This was a truly insane book akin to the sort of fantasy novels I devoured as a kid; I enjoyed it immensely.

My initial observation stands: like biting into a cupcake that’s mostly frosting. And like, not super high-end frosting, the stuff that’s mostly sugar and vegetable oil. Not the worst thing in the world but on a pretty far trajectory from the best.

To be clear to @aeleis, who worried I would hate this, I did not hate this. I can absolutely see the appeal of this book and I had hopes it’d be a surprising little treat. I’m going to try not to let my annoyance that the author namechecked AO3 tags in the afterward color my entire review, but the truth is, even if Máire Roche had not outright said it, its influences were clear. And also written on the back. So. Y’know.

I think there are some pretty good scenes in this book, and Roche’s writing style is approachable and fine on a technical level. I’m fine with predictable tropes and a lighthearted tone, but I fear this book has the same issues a lot of fanfic-like books are, in that the author clearly had some strong ideas for a few squee-inciting moments, and the rest of the work that must now exist to prop up the those moments is just not as well-considered or interesting as those tastier moments. This works in fanfiction because readers are already familiar with the characters, but I felt we didn’t have enough time to fall in love with Mo and Juniper before throwing them into Situations.

The primary tension between the two main characters is introduced too late in the story – it’s not like it was hard to guess, so I think that starting the book with that point of conflict, so that readers had context for what they needed to grow past, would have helped the book a lot and amped up the tension between the two. I also think we could have spent a bit more time establishing their lives together, their history together, making the inciting incident that sends the two on their quest to feel as though it was built up from somewhere aside from, “[x] always happens but this time it resulted in [y].”

To be honest, I think the developmental editor failed Roche here, because the talent is there, it just wasn’t aimed where I think it could’ve been. The book felt a little uncertain of its own tone. If it was going to have ridiculous little pop-culture references, awesome, I thought that, and a few of the other jokes, were pretty funny. I’m not beyond a dumb joke, anyone who knows me IRL could tell you. However, it didn’t feel like a consistent throughline. Either we’re living by Shrek or Princess Bride or Terry Pratchett terms or we’re not.

What makes a book funny? That is entirely subjective, but I think, to me, it has to do with sincerity. To me, comedy is best when people are very bought in to whatever they’re doing and don’t realize when things are ridiculous or funny. Once a character, or the narrative, understands that a situation doesn’t make sense, it feels arbitrary, and you’re running the risk of it just being a frustrating or even tragic situation. There are some writers who can make pushing back against the narrative work through tone and character voice, but I don’t think this was accomplished here.

Depending so much on the wish-fulfillment aspects of fanfiction has its pitalls. If the entire relationship between author and reader is predicated on a hyper-specific specific promise (in the form of a trope), then the goal should be to under-promise and over-deliver the goods. To me, these types of books are like trying to order my favorite comfort dish at a restaurant. There are a lot of reasons I might not just cook it for myself or repeat that meal at the place I know does it really great, but the hope is always that it’s really delicious and maybe even my new favorite way to enjoy the dish. It honestly doesn’t have to be the most amazing execution in the world for me to like it, but on the other hand, I’ll go into things feeling like I already understand what makes this dish succeed and I’ll feel even more disappointed if it doesn’t do what I had hoped. If this is supposed to be my favorite thing, that’s a separate set of expectations than if I order something new out of curiosity. Fried rice is pretty much guaranteed to be tasty considering its components and simplicity, but that means when it’s just a little not-as-good-as-it-could-be, it’s very noticeably bland.

I have a lot of big feelings about where we’re at regarding fanfiction that frankly wouldn’t be fair to lay on Roche’s debut. Her profile says she’s an English teacher so I sincerely hope she gets her bag and writes a dozen of these. I bet she’ll improve quickly. I probably won’t be reading more, though.