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katnortonwriter 's review for:
Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe
by C.B. Lee
adventurous
funny
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Look, at this point I'm used to marketing lying to me about a book being "cozy fantasy." I can work with that, although I wish they'd stop. However, blaming a book for it's bad marketing doesn't make sense (the book came first, and in the case of tradpub, the author isn't usually calling the shots on their marketing). But please know that when the blurb is like, "Cozy Coffeeshop AU!" that it's an inaccurate description of the plot.
ANYWAY. I was really on-board for the first half of this book, but at about 50%, the pacing gets real weird. There's the cute romance, which I'm here for. But there's also this other larger plot which starts to become more relevant, and it doesn't make the most sense. It's weirdly complicated, although it didn't need to be, because the actual reveal is pretty straightforward .However, the characters don't make much of an effort to solve it, even though it's presented as a life or death situation. There are also a bunch of places where off-page events are summarized, but then a whole lot of nothing happens in the developed scenes.
I could have still left this with a four-star experience, but then the author did a thing I cannot stand: we learn who the villain is, but the character who learns this info doesn't fully understand the implications. She then speaks to the other MC and tells her everything, EXCEPT THE NAME OF THE PERSON INVOLVED. And the other MC... doesn't ask? For what possible reason?
As a result, I spent the last quarter of the book feeling irritable. A bunch of dramatic monologues, and a moment that should have been really touching, were mashed in at the end of the story in a way that was borderline incoherent. I can't go into detail about how infuriating the climactic scene was, but I really wish there had been some structural changes to this book, because there is little that annoys me more as a reader than when the characters do silly and incomprehensible things for the sake of the plot. And it doesn't advance the plot! This just slows it way down for no discernable reason! *screams into a pillow*
The thing is, as much as the plot choices annoyed me, the world is so cool. I really enjoyed the concept, and there were some scenes that were really beautiful and lyrical, along with plenty of nods to other stories that inspired some of these moments. There are fun misunderstandings, and interesting scenarios where the characters engage with magic in different ways. It's not fully explored, but there's a suggestion that the stories of 'our world' (arguably not ours, for plot reasons, but the ones that most resembles ours) are inherently magical, and that engaging with stories increases one's ability to harness magic. That's beautiful. Not to mention all the little details that Lee includes about Kat and Brenda and their families. There's a lot to enjoy here, and I was all in for the first half of the book.
Lee mentions in the notes that this was originally going to be cozy fantasy, but then it morphed into something else. If this was going to stay cozy, I wish the plot had been ironed out. If it was going to go more epic, I'd have appreciated some editing for punchier pacing. As it was, there were times when the MCs sort of went, "Yeah, I know that our worlds are in trouble, but what if we did something cutesy and unrelated for three chapters rather than solving my mother's murder?" I think I found this book so frustrating because there were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, and then parts where I felt like I was slogging along in the hopes that something would eventually happen.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy. My long and meandering thoughts are my own, and are being left voluntarily.
ANYWAY. I was really on-board for the first half of this book, but at about 50%, the pacing gets real weird. There's the cute romance, which I'm here for. But there's also this other larger plot which starts to become more relevant, and it doesn't make the most sense. It's weirdly complicated, although it didn't need to be, because the actual reveal is pretty straightforward .However, the characters don't make much of an effort to solve it, even though it's presented as a life or death situation. There are also a bunch of places where off-page events are summarized, but then a whole lot of nothing happens in the developed scenes.
I could have still left this with a four-star experience, but then the author did a thing I cannot stand: we learn who the villain is, but the character who learns this info doesn't fully understand the implications. She then speaks to the other MC and tells her everything, EXCEPT THE NAME OF THE PERSON INVOLVED. And the other MC... doesn't ask? For what possible reason?
As a result, I spent the last quarter of the book feeling irritable. A bunch of dramatic monologues, and a moment that should have been really touching, were mashed in at the end of the story in a way that was borderline incoherent. I can't go into detail about how infuriating the climactic scene was, but I really wish there had been some structural changes to this book, because there is little that annoys me more as a reader than when the characters do silly and incomprehensible things for the sake of the plot. And it doesn't advance the plot! This just slows it way down for no discernable reason! *screams into a pillow*
The thing is, as much as the plot choices annoyed me, the world is so cool. I really enjoyed the concept, and there were some scenes that were really beautiful and lyrical, along with plenty of nods to other stories that inspired some of these moments. There are fun misunderstandings, and interesting scenarios where the characters engage with magic in different ways. It's not fully explored, but there's a suggestion that the stories of 'our world' (arguably not ours, for plot reasons, but the ones that most resembles ours) are inherently magical, and that engaging with stories increases one's ability to harness magic. That's beautiful. Not to mention all the little details that Lee includes about Kat and Brenda and their families. There's a lot to enjoy here, and I was all in for the first half of the book.
Lee mentions in the notes that this was originally going to be cozy fantasy, but then it morphed into something else. If this was going to stay cozy, I wish the plot had been ironed out. If it was going to go more epic, I'd have appreciated some editing for punchier pacing. As it was, there were times when the MCs sort of went, "Yeah, I know that our worlds are in trouble, but what if we did something cutesy and unrelated for three chapters rather than solving my mother's murder?" I think I found this book so frustrating because there were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, and then parts where I felt like I was slogging along in the hopes that something would eventually happen.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy. My long and meandering thoughts are my own, and are being left voluntarily.