A review by wandering_not_lost
You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

3.0

A wonderful premise, some fun characters, all laid out on interesting worldbuilding...and still, only 3 stars, and that's on the generous side between "it was ok" and "I liked it".  The characters were fun to listen to, there was a lot of interesting ideas in here, and the overall pace just kept shuffling me along.  But overall...I wish I'd liked this book more.  It was entertaining...but there was a lot of things that felt off, too. 

This very much felt like a book (and a plot) that was not quite done baking.  It lingered in some places while going way too fast in others.  I loved the first half, but the last half floated, turned dark, and then the plot was wrapped up in a flash and the long denouement just felt like a mishmash of...stuff.
  • First, trigger warning for this book:  it's got a surprising amount of torture and horrible death described in it.  Like, it's not super graphic, but it is physical torture being described to the characters as part of their psychological torture, so.  Reader beware.  
  • The plot was, frankly, kind of weak, in that the characters spent large chunks of time being trapped and shuttled from one place to another, unable to actually do anything proactive.  This resulted in the main POV character, Niko, who was supposed to be a genius, never actually having a chance to show it. 
    Could she find a way to get them off the Thing when it trapped them?  No.  Was she able to thwart the not!critic's plan?  No.  Was she able to get them out of the pirates' hands?  Nooope, that was Milly and Atlanta.  And it wasn't like she tried stuff and failed...she just didn't do much of anything, held trapped and passive and waiting.  This did make some sense, based on the situations, but it just doesn't make for a satisfying novel.
     
  • The plot was oddly paced - some sections felt overly long and overindulgent (Atlanta's POVs often felt like that to me, as did their time with the IAPH), while in other spots it felt like there was literally pages missing.  This happened in particular toward the end, when all seems lost and they need to escape. 
    Their escape from the pirates seemed rather hilariously easy.  Like...there's no surveillance in their cell to thwart them just walking out?  There's no guards around to notice that someone is taking out two prisoners in an unauthorized manner, and then that one of those prisoners is coming back with disguises and then the others are just...walking out?  .....seriously?
  • The weird pacing also was part and parcel of very uneven coverage of the characters - yes, it was omniscient voice, but wow did it feel forced - it was mostly Niko and Atlanta, with everyone else getting just a tiny bit of time every now and then, to the point where it felt more like an affectation than a real exploration of all these characters.
  • I was left often with the feeling that I was not emotionally connecting with the characters the author meant me to. 
    Was I supposed to care about Atlanta's coming-of-age angst, to which so many pages were devoted?  I did not.  Was I supposed to be wrapped up in Niko and Petalia's bitter parting at the end?  I was not.  In fact, Niko's hastily-sketched backstory was so hastily sketched that that fell pretty flat for me, and Petalia came off as an utterly toxic, cruel, vindictive, and possibly dangerous person.  Watching Niko obviously still be in love with them and letting them walk all over her felt grating and pointless.  Instead I wished that the surviving were-lion brother's grief arc had been addressed more, or that Lassite had gotten more credit from the crew, or that the crew in general had gotten to show off their military prowess.
     
  • Also, petty, but I caught several glaring continuity errors:  who was/was not in the room, how long they'd said things were supposed to take, etc.  Small things, but errors that I never would have expected slipping through in a traditionally published book.  


Expand filter menu Content Warnings