This book had a goofy tone, it was weird to have so much humor juxtaposed with serious topics like being attacked and torn apart by zombies, or on a larger scale the politics and conspiracies of why zombies are loose Etc. Max/Gaston is a super famous influencer wearing a sheepskin thong early on = WTF? And his choice in a Chad persona? It just got more goofy as it went on, with a team of Girl Scouts who are weird but are kids but have powers? Or a witch couple that seem serious, but there's also a group of raiders that are doing illegal things, one witch only predicts tiny minor stupid things? The trolls are food connoisseurs but loud and dopey and pushy and the narrator made them sound weird.

At some point probably around 35 to 50% I just had to be along for the ride and go with the flow. There was a semi-convoluted plot, action moments interspersed with much talking and planning as well. Overall I thought the characters were okay, Edie was hung up on being able to stay with her house because of her own personal traumatic history and I liked how she was protective of others around her for those reasons. I liked Max's protective streak but overall I just didn't really see quite why the couple was good together. At 32% I made a post saying that I liked Edie and though I was confused by the world I was along for the ride and I thought that Max was mysterious and grumpy and crushing on Edie. At 54% I made some comments about how Edie is protective of Max and I really enjoyed how he never sidelines her and lets her be fierce even though he is physically stronger.

I saw some posts about how this book was set up in a confusing way (where are the zombies? and where are the people?, why is it organized in concentric rings, what happened in the past Etc). Because the outbreak happened many years ago we don't get many details on the history and some people were frustrated with this. I also saw posts about how the romance felt rushed or underdeveloped, the first kiss came out of left field and people were wanting a little bit more build up, but I will agree that I felt Gaston grew on me by the end. I saw one post that commented that this book was a 'mix of the dystopian tragic zombie apocalypse and yet had banter and was Goofy and campy and included Gaston songs'. I also saw lots of love regarding the main female character's plus size body but I didn't think this was ever emphasized in the book. Overall I think the biggest complaints I saw were the world building and how this could be both modern and include so many paranormal elements and how there were still influencers and burrito shops but also trolls and zombies...

I have read and loved the Cowboy Colony series, and while I found the writing here to be enjoyable and readable it still was somehow missing some indescribable quality. My biggest issue overall is simply that this book felt too generic and similar to other alien romances I've read: an abduction, big changes and world turned upside down, large toned strong man with small fragile woman, a language barrier, inexplicable intense attraction because they're fated mates, agreement to cooperate because they have suddenly Found Love in the 5 minutes that they were on this planet, a magical ability to learn the language without any effort....

I did think the settings/world was cool to be a sandy desert-y kind of place with a semi nomadic race and interesting/gross buggy creature descriptions. Also probably the most intriguing (but also the most eye-rolling) element of this book is this religious element that is a magical deus ex machina creature or being called the Lavrika, it shows the main male character the face of his mate in the prologue and magically allowed Cece to instantly learn the local language. I did not make any posts because I read this book quickly and it was kind of too generic, I did write down that there was a weird peen but I have zero memory of what these guys look like.

Overall I just felt that this was too generic to be memorable and too short to be exciting-- I would love a longer work by this author because I have enjoyed her writing before! I thought it was too convenient and magical and too insta-love so it was just very middle of the road for me. After reading a few other reviews I saw this also described as low angst, fated mates, simply the setup for the series, the main male character was an alpha protective hero and he was basically only sweet and soft with the main female character. There were comments about the ending being too abrupt and a tense situation resolved too easily. I also saw a person comment that they felt convinced 'they had read this book before but it must just be that unoriginal.'

This book overall was pretty mid for me, it was very obviously a Hozier fanfiction and I don't know that much about him, and I did not feel that I got to know Halloran as a character, there was maybe more at the end or in the last third but you were really meant to insert what you know about the real life person. Therefore I felt like he was not really a character I could care about, and the book did feel ~uncomfortable throughout. I did like that there was an emphasis on loving music and lyrics and appreciating the art form.

Mostly I felt like Clementine really fell for his music and then from her fangirl status developed a crush. It was extremely frustrating to see how absolutely RESISTANT she was to her feelings for him! I also did not understand why he was into her, I didn't feel that this was done well and the romance fell flat for me. There were some logistics that felt a little sketchy, these two had abundant forced proximity time but didn't spend much of it actually communicating with each other, and many moments (both Clementine's internal dialogue and externally between the characters) felt somehow contrived or scripted. Overall this book has a lot of tropes but it made it feel more formulaic and I didn't have any surprises throughout-- tropey wah instead of tropey fun. There was some attempt at having a found family element with an abundance of side characters, but these were not relationships that were developed enough and I wanted more out of these characters.

Overall I was just never invested or swept away, I never really believed in the romance. At 28% progress I made a post complaining that Clementine was too groupie and jealous too fast, I was wanting more from Halloran and really was hoping for him to not say "I've loved you this whole time". At 37% I made a post about how I was surprised that Clementine was so anti-love and conflicted on her feelings, I felt like it was unusual to see that from a main female character instead of a male character, but this element made Clementine feel cowardly and immature over increasing the tension in the book.

I saw one post that described this book as less of an angsty romantic artist story and more adult high school shenanigans, which I thought was an apt description. I also saw another post about how the bad guy character was practically twirling their mustache and this felt too predictable and annoying (I really wanted Clementine to grow up and show a little spine in this moment!). The biggest issue is of course that the main male character of Halloran is not merely inspired by Hozier but is a complete replacement of a real life person, and this book relies on the reader inserting knowledge about Hozier instead of including any actual true character development. This made the text feel uncomfortable and I agree with many that this seems like an invasion of privacy and probably should have stayed in a fanfiction site instead of packaging and selling this product as a weird fantasy that was making money. There are no critiques on fame or commentary on being a musician, this was simply Hozier fanfiction.

This is for sure a character study book, an examination of various individuals and their perspectives on identity and culture, and how these elements are factored into their daily lives. I almost felt at one point that it was bordering on boring because there is so little plot, but the characters all felt so real and like we were getting glimpses into the complexity of their lives, seeing their motivations and traumas in a subtle and moving picture. From very early in the book we know some of the characters are planning something nefarious for the powwow, and this laces tension across the book because we get to see both the preparations being made for this plan but also how others intend to attend and we can see that they will be in danger but they themselves don't know.

The layers of identity and connection to the self were very interesting, it made me reflect more on my own personal history and cultural perspective. I was very glad that my copy had a character list at the front, I used it quite a bit and found it to be helpful in remembering how the characters were somewhat interconnected. I'm posted an update at 28% about how I was enjoying my reading experience and thought there were quite a number of interesting philosophical moments and thoughts, as well as nice quotes. At the end I did find the ending to feel abrupt / incomplete.

I saw other people who had good posts talking about how this book explores the past, present and future all together across relationships and in personal viewpoints, and also another post reflecting on how music connects one character to his past ancestors and how "music is a love letter from the past". I agree with a comment that I saw that described the interludes of the Native American history as 'chilling and harrowing' and also I will quote another user who said "Native Americans are not a monolith, not a stereotype, not united under a single identity" and so much of these character studies are examples of identity and community, how the individuals see themselves especially in a modern urban setting. I appreciated the inclusions of commentary surrounding abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. I did see many reviews that said that the audiobook was a struggle to track and I felt that generally the biggest complaint that I saw was the cast of characters was a little too big/ unwieldy.