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courtney_saba's review against another edition
4.0
Sweet, with a glass full of naughty thrown in. Surprisingly more complex than I thought, but with a 150 pages, it only has so much wiggle room for plot and character development.
The germaphobe aspect became a bit grating after awhile, but it was definitely a more realistic topic in an alien book when alien romances tend to gloss over/stay blissfully blind about the aspect of interspecies mingling and all those pesky alien bacteria/viruses that neither body is used too, and yet, they're somehow reproductively compatible .. Sure. Totally a thing.
I also wish we got more of a description of Simmi. I really only had the cover as a form of description for him.
Overall, not bad at all for an alien romance. And it didn't start with instalust, instalove, instamate shit! Bonus! Then points were taken off for being compatible with an alien being with a genetic anomaly and no experience with humans... At all. I can't win every time, I guess.
Happy reading, Goodreads fiends.
The germaphobe aspect became a bit grating after awhile, but it was definitely a more realistic topic in an alien book when alien romances tend to gloss over/stay blissfully blind about the aspect of interspecies mingling and all those pesky alien bacteria/viruses that neither body is used too, and yet, they're somehow reproductively compatible .. Sure. Totally a thing.
I also wish we got more of a description of Simmi. I really only had the cover as a form of description for him.
Overall, not bad at all for an alien romance. And it didn't start with instalust, instalove, instamate shit! Bonus! Then points were taken off for being compatible with an alien being with a genetic anomaly and no experience with humans... At all. I can't win every time, I guess.
Happy reading, Goodreads fiends.
brittany_k_yarnell's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Still by far my favorite Amanda Milo book. It's just such a great adventure and I love the characters! The whole book is laid out so well you don't realize until the end of it that you never heard Aurora's POV, but you still feel like you know her.
fullmooneaters's review against another edition
5.0
This is the cutest story I have ever read, hands down. I’m going to buy myself a physical copy first chance I get. This is going to be the first romance novel I have ever owned. As someone who normally is a horror reader, I’m quite enjoying this romance path I’ve taken. I always liked to moan and cry that “look at me, I’m a badass, I don’t like romance novels”, well, guess what? I do. I really, really do.
I had a smile on my face 80% of the time while reading this. No exaggeration. I even laughed out loud more than I’d like to admit.
Simmi is such a dork. I mean, the guy is hilarious. I just wanna give him a big ol’ kiss, even if I know he would hate that. I know his existence is basically suffering, but I can totally relate to his level of anxiety. I’m not a germaphobe but I do have really, really bad anxiety so his anxious trait really struck a chord with me.
I normally roll my eyes with the savior thing, but I think it was very endearing how Aurora kinda hinted that she viewed Simmi as her hero after he killed her captors. This whole novel took tropes that I normally don’t like, and played with them elegantly, so elegantly, that I can say that this is now one of my favorite books. Yeah, amongst the cannibal families and worm like diseases, and dying grandpappys and forced captivity, I can now confidently say a love story between a human and a germaphobe alien ranks among them.
To me, there were literally zero flaws in this book. Yes, I said it. ZERO FLAWS. I wouldn’t change a thing. This a seriously a perfect novel. Perfect.
I don’t normally go for the pregnancy thing at all, but that part was so elegantly and tastefully done (and it was short, sweet, and too the point which helped) that I don’t even care.
Yep, that’s it. I love it. Looks like this creepy goth girl has a heart after all. It was there all along, I just didn’t want to admit it.
I had a smile on my face 80% of the time while reading this. No exaggeration. I even laughed out loud more than I’d like to admit.
Simmi is such a dork. I mean, the guy is hilarious. I just wanna give him a big ol’ kiss, even if I know he would hate that. I know his existence is basically suffering, but I can totally relate to his level of anxiety. I’m not a germaphobe but I do have really, really bad anxiety so his anxious trait really struck a chord with me.
I normally roll my eyes with the savior thing, but I think it was very endearing how Aurora kinda hinted that she viewed Simmi as her hero after he killed her captors. This whole novel took tropes that I normally don’t like, and played with them elegantly, so elegantly, that I can say that this is now one of my favorite books. Yeah, amongst the cannibal families and worm like diseases, and dying grandpappys and forced captivity, I can now confidently say a love story between a human and a germaphobe alien ranks among them.
To me, there were literally zero flaws in this book. Yes, I said it. ZERO FLAWS. I wouldn’t change a thing. This a seriously a perfect novel. Perfect.
I don’t normally go for the pregnancy thing at all, but that part was so elegantly and tastefully done (and it was short, sweet, and too the point which helped) that I don’t even care.
Yep, that’s it. I love it. Looks like this creepy goth girl has a heart after all. It was there all along, I just didn’t want to admit it.
srixmessup's review
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
nofys's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Vomit, Physical abuse, and Kidnapping
rellwood74's review against another edition
3.0
I really liked Amanda Milo's "Pet" series, but this book didn't quite do it for me. First, I had a problem trying to picture the alien in my mind. Although Amanda did describe it, I still couldn't imagine it.
From the book:
"My frame is taller than theirs by three, nearly four measures." - Ok is he three or four inches, feet, heads or times their (humans) size? I had this problem picturing the human/alien size difference in the Pet series as well and just started imagining humans reaching up to hip height.
"chitin plates protect my innards" - Chitin is what covers insects and other exoskeletal beings - so does this mean he has only an insect like body? His arms, legs etc., or does he just have some kind of shielded stomach?
“We’re going to need a saw to get through his exoskeleton.” - Our hero wakes up in some kind of hostage/kidnapped scenario and this is what he hears. Since this line comes before any of the other descriptions of our hero, I am immediately picturing a very hard, unforgiving exoskeleton all over. This is my first "insect" image.
"They don’t appear to have fangs. I have them"- ok he has fangs, not a problem picturing that.
"I have no hairs anywhere and I’m crowned with a pair of very long, fine antennae."- Ok, I'm back to picturing an insect.
"They have no tail. Mine is nearly as long as they are tall. My tail is laterally compressed halfway down its length, and the triangular plates that adorn it emerge all the way up my spine. Thankfully, these plates press flat, which is particularly helpful when I’m strapped down on my back. "- Soooo...a long tail that is flat along the sides about halfway down? Lateral means is I pressed my hands together over the tail it would flatten that way? And these triangular plates are they scale-like or bigger, like actual plates?
"My dorsal tubes though, those sit below and climb just above my shoulders, and those deflate"- I'm lost here. I didn't feel like opening up a dictionary to look up what a "dorsal tube" is, but now I’m just picturing some kind of tubing going down his back starting from his shoulders. As I continue to read, they are dismissed from my mind.
“AHHHHHHH!” he screams. “He broke my hand!”
Reflexively, I try to bring my hand up to rub my snout, but it’s tied down too tightly. “Fool, you tried to slap me on the nose. You’re a creature with soft outer flesh. What did you expect would happen?” - Ok, more confirmation that he is covered all over with this exoskeleton.
Because of another sci-fi, space opera book series I have read where one of the characters was a very praying mantis/humanoid being, this is what I am picturing. I see our hero as a literal (forgive me) walking, talking cockroach. Imagine when Beetlejuice turns himself into a roach and waves at Winona Ryder "hello". Her is my image of our hero. I have totally forgotten about the dorsal tubes, the hands, feet, and tail. I just see a large insect-man.
Ok, because of the image of the hero I am having (which kind of later morphs into a "creature of the Black Lagoon), I am not attracted to him at all. I have no idea what his mouth looks like, and having just got done reading "The Pet" series books two and three, I am stuck with that weird side of the mouth fringe dealie the aliens in that book have, that totally squick out the humans. The "Pet" series does not have any alien/human sexual attractions, so having them be completely incompatible to humans isn't a problem. I have read the "Alien Abduction" books one and two from Amanda, and liked them. She put a general picture of the alien on the covers, and these aliens are all "Alpha" types, so they were more attractive.
Ok, this review is getting a bit too long, but I spent all this time trying to put my reasoning why the book was given three stars when normally I give 4 or 5 for Amanda.
The hero. He is an over the top germaphobe and has histrionics at every turn in the book. Amanda wrote that she modeled his character after "Niles" from "Frasier", "Sheldon" from "The Big Bang Theory", and a couple of other fussy-type characters. I'm sorry, but this wasn't endearing our hero to me.
Our heroine (a regular kind of gal who was also kidnapped alongside our hero, and was set free by him after the kidnappers were conveniently dispatched through stupidity) is the "hero" in the book because she is the one who gets him to do things that he is totally freaking out over. They are stranded on some alien planet (that is apparently colonized by humans) and are kind of in the boonies so they have some long trekking to do to get to civilization. There are a lot of scenes that would be comical if they weren't overshadowed by the fact that I am not at all attracted to the hero, and not at all liking his over-the-top histrionics. Because of this, I skimmed a lot.
There was no real story. Just the two of them trekking through the jungles and wilds of an alien planet - they were both taken from their respective planets to get to civilization. A very "Romancing the Stone" feel. We have no idea why these two were captured, who captured them, and what were the plans. The heroine kind of glossed over this. Also, the heroine, once released from her cage by the hero starts looking around for money, and finds a big bag of it. How did she know it was there, and where did it come from? The kidnappers were coming across as very Alabama-backwater-hick, so this left me wondering. Since our kidnappers were conveniently exploded into fine mist (idiot lit a cigarette near exposed gas) there are no keys to any aircraft or anything helpful to get out protagonists out of there.
Since I know this is supposed to be a romance, and at only a hundred pages or so, there has to be some progression pretty early on, and I accept that. I guess for me this book was a miss because of the whole histrionics the hero displayed because of every possible imagining he has of being bombarded by any kind of germ or pathogen when all there are is chipmunks, rock algae and apples. It was too much and it was a turn-off. Also, the confusing visual descriptions of the hero made it hard to really picture him in any kind of way that would be sexually compatible for our heroine. That was a hard part for me. Picturing their sexual compatibility. Whatever.
This was just a miss for me, but I adore Amanda because she is so very sweet at the ends of her books. She is very effusive and thankful about our buying/renting her books, much more so than other authors. She gives a bit of information about the science or inspirations that lead to the aliens in her books, she even gives book and author ideas for "How to Handle a Hangover" for book hangovers. I looked forward to reading these when normally I would skip all that end-of-the-book part and just get to the end where I can rate it and have it hit on Goodreads. I read on a Kindle Paperwhite and have Kindle Unlimited, so when I am able to read a book for "free" it isn't such a problem if I don't care for it as much as I hoped.
I will continue to read Amanda Milo, maybe I will revisit her "Alien Abductions" series that I kind of stopped reading after the second book.
Honestly, I don't recommend this book, but I do recommend her "Pet" series and her "Alien Abduction" series.
Amanda, if you see this, I hope you understand my reasoning, and please in the future, try and be a bit more specific in your aliens so I am not quite picturing insects. You did very good by letting us know that you used a "Face hugger" from "Alien" as part of the anatomy in another book, it would have been nice to picture a more attractive hero.
From the book:
"My frame is taller than theirs by three, nearly four measures." - Ok is he three or four inches, feet, heads or times their (humans) size? I had this problem picturing the human/alien size difference in the Pet series as well and just started imagining humans reaching up to hip height.
"chitin plates protect my innards" - Chitin is what covers insects and other exoskeletal beings - so does this mean he has only an insect like body? His arms, legs etc., or does he just have some kind of shielded stomach?
“We’re going to need a saw to get through his exoskeleton.” - Our hero wakes up in some kind of hostage/kidnapped scenario and this is what he hears. Since this line comes before any of the other descriptions of our hero, I am immediately picturing a very hard, unforgiving exoskeleton all over. This is my first "insect" image.
"They don’t appear to have fangs. I have them"- ok he has fangs, not a problem picturing that.
"I have no hairs anywhere and I’m crowned with a pair of very long, fine antennae."- Ok, I'm back to picturing an insect.
"They have no tail. Mine is nearly as long as they are tall. My tail is laterally compressed halfway down its length, and the triangular plates that adorn it emerge all the way up my spine. Thankfully, these plates press flat, which is particularly helpful when I’m strapped down on my back. "- Soooo...a long tail that is flat along the sides about halfway down? Lateral means is I pressed my hands together over the tail it would flatten that way? And these triangular plates are they scale-like or bigger, like actual plates?
"My dorsal tubes though, those sit below and climb just above my shoulders, and those deflate"- I'm lost here. I didn't feel like opening up a dictionary to look up what a "dorsal tube" is, but now I’m just picturing some kind of tubing going down his back starting from his shoulders. As I continue to read, they are dismissed from my mind.
“AHHHHHHH!” he screams. “He broke my hand!”
Reflexively, I try to bring my hand up to rub my snout, but it’s tied down too tightly. “Fool, you tried to slap me on the nose. You’re a creature with soft outer flesh. What did you expect would happen?” - Ok, more confirmation that he is covered all over with this exoskeleton.
Because of another sci-fi, space opera book series I have read where one of the characters was a very praying mantis/humanoid being, this is what I am picturing. I see our hero as a literal (forgive me) walking, talking cockroach. Imagine when Beetlejuice turns himself into a roach and waves at Winona Ryder "hello". Her is my image of our hero. I have totally forgotten about the dorsal tubes, the hands, feet, and tail. I just see a large insect-man.
Ok, because of the image of the hero I am having (which kind of later morphs into a "creature of the Black Lagoon), I am not attracted to him at all. I have no idea what his mouth looks like, and having just got done reading "The Pet" series books two and three, I am stuck with that weird side of the mouth fringe dealie the aliens in that book have, that totally squick out the humans. The "Pet" series does not have any alien/human sexual attractions, so having them be completely incompatible to humans isn't a problem. I have read the "Alien Abduction" books one and two from Amanda, and liked them. She put a general picture of the alien on the covers, and these aliens are all "Alpha" types, so they were more attractive.
Ok, this review is getting a bit too long, but I spent all this time trying to put my reasoning why the book was given three stars when normally I give 4 or 5 for Amanda.
The hero. He is an over the top germaphobe and has histrionics at every turn in the book. Amanda wrote that she modeled his character after "Niles" from "Frasier", "Sheldon" from "The Big Bang Theory", and a couple of other fussy-type characters. I'm sorry, but this wasn't endearing our hero to me.
Our heroine (a regular kind of gal who was also kidnapped alongside our hero, and was set free by him after the kidnappers were conveniently dispatched through stupidity) is the "hero" in the book because she is the one who gets him to do things that he is totally freaking out over. They are stranded on some alien planet (that is apparently colonized by humans) and are kind of in the boonies so they have some long trekking to do to get to civilization. There are a lot of scenes that would be comical if they weren't overshadowed by the fact that I am not at all attracted to the hero, and not at all liking his over-the-top histrionics. Because of this, I skimmed a lot.
There was no real story. Just the two of them trekking through the jungles and wilds of an alien planet - they were both taken from their respective planets to get to civilization. A very "Romancing the Stone" feel. We have no idea why these two were captured, who captured them, and what were the plans. The heroine kind of glossed over this. Also, the heroine, once released from her cage by the hero starts looking around for money, and finds a big bag of it. How did she know it was there, and where did it come from? The kidnappers were coming across as very Alabama-backwater-hick, so this left me wondering. Since our kidnappers were conveniently exploded into fine mist (idiot lit a cigarette near exposed gas) there are no keys to any aircraft or anything helpful to get out protagonists out of there.
Since I know this is supposed to be a romance, and at only a hundred pages or so, there has to be some progression pretty early on, and I accept that. I guess for me this book was a miss because of the whole histrionics the hero displayed because of every possible imagining he has of being bombarded by any kind of germ or pathogen when all there are is chipmunks, rock algae and apples. It was too much and it was a turn-off. Also, the confusing visual descriptions of the hero made it hard to really picture him in any kind of way that would be sexually compatible for our heroine. That was a hard part for me. Picturing their sexual compatibility. Whatever.
This was just a miss for me, but I adore Amanda because she is so very sweet at the ends of her books. She is very effusive and thankful about our buying/renting her books, much more so than other authors. She gives a bit of information about the science or inspirations that lead to the aliens in her books, she even gives book and author ideas for "How to Handle a Hangover" for book hangovers. I looked forward to reading these when normally I would skip all that end-of-the-book part and just get to the end where I can rate it and have it hit on Goodreads. I read on a Kindle Paperwhite and have Kindle Unlimited, so when I am able to read a book for "free" it isn't such a problem if I don't care for it as much as I hoped.
I will continue to read Amanda Milo, maybe I will revisit her "Alien Abductions" series that I kind of stopped reading after the second book.
Honestly, I don't recommend this book, but I do recommend her "Pet" series and her "Alien Abduction" series.
Amanda, if you see this, I hope you understand my reasoning, and please in the future, try and be a bit more specific in your aliens so I am not quite picturing insects. You did very good by letting us know that you used a "Face hugger" from "Alien" as part of the anatomy in another book, it would have been nice to picture a more attractive hero.
avid_reader_96's review against another edition
3.0
I really enjoyed Contagion! I enjoyed it so much I almost gave it 4 starts but every time I saw the word “nictate”, it just threw off my flow. But Simmi was beyond adorable. I loved how Aurora “managed” his neurotics. I almost wished we had a little more information on how or why Simmi was really kidnapped, like what were humans doing on his planet. The author didn’t really explore Aurora’s own trauma as being kidnapped too much but what she did cover was done tastefully. I wasn’t aware this author was the same that penned the “Taken” series because her writing style was so different in this book. Spice was
whiskis's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Always in for aliens that look like aliens (and a bit like Alien, the movie). The story is great, the development even better, and the romance is top tier. I kicked and giggled and wanted to scream about how cute they were. 10/10
staphy's review
adventurous
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Very crazy and a little weird but i loved it
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, and Vomit
Minor: Kidnapping, Sexual assault, and Sexual content