The kind of horror found in Chuck Tingle's „Lucky Day“ is definitely not for everyone. Luckily for me, I hit the jackpot, and the existential dread I found in this novel is exactly my vibe. If you love horror based on real-life philosophical concepts, it might be yours too. This story is absurd, crazy, and absolutely everything out of the ordinary, but what makes it so special is that every single aspect clicks into place to show the insane domino effect that made the story spiral into what it is: a story of hope. Against all odds, it's still a story of hope that proves that in our existence, meaning can always be found. Yes, at times it definitely is a bit much. And it absolutely should be noted that it's pretty gory. And a bit disgusting sometimes. And it's definitely very over the top. But somehow it works. This can also be partly attributed to Mara Wilson. The voice actor did an incredible job with bringing the characters to life while giving every character a distinct voice to make conversations easy to follow. So buckle up, this is a wild ride where you just can't help but get swept up in unlikely odds, existential questions, and the occasional disaster. But hey, at least we get provided with a nice playlist. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with this ARC in return for an honest review.

Usually when you start a book called "Queer Villains of Myth and Legend", you expect queer villains of myth and legend. And while sure, you could argue if some of these villains are actually villains or not (Crowley from Good Omens? HELLO?). What can‘t be argued about is that most of the characters included in this book weren’t really from myth and legend but instead various pop culture characters. I wouldn't even have particularly minded that if the analysis didn't also lack depth. It works if you want a little pop culture overview, but it's really mostly that: an overview. Another problem was that I wasn't sure whether some labels were really accurate (e.g., a character's tagline says lesbian, but the text then refers to them as bi, etc.), which added another level of skepticism about the analysis' accuracies on my part. Also the amount of times this book features the phrase "eye watering" should be studied. I thought I was going insane when I read it the fourth time.

So, The Baby Dragon Café. I don't even know where to start. Finishing this book was a battle in and of itself. I was constantly fighting the urge to DNF (the "I am sorry, but my feminism only goes so far" line nearly was my breaking point) and only finished it for my book club. The writing style not only completely lacks all subtlety and nuance but also loves overexplaining every little thing. This proved to be a massive problem when trying to develop the relationship between the two main characters, which ended up feeling more like a list of everything they found hot about each other without really examining the romantic feelings that were supposedly there. At times it seemed like the author forgot that you can start sentences with anything other than a pronoun or a name, which caused the sentences to be very abrupt and stopped it from feeling like a well-connected scene. The book is heavily trope-ified and seems to use plot lines and wordings just so they could fit the BookTok trope hype (one bed trope, Aiden being referred to multiple times as grumpy when he is just introverted, fake dating being thrown in out of nowhere, etc.). However, it should also be credited that this book at least tries to address classism and dealing with grief, but it is never even challenged by the main characters or discussed in detail. If you are looking for a very BookTok-ish book with baby dragons and can ignore writing issues and entrepreneurial disasters (like using wood furniture in a place where there are fire-spitting animals and then being unhappy about the amount of money needed to do repairs), then sure, this could be for you. P.S.: I don't know who needs to hear this, but please don't pet real-life bees. That's an easy way to get stung.