Kindle Customer

Fun, funny, fluffy pallette cleanser.

Revisado: 02-25-25

So I liked the narration, Abby Craden did awesome as always. I liked the varied POVs alot actually. It wasn't confusing, and Craden did a great job of keeping the voices and tones different, and she leaned into accents she can do very well, while Medrano did well with clarifying whose POV it was, and who everyone was with a large cast using descriptions along with names, and making characters very different from each other..
Character development was very good, though too varied to get deep for anyone except the MC but it's only book one.
World building was very cool.
Plot was non-existent. MC is overpowered, but that's sort of the point and was actually quite entertaining, It's just a bunch of incidents where there's a threat, the MC utterly destroys it with very little effort, and everyone is shocked, impressed, and terrified of her, and her side kick is smug and adorably snarky about it. Those close to her (all women she's rescued) fall harder for her, and her reputation gets worse among everyone else as a Very Scary Lady ™.
You know how some stories are just smut strung together with a loose sort of structure to get the reader from spicy scene to spicy scene? Well, this is like that, only there's Zero smut, just predictable fight scenes. I capitalize Zero because I do mean zero.
There's a literal sapphic harem here where every character is a super attractive queer woman falling for and into bed with the main character, and not a single spicy scene. Fade to black every single time, usually before so much as a kiss, though occasionally someone takes off their clothes.
The upside to all this for me is I get to listen to a Fantasy/Sci Fi story with no anxiety laden moments because I know none of the characters are getting hurt, betrayed, or killed off, the MC will always win every encounter, and I can listen at work without feeling weird about spice scenes playing in my ear secretly while I'm in public, and it's fun, funny, and fluffy, all things I like when I'm in the mood for them.
Downside, it's hard for me to stop pausing it and wanting to tweak it to give it more plot, some character arcs, and more emotional depth to the characters who aren't the MC.
If it had those things and let readers at least see the characters round a couple bases when they hooked up occasionally, it would be an absolutely epic Sci Fi series. As it is, it's great for what it is. It's very entertaining, and something I'll probably keep going with, if only to cleanse the pallette between consuming much more substantial stories.
If you want to recommend a series to a newly out 13 year old sapphic, and feel fairly assured they'll encounter nothing they wouldn't see on Disney channel while getting repeated quality PSA style lessons about consent. This book will probably make the kid feel like they're getting away with reading something scandalous that they shouldn't without actually reading something scandalous that they shouldn't.

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The nerdiest thing I've read in ages.

Revisado: 11-29-24

Best line in the book, "I have health insurance!"
You'll have to listen for context, but I about died.
This is a great story, great character development, good pacing, a few places I got a bit annoyed with the main character, but I think even the things that annoyed me about her worked really well for her character. Getting to know characters through different contexts was really interesting.
Single POV, satisfying ending, and solid lead in for book two which I'm going to download asap.
If you have no tolerance for extreme nerdery, this might not be for you. but you are of the fellowship of nerds, this will be in your top fav vampire books.

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Murder is...the new cute?

Revisado: 09-20-24

Nobody was redeemable, like, terrible people of grey moral fiber. Both MCs had a tendency to have poignant romantic and/or sexual revelations at...truely disturbing times. It was utterly adorable and I loved them dearly and rooted for them all the way through. Wouldn't change a thing. Narration performance was top notch. I'm ready for book two.

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Call me out why doncha?

Revisado: 07-08-24

First, I knew the narrator was reading this book to me, that's how audiobooks work, but I didn't realize I was about to get read as well!
When the Sagittarius date came up, I had to pause to research the author and make sure they were not one of my exes. Though, of course, they weren't, since as a Sag I'm friends with basically all my exes and they'd have told me if they published an novel.
I'm into astrology on a slightly more than casual level, though not on a super serious "make life choices based solely on whether mercury is in retrograde" level, but I know people all over the astro belief spectrum, and am aware of friend's/family's astrology charts, so this was a ton of fun to read, and I had friends telling me to let them know when she dated their sign for updates.
It's a really fun read, and fairly light with medium -low angst, not very tropey, but still touched on some serious subjects, like recovering from growing up in hyper religious environments.
I'll be rereading this for sure one of these days! I highly recommend!

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Everything I wanted it to be

Revisado: 02-02-23

Ship of Smoke and Steel was everything I wanted it to be, riveting right from the beginning, gritty and raw, more than a bit bloody. The main character is relatable on a base level, really capturing the desperate fixation of protecting a beloved child, and the fierce protectiveness that can lead one to set aside their moral compass to accomplish that goal.
The love interest had depth and a character arch of her own, the other characters were fully fleshed out, and and original twist on the fantasy genre plot map.
If you're looking for a dark fantasy with queer lead characters, this is an absolute must read.

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Sweet Slice of Life

Revisado: 01-05-23

It was very slice of life, and very sweet. There was a lot of emotion with out angst overkill and you get see two characters grow as people, which is satisfying. Abby Crayden did great as always.

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Not bad, but not my favorite

Revisado: 08-24-22

When I was four, I was 100% aware that my favorite TV character, a certain big purple dinosaur, was not real.
I lump social media influencers in with characters on shows and movies, they are actors, playing a part for entertainment purposes. I honestly don't get the big deal about them having parts of their lives they keep private or represent different from reality.
They don't owe the world every honest aspect of themselves. They are actors. Anyone over the age of 14 who doesn't realize that has personal issues they should probably work with a therapist or specialist on.
So it was hard for me to really care about the whole deception and #nofilter thing.
Also how was there no accountability for that super invasive an unethical article Ellis writes and publishes? Like...wow, so much more messed up than having a fake online gf, which hurts literally zero people.
Also, we didn't get enough back story on our main characters early enough, so it took me until halfway through to be invested. It was just like, three hours of listening to the main characters gush about their new crush and act like the phenomenon of having said crush was somehow revolutionary. Like, being shocked when they'd think about their crush in the context of the future as if that was somehow unheard of. As if people don't literally always do that with new crushes.
"Why am I even thinking this?!?!?!"
.... because you like her. Duh.

It wasn't a bad story, it was technically sound, I just didn't get that into it.
Personal preference maybe?

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Great all around!

Revisado: 08-23-22

Abby Crayden rocked this performance as usual! The story was solid, well written, great development with characters, good plot and arcs and all that. Not much there for sex scenes, and not much for drama, which I was totally fine with but some people might long for more in those areas.
I stayed engaged throughout.

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Yes!

Revisado: 08-08-22

This was an awesome story. I don't follow UFC closely but I used to be pretty hard into practicing MMA when I was less old and rickety than I am now, so this was a really awesome book for me.
I really appreciated the resolution.
In most singular POV books, I complain that I wish it was told from multiple POVs, but not in this one. I think it was done exactly like it needed to be.
I like the narrator as well, I've listened to quite a few books she's worked on and always liked her well enough, but I actually thought she was the perfect choice for this novel. She sort of has a sports reporter tone to her voice occasionally, and it just fits perfectly with this narrative.
This is the first book she's done that I've listened to in which she has so many male characters to voice, and she really does a fantastic job with them, I can easily tell them apart.

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Great story, okay ending.

Revisado: 07-21-22

The story itself was fantastic. I felt the ending was anticlimactic. I get that it's a romance and therefore sort of calls for a grand gesture, but I waited literally the entire book for Taylor to just freaking communicate and it never happens. I mean, we get told it does in like, the last pages, but we don't actually see her overcome her main issues like we do with Jaden.
After all that build up, I would have liked a real conversation to happen.
Overall it felt a little too Cinderella like. One character overcomes hardships, and the other grants a HEA as a reward. I mean, other than Taylor being hot, I had a hard time seeing what was so great about her.
If this couple was irl, I'd tell Jaden to insist Taylor get solo therapy and go to couples counseling for the marriage to continue before saying yes, both great things to do, but not the note I want to end the story on maybe?
"All right, this grand gesture is great and all, but you are gonna get therapy, right? OK then, a probationary yes. We'll see how it works out."
Also, idk about Hawaii but most states have a waiting period after filing for divorce, even when uncontested. That could have been utilized, like if they didn't realize that, then had to wait a few months, then actually worked on their (Taylor's) issues. Then withdrew the divorce request. Then had a freaking wedding because Jaden deserved it.

The writing quality was great, the plot and twists up to ending were great, the narrator was great. Charlotte was great. So 4.5 stars.
My issues with this are probably more about my opinions than the quality of the story tbh.

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