Tyler > Recent Status Updates

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

Honestly Sheldon is kind of annoying me. He feels awfully self-centered with his "My ex is getting married on Christmas eve as a dig at me! Personally!" I hope that means character development later or I'll be more annoyed. But I'm getting the vibe the text might agree with him.

Theo is more relatable with his 'Do not speak to me. Do not perceive me.' Attitude 😆

I like the little sound effects for the text exchange here. But it seems like there's an editing error where the tapping sound keeps going well after the texts are done.

Also why is Sheldon still going on about how straight Theo is with his pickup truck? He already told you he's gay. It also kind goes against Sheldon's little 'no one way to be queer' teachable moment earlier with his coworkers.

Hmm. Finding things a little too insta-lust/love-y on Theo's side. And Sheldon's hyperactive tmi is honestly kind of grating.

Also we started at the school, bounced back to Sheldon finding the invitation from his ex and then back to the school. That was pointless. Why not just start at the invitation for all the two pages it takes up?

Pretty sure I know who the killer is and why. Still, we got some good atmosphere here. I can feel the chill settling in my bones~

The reader for the audiobook can be a bit grating, though. And it occasionally sounds like there's some static around her words. Not sure what that's about.

I'm leaning towards 'book doesn't know what it's talking about'. Since apparently Gideon can check Archie's blood sugar easily from having seen it done tons of times. But doesn't know what the glucometer is called.

Yes I'm tearing this small scene apart. But. Like. It feels unclear if his blood sugar was low or not. And it feels unclear if the book knows what it's talking about here. Is Archie taking insulin after supposedly low blood sugar because a full Twix could be an over-correction? (One Twix bar would probably be enough, but this is a high stress situation).

So okay. Arxhie eats a Twix for low blood sugar. (Before checking his sugar. Which. Just noticed. They put blood on the test strip before putting 'on' the glucometer. Is that how some models work? All of mine, you slid the strip into the meter first. Then blood)
Then Archie takes insulin. When the book was just trying to tell us his sugar was low. (Even though it wasn't)

And when the meter does give a reading, after a dramatic technicolor bird attack and the appearance of serial killer, it's...80 something. Which is fine. Unless Archie's doctor wants him specifically to stay above that for some reason. Below 70 is what's generally considered low. Now he might feel low if his sugar isn't typically in the 80s-90s. And given his heavy drinking earlier that's very possible.

Nitpick from an actual diabetic. Archie just needed to eat a candy bar because his blood sugar might be low from nailing boards to the house. Okay. First, that glucometer (which they just call a machine. Does Gideon not know what it's called?) takes forever to give a reading. Like full minutes. Mine takes maybe 2 seconds. Is this an old model? But I've been diabetic 20 years and my glucometer's never taken so long.

Mostly enjoying this since messed up dream world stuff is my jam. But I wish we got to see more than glimpses of what's going on in Lalaland. Also. Warnings for uncritical ableism in regards to how the narrative treats Simon. And the Bury Your Gays trope.


The book takes place in a fairly rural area, but the book feels dated beyond that. Despite being published in 2023 and taking place in the modern day.

Keras has his own prequel series and that's fine, but is seems clear that at some point, perhaps when this was originally a web serial, that it was meant to read in parallel with/as part of this series. But now it's a fully separate series and it hasn't felt like there's been a good stopping point to switch between them. The plots are heavily intertwined, but they haven't been restructured to stand alone.

Hrm. It's getting increasingly frustrating that a big chunk of the plot seems to rely on events from another series that aren't really explained here. There's just some clunky hand waving and over done secrecy to avoid giving the relevant info and it makes it hard to keep track of things.

See. This is what I was hoping for from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

Hrm. The world building was already pretty tenuous from the start, but it's getting less believable as we go on. Add in that the writing really needed more polish to help it flow and be less repetitive (just had a point where the word 'card' was used in rapid succession about 8 times and that really could have been smoothed out.) Add to that...I'm really not a fan of this narrator in general. It's rough going.

Hmm. I keep going back and forth on this one. When it's good, it's really good. But it also has very dull moments, and the writing style sometimes feels kind of immature and unpolished.

Also, small annoyance. If you're going to get to the point of on-screen sex. You can just name the relevant parts. We already had a 'goddamn'. You can say dick. Or cock. Or boner.

Autocorrect. When I say 'boner', I *mean* 'boner'.

I feel like. Based on the reviews and my own current reactions. I'm going to be very annoyed/frustrated by this book.