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mallorywaay's review
2.0
Found this book through NetGalley. It is an interesting spin and continuation of the love story of Oberon and Titania from Mid Summer Nights Dream. At times the plot seemed to be pushed to fast and didnt allow for a good build up in suspense or satisfaction in them finding the cure to save the world. A unique spin on a classic tale to say the least, but having background knowledge of Mid Summer Nights dream will help one to understand a lot of this story and the characters background,
worthyofareread's review
1.0
Unfortunately this book fell flat and was not for me.
There was a lack of world building and character development, I didn’t feel like they were their own unique characters, rather more forgettable than memorable. I was hopeful for the Oberon and Titania retelling, but it seemed like this was more of a ‘what happened next’ type of story rather than a retelling.
The dialogue was not my favorite, it seemed almost choppy/jumpy? Moods changed, people cursed out of nowhere, and there was not a good flow to the dialogue.
Several things I think really caused me to not enjoy the read:
1. While I LOVE LGBTQ+ representation, and totally love using non-standard pronouns, I felt like it was moreso added in to be added in, instead of added in a way that felt purposeful and entwined with the character. Puck didn’t have any flavor if that makes sense? I feel like it would have been better if in general for all characters, there was more character development/description/getting to know the character.
2. The way Orberon’s mental health issues were portrayed. I truly love books that portray mental health struggles and help expose society to these issues, but this one personally wasn’t for me. Maybe others aligned with this type of portrayal, but it missed the mark in my opinion.
3. The modern world. This is a personal thing, but I personally did not like the makeup influencer daughter angle, the references to modern actors/actresses, etc. made it seem like name dropping almost?
4. The final thing I will mention is the several negative references to body size. I love representation of all body types, and would love to see more characters with larger bodies but the several mentions of “they are skinny [curse word] and need to put you down because they are threatened” was extremely cringey. If we are going to write about different body types and their struggles, I think personally I receive that better when it isn’t focused on being mean and catty. Not my vibe at all.
Overall, I feel like it had potential, but either due to the length or the writing style, it fell flat with world building, investing the readers in the characters, and portraying the semi-political issues the author was trying to portray.
**this book was gifted in exchange for an honest review**
There was a lack of world building and character development, I didn’t feel like they were their own unique characters, rather more forgettable than memorable. I was hopeful for the Oberon and Titania retelling, but it seemed like this was more of a ‘what happened next’ type of story rather than a retelling.
The dialogue was not my favorite, it seemed almost choppy/jumpy? Moods changed, people cursed out of nowhere, and there was not a good flow to the dialogue.
Several things I think really caused me to not enjoy the read:
1. While I LOVE LGBTQ+ representation, and totally love using non-standard pronouns, I felt like it was moreso added in to be added in, instead of added in a way that felt purposeful and entwined with the character. Puck didn’t have any flavor if that makes sense? I feel like it would have been better if in general for all characters, there was more character development/description/getting to know the character.
2. The way Orberon’s mental health issues were portrayed. I truly love books that portray mental health struggles and help expose society to these issues, but this one personally wasn’t for me. Maybe others aligned with this type of portrayal, but it missed the mark in my opinion.
3. The modern world. This is a personal thing, but I personally did not like the makeup influencer daughter angle, the references to modern actors/actresses, etc. made it seem like name dropping almost?
4. The final thing I will mention is the several negative references to body size. I love representation of all body types, and would love to see more characters with larger bodies but the several mentions of “they are skinny [curse word] and need to put you down because they are threatened” was extremely cringey. If we are going to write about different body types and their struggles, I think personally I receive that better when it isn’t focused on being mean and catty. Not my vibe at all.
Overall, I feel like it had potential, but either due to the length or the writing style, it fell flat with world building, investing the readers in the characters, and portraying the semi-political issues the author was trying to portray.
**this book was gifted in exchange for an honest review**
saravirasami's review
1.0
This unfortunately, just wasnt it for me...
It was written decently, but not thoroughly if that makes sense? It seemed like it lacked story despite so much being said. I had high hopes for this as a midsummer nights dream is my favourite Shakespeare play, but this was far from a good modern retelling of it.
This was an extremely flat read.
It was written decently, but not thoroughly if that makes sense? It seemed like it lacked story despite so much being said. I had high hopes for this as a midsummer nights dream is my favourite Shakespeare play, but this was far from a good modern retelling of it.
This was an extremely flat read.
ayzorah's review
1.0
Thanks to Tea with Coffee Media and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC for this book.
I really don't like giving bad reviews but this book really didn't work for me at all. I wanted to DNF this from about 25% onwards, but mommy didn't raise a quitter so I kept at it, even though it was the biggest struggle for me to finish this.
This book can be summed up by 'man with goatee tries to win back ex-wife'. And something about a perfume and evil sister which was just so like .. pointless?
There was like 0 world building. These characters could have legit been anyone - I didn't feel the connection to the Oberon/Titania story much at all, other than the fact that they have their names. There was like barely any character description, it all fell compeletely flat. The characters had no chemistry with each other, there was simply no feeling at all; no emotion that came through to me. This book made me feel absolutely nothing other than insanely bored and just annoyed looking at the page count, considering how many pages I still had left and when I would finally be done with this disaster. The dialogue was cringey and annoying and went nowhere. Oberon's mental monologue about how much he hates himself - like what for? And I felt myself putting the book down during the 'spice' as I was so bored of it at that point I wanted to legit do anything else than read.
Also I understand there is an increasing trend for the use of non-standard pronouns in literature, even though it's been done before I've noticed it more and more recently. I am not going to open the can of worms of whether I think this is a good idea or not personally, but what I will say is that, in my opinion, the use of non-standard pronouns within text should be at least explained, in the sense that I was expecting some 'feeling' then of what the character is like; some actual character description, which in this case we didn't get.
I think representation is cool and all and having a platform like a book to introduce these things to society is a noble goal, but as a reader I didn't really know anything about these characters other than the guy has a goatee, the girl is an actress and a cheat and the butler is using some different pronouns and genuinly, that doesn't make for a good read.
The plot, something about some perfume left me completely unimpressed; in fact - I remember there was some Sailor Moon episode about 20 years back where there was some evil monster sucking out people's souls via the application of perfume - I would have a rehash of that story in a book as a plot any day over this drivel. And then why did the sister hate the FMC that much? Something about someone killing her family? But in the grand scheme of things; as in where they are all immortal beings and have lived for who knows how many years - surely that's not the worst thing that happened to her? Not saying it's not bad (losing a loved one always is), but logically; living that long and having everyone die around you, I'm sure you would be realistically become somehow 'accustomed' to it, or at least found ways to deal with it that it wouldn't lead you to wanting to 'destroy the world'; as it's put in the book? Dunno, it's all very flimsy to me.
The only good thing about this book is that it was short and that now that I have finished I never have to pick it up again.
I really don't like giving bad reviews but this book really didn't work for me at all. I wanted to DNF this from about 25% onwards, but mommy didn't raise a quitter so I kept at it, even though it was the biggest struggle for me to finish this.
This book can be summed up by 'man with goatee tries to win back ex-wife'. And something about a perfume and evil sister which was just so like .. pointless?
There was like 0 world building. These characters could have legit been anyone - I didn't feel the connection to the Oberon/Titania story much at all, other than the fact that they have their names. There was like barely any character description, it all fell compeletely flat. The characters had no chemistry with each other, there was simply no feeling at all; no emotion that came through to me. This book made me feel absolutely nothing other than insanely bored and just annoyed looking at the page count, considering how many pages I still had left and when I would finally be done with this disaster. The dialogue was cringey and annoying and went nowhere. Oberon's mental monologue about how much he hates himself - like what for? And I felt myself putting the book down during the 'spice' as I was so bored of it at that point I wanted to legit do anything else than read.
Also I understand there is an increasing trend for the use of non-standard pronouns in literature, even though it's been done before I've noticed it more and more recently. I am not going to open the can of worms of whether I think this is a good idea or not personally, but what I will say is that, in my opinion, the use of non-standard pronouns within text should be at least explained, in the sense that I was expecting some 'feeling' then of what the character is like; some actual character description, which in this case we didn't get.
I think representation is cool and all and having a platform like a book to introduce these things to society is a noble goal, but as a reader I didn't really know anything about these characters other than the guy has a goatee, the girl is an actress and a cheat and the butler is using some different pronouns and genuinly, that doesn't make for a good read.
The plot, something about some perfume left me completely unimpressed; in fact - I remember there was some Sailor Moon episode about 20 years back where there was some evil monster sucking out people's souls via the application of perfume - I would have a rehash of that story in a book as a plot any day over this drivel. And then why did the sister hate the FMC that much? Something about someone killing her family? But in the grand scheme of things; as in where they are all immortal beings and have lived for who knows how many years - surely that's not the worst thing that happened to her? Not saying it's not bad (losing a loved one always is), but logically; living that long and having everyone die around you, I'm sure you would be realistically become somehow 'accustomed' to it, or at least found ways to deal with it that it wouldn't lead you to wanting to 'destroy the world'; as it's put in the book? Dunno, it's all very flimsy to me.
The only good thing about this book is that it was short and that now that I have finished I never have to pick it up again.
akiharu_cosplay_reads's review
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
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