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Short But Worth The Credit

Revisado: 03-02-25

The first book was a good setup for the world, but this book really dives into Justin's character and I love his building contrasts. You can see how he comes to lead and inspire the elves, but also how without people to keep him grounded, and a good personal excuse, he could end up doing terrible things.

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A Wonderful Surprise

Revisado: 09-12-24

Didn't expect this, but so happy it came. Book is great! Narration is great!
And don't worry it has a little recap at the beginning.

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Best Spin-off Story I've Read in a Long Time

Revisado: 07-27-24

Usually, spin-offs tend to lack the magic of the original. But this one keeps everything I liked from melody of mana, the world building, close personal character focus, and of course an earnest love for the world and it's magic. Meanwhile, we get to see Justin, a mysterious character even after we meet him in MoM, slowly get fleshed out. We see the parts of him in embryo that we know will lead down to such terrible places, but start off so positives. Like his desire to help his people technologically, trying to subtly nudge them down a path he approves of. At several points he even contemplates forcing changes onto society like the end of slavery. In the end, I was left feeling like I couldn’t wait to see where his character goes, and what happens to the world when he's truly and irrevocably challenged.

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Great Anime and now a Great Book!

Revisado: 02-27-24

Narrator is wonderful, translation sounds great, and the story is awsome. I hope they publish all of these!

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Short But Good

Revisado: 09-27-23

This book is pretty good in most ways, though it feels like not quite enough important things happen, but still it's a good start. I look forwrad to the next one.

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A Book Without a Protagonist or Plot

Revisado: 09-09-23

(TLDR: In the end this book isn't like terrible, the prose is decent, the fantasy world building is interesting, and the characters good. But to have a 23 hr book with no protagonist and only an 1/8 of a plot-line at the end, is just way to much of an ask. So unless you really like body horror and anxiety, don't bother listening to this book.)

There are a few problems I have with this book, like there is way to much(of way to repetitive) internal dialog, and the LBGT stuff becomes utterly eye rolly by the end, with all of the alive characters(literally all of them) being LGBT, and 3/4's of them being some kind of mentally ill. But the biggest problem I have with this book is the lack of a protagonist. Hanna is our viewpoint character but she is not a protagonist.

Protagonists are the ones around whom the plot primarily moves, and through their conflicts we can understand the story. This is the case from romances to action adventures. Now the viewpoint character doesn't always need to be the protagonist, and there can even be more than one, but to have no protagonist makes for a completely listless read where it feels like there is no plot.

Now this story is split into two worlds, one a fantasy world, and one a mostly normal world where Hanna is experiencing some magic as a result of the fantasy world, mostly in the form of personal body horror. There are plenty of interesting things that can happen from those elements, but let me assure you they don't.

In the first world Hanna hides the changes to her body, and the only time anyone finds out they are either supportive or apathetic, and usually want to sleep with her. This creates a situation where, despite turning into a magical monster while having a loving family and going to school and work, the only real conflict to spring up in the whole 26 hr book is that it feels weird and makes her anxious. That is not a story, that's just a weird diary. And the thing is the book tells you this. Hanna basically says “I'm not a protagonist I'm going to just pretend that nothings happening”, and she does. Initially, I thought it was the typical refusing the call to adventure(she literally says that's what she's doing a one point), but there is never any plot to push her story forward, and she has no initiative so nothing happens. She just slowly turns into a bug lady, and people she likes find out and are supportive. It's like if you followed the story of Clark Kent, but he's not superman, he has super powers, but he just works at the daily planet and tries to hide his powers. So in world 1 she doesn't fit the role of a protagonist and subsequently there is no plot, what about world 2.

World 2 is slightly better, because at least the world building is about a fantasy world and not how she cleans the tables at work, and blessedly there are protagonist like people who Hanna joins as there side character. Now that can work in a Great Gatsby kind of way, where you are observing the people to whom the plot pertains from afar. But even in this world the main focus is on Hanna learning how to be a side character and her feelings about that. Where up until the 18 hr mark she's just tagging along cause she has nothing better to do. Then, finally, for a couple hours some things happen with real stakes and personal motivations, and it feels like maybe some day she might do something related to a plot, but by then I did not care.

Then the book just ends. I'd call it a cliff hanger, but that requires there to have been a plot that was cut off. This was more like someone turning off the weather channel.

In the end this book isn't like terrible, the prose is decent, the fantasy world building is interesting, and the characters good. But to have a 23 hr book with no protagonist and only an 1/8 of a plot-line at the end, is just way to much of an ask. So unless you really like body horror and anxiety, don't bother listening to this book.

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Everything's great except the MC

Revisado: 02-07-23

I can't help but feel very ambivalent about this audiobook. I like most everything, especially the prose and the magic system. I even liked the stuff that could be problems like how there is so much dialog (much of which is internal and repetitive) that the book feels slow. But the fundamental issue I had with this book is that the main character Maven is unlikeable. She's dumb, but thinks she smart, she's cowardly, chaotic (not in a fun way), and just the sort of unpleasant person that if I knew someone who was friends with her, I would considered unfriending them. On top of that we spend basically the entire book in Maven's head, except for those blissful moments when we're placed into a different character perspective when Maven sleeps, and I don't thinks she's going to to change into a likeable person.

This is a glaring enough problem that it made listening hard, but everything else was good so 4 stars. I'll probably listen the next one to see if anything changes, after that I'm not sure

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Not a lot happens but it's still very enjoyable

Revisado: 02-10-22

After the structure of the last book I think the author didn't know where to go and was totally self aware of it. As a result this book is mostly a slice of life, which isn't really what I was expecting. But fortunately like any decent slice of life the characters and world carried me through the book with plenty of enjoyment. The only reason I'm giving this book a 4 instead of a 5 is the undermining of my expectations created by the first book.

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The new narrator did great

Revisado: 01-15-22

That was really my only worry going in. Other than that if you liked the last one you'll like this one.

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F**k the beginning 8hrs were a slog

Revisado: 01-06-22

I feel like Jason with his family would have been much better and more compelling if it had been profoundly condensed. Other then that rather large problem this felt like filler, a ton of stuff happened but basically nothing meaningful until the very end.
I might listen to the next one, but I'll need to be convince that it won't be like this one.

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