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wildfaeriecaps's review
3.0
In the end, I enjoyed this book. I think I was trying to take it too seriously. It's more hitchhiker and less ender's game. I guess. I don't know. I don't generally like scifi. But I'm glad I read it. The plot was interesting and the characters wild.
jerseygrrrl's review
If there was every a book made for me, this was it. Chocolate, SciFi, Spanish... Yet I couldn't make it to Chapter 5. DNF.
clewis1625's review against another edition
2.0
I mean what can I even say about this book? It’s more of an experience than anything else. Shark banana aliens, robot capuchins, salt-eating bodyguard cats, love triangles with Krom boys, “death” by chocolate, and a lizard cop with a lisp. That about covers it. Entertaining but I can’t in good conscience give it more than 2 stars. Don’t know if I’ll continue the trilogy.
aphelia88's review against another edition
DNF @ page 260, March 2020
From the blurb, I thought this would be a cute little space opera, and as a chocoholic I can totally get behind the idea of cocoa being Earth's most precious export. But the writing is TERRIBLE.
The author uses her own mix of Spanglish and nearly every second sentence is laced with "pero", meaning "but". Many sentences are started with it. It's surprising how much you can (over)use the conjunction. It's the most consistent replacement, as the others happen without much rhyme or reason and some have translations and some do not (so frustrating!).
Along with the made up words (like "confusticated"), these quirks - which I think are meant to be charming and whimsical - kept throwing me out of the story! I'd have to stop and try to figure out what a phrase meant before continuing and it made my head hurt.
I made it about halfway through the book before I just couldn't take it anymore. A lot of endless description (some severed tentacles are described in excruciating detail) and the garbled narrative makes the story seem s-l-oooooo-w.
Bo is a culinary student about to graduate with a super popular celebrity chef Mom, but she doesn't (okay, maybe she does, she's not really clear about it) want the life of fame and fortune awaiting her as her Mother's daughter and foodie superstar in the making.
She's got a weird starship pirate pilot alien boyfriend who supposedly can't lie to her because his eyes change colour to reflect his moods (but he totally can, and is obviously a manipulative jackass) who wants her to risk her life to steal some viable cocoa beans to export elsewhere in the Universe and break the monopoly the huge HGB corporation has on chocolate on Earth. She knows it will destroy both her life and her mother's, and yet, is willing to risk it for a very naïve idea of "balancing the universal scales" and "freeing chocolate" from The Man. Whatever. Or, really, because her boyfriend tells her to, which is NOT A GOOD REASON.
To get to the cocoa beans, Bo lies, enters a contract to star for HGB, and then does some very stupid breaking and entering in their high-security factory where she's a known guest. The place is saturated with cameras and super high (lethal) tech but Bo enters the Top Secret cocoa sorting factory through the air vents (!!!) wearing no disguise whatsoever, and talking to a fellow thief who breaks in at the same time and knows her. But she's not busted (despite them presumably having perfect video of her naked face, and audio of her heist plans). But she bungled the grab and only has one useable bean! She needs two to propagate them. So instead of getting out, she tries to steal AGAIN, in the Super Duper Top Secret orchard this time.
WHERE IS THE SECURITY?!!! The lethal killer robots are like: "Hey, strange lady, you're not supposed to be here, but any chance you might be from Maintenance?" (Bo wears no uniform or attempt at disguise). "I guess you are! My buddy killer robot here needs a new battery. So come on in!". It makes no sense whatsoever. Especially when it turns out that her part predatory cat dorm RA has already snuck in past the killer robots (no idea if they thought she was Maintenance too) in an attempt to save Bo from doing something stupid, i.e. what she's doing right now.
That's when I bailed.
Also, the monkey robots were terribly disappointing. They just pick cocoa fruit and chase intruders. Blah!
From the blurb, I thought this would be a cute little space opera, and as a chocoholic I can totally get behind the idea of cocoa being Earth's most precious export. But the writing is TERRIBLE.
The author uses her own mix of Spanglish and nearly every second sentence is laced with "pero", meaning "but". Many sentences are started with it. It's surprising how much you can (over)use the conjunction. It's the most consistent replacement, as the others happen without much rhyme or reason and some have translations and some do not (so frustrating!).
Along with the made up words (like "confusticated"), these quirks - which I think are meant to be charming and whimsical - kept throwing me out of the story! I'd have to stop and try to figure out what a phrase meant before continuing and it made my head hurt.
I made it about halfway through the book before I just couldn't take it anymore. A lot of endless description (some severed tentacles are described in excruciating detail) and the garbled narrative makes the story seem s-l-oooooo-w.
Bo is a culinary student about to graduate with a super popular celebrity chef Mom, but she doesn't (okay, maybe she does, she's not really clear about it) want the life of fame and fortune awaiting her as her Mother's daughter and foodie superstar in the making.
She's got a weird starship pirate pilot alien boyfriend who supposedly can't lie to her because his eyes change colour to reflect his moods (but he totally can, and is obviously a manipulative jackass) who wants her to risk her life to steal some viable cocoa beans to export elsewhere in the Universe and break the monopoly the huge HGB corporation has on chocolate on Earth. She knows it will destroy both her life and her mother's, and yet, is willing to risk it for a very naïve idea of "balancing the universal scales" and "freeing chocolate" from The Man. Whatever. Or, really, because her boyfriend tells her to, which is NOT A GOOD REASON.
To get to the cocoa beans, Bo lies, enters a contract to star for HGB, and then does some very stupid breaking and entering in their high-security factory where she's a known guest. The place is saturated with cameras and super high (lethal) tech but Bo enters the Top Secret cocoa sorting factory through the air vents (!!!) wearing no disguise whatsoever, and talking to a fellow thief who breaks in at the same time and knows her. But she's not busted (despite them presumably having perfect video of her naked face, and audio of her heist plans). But she bungled the grab and only has one useable bean! She needs two to propagate them. So instead of getting out, she tries to steal AGAIN, in the Super Duper Top Secret orchard this time.
WHERE IS THE SECURITY?!!! The lethal killer robots are like: "Hey, strange lady, you're not supposed to be here, but any chance you might be from Maintenance?" (Bo wears no uniform or attempt at disguise). "I guess you are! My buddy killer robot here needs a new battery. So come on in!". It makes no sense whatsoever. Especially when it turns out that her part predatory cat dorm RA has already snuck in past the killer robots (no idea if they thought she was Maintenance too) in an attempt to save Bo from doing something stupid, i.e. what she's doing right now.
That's when I bailed.
Also, the monkey robots were terribly disappointing. They just pick cocoa fruit and chase intruders. Blah!
unsquare's review against another edition
2.0
I struggled with this book. I wanted to like it more than I did because the premise sounded clever and funny, but the execution just got on my nerves. Bo Benitez is a culinary student who gets caught up in international intrigue when she steals cacao beans – a tightly controlled commodity because chocolate is highly coveted by aliens. Bo’s alien boyfriend talks her into stealing the cacao, and somehow she manages to stumble her way through a heist with little to no preparation or planning.
After she barely escapes the cacao facility with her life, she stumbles from one catastrophe to the next. The cover sells the book as a “space opera crossed with a soap opera,” and the pacing definitely reflects that. Bo ends up in one terrible situation after another, oftentimes while pining after one of several potential romantic prospects.
The author includes Spanish phrases through, presumably to give the book a multicultural feel, and it mostly works, although it was a bit much at times. A far more annoying trope is Bo calling out her “prey instinct” every time she runs into a dangerous alien.
I spent two and a half months reading this book in fits and starts, and only finished it because I brought it with me on a flight to Minnesota.
After she barely escapes the cacao facility with her life, she stumbles from one catastrophe to the next. The cover sells the book as a “space opera crossed with a soap opera,” and the pacing definitely reflects that. Bo ends up in one terrible situation after another, oftentimes while pining after one of several potential romantic prospects.
The author includes Spanish phrases through, presumably to give the book a multicultural feel, and it mostly works, although it was a bit much at times. A far more annoying trope is Bo calling out her “prey instinct” every time she runs into a dangerous alien.
I spent two and a half months reading this book in fits and starts, and only finished it because I brought it with me on a flight to Minnesota.
leigh9's review
4.0
Space Opera meets Soap Opera.
In my quest to fulfill a sudden craving for science fiction I found Free Chocolate, the story of Bodacious Babe, a.k.a. Bo. Bo is a culinary arts student on a distant planet, daughter of a celebrity chef and girlfriend of uber hot alien hunk. Oh, and the chocolate industry, or HGB, has become Earth's numero uno dictator. So, of course, when Bo's boyfriend suggests toppling the dystopian government like any proper dystopian protagonist, Bo agrees.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Bo is sappy, sways between very dumb and actually smart (YMMV), quite a bit shallow, naive, but is deeply loyal which is kind of where she gets into trouble. Brill, her boyfriend, goes from being sickly sweet perfect to revealing that he actually is much more anti-hero than a proper knight in shining armor. . The other characters (Jeska, Tyson, Kayla, Kaliel, Crosskiss, Frank) are all pretty memorable (which can easily be a problem for 1st person narratives). My favorite character, however, is Chestla. Chestla, the manic pixie monster girl, Bo's bodyguard for like 2 seconds and probably the only person in this book who isn't using Bo for nefarious purposes! I like her so much! I also ship her and Eugene now and you can't stop me
Though it did take me what feels like forever to finish this book, mostly because of the five billion languages that Bo speaks. She not only spreads Spanish into her inner dialogue, but also Portuguese, future speak, lots of futuristic compound words, and not 1 but 2 fake alien languages! Really it only became a problem for me when the Zantites were introduced, adding their language into the mix really just pushed me over the edge. As someone who can only speak 1 language fluently but actually knows a lot about con-langs... this became confusing pretty quickly. Also the peppering of pop culture references swung from being nice additions of realism to feeling like bribery.
In my quest to fulfill a sudden craving for science fiction I found Free Chocolate, the story of Bodacious Babe, a.k.a. Bo. Bo is a culinary arts student on a distant planet, daughter of a celebrity chef and girlfriend of uber hot alien hunk. Oh, and the chocolate industry, or HGB, has become Earth's numero uno dictator. So, of course, when Bo's boyfriend suggests toppling the dystopian government like any proper dystopian protagonist, Bo agrees.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Bo is sappy, sways between very dumb and actually smart (YMMV), quite a bit shallow, naive, but is deeply loyal which is kind of where she gets into trouble. Brill, her boyfriend, goes from being sickly sweet perfect
Though it did take me what feels like forever to finish this book, mostly because of the five billion languages that Bo speaks. She not only spreads Spanish into her inner dialogue, but also Portuguese, future speak, lots of futuristic compound words, and not 1 but 2 fake alien languages!
bookadventurer's review
adventurous
fast-paced
3.0
Had no idea this existed. The “blended words” that pass for futuristic slang threw me out of the story plenty of times, but I got used to the Spanish slang.
It was a lot more fun, and funnier, than I thought it would be, although it could probably have been shorter.
If you’re looking for a sort of soapy space opera based on an unusual premise, check it out.
Earth has recently joined the Other races in the galaxy the hard way, after a bunch of Earth resources were stolen and cloned - all except chocolate. Earth got its act together before chocolate was cloned, and now it has a monopoly on the stuff. Cooking celebrity Bodacious Babe Benitez gets wrapped up in adventure, danger, and conspiracy when she idealistically steals some to save Earth’s future.
It was a lot more fun, and funnier, than I thought it would be, although it could probably have been shorter.
If you’re looking for a sort of soapy space opera based on an unusual premise, check it out.
Earth has recently joined the Other races in the galaxy the hard way, after a bunch of Earth resources were stolen and cloned - all except chocolate. Earth got its act together before chocolate was cloned, and now it has a monopoly on the stuff. Cooking celebrity Bodacious Babe Benitez gets wrapped up in adventure, danger, and conspiracy when she idealistically steals some to save Earth’s future.
oliwija's review
Hackigt språk och det funkade inte för mig hur författaren använde två språk, kändes inte naturligt och gjorde det hela hackigt och för jobbigt att läsa.
sbisson's review
4.0
Recent Reads: Free Chocolate. Space opera as romance telenovella. Amber Royer's interstellar romp with smuggled chocolate plants disguises a criticism of well-meaning colonialism. Rebellion in sweet, dark, tastiness.
rhodered's review
4.0
Saw this as a recommended book at Powell’s. It’s a NON STOP ACTION ROMP.
There are assasinations, attempted assassinations, space pirates, two types of beheadings, thievery, explosions in space, the threat of civil war, street parties in Rio, murders, running away from murderers, poison, venom, a plethora of scary aliens and also a great deal of chocolate. Plus cooking with chocolate and eating chocolate cake. Oh, and there’s loyal friendship, love of family and boyfriend troubles all mixed in, not to mention the paparazzi.
In short, a lot going on, and all of it at high speed as well as often concurrently. I loved how the heroine would be answering the phone via a jack embedded in her head while in the midst of an unrelated adventures. So, chatting reassuringly with Mom about the party next week while you dodge a venomous assassin.
I also loved how the heroine slipped Spanish into her thoughts and conversation continually, mixing it with English (it’s easy to read though even if you don’t know Spanish.) It suprised me to learn the author isn’t hispanic or Latinx herself.
Plus, the plot includes a romantic side story in which the heroine is truly tough on the guy she loves. He has to measure up to her ideals and she’s absolutely willing to walk away if he messes up too badly. That’s a lesson a lot of young women have a hard time learning, so I was happy to see it here. Oh and he’s an alien so we have the whole cultural misunderstandings thing which is always fun.
I liked it. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes action, adventure with a thick side helping of madcap. And a kickass heroine who is not the only kickass woman in the book - in fact she’s one of several. (Frankly a heroine who is ‘the only’ is kinda sexist cuz it implies regular women can’t be heroines)
However, I probably will not read the next one because for me it was a little too much adventure. But that’s solely personal preference.
There are assasinations, attempted assassinations, space pirates, two types of beheadings, thievery, explosions in space, the threat of civil war, street parties in Rio, murders, running away from murderers, poison, venom, a plethora of scary aliens and also a great deal of chocolate. Plus cooking with chocolate and eating chocolate cake. Oh, and there’s loyal friendship, love of family and boyfriend troubles all mixed in, not to mention the paparazzi.
In short, a lot going on, and all of it at high speed as well as often concurrently. I loved how the heroine would be answering the phone via a jack embedded in her head while in the midst of an unrelated adventures. So, chatting reassuringly with Mom about the party next week while you dodge a venomous assassin.
I also loved how the heroine slipped Spanish into her thoughts and conversation continually, mixing it with English (it’s easy to read though even if you don’t know Spanish.) It suprised me to learn the author isn’t hispanic or Latinx herself.
Plus, the plot includes a romantic side story in which the heroine is truly tough on the guy she loves. He has to measure up to her ideals and she’s absolutely willing to walk away if he messes up too badly. That’s a lesson a lot of young women have a hard time learning, so I was happy to see it here. Oh and he’s an alien so we have the whole cultural misunderstandings thing which is always fun.
I liked it. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes action, adventure with a thick side helping of madcap. And a kickass heroine who is not the only kickass woman in the book - in fact she’s one of several. (Frankly a heroine who is ‘the only’ is kinda sexist cuz it implies regular women can’t be heroines)
However, I probably will not read the next one because for me it was a little too much adventure. But that’s solely personal preference.