Tyler > Recent Status Updates

I'm calling it now. This damn plant is going to corpse puppet someone to escape. I suspect it's been experimenting with Pablo and Eric and now it's working out how to control Amy's corpse. It might also be working it's way into Stacy through her unprotected feet!

In fact...maybe it's had Mathias this whole time... He's awfully quiet and we've never had his PoV. We haven't had Pablo's either...
Red string everywhere

I now worry Pablo has been dead for a while and is just a corpse puppet the vine is using to fuck with the group. It seems like something it would do. The plant is an asshole.

The plant has been actively engaging in psychological warfare. It just constantly repeating "Bitch-Slut" several times seems like it should be funny. But no. It is actually very unnerving. That gave chills.

Unsure if Eric actually has the plant inside him. Also unsure what would be worse. It eating him from the inside out. Or him maiming himself to no purpose in a fit of delirium.

*squirms at all the body going on* Oof

I love how the characters trade the role of designated asshole around so they all get chances to be relatable and chances to be hateable. They're all just very flawed, scared, traumatized. That's good casting chemistry.

And the vine continues to be just absolutely terrifying in that it is *smart* and *likes to play with its food*. It is actively cruel and malicious.

I'm actually really digging this. The characters are all terrible in really relatable ways. So even as they frustrate me, I'm dreading the terrible things happening to them (often as a result of their own bad decisions). Yes good.

And the monster is so sinister and creepy. 😆

Dude. It's literally been a day. Maybe 2 since thus started. You're not even sure your wife is dead yet. And she's other even sure about her husband. What is the point of these two boinking?

Aaaaand you're going to think about your wife during it. And she's thinking about her husband. Probably. Not David anyway. Fiiiine. I guess it's a trauma response. But it still feels kind of out of place.

Probably doesn't help that the narrator is voicing Mrs. Carmody like Roz from Monsters Inc.

"If you doubt, then go on out! Go on out and say 'Howdy do!'" Mrs. Carmody
Am I supposed to be intimidated by her at this point? Or am I supposed to think she's hilarious? Because the snort I made at this line.

Also the narrator keeps *whispering* to be ominous and I am hard of hearing. I already have the volume up beyond the recommended levels. It can't go much higher. The sound balance is not working to make it listenable without straining myself.

Meh. I'm honestly finding it kinda hokey, at least in the writing style and characterization. It kind of feels like it's trying too hard to have the narrator be the likeable everyman. And it's a 70s-80s everyman to boot, so it's not clicking easily with my queer millennial self. (Not the text's fault, really, just generation gap there)

Yeah, I don't think this one's working for me. 😑

There's definitely fun ideas here, but I think it could have used another round of editing.

And unfortunately I'm not sure this one is clicking for me. :/

I'm enjoying the story, but the reader could stand to emote more.

Ah. Back in my cozy place. Slow burn M/M romantasy. Then it will be time to return to the Horrors! 😆

Yeah, don't think I'm finishing this one. The dialogue is overwritten, it's too over the top for me, and apparently the protag's disability gets miraculaously cured halfway through? And then soap opera drama. Nah. Not my flavor of romance, unfortunately.

Hrm. Honestly it feels kind of maudlin so far. Prescott is very self pitying, even though he otherwise seems to have adjusted pretty well to being blind. Dude's got a personal trainer, professional house cleaning, expensive name brand clothes, a growing food critique business. But. Boohoo. I'm lonely. My girlfriend is just using me, but I won't dump her for some reason. I have no friends for...some reason?

Like. It feels like the writing is trying too hard to be pretty and it ends up getting in the way for me. But I had a similar issue with Song of Achilles (among other issues) so maybe I just have shit taste and dunno what good prose is.

I'm enjoying, for a given definition of 'enjoying', the plot and characters. I'm definitely feeling a lot of things. I wish it would stop pausing the plot to go on poetic rambles. I know this is mostly a personal taste thing, but the prose gets too...self-indulgent? Overwrought? Dunno the term to use here, but this is one of those times where it feels like the prose is trying too hard for what it's actually saying.

During their 'because you'll be memory wiped after this, let's awkwardly share all of our secrets' thing. Holt fantasizes having all his wrestlers pass him around the ring for sexy times. Taylor mentions, multiple times, being interested in the orgies his ex goes to. But once they're together suddenly Holt jealously protective and Taylor's not thinking of orgies. Missed opportunity. The wrestlers seemed into the idea

I'm not sure the monster thing has really mattered? There was a joke at the beginning about Holt maybe being a mob boss and I feel like we could have gone that angle and it would have changed very little besides the aesthetics. Holt, despite being an emotion 'piggybacking' creature, is honestly just a dude with gray skin. The emotion not-eating has not affected anything. It just lets him be better at sex.

Larkin keeps swinging wildly between 'adorable scamp' and 'insufferable HR nightmare' for me. Though honestly the wrestling outfit is an HR nightmare. Do monsters just not care/worry sexual harassment? Maybe if the monster world got anymore development besides being a secret for...some undisclosed reason.

But Larkin at least seems more interesting than Taylor or Holt.

Meeeeh. Too much sexy times not enough actual character or relationship development. And very thin world building. Judging by other reviews it's not going to improve.

Honestly Taylor mostly feels like a sad sack nothing character to be fawned over by Holt, who mostly exists to fulfill the role 'Perfect Fantasy Lover Who Automatically Knows All Your Needs' And has an obsession with testicles.

We get it. It's been 4 years since you've felt the touch of a man Taylor. We geeeeeet it.

Also. Again with Holt's lop-sided balls? It's perfectly normal for one to hang lower than the other my dude.

And there's way more toilet humor here than I'm used to in a romance novel.

I'm bouncing back and forth on this one. The characters, or at least Taylor, are meant to be in their late 30s. But they feel more like early 20s with how they talk and act. Buuuut...then I remember age is not an indicator of maturity and I myself am mid-30s and I'm not sure I'm much more mature than I was in my 20s.

But then Holt has a bodyguard explicitly because he thought it made him look cool.

Hmm. Not necessarily a strong start when the first ten minutes is the main character info dumping how shitty his last boyfriend was and how repetitive his life has gotten because of that past relationship. That could have sprinkled out and done more through showing rather than telling.

I can't help comparing this to Pride or Die, since they have a kind of similar setup. But where Pride or Die felt like it was tripping over itself at points to be inoffensive even as it tried to comment on social issues. This feels grittier and more willing to get messy. It feels more willing to hit you in the face with the darkness. Especially since this book has an actual body count.

Harder daddy. >XD