Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

310 reviews

creationwing's review against another edition

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-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

4.25

I cried with and for the characters. A lovely cozy story outside of my usual reads. The premise drew me in, but it was the characters that kept me. The ending tied loose ends a little too nicely for my taste, but I think that's more on the cozy low-stakes vibe the story has than any fault of the writing.

Content Warnings

choicepotatoes_20231023's review against another edition

Go to review page

hopeful lighthearted relaxing 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? No

5.0

everyone who said this is the cutest, coziest book was 112% correct.

Content Warnings

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

3.5

I quite enjoyed most of this book. It was cute and sweet and cozy. The conflicts were dealt with well in ways that challenged Viv to grow and to stay on the path that she had chosen for herself. The barely-a-subplot romance was sweet, if underdeveloped. I would happily read sequels focusing on the coffee shop, the community as a whole, or basically any of the individual characters from this book.

The pacing was definitely strange. I read most of the book quickly, but some sections dragged a lot, particularly the ones with more action and more challenges.

I read another review that said that Legends and Lattes reads like fanfic of someone else's Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and I absolutely agree.

Now, this was originally a NaNoWriMo novel that was self-published and then picked up by Tor for traditional publication, and I totally understand why and how all of that happened. It's fun and charming and easy to read, and it got a LOT of hype, and there's nothing overtly wrong with it, so it went on to traditional publication virtually unchanged despite the occasionally weird pacing and what I am calling the coffee problem.

What is the coffee problem? It's that Viv, a person from outside the culture (gnomes, apparently, but only certain gnomes since the one in Viv's former adventuring party does not seem to have familiarity with it) that created coffee, brings it to a community far from its origins and marks it as an "exotic beverage." Now, I don't regard this as overt racism or anything like that. I just regard it as laziness. And laziness is fine in your NaNoWriMo novel, but I would love it if people publishing novels would think for about ten seconds about the potential real-world implications of what they're writing. I think if Legends and Lattes were less an overt coffee shop AU--if, say, it were focused on a fictional drink that Viv brings to this community, either from her travels or from her own place/culture of origin--this would be a total non-issue. But it still made me feel weird and made me wish that there had been more conscious thought put into the construction of this world beyond D&D coffee shop AU.

I really enjoyed this book overall, but it felt escapist to the point of laziness at times in its construction, and I'm not ultimately the target audience for that approach.

Content Warnings

jasminechocklettslee's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous lighthearted relaxing 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? No

4.0

Content Warnings

readwithsophsx's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

leweylibrary's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Giving this one 5 stars just because I adored it and thought it was just lovely ☺️ I truly wanted to just read it forever. It was so cozy and sweet and cute with just a smidge of intrigue and mystery to keep things moving a bit. I'm picky about fantasy female characters, and normally male-written ones fall short, but Baldree definitely does not 👏 My only gripe is wanting to know more about some of the characters' backgrounds, especially Tandri.

I love the overall premise of this hulking badass gives up the things that make her a traditional badass and takes a different kind of brave risk to do something that on the surface seems so chill and easy after kicking asses lol. Even when elements from her old life tries to pull her back in, she has to actively make the choice to not fall back into it and to choose her new path again and again. And I just adore her found family she makes along the way. Viv and Tandri are especially cute together, and I want so much more about them.

Content Warnings