Its Me

This book is like sunshine through the branches of a willow on a pleasant spring day. It is light, airy, and comes and goes too quickly. Like the best cozy stories, it offers a surprising amount of world-building (dare I say epic fantasy), while delving into a pleasantly low-stakes, but never dull, character arc. The humor and a bit of action glimmer nicely. If you want a breath of fresh air between reading large series, this is an excellent quick read.

This is an interesting dreamscape. The protagonist reads a short story in the middle of the book which is *amazing*. The Nick Harper audiobook is hard to evaluate. The naration is excellent but the songs, of which there are many, are not good. The reverb and other fx are so extreme that you can't (and won't) want to parse the lyrics.

This has some of the best humor of the series and it also has the darkest moments so far. This book completely pushes the series into the realm of high-stakes epic sci-fi/fantasy. The sprawling battlefield of book 7 feels smaller and easier to follow here. However, I took of 1/2 a star because, like book 7, there are moments of "wait who is that and how do they fit into the scheme of things". Part of that is probably intentional because Carl is figuring out who is pulling the strings of the world but I would have benefited from a couple more explanations. That said, this is definitely one of the stronger books in the series.

While there are plenty of laugh out loud moments, this is a surprisingly thoughful and at times heavy book. The pace is a bit slow at first but everything about the book improves as the pages turn. The ending is very satisfying.