ARC REVIEW (Thank you NetGalley and Publishers!!)

Rating: 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I cannot fully grasp how I feel about this one. The first half of this book I was immersed and I couldn’t put it down. The concept was so interesting and I really enjoyed that Malermen stepped away from the norm in horror books these days and instead of a couple with issues in their relationship on the brink of leaving each other he gave us a couple deeply in love. This caused me to root for them and for them to have their happily ever after. This made me want to keep going and I found myself glued to the pages. The start was mind bending and I’ve always been one to enjoy stories that have you guessing and not quite knowing what is truly going on.

Then the second half began and the story became stagnant. It felt like the same thoughts fleshed out over and over on a loop. Combined with a lot of going on about art and how everything is art if you frame it in your mind which I do agree with but I don’t think 100 pages was needed to explain this. It was not that the writing was bad it was just that it felt like the plot was put on the back burner to focus on some sort of statement on how art is perceived and this went on for way to long. There was just too much talk about it to where I would get irritated and I just wanted to know what was going to happen with the characters. I enjoy analogies in novels but this was like one analogy right into another without letting the previous one have time to breathe. It was just a little repetitive and I was anticipating a big twist or a crazy turn of events but it never really came.

With that said I have read Malerman’s other work and very very greatly enjoyed them and I would recommend him as an author to anyone but I do have to admit that while someone can be very good at what they do they can sometimes miss and this was a miss for me. However it could be a score for someone else. It’s worth a try.

When I was reading words or radiance I remember reading Lift’s chapters and wishing that she had a bigger role or more “screen time” so I was very happy to start this and find out it was her novella! Lift is one of my favorite characters in the cosmere and I can’t wait to see more of her she is so funny and memorable! This was a fun ride from start to finish Brandon never disappoints! I also enjoyed seeing some other plot lines get furthered within this novella. It’s going to be very hard to resist not immediately diving back into Stormlight after this. I might just not try holding myself back.

Well that was absolutely insane and disgusting. I am surprised at how extreme the horror was in comparison to what I have heard about this book. I went in expecting a spiral into madness but our Victorian psycho was without a doubt psycho from start to finish. Extreme horror isn’t really my thing and this is probably as far as I would venture into the genre but I did enjoy the sense of really never knowing if things were real or just imagined from a psychotic mind. Because of this however I think the writing could get slight confusing or not clear enough but I’m not sure if that was just a plot device or not. Over all I enjoyed the read and I’m excited to see how it is adapted into film.

ARC REVIEW (Thank you NetGalley and Publishers!):

5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such a fun read!! I adored how quippy it was! I’m a sucker for intense moments broken by comedy and this book was full of that. We don’t get books like this one very often. I feel like satirical and comedic fantasy is a dwindling breed. This reminded me a lot of Terry Pratchett’s sort of slap stick approach to fantasy. I was very pleased to find out how unafraid this author was at leaning into the setting and being both humorous and heartwarming. Insane scientist and his under appreciated henchmen. If you enjoy ‘What We Do In the Shadows’ and Guillermo’s battle within the show this book will definitely hit the spot. Like I said I’m really happy to see books like these getting published I hope to see this book well received and more from this author as well as the genre.

On another note this story was actually very beautiful. I love a good underdog and this was a very sweet tale of finding acceptance and community in the darkest times in your life and how the love and kindness of others can help to drag you out of the darkness. I was not expecting how cute and comforting this book would be. It had an amazing allegory for realizing that true beauty and kindness comes from inside and beauty on the outside is only superficial. If I was to give this book a genre even though I think this one is hard to pin down and I mean that as a compliment I would call it dark cozy fantasy. I can’t wait to see this book get the love in deserves!