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sparklefarm's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
foundfamilyspacepirateslonglostlove <deep breath> omg this was SO. MUCH. DANG. FUN. <thor smash> ANOTHER!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief and Death
Minor: Violence and Torture
barnesm31's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
A fabulous find. I read a review over at Smart Bitches, Trashy books (great book review site) and in keeping with the culinary themes which this book runs with Carrie S describes the characters as ingredients
Ingredients:
A military leader with a mysterious past
A haunted gourmet restaurant on a space station
A chef with four arms
A receptionist with tentacles
An assistant chef who is a chimpanzee
A pastry chef who is, apparently, more or less a swan
Twin playful but deadly “magic-resistant were-lions”
An unreliable reptilian prophet
Inter-galactic politics
A food critic
A bio-ship who enjoys experiencing and cataloging new emotions
A lost princess
Pirates
Tragic romance
Found family
humor, angst, action, bonding
Sequel-bait
and I can't disagree. A story of found family in an intriguing universe that I look forward to exploring in the series. That's my only not_really_a_complaint is that I can immediately start reading the next book.
Ingredients:
A military leader with a mysterious past
A haunted gourmet restaurant on a space station
A chef with four arms
A receptionist with tentacles
An assistant chef who is a chimpanzee
A pastry chef who is, apparently, more or less a swan
Twin playful but deadly “magic-resistant were-lions”
An unreliable reptilian prophet
Inter-galactic politics
A food critic
A bio-ship who enjoys experiencing and cataloging new emotions
A lost princess
Pirates
Tragic romance
Found family
humor, angst, action, bonding
Sequel-bait
and I can't disagree. A story of found family in an intriguing universe that I look forward to exploring in the series. That's my only not_really_a_complaint is that I can immediately start reading the next book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture
sarah984's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I feel like there's a sort of tone you expect from a novel titled "You Sexy Thing" in a series titled "Disco Space Opera" that has a GBBO comp on the cover, and this book does not have that tone. It is extremely dark and graphic, as well as staggeringly cruel to one of the characters for seemingly no reason. Most of the characters feel like cardboard cutouts (the Firefly references are a mile a minute) and traits seem to spring up as required by the narrative. Most of the characters have no initiative at all and are simply shunted here and there by the plot. It's only getting 2 stars because I thought the cooking stuff was fun and the ship at least had a personality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture
Moderate: Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Grief, and Slavery
Minor: Sexual content and War
adancewithbooks's review
adventurous
medium-paced
2.25
With a title as You Sexy Thing, this book was bound to get a lot of attention. I was interested as well but it took me a while to get to it. I'm not sure I should have.
With the title and knowing this is about old soldiers getting roped back into something, my curiousity was quite taken. We meet Niko and her crew as they are setting up their restaurant for an exciting night. They were only able to leave the service of the Hive Mind as soldiers if they could show that they were artists. In this case they went for cooking as an art. So they had to start a restaurant. This night was exciting because a food critic would be visiting. They needed to do well. Unfortunately a person gets shipped to them in a crate and the station explodes. Oops.
It had a lot of potential in ideas but a lot of it fell flat because of the writing. It felt like it was trying an omniscient point of view but it was still too far in characters head for that, which was mostly Nio. It created a very far removed feel from the characters. Not true omniscient but also not a deep enogh focus. I didn't feel like I was truly getting to know them. We'd be in this scene with this character and then the next paragraph we would be in another scene with another character.
We got a tiny bit of this and a tiny bit of that. But never did we go in depth into a character. The death of a character and the betrayal of a character were barely dealt with. So nothing that happened got much of an emotional reaction from me as a reader.
Which is a shame because there are a lot of great ideas here. Many different alien races, the hive mind sounds like an interesting concept and a potential enemy. The bio ships like You Sexy Thing that they traveled on, created an extra dimension to their interactions. But a lot of the rest needed a lot of work.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Death, and Murder
Minor: War
mossgoblins's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Murder, and Torture
Moderate: Cursing, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, War, Body horror, and Gun violence
cakemeister's review
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Torture, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Physical abuse
Minor: Genocide, War, Colonisation, Slavery, and Cursing
jack_iwashyna's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Fun goofy space hijinks for most of it, yet I found the gruesomeness of the torture and abuse of Petalia by the pirates so detailedly described as to jar me into almost stopping reading
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Torture, and Confinement
Moderate: Slavery
motaki's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
There were parts that I liked and others that I was 'so uhm, what now'
The plot and the pace were all over the place, sometimes quirky and light while turning extremely heavy and dark the next minute, let me tell you I had whiplash!
For a character driven book we get too many POV switches in the same paragraph, sometimes you had to reread a sentence to get who uttered that.
There is a lot just hinted at but we needed a more solid plot for this book, even if the author planned to have a sequel, they should have at least tidied up some questions left unanswered, this one felt more like a 300 pages of messy preview.
Niko is a good captain and a nice character, she deserved a better story than this useless moping and pining after a toxic ex.
Hope they'll do both her and her ragtag crew justice in the next instalment.
The plot and the pace were all over the place, sometimes quirky and light while turning extremely heavy and dark the next minute, let me tell you I had whiplash!
For a character driven book we get too many POV switches in the same paragraph, sometimes you had to reread a sentence to get who uttered that.
There is a lot just hinted at but we needed a more solid plot for this book, even if the author planned to have a sequel, they should have at least tidied up some questions left unanswered, this one felt more like a 300 pages of messy preview.
Niko is a good captain and a nice character, she deserved a better story than this useless moping and pining after a toxic ex.
Hope they'll do both her and her ragtag crew justice in the next instalment.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Slavery, Torture, War, and Physical abuse
carolined314's review
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture
Moderate: Kidnapping, Violence, Death, and Confinement
lesbianbarista's review
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I really wish I could insert a gif of someone staring at a wall.. but that's too much work so I'll just add this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This book had so much potential! It honestly wasn't at all what I thought in both good and bad ways. It has one of those things in books that makes me a little sad, where you can see the potential and see this rich, beautiful creation but there's too much time spent in one specific place and then everything all at once happens and it's over!!!
I was confused with the POV at times, since it wasn't specified and seemed to flow around freely without ever really explicitly stating (until there were obvious context clues) who we'd moved to. And I know that, thematically, this worked with the whole ex hive-mind aspect, but that aspect was either mentioned too little or too late for it to be an effective story-telling device.
I very very much loved the thinly veiled american military it seemed Rambo was poking at with the Hive (and if she wasn't, I adored the parallels I was able to see). I ADORE Niko, so rarely do I get to read about an older main character and an older WOMAN at that. She was such a great leader and seeing her constantly thinking of her people, sacrificing her own happiness at every turn to help those she loved was UGH top-tier character moments. Adore her.
This was honestly though a story that was all over the place. The pacing was off, you'd think there'd be a little more desperation, or even planning, from the crew as their brutal demise comes hurtling towards them. if they'd faced rougher odds it wasn't something I was told.
This would've been a really solid duology, in my honest opinion. We'd have had more time with Niko and her crew, maybe even have gotten to explore the universe or Niko and her crew's history. I loved the restaurant. It just focused on things for too short of a time that mattered much in the end. Especially Niko's history with their friend from the pirate kingdom who was in it so little and so quickly that their name escapes me!!
It was fun at first, but honestly turned into a slog as much as I tried to find joy in it (and at a certain point it got really hard to find any joy). The losses felt like nothing when it should've been a MOMENT.
tldr; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sums up how it feels to me. Wish it didn't..
This book had so much potential! It honestly wasn't at all what I thought in both good and bad ways. It has one of those things in books that makes me a little sad, where you can see the potential and see this rich, beautiful creation but there's too much time spent in one specific place and then everything all at once happens and it's over!!!
I was confused with the POV at times, since it wasn't specified and seemed to flow around freely without ever really explicitly stating (until there were obvious context clues) who we'd moved to. And I know that, thematically, this worked with the whole ex hive-mind aspect, but that aspect was either mentioned too little or too late for it to be an effective story-telling device.
I very very much loved the thinly veiled american military it seemed Rambo was poking at with the Hive (and if she wasn't, I adored the parallels I was able to see). I ADORE Niko, so rarely do I get to read about an older main character and an older WOMAN at that. She was such a great leader and seeing her constantly thinking of her people, sacrificing her own happiness at every turn to help those she loved was UGH top-tier character moments. Adore her.
This was honestly though a story that was all over the place. The pacing was off, you'd think there'd be a little more desperation, or even planning, from the crew as their brutal demise comes hurtling towards them. if they'd faced rougher odds it wasn't something I was told.
This would've been a really solid duology, in my honest opinion. We'd have had more time with Niko and her crew, maybe even have gotten to explore the universe or Niko and her crew's history. I loved the restaurant. It just focused on things for too short of a time that mattered much in the end. Especially Niko's history with their friend from the pirate kingdom who was in it so little and so quickly that their name escapes me!!
It was fun at first, but honestly turned into a slog as much as I tried to find joy in it (and at a certain point it got really hard to find any joy). The losses felt like nothing when it should've been a MOMENT.
tldr; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sums up how it feels to me. Wish it didn't..
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture