fangirljeanne's reviews
1180 reviews

This would have been a four star, but it lost points for the perpetual anti-sex worker jokes and the heroine blaming an abused woman for her death. The pacing is all over the place, largely because the unnecessary manufactured conflict that draws out the story and left me bored.

It also suffers from the Not Like Other Girl in disguise. Where all but one of the other women in the story are antagonistic (jealous) or one dimensional background characters. The one other female character (friend, sister, mother, etc) is only slightly more developed but primarily exists as a confidant and cheerleader for the leading lady. That way it’s less obvious about the internalized misogyny, but it is definitely there.

The bright spots of this book are the banter between the two leads during the sexy wake up calls and their love scenes. They have great chemistry and are a fun twist on the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, where her sunshine is snarky but only with him. Which he likes a lot. Sadly, the romantic side of the developing relationship fizzles into a cliche “she fixes him by teaching him to feel” trope that left me bored.

I feel like the biggest letdown of this work, aside from the issues I’ve already mentioned, is that the author failed to explore the MMC’s very obvious degradation kink that makes the sexy scenes so electric. It’s as if she understood it worked, but either didn’t know or was reluctant to explore why. Which is a real shame, but not all that surprising given the rather vanilla branding of the series.

Oh well. I recommend it only for the sex scenes and the audiobook narration. Neva Nevarre and Jason Clarke gave great performances.

The beginning was good, but the rest of it meanders into a convoluted mess. The writing could really use a good line edit. The FMC is needlessly incompetent to the point that it’s distracting and feels unrealistic. The Harry Potter references were the last straw. 

never thought I would swoon over a dude referencing the Care Bear Stare, but here we are. 

I don’t know what it says about me that I was sad that this didn’t have a happy ending, but it is what it is.

This is a great horror novel, beautifully grotesque and emotionally raw to an uncomfortable degree. It’s very much more lit fic than in tone and execution than horror or splatter punk, though it absolutely holds its own in both genres. The experience of being a woman, especially one who doesn’t fit the unattainable hypocrisy of socially acceptable feminine ideals, is a horrific mind-bending experience.

Maeve is not unique in her weird or messiness, take out the overt violence and this would be like many other women’s lit narrative about the trauma of living under patriarchy. But here, in the framing of a horror novel this narrative feels more authentic, more autonomous compared to the passive victimhood of a lot of white women’s navel gazing fiction, at least until the end. Maeve felt like she was going to give the cliche narrative of the weird girl, the creepy girl, the femme fatale a newer better ending. One where she embraces that aspects of herself that fear of society tells her to suppress and hate. While she escapes the typical fate of “fallen women” of literature, she is still punished for refusing to conform to society. That’s the only aspect of the story I disliked. It felt like a step back after so many subversive strides forward.

I get it, this is a horror novel. Heartbreak is an important aspect of that genre. But I would also argue that few things are quite as frightening to patriarchy as a villainous woman getting everything she wants including love and acceptance. 

Highly recommended to fans of graphic horror and dark humor. If you love the movie May (2002) this book might be for you too. 

DNF
I enjoyed the writing and characters, but the anti-sex work slurs and sentiment is just so distracting. It’s so hypocritical considering the main characters are actively in sex work. But of course the story perpetuates misinformation about sex work that’s based more in classism and misogyny that actual fact. That’s a huge pet peeve of mine. Condemning sex work in a book about sex workers, that pins it’s entire “sexy scenario” on the titillating thrill of being a sex worker while looking down on sex work and sex workers. 

DNF
 I was really enjoying this book, despite the dragon shifter love interest being a cop (he felt more like a community protector than a tool of the state) then it had to go and make the shifters fucking Confederates. One of the calls the Civil War “The war of Northern aggression.” Seriously? You’d think that people who had to live in secret, under the thumb of powerful governing body that never had a say in creating wouldn’t side with enslavers.

So disappointing. 

Audio Arc from LibroFM
TW: Medical abuse, intimate partner abuse, rape, sexual abuse

This was gorgeous and devastating. One of the things I love about Miller’s work is how in grounding mythology in a pragmatic reality the subtext becomes text. The brutal reality of being a woman literally created by a man resonates deeply and reflects the harrowing reality of women’s relationships with men. 

Ruth Wilson’s narration was (as always) beautifully nuanced, breathing life into Galatea.

DNF 
This feels undercooked, like a first draft in need heavy developmental editing. The set up has so much potential and the campy tone is unique, and something I’ve wanted to see more of in Romance Fantasy. But sadly the execution failed to deliver on all the promises the premise and tone made.

Here’s the thing about campy takes on fantasy settings (and camp in general), you have to know the rules of the genre before you break them into rainbow confetti. The world building in this story is practically nonexistent. It’s eluded to as if the reader is supposed to know, which is fine in a fan fiction or a derivative work that’s clearly aping on existing tent poles of a genre, but the little we see of this world more closely resembles a contemporary Billionaire Boss Romance than a fantasy world. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it were to fully commit to being an Urban Fantasy or went full throttle in to parody, but it doesn’t really commit to anything. There are elements of High fantasy and even fairy tale retellings, along side mundane contemporary language and social behavior.

It utilizes genre conventions from YA the inept clumsy girl who’s the sole breadwinner of her family with only one (kind of close) female friend. The only other woman with a name is a gorgeous mean girl bully who seems to be jealous of the heroine. 

Fairytale/folklore (anime-esque) elements like a sentient animal sidekick who communicates via one word signs. *cue the Ranma flashbacks*

Fantasy elements like magical powers that aren’t really explain. Magical creatures like orcs, castles and mysteries. 

Then of course the contemporary employee/boss office grumpy/sunshine RomCom straight of a billionaire Romance of the 2010’s. 

All these disparate elements could work together to create something unique and fun, but they failed to coalesce into something that could stand on its own. Instead I felt like a bunch of ideas (arguably funny and novel ones that I’d love to see better executed) thrown at a canvas with little rhyme or reason, beyond filling pages.

This feels much more like a gimmick than an actual book.