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cornerofmadness 's review for:
I'm in Love with Mothman
by Paige Lavoie
The irony here is I used to live in the Orlando Florida area and now I'm the neighbor of the Mothman just like our protagonist Heather i.e. HoneyLatte. Heather grew up online. Her mother was the original Online Mommy Influencer who has morphed into a different online personality now that Heather is a grown woman. Heather had no choice but to follow in her mom's footsteps but at the opening of the novel she's fed up. She wants to unplug and live a 'normal' life.
The big problem here is Heather has jack in the way of real world skills, nothing but the scads of money she's made. She comes north and buys the first crappy cabin in the woods she finds, honestly believing it'll be just like the cottage core stuff she sees online. I mean she doesn't even check to see if the roof is sound (it's not). In fact, Heather is rather annoying in general.
She goes into town to the general store (why there and not to the Piggly Wiggly, dollar general or family dollars that dotted this area in abundance, I'm chalking it up to author choice and/or hasn't really looked up the setting, more on that in a bit.) and runs into the owners, a lesbian couple whom she bonds with instantly. They own a farm as well and provide a lot of the locally grown stuff in the store. One of them has a brother, Chris, who is a cryptid hunter who is after, naturally, The Mothman.
Of course, The Mothman crashes into her life (quite literally) and as Heather takes care of the injured cryptid what normally happens in a romance novel, happens. Of course, he does have a more human form and since he is one of those legends that doesn't have much going on outside of the initial report and him being a 'harbinger spirit' it's a wide open field for Lavoie to make up some backstory for him.
I had two rather large disappointments with this story. One, Chris. He starts off as a half-assed potential love interest who seems genuinely concerned about Heather being out in the deep woods by herself and having no idea how to handle a house (or a cryptid for that matter) but it was like half way into the book Lavoie decided, oh right I don't have any conflict let's make Chris jealous, bullying and outrightly nasty. (Personally I think he should have been the hapless cryptid hunter and her overbearing mom could have filled that role because half Heather's story is stepping out of Mom's shadow. That would have made sense storytelling wise). The ending for him (and the story in general) just didn't work for me at all.
Secondly it feels obvious that Lavoie loves the legend of The Mothman (even working in his original descriptions as The Owlman) but it felt like she spent no time at all researching Point Pleasant. If this was the 90s, I'd be more forgiving. But you can pull up Google Earth for free and scope out a place. There is so much information on towns online that it seems a shame that to a local the lack of research is so glaring. Could we argue Heather is being melodramatic bemoaning it's a hundred miles to the nearest Wal-Mart? Sure. On the other hand, it's like 5 miles across the Silver Bridge to the one in Gallipolis (and about 30 to the ones in Jackson and Barboursville). There is literally no sense at all we're in Point Pleasant. The setting was wasted and that's a shame. Heck there wasn't even a mention of The Mothman Festival (I'm sitting here typing this wearing a T-shirt from that festival)
I'm side eyeing the twist at the end. There will be a sequel and as much as I like helping my local bookstore (which had this prominently displayed) I don't think I'd buy the next one (maybe if the library had it)
The big problem here is Heather has jack in the way of real world skills, nothing but the scads of money she's made. She comes north and buys the first crappy cabin in the woods she finds, honestly believing it'll be just like the cottage core stuff she sees online. I mean she doesn't even check to see if the roof is sound (it's not). In fact, Heather is rather annoying in general.
She goes into town to the general store (why there and not to the Piggly Wiggly, dollar general or family dollars that dotted this area in abundance, I'm chalking it up to author choice and/or hasn't really looked up the setting, more on that in a bit.) and runs into the owners, a lesbian couple whom she bonds with instantly. They own a farm as well and provide a lot of the locally grown stuff in the store. One of them has a brother, Chris, who is a cryptid hunter who is after, naturally, The Mothman.
Of course, The Mothman crashes into her life (quite literally) and as Heather takes care of the injured cryptid what normally happens in a romance novel, happens. Of course, he does have a more human form and since he is one of those legends that doesn't have much going on outside of the initial report and him being a 'harbinger spirit' it's a wide open field for Lavoie to make up some backstory for him.
I had two rather large disappointments with this story. One, Chris. He starts off as a half-assed potential love interest who seems genuinely concerned about Heather being out in the deep woods by herself and having no idea how to handle a house (or a cryptid for that matter) but it was like half way into the book Lavoie decided, oh right I don't have any conflict let's make Chris jealous, bullying and outrightly nasty. (Personally I think he should have been the hapless cryptid hunter and her overbearing mom could have filled that role because half Heather's story is stepping out of Mom's shadow. That would have made sense storytelling wise). The ending for him (and the story in general) just didn't work for me at all.
Secondly it feels obvious that Lavoie loves the legend of The Mothman (even working in his original descriptions as The Owlman) but it felt like she spent no time at all researching Point Pleasant. If this was the 90s, I'd be more forgiving. But you can pull up Google Earth for free and scope out a place. There is so much information on towns online that it seems a shame that to a local the lack of research is so glaring. Could we argue Heather is being melodramatic bemoaning it's a hundred miles to the nearest Wal-Mart? Sure. On the other hand, it's like 5 miles across the Silver Bridge to the one in Gallipolis (and about 30 to the ones in Jackson and Barboursville). There is literally no sense at all we're in Point Pleasant. The setting was wasted and that's a shame. Heck there wasn't even a mention of The Mothman Festival (I'm sitting here typing this wearing a T-shirt from that festival)
I'm side eyeing the twist at the end. There will be a sequel and as much as I like helping my local bookstore (which had this prominently displayed) I don't think I'd buy the next one (maybe if the library had it)