100 pages and then had to admit defeat. It reI’ve never had a success with JCO but I wanted to try this one after some positive reviews. I made it to 100 pages and then had to admit defeat. It read to me like the notes for a novel....more
I made it a quarter way into this before I gave up. It felt like lots of research assignments mashed together with some autobiographical musing, but wI made it a quarter way into this before I gave up. It felt like lots of research assignments mashed together with some autobiographical musing, but without a real direction or purpose. I can see others have enjoyed it, so maybe it’s just me but it felt flimsy and lacking in weight for a book supposedly about the ocean. ...more
DNF’d at 10% on my Kindle. I just couldn’t get on with the prose one bit. It was off kilter and full of awkward angles that constantly threw me out ofDNF’d at 10% on my Kindle. I just couldn’t get on with the prose one bit. It was off kilter and full of awkward angles that constantly threw me out of the narrative. ...more
