This book is bad in ways that changed me. I learned how to mod Stardew Valley then altered a cutscene from another mod so that I could insert my favorite line from Daddy Soldier Bear (see above: “His bear swirled in elation”). Why did I allot time out of my one precious lifetime on Earth to do this? Beats me.

It’s no Soldier Daddy prime. Nothing can compare to the brain-chemistry-altering, iconic, downright offensive writing Cheryl Wyatt has published. My long and arduous journey with Soldier Daddy is the entire reason I even picked up Daddy Soldier Bear to begin with.

But I digress.

Meg Ripley’s books are marketed as packed with “steamy shifter scenes”. I’m going to reproduce for you below the one (1) sex scene in the body of Daddy Soldier Bear so you can experience for yourself how criminally false this advertising is.

He inhaled sharply through his teeth as he plunged into her. Nikki clung to him as her core turned to lava, her body accepting his hardness into her softest depths. Their bodies pulsed and pounded, completely entwined in each other. Drake raked his lips over hers, and she felt his warm breath in bursts against her skin as he gasped with pleasure. Nikki shuddered around him as she reached the pinnacle of this mountain they’d been climbing together, and Drake surged inside her as he skyrocketed to the summit.

As harrowing as it was to read the above passage—unsuspecting, unprepared, alone—it did plant new truisms in my head, rent-free. For aren’t we all, somehow, in some way, reaching for the pinnacle of this mountain we’ve been climbing together? (Excepting, of course, those of us who skyrocket to the summit?)

In conclusion, I hated this book and will be reading more by Meg Ripley.

One man. One woman. One rat.

Romance as the good lord intended.

I continue my journey into GM Fairy’s funhouse of animated movie porn parodies. On the menu this time: Ratatouille.

Let’s pause here and put your worries to rest. Yes, there is sex involving a rat in this book. However. The rodent is actually a man whose body was transformed in a botched military experiment. So he has the brain of a human and can give consent.

I know that was everybody’s one concern with this premise, so with that cleared up, we can move into the review worry-free.

We open on Ramsey, who, after being rodentably discharged from the military, takes up residence in a French restaurant and becomes fixated on the blossoming relationship between Charlotte, a regular customer, and Jeremy, the new himbo waiter.

Jeremy is a fucking disaster, both at flirting and his job, so Ramsey scampers in to help with whispered suggestions and hair-steering.

The book is surprisingly gay. While both dudes’ goal is ostensibly to get Charlotte into bed, the sexual tension exists mainly between Ramsey, who gets a kick out of ordering around a giant muscled man, and Jeremy, who likes the direction way more than he expected. Both have a bisexual awakening over the course of the story.

Which is how we get lines like this: I hope he can’t feel my balls tightening against his scalp.

I could have done without the references to rat genitalia, personally, but it’s nice that GM Fairy is leaving her comfort zone (just paused to think about that—what a terrifying place her comfort zone must be to the average observer) to write about gay people.

So Jeremy, directed by Ramsey, successfully gets Charlotte to sleep with him. And—unbeknownst to her—with Ramsey. That’s bad. If you’re going to involve a rat-man in bed, that’s something you should probably clear with your partner first.

This is never really addressed, maybe because this book is really not about Charlotte. She eventually finds out because she tries to grab his hair while he’s going down on her and gets a fistful of rat instead. Imho, Charlotte was not nearly pissed enough about this violation of trust. Even setting aside his rodent-hood, secretly involving a third party in your hookup is essentially assault, is it not?

I genuinely liked Ramsey the Rat-Man. Rat balls aside, his narration was fun to read. The fact that the author wrote a man who’s a bossy dom in bed and still made me like him is impressive.

"I haven’t been to a therapist. Probably should, but I did something easier. I joined the military."

At times I even found him relatable, such as his inability to cope with uncertainty:

I almost wish I had a smaller rat on the top of my head telling me what to do and say next.

Me too, buddy.

The writing was more polished and better edited than the Bee Movie porn book (Bad Beehavior). It’s still not good, to be sure, but we’re heading in the right direction.