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ailarum 's review for:
Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe
by C.B. Lee
adventurous
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
The blurb says this is a cozy fantasy. It is not. Still a good (audio)book though.
Now, I did enjoy the (audio)book but the blurb is definitely off the mark in describing this as ‘cozy’. It starts off cozy enough, with the two main characters meeting at the titular coffeeshop (in an alternate universe). But from there it quickly veers away from that to instead have the plot center around a capitalist conspiracy that is endangering the two parallel universes and has already resulted in multiple deaths. Which doesn’t sound all that cozy to me. The romance between the two protagonists is really sweet, as are all of the platonic relationships for that matter. And while that does give some scenes a rather cozy vibe, it is vastly overshadowed by the fairly angsty main plotline.
To be 100% clear, I don’t think that those are bad things, I quite enjoyed the book after all, but I think it is being mismarketed, which will inevitably lead to readers going into it with the wrong expectations and only ending up disappointed.
A more accurate pitch might be that this is s sapphic urban low fantasy set in two parallel world versions of LA. One world has no magic, the other has all the magic, but that’s basically all that’s different between the two. Seriously, they even have the exact same high schools and the exact same Target, except one sells laptops and the other sells ‘Runebooks’. And it’s not like the two worlds diverged very recently, it’s been 100 years at the very least. But you want me to believe that the Target is not only in the exact same place, but also has the exact same floor plan - to the point where a character can walk around through most of it without realising you’re in a different Target?
So, if you like magic systems and world-building that is intricate, detailed and ‘realistic’, this probably isn’t the book for you. The magic system isn’t simple, exactly, but it also isn’t very intricate either. The story is a very fun sapphic romp that you can read and enjoym but probably shouldn’t think about for too long.