Scan barcode
A review by mlvalard
Counter Culture by JL Merrow
4.0
A solid 3.5 stars.
This book was a charming read in a lot of ways. It was mostly lighthearted and pleasant which is absolutely the ticket at the moment. I really liked almost all the characters, and there were rather a lot of them. They all felt individual and interesting and I appreciated that.
I loved both Robin and Archie immensely for different reasons. This book managed to make me fall for a guy with a mustache and I really don't usually like those. (Still if you're willing to pair it with a waistcoat who am I to argue.) When the two of them were together it was definitely interesting and I absolutely adored the Steampunk bits and Robin joining in and learning about it. Robin was such an easy character to sympathize with and I felt for him every minute. The secondhand embarrassment hurt a little at times.
If I had a quibble with the book I think it is mainly that it took so long before we got any real interaction between the two main characters and that we saw more of them apart than we did together. I would really have liked to see more of them together! It was actually a bit frustrating that it felt so little about their actual relationship even when it was.
That said, the story itself worked nicely for what it was and it definitely had a feel-good warmth and a quintessential British-ness to it that I was very here for. I did love most of the side characters and they did give the story a very lived-in and genuine feel. It was almost more a story about a town than about Archie and Robin, and while I would really have appreciated a lot more Archie and Robin it did -work-.
Overall this was a solid read, I gulped it down mostly several chapters at a time when I managed to sit down with it. I have another by this author sitting in my to-be-read pile and this definitely made me want to move it up a few notches in the list.
I received a free eArc through Netgalley for my honest review.
This book was a charming read in a lot of ways. It was mostly lighthearted and pleasant which is absolutely the ticket at the moment. I really liked almost all the characters, and there were rather a lot of them. They all felt individual and interesting and I appreciated that.
I loved both Robin and Archie immensely for different reasons. This book managed to make me fall for a guy with a mustache and I really don't usually like those. (Still if you're willing to pair it with a waistcoat who am I to argue.) When the two of them were together it was definitely interesting and I absolutely adored the Steampunk bits and Robin joining in and learning about it. Robin was such an easy character to sympathize with and I felt for him every minute. The secondhand embarrassment hurt a little at times.
If I had a quibble with the book I think it is mainly that it took so long before we got any real interaction between the two main characters and that we saw more of them apart than we did together. I would really have liked to see more of them together! It was actually a bit frustrating that it felt so little about their actual relationship even when it was.
That said, the story itself worked nicely for what it was and it definitely had a feel-good warmth and a quintessential British-ness to it that I was very here for. I did love most of the side characters and they did give the story a very lived-in and genuine feel. It was almost more a story about a town than about Archie and Robin, and while I would really have appreciated a lot more Archie and Robin it did -work-.
Overall this was a solid read, I gulped it down mostly several chapters at a time when I managed to sit down with it. I have another by this author sitting in my to-be-read pile and this definitely made me want to move it up a few notches in the list.
I received a free eArc through Netgalley for my honest review.