I usually avoid contemporary romance in favor of historical or fantasy, but this was so well done. The whole mobster world made it feel far enough remI usually avoid contemporary romance in favor of historical or fantasy, but this was so well done. The whole mobster world made it feel far enough removed from real life to hook me. ...more
Rereading in 2021: I thought I was being hard on it before, but now I'm halfway through and remembering why iNot bad. Just not my personal cup of tea.
Rereading in 2021: I thought I was being hard on it before, but now I'm halfway through and remembering why it rubbed me the wrong way. Their disagreements over sex and what's considered bad or not is really annoying to me. The hero calling the heroine a slut is basically my biggest turn off, unless it's a big misunderstanding that gets cleared up (and even then it's not my favorite thing) and I don't like heroines that have bad taste in men and are too promiscuous.
Lanthe is too easy and Thronos is too uptight. I get that that's the point, but I wish they didn't have to sound like a couple of broken records about it. I just wanted to yell at Thronos "you weren't in a committed relationship, so shut up about her past" and I wanted to yell at Lanthe "keep your legs closed for five minutes". I just wanted to knock their thick heads together and I end up more exhausted than entertained. I also found it a bit lopsided that Thronos had to get over his uptightness, but Lanthe didn't have to have any remorse for sleeping with a long line of losers that just used and dumped her. That's not empowering and I didn't appreciate her little soapbox moments about how her hoeing it up made her who she is today. Maybe if it was "I learned from my mistakes and need to pick 'em better" it would have been more tolerable, but no, It was just ranting about how it was a good thing that she slept with so many people. She just came off as immature with no self-respect and her speeches came of as deflection. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." She's a slut and he's a tightass.
At least Robert Petkoff's voice could make the phone book sound sexy, so that's a plus.
Update after I finished the reread: The second half is so much better than the first. this would have been improved, imo, by shortening the Pandemonia section and lengthening the last few chapters. So much happened at the end and it all seemed to go so fast. I would have liked to get more elaboration on that, rather than pages upon pages of them bitching at one another. Oh well....more
4 1/2 stars. Awesome overall, but I could have done without the POV of Irina's nurse and Stepon. They were the POV for some important scenes and creat4 1/2 stars. Awesome overall, but I could have done without the POV of Irina's nurse and Stepon. They were the POV for some important scenes and created a level of separation between me and the characters that actually mattered. If an emotional scene between characters is occurring I want to be in one of their heads, not a bystander that doesn't fully grasp what's happening. Honestly, keeping the POV to just Irina, Miriam, and Mirnatius would have been preferable in my opinion, and would have made the story more focused.
Also, I didn't really like the Audible audiobook narration. There was almost no indication for POV switches or much of a difference between character voices, except for the voice of the fire demon that was just weird and hard to listen to. Having a different voice actor to voice the demon's lines, such as a deeper-voiced man, would have been nice. Instead, it just sounded like they were choking on something while they tried to sound creepy. I'd definitely recommend the physical book over audio. Robert Petkoff and Tim Curry have set my expectations for audiobook narration too high I think....more
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