A review by glutenfree_nonbinary_heehee
Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens

emotional funny relaxing sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I listened to the audiobook version and loved all of the performances.

I really wanted to like this book more than I ended up liking it by the end :(

Pros
  • Nonbinary MC !!
  • Cozy vibes
  • Supernatural/gods and goddesses vibe
  • The opening really had me hooked 
  • Urban fantasy 
  • Cute fluff
  • Queerness and it being normalized/no biggie
  • Lovely sapphic rep and found family vibes 

Cons
  • “They licked their lips” is this author’s bread and butter for some reason,,, it’s everywhere 
  • Some lines were for sure written as “this is a quotable bit” rather than “sure that’s cute and a cool thing to say in a conversation by this person”
  • The redressing of Greek myths is super obvious when used, but not in a fun way. Like at the end,
    we were like “ok yea btw Orpheus and Eurydice moment bc I said so” and “look they’re better than Orpheus bc they didn’t look back”
    I made some audible sighs of my own at that point
  • Why were the scenes with the goddess (why don’t any of the big three have a name??) so easy? Like that whole section of the book didn’t feel like there was much of a risk of things not going well the first time we see her. I know she’s a goddess but she was so very one dimensional
  • Hated the whole undead feeding scene. Bad bad bad. I get the point but I can still get the ick
  • For some scenes, I was like oh this reminds me of
    Percy Jackson, but then the coinciding Percy Jackson scene was better maybe

I think overall, I had no expectations going in other than great cover artwork, a nonbinary protag, and some cozy magic stuff. And those things got mainly fulfilled! Some stuff at the end left an eh taste in my mouth and I do wish we’d had more world building. I will say, don’t go in excepting 100% cozy vibes bc I was STRESSED at a lot of points. I probably won’t pick up other books by this author if this is their formula, but I am glad I gave it a listen. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings