I'm pretty sure Gerda and the Robber Girl were the first f/f ship I ever shipped, back when I was a little kid reading Andersen's fairy tale. I re-read those parts of Snow Queen way too many times, I spend hours imagining a version of the story where the Robber Girl joined Gerda on her adventures instead of just letting her go with the reindeer and becomes a part of Gerda and Kai's happy ever after, or where once Gerda saves Kai she is somehow reunited with the Robber Girl and maybe they all become really well-meaning Robin Hood-style bandits together, or, or, or. In all that unwritten fanfic, the Robber Girl became kinder with Gerda's influence while still retaining her sharp edges, and she always helped Gerda figure out where she was going next, once she saved Kai and no longer had that single driving purpose to guide her.

So it's no wonder that I absolutely loved this book—it's practically wish fulfillment! That little kid I used to be kept squeeing at the back of my mind as I read, because wow, this is exactly what I wanted this story to be, except of course written for an older reader than I used to be then. It's a delightful wintry fairy tale that's such a joy to escape into in the middle of a hot summer. There are traces of folk horror, truly beautiful prose, and a slow, slow burn romance where both heroines gradually open up to each other. The bandits are pretty much a found family where people may bicker and fight but will ultimately have each other's backs. Helvig's relationship with her adopted father is painted so vividly and nicely in just a few scenes that focus on it. The atmosphere is so thick and the supernatural imagery is so vividly painted, especially in that one scene with the ghosts in the church. And all those bits where characters told each other stories and reminisced on all the way real-life events turn into fairy tales! Just. So, so much to love here.

The one thing that very slightly hindered my enjoyment was the leap of action at the end. The entire story is fairly slow-paced, but then the action spikes up significantly in the last few chapters. It felt like the author thought she was running of space and tried to hastily pack all that remained of the story into too little space. I would have appreciated it if the book was just 30-40 pages longer to allow for a more satisfying, more steadily paced conclusion with a spike less sharp. Even so, Robbergirl absolutely goes on my list of my favorite retellings!

This book is essentially a collection of Western tropes made memorable by having antropomorphic animals as characters. Even though I enjoyed it a lot while I read it, I think if the characters were human, I would have a lot more trouble remembering it in a year or several. It's just so tropey, it's hard to draw a line between it and all the old-timey westerns I've ever read and watched. As it is, it won't be difficult to recall it as the one with the French stoat and the rest of the mouse-led gang. :D

Honestly though, I had great fun. This story has it all: characters who are built out of tropes, but they're really well built; a tight plot that isn't always predictable; a compelling setting with all the genre staples; the thick, thick vibes; the 'getting the gang back together' trope at its fines; the quest for revenge. There's never a dull moment, the dark, moody drama is set off with witty one-liners, and the action is superbly paced. Sincerely recommended to anyone looking for a small helping of quality pulp action.

I... kind of feel like I've read a lightly novellized non-fiction book on natural history, except it's the natural history of a made-up world. The worldbuilding here is amazing, that's for sure. Everything is so original and vivid and beautifully detailed. The magic, the way the world works, the politics and societal structure, there's so much, and it fits together beautifully. Unfortunately, the story itself never made me have any particularly strong feelings. I would have preferred to hang out in this awesome world by myself, whether via a videogame or a TTRPG medium, instead of getting to know it via this book.

Up until the very last part, everything is just so slow-paced. It took me about 100 pages to get invested enough into at least a couple of characters (Kaladin and then Shallan) that I decided I wasn't going to DNF, after all. On one hand, it's basically the 10% mark, which is a reasonable place to go from undecided to hooked. On the other hand, um, 100 pages. :D 

And those two characters for the most part remained the only ones I truly cared for throughout the whole book. A number of others were intriguing, but I never quite clicked with them. I'm still trying to figure out what made me so hard to be invested in most of the cast, since plenty of characters had the type of personalities and conflicts that I usually enjoy reading about. I think it has something to do with the style of writing. Most of the character arcs were on the flat side, with the characters stuck in the same personal crises for pages and pages on end. And the characters and their problems were so obviously used as lenses for studying the world. And then there was the slow pacing and the fact that nothing really happened for over 2/3 of the huge book. All of that created the impression like I was reading the backstories, not witnessing the real action.

Actually, once I look back at the experience, I think this is exactly how I perceive it: there were 700-750 pages of backstory, and then 250-300 pages of gradually increasing stakes, tension, and action. And yeah, I guess plenty of details I learned while getting immersed in that backstory helped make the actual plot hit harder, once the story got that far. But was there truly no other way to tell this story? 

(The question is rhetorical; I'm pretty sure there was, but all those alternate ways would have involved less focus on worldbuilding, and I could feel in every word how much the author loves the world he created and wants others to be fascinated with it, too. And, hey, it worked! I was pretty fascinated! And now I kind of want to witness more involved and dynamic plots set against the same backdrop...)

I absolutely loved so many things about this book. The setting itself—the queer camp where kids get to spend a few weeks being unapologetically themselves and figuring themselves out and getting to forget homophobia and transphobia exist—is an awesome place that made me kind of envy the characters. There are so many cool little camp traditions, fun activities, interactions with councilors, and all of it ties so well into the plot. I loved plenty of the side characters, both the campers and the staff. There was so much witty banter, so many fun messy teenage moments, and some excellent discussion of internalized homophobia and toxic masculinity.

However, it took me a while to get into the story, despite all of these awesome things, because the main character infuriated me so much. From the first few pages, I just kept wanting to shake him. It's not just that he has this plan to pretend to be someone else for a guy he barely knows and ignores everyone's suggestions that perhaps this is kind of unfair to both himself and the guy in question. It's that he does it literally based on this weird reasoning: "Hudson makes me feel like it's okay to be myself, like, totally myself, anywhere, anytime... so I'm going to pretend to be someone else to get him to even look my way, and I'll come up with an elaborate plot to keep his attention, and then it'll just work out in the end." So does he make you feel like you're free to be myself, or do you need to literally pretend to be a different person who's never been to this camp before? HOW CAN IT BE BOTH? Seriously, this boggled my brain.

At least in the first half of the story, Randy had a good number of people regularly tell him that if anyone needs him to change so much for them, they're not worth it, and that he's being manipulative and unfair to Hudson. At the same time, they don't try to stop him from making his own mistakes, which is a really nice touch. All of that helped me stick with the story for more than a few chapters, which is something I'm really grateful for, because there were so many fun and important moments here. But the further we get into the story, the more focus there is on how Randy was totally right to come up with this plot, because look! He discovered important things about himself, like that he can have multiple interest and doesn't have to choose between being just a theater kid or a sportsy kid etc!  And he and Hudson did eventually hit it off, and Hudson opened up to him so much, and it all worked out in the end! The implications of the fact that it's been all built on lies get abandoned instead of resolved, and that leaves me with a somewhat unpleasant taste in my mouth, tbh. 

Ugh. I should have grabbed the entire first volume!

This is a solid series starter that briefly introduces a few characters who seem rather interesting, presents the bones of a compelling world, and hints at an exciting plot ahead. I love the "keep your magic secret" trope, especially when the magic in question is actually dangerous, and I also love wild nature magic. So I'm excited to learn more about this aspect of the story, and also just to see where all these plot threads go: the main character's situation, the spooky bandaged witch hunter, the prince's problems.

The artwork is really pleasant to look at, and there's a strong sense of atmosphere. The vibes in some of the panels reminded me of Arcane's early episodes for some reason. I have a lingering suspicion that in the future issues we're going to be leaving this fantasy city, but I kind of want to be wrong, because fantasy cities are fun and I'd love to hang around this one some more. Then again, the world outside of it sounds exciting, too.

All in all, a great opening. I need to get a few more issues to properly delve into the story!

This book is utterly, absolutely, 100% ridiculous. If you go in expecting and craving exactly that, you're going to have great fun.

It's like the kind of D&D game where everyone consciously prioritizes comedy over logic or gods forbid common sense, the players are fully dedicated to playing their chosen stereotypes to the limit, and the DM is done trying to keep the plot straight and just throws new stuff at the party when they wander too much. The banter is over-the-top and often hilarious, most of the characters are lovable jerks, and there isn't a single serious line anywhere in this book. This is awesome. I love it.

The single minor problem I had with it was being pretty much unable to get invested into the throuple romance storyline. I was too taken with Benji and Calarian's elfs-with-benefits-to-lovers storyline to pay much attention to Lars. They were really, really entertaining as they caught feelings. Meanwhile, Lars was just this hot guy both of them were instantly attracted to, especially Calarian, and... um... idk? He felt more like a catalyst for their story than a character and a part of this relationship in his own right. 

Otherwise, I laughed more than I thought was possible for me these days, and this was a great pick-me-up!

Sadly, this was a disappointment. Going by the absolutely gorgeous cover and a couple reviews I've seen, I was expecting a cozy fantasy in the vein of Legends & Lattes. And I suppose that's exactly what it was intended to me, but... I don't know. The cozy parts fell kind of flat, there were too many non-cozy ones, and most importantly, I had a lot of problems with the writing. Normally, I'm pretty lenient when it comes to the quality of editing in indie books, but that's when the problems come down to a few awkward turns of phrases and typos per novel. This book, however, needs a ton more editing. There are lots of very obvious mistakes, there's at least one character randomly changing names in the middle of the story, and I get the feeling the author was trying for an omniscient POV, but in most cases, just ended up head-hopping a whole lot. Which made it really hard for me somehow to connect to any of the characters.

Speaking of characters, most of them gave me a lot of the same "I get what you were trying to do, and I would have enjoyed it if it was done properly, but alas." Normally, I tend to really like prickly characters who alienate people because of their troubled pasts and then gradually learn to relax around people and let them in again, when subjected to enough kindness. Finlay is, one hand, exactly that. On the other hand, the way he acts from the start is so off-putting that I just didn't want to get to know him very much. I was a little more invested in Annika because she had some nice moments from the start, but I never connected very much to her either. The rest of the characters felt like unfilled sketches: underdeveloped ideas that I would have loved hanging out with if they gained more flesh.

I will say, that in spite of it all, whenever I began considering DNFing, something happened that grabbed my attention to last me another couple of chapters. There are a lot of interesting worldbuilding details here, both on the actual world level and on the "day-to-day of the royal palace" level. I was particularly interested in the magic system and Fin's gifts. Though when it came to the food he was preparing, my immersion was sometimes broken by how some of the specific new meals he made in this high fantasy setting retained their regular real-world names, like kimchi, etc. It made me question why they'd be called that and took me right out of the world. There were also a lot of nice moments with the kitchen staff, and the prince coming in to play with the kitten, etc that were objectively rather cozy and feel-good, it was just that the way these characters were written (see above) made it so hard to connect to them. And what is coziness without experiencing it through likable characters, really?

This is pretty much a quintessential comfort book: a sweet story about a sweet person finally getting seen, appreciated and loved for his kindness. There's a definite fairy tale vibe—something a bit Cinderella-like, even though Amador is a royal prince and the one to act the part of a Fairy Godmother to everyone around him. The villain is appropriately villainous and swiftly dealt with. The romance is based on instant mutual attraction and still manage to feel like a slow burn because of all the doubts and pining. All the problems get resolved quite easily with a bit of mischief and kindness, and everybody is happy in the end.

The story kind of begins to fall apart if you look at it too closely; despite all of Amador's claims that his oh so very plain, it is evident that he is clever, selfless, and capable of making friends everywhere he goes. It's hard to believe it literally took him twenty tries to be repaid in kind. Even if the world outside of the Harridor Palace is all bleak and cynical (which it doesn't wholly seem to be?), it stands to reason that someone in all those numerous kingdoms he visited should have at least decided he could be a valuable asset, with all of his knowledge and connections and people everywhere grateful for his help. Like, sure, there could be a logical explanation for this, but the story doesn't bother to provide one.

Still, this little book brought plenty of smiles to my face. I appreciated the diverse cast, the good-natured mischief, the absolutely queernorm word, and the way trans rep was subtly sneaked in. It was a nice way to spend a summer evening.

Such a great read to kick off Pride Month! I absolutely loved the art: the colors, the diversity in body types, the characters' body language. And the story has so much going on in it, for such a short read, and it all ties together so well. 

Morgan's desire to keep all parts of her life "sorted neatly into separate boxes" irritated me the way only the most relatable things can. I felt for her so much, with all her fears and her clear wish for more control over her life after her parents' separation, and it was beautiful to see her gradually loosen up and embrace the messier parts of life. I loved her interactions with her mom, her strained yet enduring bond with her friends, and her short, beautiful romance with Keltie. I really liked Keltie, too, and how she stayed very true to her selkie nature. She went along with Morgan wanting to keep her a secret for a while, but she didn't actively try to act human for Morgan's sake, and I don't know, I felt like it added an extra dimension to their relationship. Somehow, I find such an explicit "we can compromise on what we do, but not on who I am" approach both simply appealing in a character and very romantic in a relationship.

The ending wasn't what I expected (and frankly made me tear up a little), but it also felt completely right for this story and these characters. I'd love to read a sequel with an older Morgan, but I'm also content with the story as it is. Sometimes, not knowing what's going to happen next is kind of the whole point.

I have to admit the only reason I dug out this little book was because I needed a re-read to round off a couple of readathons and because I needed it to be something super short to make it on time. I have so many books on my TBR and so little time for re-reads! Regardless, I can't regret it because this was such a nice way to finish off a month of reading. I really like the overall vibe of this story and setting, and the way the MCs grow on each other, and how well the questioning identities are representing.

My one complaint is that there's still no continuation of the series, and the book is so short—too short, really! Even though at its heart it's a small-scale, low-stakes story of self-discovery and slow-burn romance and this part is done pretty well, it feels like there's so much other stuff packed here. There are all these side characters who all seem like great fictional people I'd love to know. There's the magic college and the magic shop, and oh, I just want to hang out more in these places. There's the awesomely interesting magic system that I feel the book barely scratches the surface of, because there's just no space ofr everything in a novella this small. I need more!