Inexpensive Monster

Slapstick Fun

Revisado: 03-18-25

A fun, over the top romp. Short and sweet, Baldwin's performance and name checking himself are hilarious, if a bit less polished than what I normally expect from audiobook performers. Somehow it all comes together though for a ridiculous and satisfying jaunt. I'll be checking out other Stranger adventures I think.

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Unusual and delightful

Revisado: 02-10-25

I see why all my fantasy friends have been suggesting this so hard. It's hard to categorize, but it's delightful. Sweet and fun and exciting and sorrowful and amazing. Can't recommend it enough.

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Outstanding in a crowded field

Revisado: 01-08-25

Eves has a gift for creating characters and places so real you can almost feel yourself standing next to them. The narration here compliments the work perfectly. Absolutely delightful and worthy follow up to the first novel in the series. I can't wait for more!

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Outstanding, complex regency romance

Revisado: 02-18-24

Wow. In a crowded field of contenders, this is a regency romance that stands out. Complex relationships and distinct, interesting characters, coupled with deftly interwoven romantic and social threads that end with a ridiculously satisfying conclusion.

I cannot recommend this highly enough.

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Lovely sweet historical romance

Revisado: 01-20-24

The story was quite immersive and the romance was so sweet. I loved the cast of side characters. I'm really hoping more romances are written in this series so I can find out what happens to the rest of the Wendy league.

The only thing I didn't like is that sometimes it was difficult to tell who was speaking when it was a group full of women or a group full of men. Because the narrator didn't vary the voices quite enough. Mostly it was really good, though.

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Fabulous regency romance with excellent narrator!

Revisado: 08-30-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Excellent! This is perfect clean regency romance. Kisses and attraction but nothing I couldn't share with my teenage daughter, and the romance is so beautifully paced. It's such a well done story that I had no idea this was the middle of a trilogy of books sharing a setting in the Clairvoir Castle. My daughter has begged me to go back and buy the first one so she can listen to it as well.

I'm a big audible listener and this narrator was excellent. She did accents and voices with such personality that I was never confused about who was speaking, which can be a big issue. Here, it was excellent enough that I'm actively seeking out other stories she's narrated.

If you like regency and kisses and perfect narration, this is absolutely worth your ears.

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Interesting world ruined by stereotypes and rape

Revisado: 03-10-18

I'm a fan of a well-built epic fantasy. Generally, I am willing to forgive some tropes and missteps in exchange for complex alternate histories and really great magic systems. A good epic battle sequence will earn bonus free-passes on impossible physics, too.

The Warded Man starts slowly, but a fan of epic fantasy generally expects a slow burn to these stories, so I didn't have a problem with it. I found the bleak concept of a world where humans huddle behind enchanted symbols, at risk of death on a nightly basis, horrifying and intriguing. The almost mathematical, scientific concepts of wards and the logical placement of different creatures based on natural environment was also pretty cool. Unfortunately, the worldbuilding and magic system couldn't stand up to some major thematic ick and poor characterization choices by the author.

I was slightly weirded out by two of the three main characters having almost explicit sexual encounters while they were thirteen and ten, respectively. I think the author was attempting to create a rough-hewn feel to the villages and townships where we first encounter characters, but I found the focus on talking about sex (and it is a strong focus) distracting at best and exploitative at worst. Including references to incest might have been construed as attempting to reveal the plight of the "hillbilly" girls who are victims, but there's another problem.

To put it bluntly, there isn't a single female character in this book that isn't a bad, sexist stereotype.

Groups of teen girls talk like teen boys, except they have the benefit of comparing breast sizes. Every girl or woman in the cast is obsessed with having babies. Females, including the main female character, consistently shriek, scream and speak with shrill voices when upset. They flail uselessly at stronger male characters when angry, then are quickly defeated when those male characters decide to put an end to their hysterics. More importantly, every single female character, unless she is specifically pointed out to be physically unattractive to the point of disgusting, wants to jump into bed with every man that waggles their hips in her presence.

By the time I got to the end, I felt as though the main female character, who is given a set of competencies and status separate from her overwhelming beauty (though that overwhelming beauty is pointed out at every possible point), existed only as a sexual conquest for the main male character. Worse, she becomes a willing sexual partner despite having been brutally gang-raped only days earlier. Either the author didn't know, or didn't care that his portrayal of this kind of trauma was even more far-fetched than the idea of fighting demons with painted symbols. I honestly do not understand how this made it past any number of editors or beta-readers without anyone pointing out the stomach turning nature of this whole series of events. It would be like another character having had both feet detached, then sewn hastily back before joining (and winning!) a dance competition five days later.

The audible narrator did fine with what he had to work with. I'd be hesitant to listen to another book with him, though I believe it's more the fault of the book than the narrator at this point.

Between the gang rapes, cackling crones, and totally-sexually-available-females (except the ugly ones, of course) I just couldn't enjoy the magic and world. You might not have the same problem, but I won't be going on to book two.

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