roadtripreader's Reviews (357)

 The hype was warranted.

So this T Kingfisher sure knows how to bait and hook a reader. Just look at me ...sitting still in one place, not getting distracted and just inhaling this book.  Dare I say ... a new author for the favorites shelf?

Bakers the world over would like to thank Kingfisher for her service in making baked goods sound even more delicious than they already are. I've had 4 sweet buns, a slice of fresh bread with a generous helping of gorgeous butter and defying my lack of sweet-tooth, i had a slice of red velvet cake. That was my breakfast, lunch and dinner.

My local pastry shop thanks you wholeheartedly Madam Kingfisher. Also...*chews on leftover foccacia which I "forgot" to mention* ..... it's a really good book.

**************************************************
Plot/Storyline: riveting stuff

Characters: So darn loveable I'm considering moving to this town.

Unicorn Moment: Toss up between Bob the sourdough starter bucket monster and The Wainright boy who turns rocks into cheese! CHEESE. I mean c'mon.

Favorite scene: Knackering Molly, atop a skeleton horse named Naga, escorting Mona out of Rat Elbow.

Favorite Quote: "she hates the government now. She mutters about that a lot, but then again, she also mutters that fleas are the ghosts of ancient philosophers and they're trying to suck out the truth from her ankles". (Mona on Knackering Molly). 

 Anyone want to rearrange furniture like Neanderthals together as we stallion-walk through life?

Let me preface this by saying I am not a housewife; or a wife for that matter. In the sage words of Tetley from Garbagetown (The Past is Red) "Why do we have to get married? Can't we just be trash together forever?" But still, marriage does hold me in a fascinated trance when I start reading romance books where a Dragon marries a cinnamon-farming human named, well ... Cinnamon or a Grey Wraith-Vampire-like creature with yellow orbs for eyes marries a Human with red hair and a "parasitic gaze" and they get to the business of living their lives together. So, when this book popped up on my feed I had to get it.

Also, now I know what the hell Wainscoting is. I too would go to a wainscoting war.
For or against - I haven't decided yet.

*******************************************************************************************************
Review Breakdown: solid 4

General Plot: I love that this feels like a stream of consciousness in a language that is beyond English. Like - you get it on even a primal level. It just makes sense.
Characters: Let me tell you I cackled at that whole email exchange. Gail Montgomery insists on calling Ms (read: Mizzz with hostility) Chastain-Peters with all the disdain of a cat watching a bird live. And then it escalated.
Style/Grammar: So relatable and I'm not even a housewife. See I like an author who can reel you in and baamboozle you into thinking you know what they mean in that wise communal way.
Overall Flow: This book went places I never saw coming. I mean : Dumpster Diving With The Stars" WTH was that. Gold is what it was.
Quotes: I knew this was going to be hilarious when she opened with "Inspired by Beyonce, I stallion-walk to the toaster"
Hmm, okay, I want to stallion-walk to my kitchen and grab a bag of chips right now.
Memorable Scene: that whole Dumpster Diving With The Stars mess.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Cozy Fiction Books 

 New Car Smell is gone - but it's still a lean swift machine
Ayo Vampire Fred, ole buddy.... ole pal! It's tax season somewhere in the world. How I have missed our page-turning hangouts. Seriously though can't believe you were certain your undead life was boring dude. Perish the thought.

So Frederick has been up to shenanigans in that way he does in that he just gets swept up in them like a raft at sea. Let's see, what do we have here, ah yes, GIDEON ever the petrifying dragon makes an opening cameo. Honestly, Fred, the least you could do is put together one of your famous cheese-plates and dish all the dirt about the King if The West.

Eh...I've still not warmed up to Krystal and I'm beginning to think I never will.  She's basically a bastardized Ghostrider with her devil riding shotgun in her body and that is mighty sweet but her character is nails on a chalkboard.  Makes me want to set fire to the building housing the chalkboard. Zombie-boy Albert got more page time and he brought all the giggles. Parahuman society deep dive and a couple of new threats really put the death in Undeath and Taxes.  I feel like Richard could be so much more and the nuances of that relationship with Gideon - baaahhh you got me! who am i kidding, I just wanna see a were-creature therian throw down with a dragon.

Fight fight fight! Huzzah!

**************************************************
Review Breakdown: 3.75

General Plot: +1 I'm going with satisfactory.  Things happened. Exciting very not-boring-things. This was B-plus adventuring.

Characters:+1 Bubba seems to have fallen by the wayside. What's up with that?  Favorites: Everyone on Team Fred except that one. Least Favorite: Krystal. The arrogant swagger is TOO DAMN MUCH.

Style/Grammar: +1 Very accountant-ish which is very Fred. It's a fast paced read.

Overall Flow: +1 As always Fred is meticulous in his retelling of his life's misadventures and I read this in one sitting

Quotes:  Undead or Alive, everyone needs the cobwebs swept.(Fred on sleep)

Memorable Scene: Fred tied up in silver and strapped to a chair just, well collapsing and passing out from fear at the sight of 8 year old Gideon in the warehouse. I mean a dragon is a dragon but still a big vampire deathly afraid of a kid, the visual is hilarious. The kidnapping of Sally and Fred was the perfect opener.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy  Books 

 "Anarchy Can be so cozy if you bring enough pillows" Tetley the only sane Garbagetowner

In the spirit of this book; WHAT in the actual F$vK! It's not often a book does an absolute mindscramble like breakfast eggs on me without horror tropes filled with blood and gore. This one has been so damned and so unsettling and different, truly horrifying. I just want to do a mindmelt with the author so I can get an understanding of what in the everloving f$vk is going on up in there.

I devoured this book much like the Thames came up and swallowed Londontown whole and left eels behind. It was a glorious read.

**************************************************
Review Breakdown: deserves a 10/5


General Plot: +5 no matter how absurd the cities sound, Pill hill, Electric City, Garbagetown, the fact that this is a very real possibility even if it is probably 100 years away is terrifying.

Characters: +3 Everyone is so very bloody haunting.

Style/Grammar: +1 F&$*ng unique. This is prose like no other.

Overall Flow: +2

Quotes: A fat seagull eyed me from the top of a cliff of shredded vinyl and hood ornaments.  Dead psychosis spun up in his dead eyes. I don't mean to say he was a bad bird. All seagulls are dead-eyed psychos. If the whole fuckwit culture was a bird, it would be a seagull. Ravenous, stupid, vicious, not a single shit given, nice feathers.

Memorable Scene: Tetley negotiating updating a user profile with what sounds suspiciously like a talking vibrator (or a lamp? It's murky at best) powered by TENG and Samsung - all while a psycho seagull hovers about shooting death stares at her.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Speculative Fiction Books 

 Where to begin...okay so, my relationship with Urban fantasy has been tenuous at best. I can barely stand to watch it let alone read it. Still, I'm on a mission to read a little bit of almost every genre by 2025. Which is how I found myself falling fast for the Fantasy Romance subgenre as a strictly non-romancey reader who would much rather toss all those books in "Twoflower's" Luggage to disappear into another dimension and call it a day. BUT, who knew I just needed hot Elves and demons to fall in love and get their happily-ever-after to warm my cold dead heart.

So... that's how we got here, to this book about an ogre and a girl. Having recently read "Ogres - Terrible Worlds Revolutions" (Adrian Tchaikovsky) my perception of the monstrosities has altered. In the same vein as the Ogres book - I'm pretty sure humans are the ogres of the universe.

The long and the short of it is this - let my ogre dude Gregor find love yall.  Just let him find some happiness. As for the girl, what'serface forgettable redhead ... yeah her long-winded inner-monologues bordered on torture.

***********************************************
RATING BREAKDOWN:

Storygraph Challenge: 1800 Books 3 years
Challenge Prompt: 150 Romance books
General Plot: +2 Escape Cult, Find Ogre, Take Down Cult, HEA.
Characters:+1 Gregor seems solid and likeable
Grammar: -1 sometimes the author forgot she was using 1st person and randomly starts using 3rd person midway in a conversation or inner dialogue.  Very whiplashy.
Overall Flow: -1 Highly cringe-inducing dialogue at times. Some heavy second hand embarrassment. Also; enough with the "My female, this female female female female" we get it you're uncultured and isolated Gregor. Do better.
Quotes: Lean mean ogre machine" and "Mogre" and "Every Girl should have an ogre of her own"  almost had me dnf-ing this book.  Crazy Scene: Arya fleeing through the woods a second time as naked as the day she was born had me loling and horrified equally. 

 Hear ye Hear Ye! Citizens of Discworld
**sigh**... yes yes including you on the counterweight continent and rimworld seafarers.
I bring to you curious tidings and signs because the Great A'Tuin just keeps moving no matter what so here goes:

These are the signs if that Troll prophecy had been a little bit more detailed:

1. One possessed Wizard named Rincewind falling of the edge of the world and then...poof, not falling.
2. A Politely determined tourist name Twoflower who sees the world as only a delightful counterweight citizen sees it and has this innocent confidence one can't quite understand.
3. The Luggage. that's it...the luggage
4. Cohen, The Greatest Hero the disc has ever seen .... ahem and he's wearing diamond dentures
5. A non-sacrificed virgin, Miss Bethan, turned...what sidekick and potential bride
6. Cameo by DEATH, War, Pestilence, Famine and a card game that baffles even these elemental beings
7. That somewhat efficiently bloodthirsty, Marie Kondo-Styled organizer and supreme dullard Wizard at Unseen University
8. A big red star that keeps getting bigger and humans do we humans do - panic.

Oh and lest we forget the matter of the Octavo and that rogue spell number 8 sitting pretty in Rincewind's mind.

I can't stress this enough - rollercoaster of epic proportions. 

Shall We Play A Game?

If you could inhabit a body and share it with 5 minds and then go into the "death park" to play many versions of Russian Roulette to win more years on your lifespan - who would you choose in your mind commune? Who's body would you all inhabit? (fictional characters or real). I'll go first!

The Commune/Schizo (Author's words not mine)
My 5 minds would be:

1. Moi (it's not fun without my mind there), but I'd be the first layered mind so I can experience all the other minds being layered above or around me.

2. Death from Discworld (he would give me an edge and let me know if this time would be the time we the commune would die). And plus, he talks LIKE THIS and that's hilarious.

3. Murderbot, yes the murderbot. She/It/They count/s as a mind right? Well, I'd have entertainment seeing as they're always streaming and binge-watching shows in their head.

4. Loki, The God of Mischief would be indispensable in any near death situation finding ways to trick our opponents into practically handing us their lives on a silver platter.

5. The Mad Vampire Queen of Styria: Carmilla, Castlevania - That crazy cartographer Hellion-She-Devil Queen with a thirst to rule the world. That monolgue in Season 4 episode 2 alone tells me she is a survivor and can TAKE YOU DOWN!

Alright, so now that we have our 5 minds, Which Vessel would be the best option for us.
Any Variation of these 3 Draculas:

1. Dracula Untold's Luke Evans
2. Vlad Dracula Tepes - Castlevania
3. Van Helsing's Dracula (Hugh Jackman movie.)

I figure if I'm going into a death park and the job is to "kill" another to gain life points - I want an undead body to do battle for me. And there you have it. Imagine the havoc we would cause!

That's it good people. That's the review.

God I love a book that warps things and makes you walk a moral tightrope and still have fun.

 

 I've recently come to terms with the fact that if I were to stumble upon a creature bearing all the hallmarks of a demon - horns, devilish charm, brute strength...I wouldn't run screaming bloody murder in the other direction. Oh No...I'd offer to buy it a drink. How very worrying for my lapsed Catholic self. A couple of Hail Mary's should sort me out real good.

You know what - I'm barely horrified, maybe enamoured...yes enamoured sounds about right.

Ashley's Dalwick Demon, is one of those novellas you read in-between all the other earth shattering, fanbase-creating space odysseys and operas and High fantasy quests whilst throwing in a few nonfiction tomes to boot. I needed a break, something easy, quick, and didn't take itself too seriously.

Pure and simple, quick enjoyment. That's exactly what I got. 

 Actual rating is a 3.75

Throughout the reading of this, I've had this nagging sensation of de ja vu that just won't leave me be. I've never read this book before, so why? Something about the the made things seems so familiar.  I would  read a couple pages then stop to do a search and type in :

Movie based on Made things...

No no...clear search, type again:

Made things based on movie...

Okay not that, maybe this:

Tv series inspired by Made Things...

And finally, type in this:

What inspired Adrian to write Made Things...

The google results did not subdue that feeling. So I read and read.

The characters, the setting the entire lore just scritching and scratching at me it was almost annoying in it's barrage of familiarity bloody dejavuing me. The Folded Lord, Shallis with its paper edges and nervous demeanor, Arc and his metal resolve and battered armor and Tefwith her intricate facial features delicately placed in wood - the not-real-people who did real things and lived real lives and had real human-sized stakes harrassed me with their familiarity .

Of course it would hit me days after I'd read the book. The made-monster/Ariel = real boy/real girl trope. This one is a strange mix of Pinocchio, and Dr Frankenstein's monster. They want autonomy, but have no interest in becoming real people. They desire a place to call their own, power or agency and to self-determine their existance. Ah yes, everything that makes a human well, human.

Plus. A good Heist. Who doesn't love a good heist.


By the by; I think Adrian wrote this while chilling with his dogs or got a dog around this time because I counted a heck of a lot of dog-related similies and metaphors. NO shade. My own dogs would feature heavily in my art if I were the "artsy" kind 

 Let's get the good stuff out of the way first:
The plot is cute. The Cupid barrier to love is interesting and could have definitely been explored in-depth and had a bit more lore to it instead of the railing whine and pouting about it. Also, my infatuation with hot demons is now out of control - thanks Kimberly Lemming you awoke something and here I am paging through a Santa-Demon Cupid story.

Would have been a slam dunk if it wasn't so poorly written.

If this were handed in as an assignment by one of my students the whole book would be dripping with my red ink circles as though I were actually summoning a demon from hell. Where is the editor? Did the MMC eat him/her? Has the editor been banished to another realm where eyes are no longer necessary and as such whatever this was flies under the radar and gets published errors and all? What about an intern paid to just read it and make notes? no? Mmkay Perhaps the editor is on Santa's naughty list and he's rescinded their editing privileges. Either way, my brain wanted to lodge a complain BUT ...my newly awakened romantic heart wouldn't let me burn this fanfiction.

Now for the train wreck:
I found myself wondering if the author was a teenager or perhaps this was translated by an interpreter drunk on eggnog. More often than not, sentences made sense but in a jarring way, taking me back to my days at the front of the class harping on and on about grammar.

An example:

1. The overuse of the word "addicted" for God's sake use a thesaurus.
2. Simple, basic grammar - the adverb comes after the verb etc etc. He laughed heartily -yes. Not: He heartily laughed. WTF
3. The overuse of the words "tense and tension" because there has got to be another way to describe the sexual chemistry between the two characters other than "tense".

Is this a commentary of the increasing DGAF of "idol-style" writers who are basically fanfiction authors and wattpad dabblers? It felt like I was in a Kpop Mosh pit (excuse the oxymoron) reading about teenage ideas of adult erotic romance.

I'll end with this - a few of the steamy scenes were quite....ahem. Which is why I stayed until the very last epilogue. So, there's that.

2.75