Lauren
Six books deep and I, unfortunately, continue to run into the same issues. Should I probably just give up on the series? Maybe, but not only do I want to know how they conclude, but they’ve been something me and my partner have enjoyed dissecting, debating, and discussing.
Believe it or not, I do have some good to say about this one. Like the previous installments, the epilogue is perfect. Honestly, sometimes it feels like someone else wrote the epilogues because they go on just long enough to give the reader new information without holding our hands and spoon feeding it. If I had to guess, Dinniman spends most of his editing time on the epilogues. I also appreciated acknowledging which aspects that may be considered offensive were thoughts the Carl had vs things the infamous “show runners” were enacting (not all the time, but progress). I liked the idea behind this floor, too, and how Dinniman introduced concepts earlier on that were revisited later.
To be honest, the reminder of this review will be me complaining. Fair warning.
My largest complaint is this book desperately needs an editor. From what I could find in the copyright information, this book is published by the author and does not credit an editor, so I have to assume there is none. I swear, this book could easily be 200 less pages with a good editor. Even my partner (who is not a reader) noticed how repetitive the book was and got frustrated when we were told the same information multiple times in a single scene. It is totally okay to tell the audience something once (maybe twice) and trust them to remember and understand, or better yet, sometimes things can be summarized. That being said, there were times we would have to go back and reread sections of the book due to some description being nearly nonsensical. While we listen to the audiobook, I have the ebook up on my phone. I mention this because while usually the audiobook is okay, the voice Hayes did for the demon was impossible for either of us to understand.
Additionally, the whole joke about the crabs and their desire/need to get off and procreate was pointless, not funny, and gross. It felt like a joke that would have been written by a middle school boy.
I also cannot believe Carl, who served in the military, would not know what an Adjutant is. Like?????
Despite addressing some of the more offensive ideas in the book as the aliens doing, I would be remiss not to mention a list of some of the more problematic content warnings, including but not limited to: anorexia being used as a descriptor, ableism, sexism/misogyny (the word bitch appears 62 times and the word whore appears 15 and we spend too much time describing breasts as boy parts that either enhance or detract from a women’s hotness/goodness- I don’t care if these are titles or not, they’re problematic and not funny; additionally, the phrase “I could only tell she was female because it said so” was disgusting), racism, unnecessary torture by the “good guys”, sexual assault that happened to a character being played for jokes, and I’m sure much more that I have forgotten over the months it took me to read this.
Six books deep and I, unfortunately, continue to run into the same issues. Should I probably just give up on the series? Maybe, but not only do I want to know how they conclude, but they’ve been something me and my partner have enjoyed dissecting, debating, and discussing.
Believe it or not, I do have some good to say about this one. Like the previous installments, the epilogue is perfect. Honestly, sometimes it feels like someone else wrote the epilogues because they go on just long enough to give the reader new information without holding our hands and spoon feeding it. If I had to guess, Dinniman spends most of his editing time on the epilogues. I also appreciated acknowledging which aspects that may be considered offensive were thoughts the Carl had vs things the infamous “show runners” were enacting (not all the time, but progress). I liked the idea behind this floor, too, and how Dinniman introduced concepts earlier on that were revisited later.
To be honest, the reminder of this review will be me complaining. Fair warning.
My largest complaint is this book desperately needs an editor. From what I could find in the copyright information, this book is published by the author and does not credit an editor, so I have to assume there is none. I swear, this book could easily be 200 less pages with a good editor. Even my partner (who is not a reader) noticed how repetitive the book was and got frustrated when we were told the same information multiple times in a single scene. It is totally okay to tell the audience something once (maybe twice) and trust them to remember and understand, or better yet, sometimes things can be summarized. That being said, there were times we would have to go back and reread sections of the book due to some description being nearly nonsensical. While we listen to the audiobook, I have the ebook up on my phone. I mention this because while usually the audiobook is okay, the voice Hayes did for the demon was impossible for either of us to understand.
Additionally, the whole joke about the crabs and their desire/need to get off and procreate was pointless, not funny, and gross. It felt like a joke that would have been written by a middle school boy.
I also cannot believe Carl, who served in the military, would not know what an Adjutant is. Like?????
Despite addressing some of the more offensive ideas in the book as the aliens doing, I would be remiss not to mention a list of some of the more problematic content warnings, including but not limited to: anorexia being used as a descriptor, ableism, sexism/misogyny (the word bitch appears 62 times and the word whore appears 15 and we spend too much time describing breasts as boy parts that either enhance or detract from a women’s hotness/goodness- I don’t care if these are titles or not, they’re problematic and not funny; additionally, the phrase “I could only tell she was female because it said so” was disgusting), racism, unnecessary torture by the “good guys”, sexual assault that happened to a character being played for jokes, and I’m sure much more that I have forgotten over the months it took me to read this.