ladyelfriede's reviews
154 reviews

Creative, could have been a tad more bittersweet, especially with the fanfic of the Little Mermaid (which was still a weird choice), but still one of the better quality KU stories

4/5

I am...very, VERY surprised this was a debut.

I'm like, half convinced this was a draft for a third book, and she already secretly published 3 books already, but this story got shelved for like 10 years, and Belknap dusted it off, changed her name slapped it on Tiktok, and here we are. *stops making tinfoil hats*

This is the first time where I have an indie book from Booktok that's genuinely good! 
It's not perfect, of course, but damn, this is what I was hoping "Dreadful" would be and then some!

It's spoopy, cozy, makes you think a little too much about your failures in life like a true "horror" (hey existentialism is a type of a horror, man), and the setting is....well,

Compared to "Dreadful" where it was nondescript European country side with a dark wizard....OK, maybe Belknap didn't pick the best setting but hey, at least it's London with some snippets of worldbuilding and depressing realism. We didn't get much of anything in "Dreadful" in comparison. Fluff with little to no obstacles. 

At least here there were obstacles and the found family that I fucking wish I had.

Go in for the cover, come out of it realizing how lonely you are! :D

Prose: The shining star in this book. If you love really diving into one POV only, this is it. We dive into it so smoothly that I forget I'm reading and not question my life choices of why I bothered with college. There are so many relatable lines that I wish I could have had this book physical so I can tab this shit. Excellent work! +3

Plot: We're trying to find out if someone is human or not and we're taken them in as our ward. Only problem is, the magical organization that put us in charge, doesn't want this person to find out about magic. 
The OTHER problem is, where she's staying has a demon, a necromancer (and a Skeleton named Luke), a harpy, a faerie, a muse, a soul guide, two werewolves, one vampire, a demon, a mysterious shadow manipulator, and a potential poltergeist named Spoopy(?)
It was such a fun plot, to the point some scenes are burned in my head now, that it's way more involved than most cozy books. Loved it! +2

Pace: It's a medium pace, not too slow, not too fast, but the first few percentage is a bit of a slodge because we're understanding this author's style. But once you get used to it, it's well worth the money, trust me. Just because it's not on KU, doesn't mean you bypass this book. +1

Characters: Sadly, while we do get a bit deep dive on the MC and his life, and we do get a diverse character skeleton of the tenants, we only touched very little on the other tenants of the book. I wanted more ethnic diversity since London is a melting pot of SO MANY immigrants. 
We only got two diverse characters and the rest are implied to be white so it didn't feel that realistic. It would have been nice to make a few of the girls be from other ethnicities. We touched basis that there are magical creatures in other countries but we primarily only focused on EU which was a bit sad and I wanted there to be a more diverse mix. -2.0

Vibe: Spoop London but make it LGBT friendly which was welcoming in a world full of darkness +1

Worldbuilding: The other reason why this is not a perfect 5 stars. The worldbuilding, while it was there, wasn't all that much and discussed only the MC's life and backstory. We do get some snippets of other places and their worldbuilding, but no explanation of the magic system and discussion of the other magical tenants and their creatures... it's just not a lot for me to merit this book as 5/5.  

I loved this book, don't get me wrong, but it was more of a character/found family drama than an actual worldbuilding fantasy type of book. Think of it as an urban cozy fantasy and you'll get a better picture of what to expect. -.75

-

The saving merit of this book is the prose itself and the worst part of it is the lack of diversity and lack of increased worldbuilding that it just feels like London with a touch of Spoop. But the prose is so good that at the very least, if you have a few bucks and looking for a cozy time, it's still ridiculously good for a debut.

Hopefully after a few books she'll get the hang of inserting more diversity but by no means should she be written off. I look forward to reading more books by her in the future.

4.25/5

I think I like the anime better but for a fan of this series, you see and get better explanations in the manga. Still an awesome series

4.25/5

UFCs, ghosts, and dryads, oh my! 4.5/5

Bro acted like Aurora was a piece of steak like why

3.75/5

This is like a cookie cutter on how to write a book. I'm just glad the the POC character was not a stereotype 

3.75/5

Murderer was obvious + Only because I got REALLY bothered that there's penguins in the North Pole. 

 Super dry.

First time being aware that I don't have to like every person's perspective I read about, including this guy, and that's ok!

But this book...was really dry, even for a diary confessions. Not much about his thoughts or even thoughts about other people. It's cut and dry.

Maybe it's hard for him to put thoughts about things, idk. Either way, can't say I'll get the rest. The novelty was fun for the first 1/3 of the book until you realize, yeah this dude's only likable quality is he hates Amazon. That's it.
I'm sure he's nice OUTSIDE the book though. Sorry, gotta be honest dude, didn't enjoy it.

1/5 

This guy has every potential to becoming a good indie writer!

...just he needs to address a few things.

1. We have a character drama focused book, but the villain is a little stereotypical which is a whoopsie poopsie. He's more stereotypical bad guy that has a morally gray reason but...he's still kinda twirling moustache kinda dude

2. Lack of diversity in main characters and that one incident he called a main side character "caramel" skin colored which was a little yikes (I've addressed this with the author via DM and he seems to understand to not do this in the future)

3. The worldbuilding, though good, is slightly lack luster because we only get mention of the magic systems which seem to be "an equivalent exchange" magic, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to saying it's "first novel in the series" things.

4. A minority dies first which is also yikes. (Also a whole topic on this online, my hands hurt too much to delve into that)

So, why is this still 3 stars?
Three things.

First, I still found myself having fun, I follow this guy on Tiktok and Insta and he's not a bad moustache twirling demon like the main villain, so a lot of things I stated I want to say that he just wasn't aware of said problems. If I see it in future books (outside of Page's Pyre since I literally talked to him about this a few days after that release, then it's a different story.) I still docked a star for the whole diversity issue because it does need to be addressed and I can't turn a blind eye because I follow him.

Second, I found myself ugly snorting in laughter at this book far too much than a Pratchett book. Short has a way of sneaking humor at odd times where you don't expect it and that makes it better. Pratchett sneaks humor nearly everywhere and the climax is huge and emotional. It's not like that with Short, hell, there was even good comedy scene near the climax. So if you're trying to find joy over this holiday season that is filled with passive aggression around the table, read this book while being told by your aunt "Writing is a shit career"

Third, Short has a rare gift of having a GOOD prose style that doesn't suck. There are so many traditional PUBLISHED author prose style that don't have any merit of substance unlike Short. And he's indie. He has some hiccups where the action scenes can get a little confusing but for the most part, it has a very strong potential to being honed into something truly great.

All in all, with all things I mentioned, it's still a decent KU read. It is still worth your time since the guy just published a sequel and he's a genuine treat on social media.

-

Prose: Good and be sharpened to something even better. Work on action scenes and what to fix in your prose and it'll be killer.

Pace: A bit slow in the beginning until you get around 10% in and that's when the hook comes around then

Plot: Wasn't really impressed by the plot but because this is a quasi dark comedy fantasy mashup, I can't say the plot would be the biggest draw to this book. You're here for the mashup, not for screaming "WHY DOES HE HAVE WINGS"

Character: This is a character drama and though we see what pitfalls they have, we don't see a huge amount of 3 dimensions to them. I think it's because it's first novel stuff so we won't see too much of it yet, but for a starter, it's not bad. 

Vibe: Germany with a side of "IT'S NOT A TUMOR"

Worldbuilding: As said above, it's not the best worldbuilding I've seen, but it has potential of being good. It got me interested, I want to see if these Wells would be literal "wells" and seeing more how this magic system gets set up.

This is a high 3 star book, if I had it in my shelf, I wouldn't resell it

3/5

 

I legit forgot this was a "cozy book".

It felt "cozy" but not really? It had the right amount of existential dread, depression, and thought provoking shit, all the while, not going into cliches.

Perfection. One of the perfect novellas I read this year.

Prose: Beginning clogs the magic of this book, get to the end of Ch 2 to understand if this book is right for you

Pace: Slow until Ch 3

Plot: You dont go into these books for the plot, its all about the journey, not the goal

Characters: Oddly, both are really deep. I wasn't expecting Mosscap, the robot, to be so deep as "it" was (the robot prefers the pronouns as it and they discuss the philosophy behind it, it makes sense). The MC is nonbinary and you understand that they're not a "John Doe" nor "Mary Sue" (idfk what the nonbinary equivalent of those are). They get frustrated, silly, weird, and angry and they become more human than we realize. Fuck, they even cry, ffs. Really loved the 3 dimensions to the characters

Vibe: Solarpunk bitches. I was one of those people who first discovered solar punk as "an art medium", not necessarily in books. But here it is in book form and I'm happy to discover it!

Worldbuilding: Oh my. The worldbuilding is surprisingly well thought out that I forgot this was a novella. A lot of novellas skirt over description and exposition to an alarming degree but Chambers strikes a good balance somehow. We talk of the gods, the past of this world, and what we might see in the future. It's so good, dude

I have a hard time putting into words that this book is literally a breath of fresh air and reminded me that books aren't rigid

They're fluid AF

5/5