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Monster Match
Riding a Rogue Wave
Ronan is a human who loves video games and any activity that can be played in and around the water. Kush is water. Well, more specifically, he's a Nixie, which makes him a water elemental, and guess what, he loves video games too. Wet and wild adventures take place after the Monster Match app brings them together... but will a vengeful family member be the one who tears them apart?
128 pages, Paperback
Published March 12, 2024
About the author
Layla Dorine
136 books215 followersLAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.
Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.
Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Did Not Finish
March 11, 2024DNF @51% ... I stuck it out as long as I did because I have really enjoyed the previous books in this series and was excitedly for the next one - this one. But... wow. Hard no, and definitely a new-to-me author who I don't think I'll be revisiting.
Here is a ranty list of what I hated:
1 - I am usually pretty lenient on indie author editing issues, especially if they seem to be newer to publishing, but a quick check here on Goodreads shows me that this one is not, she's got quite a catalog built up so I would assume would know how to handle her editing needs better, but even before knowing she wasn't new, the sheer amount of typos was so off-putting that I might have DNF'd even without the actual story issues that turned me off. Which brings me to...
2 - This series has, prior to this book, been one of the rare (in my experience) multi-author series that actually did a fantastic job of making me feel like it really was all set in one world, between the shared setting details, cameos, etc. But this book? Felt nothing like that. Other than the inclusion of the actual app that ties the series together, the monsters and monster world were completely different than previously portrayed in the other books (and also seemed... weirdly cartoonish in this one?). None of the other characters or cities appeared or were referenced here and the portal details and human/monster relations regarding them were totally different. Overall, it was just... ugh. I tried to decide if I would have enjoyed this world if I'd read it as a standalone instead of thinking I was going to be immersed in the pre-existing world from the other books, but I honestly don't think so. Again, see the "cartoonish" thing above (I'm referring to the types of monsters described and their behaviors and interactions.)
3 - And then there were the actual main characters, who were apparently both supposed to be 25-years old but felt like middle schoolers? Not just based on their own personalities, but also very much so in relation to their parents and families. I mean, with the monster, I could maybe suspend disbelief and attribute the annoying familial structure and rules (like, the shared phone??? OMG. Hello middle schooler!) on cultural differences, but even if I'd granted him that grace, the way he was treated and interacted with his family was just grating to read about. And as for the human... uhhhhhh, no. His cringy, childish relationship with his overbearing mother was enough to make me DNF for that alone. But even though ALL of these items annoyed the fuck out of me, the real kicker was...
4 - This is a romance, and a short one. And yet it's not until about the halfway mark - right where I'm throwing in the towel - that they even match on the app? So HALF this book is just slice of life / backstory to these two, and I am NOT here for it. I got as far as their super long-winded and boring AF initial messages to each other in the app, and don't even care at this point to read about how they'll eventually meet and romance each other. I'm already too annoyed by both of them, and besides, since whatever it is will just be crammed into the remaining few pages, I can't imagine that it will amount to much more than they meet in person, they realize that , they will presumably bone at some point, then they'll figure out how to settle down for a swamptastic HEA. 🙄
Ugh. I am happy to acknowledge how much work and creativity go into the creation of any book, so kudos to all authors for that, including this one. I wish her will. But I'm pretty sour about the time I just wasted on the first 51% of this book, which is really all on me for my much higher expectations. I should have peaced out MUCH sooner.
Oh well. Moving on...
Here is a ranty list of what I hated:
1 - I am usually pretty lenient on indie author editing issues, especially if they seem to be newer to publishing, but a quick check here on Goodreads shows me that this one is not, she's got quite a catalog built up so I would assume would know how to handle her editing needs better, but even before knowing she wasn't new, the sheer amount of typos was so off-putting that I might have DNF'd even without the actual story issues that turned me off. Which brings me to...
2 - This series has, prior to this book, been one of the rare (in my experience) multi-author series that actually did a fantastic job of making me feel like it really was all set in one world, between the shared setting details, cameos, etc. But this book? Felt nothing like that. Other than the inclusion of the actual app that ties the series together, the monsters and monster world were completely different than previously portrayed in the other books (and also seemed... weirdly cartoonish in this one?). None of the other characters or cities appeared or were referenced here and the portal details and human/monster relations regarding them were totally different. Overall, it was just... ugh. I tried to decide if I would have enjoyed this world if I'd read it as a standalone instead of thinking I was going to be immersed in the pre-existing world from the other books, but I honestly don't think so. Again, see the "cartoonish" thing above (I'm referring to the types of monsters described and their behaviors and interactions.)
3 - And then there were the actual main characters, who were apparently both supposed to be 25-years old but felt like middle schoolers? Not just based on their own personalities, but also very much so in relation to their parents and families. I mean, with the monster, I could maybe suspend disbelief and attribute the annoying familial structure and rules (like, the shared phone??? OMG. Hello middle schooler!) on cultural differences, but even if I'd granted him that grace, the way he was treated and interacted with his family was just grating to read about. And as for the human... uhhhhhh, no. His cringy, childish relationship with his overbearing mother was enough to make me DNF for that alone. But even though ALL of these items annoyed the fuck out of me, the real kicker was...
4 - This is a romance, and a short one. And yet it's not until about the halfway mark - right where I'm throwing in the towel - that they even match on the app? So HALF this book is just slice of life / backstory to these two, and I am NOT here for it. I got as far as their super long-winded and boring AF initial messages to each other in the app, and don't even care at this point to read about how they'll eventually meet and romance each other. I'm already too annoyed by both of them, and besides, since whatever it is will just be crammed into the remaining few pages, I can't imagine that it will amount to much more than they meet in person, they realize that , they will presumably bone at some point, then they'll figure out how to settle down for a swamptastic HEA. 🙄
Ugh. I am happy to acknowledge how much work and creativity go into the creation of any book, so kudos to all authors for that, including this one. I wish her will. But I'm pretty sour about the time I just wasted on the first 51% of this book, which is really all on me for my much higher expectations. I should have peaced out MUCH sooner.
Oh well. Moving on...
March 11, 2024
Felt let down
Having loved the previous books in the series I was really looking forward to this . Although the story was good the amount of typos , using words in the wrong context and using the wrong character names in a scene was not ok . I may have partly accepted this if it was a debut book but it isn’t , the book needs a major re-edit. I have given 3 stars as the story itself was good but if I had to go off all the errors it’d be 1 star.
Having loved the previous books in the series I was really looking forward to this . Although the story was good the amount of typos , using words in the wrong context and using the wrong character names in a scene was not ok . I may have partly accepted this if it was a debut book but it isn’t , the book needs a major re-edit. I have given 3 stars as the story itself was good but if I had to go off all the errors it’d be 1 star.
July 28, 2024
cute little story in the universe, probably the one with the least smut but i didn't mind that all that much.
i would have wanted to learn more about ronan and kush's families though.
i would have wanted to learn more about ronan and kush's families though.
March 20, 2024
I didn't love this one. Which made me mad because this series has been all I can think about for like two months.
I think it was just a tad far removed for me from the world that was built by the other authors in this series.
The conflict didn't seem so serious. Not serious enough for the main character to be as "traumatized" as he was. Like his mom was annoying and he was bothered by his lazy sister, but I still don't know why he didn't just move out.... he was like in his late 20's. Also I have yet to understand how the dad never stood up for any of his children to his wretched wife.
For having such a tight knit family, Kush had a super weird dynamic with his siblings, not only that the weird black mail situation over a cell phone was a bit much. Then to hold a gambling addiction over his head seemed weird too.
everything was pg13, fade to black-ish, I thought it was like a squishy sweet romance which was fine. But if thats how you're going to write it, then commit and don't try to add family drama where there isn't any.
I think it was just a tad far removed for me from the world that was built by the other authors in this series.
The conflict didn't seem so serious. Not serious enough for the main character to be as "traumatized" as he was. Like his mom was annoying and he was bothered by his lazy sister, but I still don't know why he didn't just move out.... he was like in his late 20's. Also I have yet to understand how the dad never stood up for any of his children to his wretched wife.
For having such a tight knit family, Kush had a super weird dynamic with his siblings, not only that the weird black mail situation over a cell phone was a bit much. Then to hold a gambling addiction over his head seemed weird too.
everything was pg13, fade to black-ish, I thought it was like a squishy sweet romance which was fine. But if thats how you're going to write it, then commit and don't try to add family drama where there isn't any.
March 16, 2024
I was looking forward to read this book and had High expectations due to the fact that the first five were good if not excellent !
Over all I just felt it really flat , I had a hard time getting through the book . I did love both of the main characters. However, they were so much potential in this book that it was upsetting how it turned out. It was missing so many things that the 1st five books had. I just didn’t enjoy the reading this book . There were some cute parts and come fun parts which is why I give it a 2⭐️
I know the author had complications on publishing this book, and I got one of the paperbacks, which was a different size than the others 😞 and the front cover was blown up. It didn’t look good , i’m assuming it was because of the complication she had. I know it takes a lot of time and effort to publish a book .Because of this, I will be rereading this book when it is republished by the author hoping for a better result, and hopefully I will be changing my review.
Over all I just felt it really flat , I had a hard time getting through the book . I did love both of the main characters. However, they were so much potential in this book that it was upsetting how it turned out. It was missing so many things that the 1st five books had. I just didn’t enjoy the reading this book . There were some cute parts and come fun parts which is why I give it a 2⭐️
I know the author had complications on publishing this book, and I got one of the paperbacks, which was a different size than the others 😞 and the front cover was blown up. It didn’t look good , i’m assuming it was because of the complication she had. I know it takes a lot of time and effort to publish a book .Because of this, I will be rereading this book when it is republished by the author hoping for a better result, and hopefully I will be changing my review.
March 15, 2024
low in the series
The combination of editing issues and world continuity basically doomed this book. It doesn’t fit the feel of any of the other books, and lacks any character crossovers like the others. I have been informed the wrong version was published so I reserve the right to change my review after a reread of the corrected version in the future.
The combination of editing issues and world continuity basically doomed this book. It doesn’t fit the feel of any of the other books, and lacks any character crossovers like the others. I have been informed the wrong version was published so I reserve the right to change my review after a reread of the corrected version in the future.
March 17, 2024
** 1 star for the book cover artist**
** 1 star for the book**
Having read the first five books in this series, I went into reading this book with high expectations and came out highly disappointed!! There was absolutely no connection to the other books except mentioning they met on the Monster Match app. The other books had characters, places or some part of the story connecting them. I got the impression that the author agreed to a group project and then went off and did her own thing. Further this book was not easy to get through. It had way too much history of monsters, different kinds of monsters, Chapter ten was basically a long rant about different wars (I actually started skimming because it didn't bring anything positive to the story and was dragging it even further down IMO). Both families had that one character that just brought nothing but negativity to the pages and I hated slogging through it. Chapter one was supposed to be world building (I guess) but it was so hard to understand (due to world and character building) that I couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't stand Ronan's mother. She was a human harpy. His dad didn't tell her to knock it off; he just let her verbally/emotionally abuse Ronan and Penny while doting on Sierra. On the other side of the veil, we had Kush's brother Neo who was a bully and lied to the elders to get Kush in trouble (glad it back fired).
Onto the beta reading and editing (which I can't believe there was any with all the mistakes I found). Spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting errors on almost every page. So many run-on sentences, that I couldn't keep up on. Wrong word usage in many places: Dung into breakfast instead of dug into breakfast, study plastic pool instead of sturdy plastic pool, million about instead of milling about. Soren to Sorren, Ronan to Ronon, food truck to foot truck. One of the MCs is a game tester, so it struck me odd that the author would say the characters liked playing Mortal Combat, when it's Mortal Kombat, a very well know game (even to this old lady that doesn't play video games knew that). Touche without the accent mark. Wrong name usage: Ronan and Penny offered to help their dad fix the dishwasher and later the author mentions it again but it's Kush and Penny working on the dishwasher. How many people are in Ronan's family? It's mentioned early three siblings and his mother and father. Later it says Ronan's mother had four kids in daycare but had five people in the house. Math is hard I get it but mom, dad and four in daycare equals six not five. Then later on Ronan mentions a brother in college (don't remember or even care at this point his name) and it's never changed to six people in the household. If the author meant kids only currently living at home, then okay three kids with mom and dad. Anyway I was confused until I gave up and don't care now. So many places where the words would would split from one line to the next inappropriately like: d- rooled, m- onsters, wer- e. Were these formatting issues or does the author and editor think this is appropriate word splitting?
Then we get to the fact that the story isn't that good. The world building was okay on the human side but confusing on the monster side (mostly due to adding way too many family members for Kush and other monsters not relevant to the story). The MCs don't even meet until the 55% mark; which might have been okay if the first half of the book didn't have so much negativity (cue Soren's mother and Neo). The last half had too much of the history of monsters rant I mentioned above. The characters didn't have enough time together to form a bond IMO. Sorry, it's just my opinion. I can't believe this book was put out in this condition to paying customers. I honestly believe the author needs to thoroughly re-vamp this book and send out an update to everyone who bought a copy. I have never read any other book by this author so I don't know if this is her usual way of writing and publishing or because the book was on a deadline but I won't be reading anymore of her work. Definitely don't recommend this book in this condition and don't recommend the author for the same reason. Sorry to the author. I don't have a grudge, I just don't like paying for something this bad. Rant over.
** 1 star for the book**
Having read the first five books in this series, I went into reading this book with high expectations and came out highly disappointed!! There was absolutely no connection to the other books except mentioning they met on the Monster Match app. The other books had characters, places or some part of the story connecting them. I got the impression that the author agreed to a group project and then went off and did her own thing. Further this book was not easy to get through. It had way too much history of monsters, different kinds of monsters, Chapter ten was basically a long rant about different wars (I actually started skimming because it didn't bring anything positive to the story and was dragging it even further down IMO). Both families had that one character that just brought nothing but negativity to the pages and I hated slogging through it. Chapter one was supposed to be world building (I guess) but it was so hard to understand (due to world and character building) that I couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't stand Ronan's mother. She was a human harpy. His dad didn't tell her to knock it off; he just let her verbally/emotionally abuse Ronan and Penny while doting on Sierra. On the other side of the veil, we had Kush's brother Neo who was a bully and lied to the elders to get Kush in trouble (glad it back fired).
Onto the beta reading and editing (which I can't believe there was any with all the mistakes I found). Spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting errors on almost every page. So many run-on sentences, that I couldn't keep up on. Wrong word usage in many places: Dung into breakfast instead of dug into breakfast, study plastic pool instead of sturdy plastic pool, million about instead of milling about. Soren to Sorren, Ronan to Ronon, food truck to foot truck. One of the MCs is a game tester, so it struck me odd that the author would say the characters liked playing Mortal Combat, when it's Mortal Kombat, a very well know game (even to this old lady that doesn't play video games knew that). Touche without the accent mark. Wrong name usage: Ronan and Penny offered to help their dad fix the dishwasher and later the author mentions it again but it's Kush and Penny working on the dishwasher. How many people are in Ronan's family? It's mentioned early three siblings and his mother and father. Later it says Ronan's mother had four kids in daycare but had five people in the house. Math is hard I get it but mom, dad and four in daycare equals six not five. Then later on Ronan mentions a brother in college (don't remember or even care at this point his name) and it's never changed to six people in the household. If the author meant kids only currently living at home, then okay three kids with mom and dad. Anyway I was confused until I gave up and don't care now. So many places where the words would would split from one line to the next inappropriately like: d- rooled, m- onsters, wer- e. Were these formatting issues or does the author and editor think this is appropriate word splitting?
Then we get to the fact that the story isn't that good. The world building was okay on the human side but confusing on the monster side (mostly due to adding way too many family members for Kush and other monsters not relevant to the story). The MCs don't even meet until the 55% mark; which might have been okay if the first half of the book didn't have so much negativity (cue Soren's mother and Neo). The last half had too much of the history of monsters rant I mentioned above. The characters didn't have enough time together to form a bond IMO. Sorry, it's just my opinion. I can't believe this book was put out in this condition to paying customers. I honestly believe the author needs to thoroughly re-vamp this book and send out an update to everyone who bought a copy. I have never read any other book by this author so I don't know if this is her usual way of writing and publishing or because the book was on a deadline but I won't be reading anymore of her work. Definitely don't recommend this book in this condition and don't recommend the author for the same reason. Sorry to the author. I don't have a grudge, I just don't like paying for something this bad. Rant over.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 11, 2024
I absolutely loved the first few books in this multi-author series, but this one fell short and didn't seem to fit in with the others as well. It incorporated the Monster Match app, but there was no mention of the other characters or other aspects of the world the first few books set up, so it really stood separate from them, which was disappointing.
Looking at it as a story on its own and not part of the Monster Match series, it was okay. There was a lot of needless backstory dumping in the beginning that never really played into the main story, especially on Ronan's part. A lot of things seemed over-explained and messed with the general flow of the story. It didn't help that you're introduced to a ton of characters right at the beginning for most of them to fade entirely into the background the second the scene was over.
Both the MCs were supposedly around 24/25 years old, but acted (and were treated like) high-schoolers. And while I can appreciate the family-centric life of the Nixie, having several siblings share a phone when they're all adults felt weird. (At least I'm pretty sure they were all adults. Some of their ages were a little vague.) And with the way they were joking about 30 being "old" at the beginning of the book, having someone in their mid-twenties being treated much like a child seemed inconsistent.
And the spice? Yeah, that was lacking. Which, fine. I don't need spice in my books, and I read plenty without it, but after reading the other books in this series, I was expecting more.
There were also a lot of typos and errors in the book. Normally that's not something I mention because every book (yes, even big-name trad published books) have mistakes. And that's fine. Human error is to be expected. HOWEVER, this book had so many that it actually affected my reading experience in a negative way. (Which is saying something because I read A TON of fan fiction...) There were missing quotation marks, incorrect and missing punctuation (mostly questions that ended in period or commas), mixed up or misspelled words ("conceded" instead of "conceited" to name one), and even at least one instance where the wrong character name was used (Soren, a brother, instead of Ronan, the love interest, which was awkward at best). While many of these mistakes were easy enough to gloss over, several pulled me from the story and had me re-reading parts to figure out what was trying to be said or communicated.
So, while I really wanted to like this story, it just wasn't for me. I think I may have enjoyed it more as totally separate from the rest of the series, so if you haven't the other Monster Match books but this premise interests you, give it a shot.
Looking at it as a story on its own and not part of the Monster Match series, it was okay. There was a lot of needless backstory dumping in the beginning that never really played into the main story, especially on Ronan's part. A lot of things seemed over-explained and messed with the general flow of the story. It didn't help that you're introduced to a ton of characters right at the beginning for most of them to fade entirely into the background the second the scene was over.
Both the MCs were supposedly around 24/25 years old, but acted (and were treated like) high-schoolers. And while I can appreciate the family-centric life of the Nixie, having several siblings share a phone when they're all adults felt weird. (At least I'm pretty sure they were all adults. Some of their ages were a little vague.) And with the way they were joking about 30 being "old" at the beginning of the book, having someone in their mid-twenties being treated much like a child seemed inconsistent.
And the spice? Yeah, that was lacking. Which, fine. I don't need spice in my books, and I read plenty without it, but after reading the other books in this series, I was expecting more.
There were also a lot of typos and errors in the book. Normally that's not something I mention because every book (yes, even big-name trad published books) have mistakes. And that's fine. Human error is to be expected. HOWEVER, this book had so many that it actually affected my reading experience in a negative way. (Which is saying something because I read A TON of fan fiction...) There were missing quotation marks, incorrect and missing punctuation (mostly questions that ended in period or commas), mixed up or misspelled words ("conceded" instead of "conceited" to name one), and even at least one instance where the wrong character name was used (Soren, a brother, instead of Ronan, the love interest, which was awkward at best). While many of these mistakes were easy enough to gloss over, several pulled me from the story and had me re-reading parts to figure out what was trying to be said or communicated.
So, while I really wanted to like this story, it just wasn't for me. I think I may have enjoyed it more as totally separate from the rest of the series, so if you haven't the other Monster Match books but this premise interests you, give it a shot.
August 23, 2025
Me dio un sabor agridulce el cambio de Lectura.
Este libro es lectura omnisciente y la verdad es que a mi me cuenta bastante agarrarle el ritmo.
Otras de las cosa que me hicieron no leer cómodamente, es que si bien esta es una serie de libros de diferentes autoras, el hecho de que todos los libros anteriores fueran algo subiditos de todo y este fuera slow born, fue un cambio abrupto.
La premisa fue muy buena, y ame la sencillez de los personajes, pero no me gustó mucho como fue escrito el libro.
Este libro es lectura omnisciente y la verdad es que a mi me cuenta bastante agarrarle el ritmo.
Otras de las cosa que me hicieron no leer cómodamente, es que si bien esta es una serie de libros de diferentes autoras, el hecho de que todos los libros anteriores fueran algo subiditos de todo y este fuera slow born, fue un cambio abrupto.
La premisa fue muy buena, y ame la sencillez de los personajes, pero no me gustó mucho como fue escrito el libro.
March 17, 2024
So yeah I am going to be over here just loving Kush and Ronan a bit longer! They are super cute and fun really quite perfect for each other!
The things they have in common and their differences are very complimentary and their families are both intriguing to read about!
Excellent read!
The things they have in common and their differences are very complimentary and their families are both intriguing to read about!
Excellent read!
Read
August 3, 2025Dnf @ 52%. Skimmed an additional 10% but I couldn't finish this. This book felt so disconnected from the series it was difficult to even get through the first half. The abundance of errors just made putting this down an easy choice.
March 11, 2024
Great story
I absolutely loved this story. This was so cute and sweet. I really enjoyed reading about these two and I can’t wait to read more from this world.
I absolutely loved this story. This was so cute and sweet. I really enjoyed reading about these two and I can’t wait to read more from this world.
July 28, 2024
esta gente ni siquiera cogio, bffr
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews