esda

Okay, it's really hard to write a review for this book. I have to try anyway, to remember and not read it or listen to it again, haha. (Sorry ^^°)
I was expecting a gay romance and this story isn't quite that. The love interest isn't introduced up till about 70% of the story. And most of the text of the book is about the hetero (!) romances the protagonist writes (which is not the stuff I want to read in a gay romance, I mean, SERIOUSLY!! urg..). Plus it got into to much details with his writing process and all the stories he writes.
The curse was a unique thing, but I hated the ending (because the protagonist ends up pretty much helpless and losing what was most important to him in his life, because of the curse in the end), which made me mad and depressed.
The love story / love plot felt underdeveloped. I don't need “on screen” sex, but up until the very end there were only hints about the spark between the characters (if you can call it that).

Decent writing style, BUT I can't get over all the plot wholes and illogical behavior of the characters. Why is the evil father so mighty? What are his reasons for acting thr way he does. And, nope, “cause he's evil” is NOT a good enough explanation. Why is his son so powerless, when it comes to his father's schemes and plays along up till the end? And no internet or phone reception in the WHOLE castle except for one room? LOOOOL!
Could go on and on...
Sadly completely illogical and unbelievable for a story set in the 21st century.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was reading in such a boring, monotone way that it kind of ruined the whole book for me. Couldn't really concentrate on the story. :/

The relationship between the two protagonists started in a fucked up way and it was a toxic relationship for 95% of the book. I hated Zane so much. He used and abused and leeched of Roach. He had nearly no redeeming qualities. And Roach tried so hard all the time, but was a total doormat for Zane.

Nearly didn't finish the book. Wanted to know if Roach kills Zane in the end. That's what I would have done.
Probably not going to read anything by this authorduo ever again.

Leider konnten mich weder die Liebesgeschichte (sie kommen mehr oder weniger zusammen, weil sie die einzigen Schwulen sind; zwischendurch hat Ash einen anderen, weil der einfach “da” ist) noch das Abenteuer der Beiden (wenn man es so nennen kann, die ganze Sache im Schattenlabyrinth war ein künstlich herbeigeführtes Plot-Device) überzeugen. Schade. Hatte mich wirklich auf das Buch gefreut, weil es so gehypet wurde und auch dieses wunderschöne Cover hat. :-(

Ah. This is one of those rare gems that have such a unique setting (“memory forging” or the business with fake memories, that fade after a day), that sets this story apart from so many others. Loved it! Also Elijahs autism was described/shown very well.
Also: the audiobook is very well narrated. Enjoyed the days I listened to it!

I kinda wished for more stories inside the fake-memory “world”, even though there were many already in the book series. Haha. And I hoped for Elijah to stay a mystery for a bit longer. The reveal came a bit too soon for my (just my opinion). I loved how mysterious he was, just showing up in the “mnemes” (fake memories) that Daniel went through with his clients.

And the fakt that Elijah dresses like his exwife made him dress, is kinda sad, IMHO. :-/ (also just a personal thing that made me think: “the poor guy”..)

AVERY IS NOT ASEXUAL!!!
Sorry, I have to shout it out, since this story misrepresents asexuality in such an annoying way, that it really bugs me. The constant claim that “Avery is asexual”, when he definitely is NOT. He wants sex and enjoys having sex and has sex CONSTANTLY through that book that only seems to consist of sex scenes. Not ONE TIME was he like “ohh, I actually DON'T want to have sex”.
I really wished people would stop writing stories about “pseudo-asexuals”.
The fact, that Avery was a virgin before he met Colt, doesn't make him an asexual. Please go and check your facts, before you write your story about a specific topic, thank you very much. I'm so annoyed right now, that I can't even...

Plus: I was bored out of my mind by the constant sex scenes and the missing plot. This story should have come with a PWP warning.
Also the Sir/pet relationship wasn't something I enjoyed reading. Though that's a personal taste. I also gaged in the first book every time the one character called the other one “Daddy”. urk!

There was so much potential to make this story special and exciting, but somehow the author managed to make it boring and annoying and wasted all these opportunities.
Deus ex machina embodied by an angel appearing and saving the day like... every time the author was to lazy to have the protagonists figure out a way to solve a problem.

A unique SciFi interpretation of the tale of Beauty and the Beast, though the “love story part” of the story could have done with a bit more suspense. But all in all an enjoyable read.

The idea for the story and two main characters was great, the execution.. not so much.

The writing style was too much “telling and not showing”. The characters just simple seem to blurt out everything as they think about it, so there's a lot less suspense, than there could have been.
Most characters are too black or too white, like Ronan's Ex for example, who simply is too much of an evil bastard and asshole, so The Big Reveal (tm) at the end was foreseeable pretty much in the beginning. Plus it's ultra non-understandable what Ronan ever saw in him and oversaw .. things ... (not spoiling here for those who haven't read it yet).
The chemistry and love between the two main characters happened in a way that had no suspense whatsoever. Instalove and everyone encouraging the (developing) relationship.
Plus many times I found myself rolling my eyes when I heard one more cliché sentence like “Josh was bad for you, but Tennyson is so good for you” and “sex with Josh was never this good, but with Tennyson it was” (and it goes on and on..)

The best ace story I've read so far. <3
Two men who both seem to not “fit in” at work at a secret government agency and the romance that develops slowly between them.

This one felt a lot like the first of the Adrien English books by Josh Lanyon.
I liked the book. A lot. But the similarities in plot and characters, even up to the perpetrator, are undeniable. :-/

reread in 2022: I'm going to treat this series as a fanfiction of the Adrien English series. I can enjoy fanfiction. I just can not treat this series as a book series of its own because of the glaring similarities to the Adrien English series.

The “voice” of the protagonist just wasn't for me. That made-up dialect he's speaking (and thinking in!) was annoying as hell.
Not only have I come to groan and roll my eyes everytime he said or thought “betwixt” instead of “between”, I often had trouble understanding him ... or following what was happening.
In the end I simply didn't care anymore and just got through the book to have done with it.

I'm sad to say that this was one of the most boring books I've read in a very long time.
No conflict.
Nothing really happened.

The writing style was decent, so 2 stars for that.
But plot!! What plot??? (Perhaps this story was meant as a PWP story. It certainly had enough sex in it.... Sex I didn't care for. And some really weird (imho) sex talk that made me gag.)

Sorry. Not my cup of tea. I like books with sexy sex scenes and conflict and PLOT. PLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT.
Ehem.

This is by far the best book I've read in a long time. I'm still totally in awe and speechless.
Not only was this one of the - for me very hard to find - “page-turners”, but also a book that's deeply thought-provoking.

Zwischendurch gab es einige Längen und grade zum Ende hin stimmt der Spannungsbogen nicht mehr. Die Sexszenen am Ende fand ich leider wenig erotisch und auch handlungstechnisch auch überflüssig. Sie haben dazu beigetragen, dass es zum Ende hin irgendwie öde wurde... Und das, nachdem es zuvor so, soo spannend gewesen war!
Hier hatte ich dann eine längere Lesepause und hab die Seiten mit den Sexszenen dann auch nur noch quer gelesen. (Oft trauen sich Lektoren scheinbar nicht an Sexszenen ran. Ich finde hier oft Formulierungen, die unpassend sind zum Setting oder zu den Charakteren. Dann kann ich die Sexszenen auch nicht geniesen.)

Ansonsten eine solide Story mit gutem Krimi-Plot. Leider zwischendurch immer wieder mit Schwächen, deshalb “nur” 3 Sterne, weil ich doch an zu vielen Stellen das vermisst habe, was mich das Buch “verschlingen” lässt. Der Moment kam nur einmal kurz vorm Höhepunkt/der Eskalation am Ende, wo es wirklich, wirklich spannend wurde. So hätte vom Aufbau her gerne mehr vom Buch sein können, dann wäre es richtig gut! :-)

Sorry, but most of the time I was rolling my eyes, because the author went on and on about unimportant details (which could also be called “product placement” or “commercials”, and I couldn't enjoy the story, because I was getting bored. Plus too much unrealistic drama with the parents being super-evil and conveniently both dying in the end. Which didn't seem to have any effect on the children.

I was actually missing all what makes lovestories interesting in this story: the chemistry between the characters, standing up against the odds.. Nothing of that happened.
The MC and his love interest meet for the first time, fall in love, and the only obstacle is, that they live “a nine hour drive” away from each other. But even that obstacle is solved pretty quickly.
Then there's the abrupt ending of the story: there seems to be a “cut” in the story: one moment, they celebrate New Years Eve together, in the next scene the MC is at work and all grumpy because of a falling out with his lover. Problem here: we never get to read (or hear, if you were listening to the audiobook, like I was) the quarrel. Even after they “make up” (which is more like: “oh, yeah, I'm moving here now, if you still want me to”) we never actually get to hear what happened.
And then the story just ends. Uh.. o_O

Hätte ruhig etwas länger und etwas mehr ausgearbeitet sein können. Grade die gegenseitige Anziehung kam nicht so ganz rüber und das Ende war dann arg überstürzt, gerade auch die doch eher überflüssige Sexszene (“damit wenigstens eine drin ist”) am Ende.
Schade.
Bleibt trotzdem eine lesbare Geschichte mit sympathischen Charakteren.

One of the best books I've read in a long time. I simply couldn't stop reading.
This book was very enjoyable and showed me again what good and well thought-through writing looks like. Plus I really loved the two main characters, especially Ben, who enjoyed even the smallest things, after being trapped inside the snow globe for so long with no one able to see or hear him. <3

plot what plot? :-/
This story left me with lots of questions and its protagonists with lots of unresolved problems.
It read more like a prequel than an actual story. There was too few actually happening and the protagonists spend most of the time chained in a cellar. I expected this part to be the starting point of the story and not the story itself.
Sad to say, I expected more of this story. The part in the cellar could have been shortened and the actual plot should have been about them figuring out how to deal with one of them being a werewolf, confrontations with their captors and the werewolf pack, that has to consist of more than just their two captors.
This story had so much potential, but concentrated mostly on the boring parts. And on sex. :-(

Gut, der Titel und die Inhaltsangabe hätten mir eigentlich schon sagen sollen, dass es hier im Buch hauptsächlich darum geht, wie zwei Jungs sich gegenseitig von ihren sexuellen Unzulänglichkeiten “heilen”.
Ich habe inzwischen einige Bücher dieser Autorin gelesen und habe das “böse/dumme Eltern, die dran schuld sind, dass ihre Jungs so verkorkst sind”-Thema ein weeeeeniiig satt ;-) Man kann es einmal lesen, vielleicht auch zweimal, aber dann ist wirklich gut. Und hier in der Geschichte haben beide Jungs mit solch einem Elternhaus zu kämpfen. Und beide wurden in der Schulen von den “Coolen Kids” gemobbt. Ein bisschen waren die beiden doch wie Spiegelbilder, was Vergangenheit und Elternhaus anbelangt.

Die Geschichte an sich ist unterhaltsam, leider zum Teil doch sehr unrealistisch und mir kamen einfach auch zu viele Sexszenen vor, die ich zum Teil - nun ja - doch ein wenig langweilig fand. Ich kann mich auch immer noch nicht dran gewöhnen, in welcher Art Sexszenen in Deutsch inzwischen geschrieben werden. Die Begrifflichkeiten erinnern da zum Teil schon sehr an Pornos. Das ist jetzt aber eher ein allgemeines Problem im deutschsprachigen Gay Romance-Bereich. Ich finde Umschreibungen und das nicht explizite Erwähnen von Geschlechtsteilen einfach schöner zu lesen. (Nun gut, hier hat es wohl auch viel mit dem Hauptplot dieser speziellen Geschichte zu tun gehabt, dass “sein Schwanz” jetzt grade einen bestimmten Zustand hatte. Aber trotzdem.. Geht auch anders.)

Das Selfpulishing ohne Lektorat merkt man stellenweise auch wieder, aber gut, das ist verständlich, da das Genre nicht so wirklich gewinnbringend (und Lektorat selbst zu finanzieren sehr teuer) ist und man stolpert jetzt nicht über jeden zweiten Satz wie bei anderen Autorinnen des Genres.

Not completely done with the book yet [I'm at about 60% and not sure, if I should continue], but I have to say, that I'm deeply disturbed by the extenuation of drug (Marijuana) consumption in this story and how there are statements like “only those chemically engineered drugs are bad for your body, but pot growth in the earth and will never hurt you”. Well.. fly agarics are also completely natural. Try eating of smoking them. So is uranium, btw.
Such bullshit. Really.

In the beginning I was only annoyed by the way people treated Gus, who is so “abnormal”, that everybody has to interfere in his life and try to change him. But the more I listen to the story, the more I get also annoyed by Casey's pot smoking and tricking Gus into consuming pot (Gus: “I don't say that I will be okay to smoke it later. Or ever. I just want to eat some cookies first.” Then: Gus: “Hahaha... I'm stoned... hahaha... there was pot in your cookies!” Casey: “Of course there was!”)

And then there's Gus (deceased) father who was a stoner himself and made Gus smoke pot to begin with. Since he thought it some healthy habit to teach his son. And that his son should teach his children, should he ever have some.

Well no, just fucking NO!

Or, to say it in Casey's words:
#HowToBecomeAStoner
#PeerPressure
#IncapableParents
#MostRidiculousArgumentsForSmokingPotIveEverHeard
#AnnoyingSideCharacters
#ThereWasNothingWrongWithGusToBeginnWith
#AndNowThereMaybeIs
#stupid

In the beginning the portrayal of Brendan as an asexual works. But then everything just happens too fast and Brendan is too eager to please his boyfriend in bed and showing too few hesitation and even suggesting things that an asexual wouldn't have any or much experience in.

All in all the story was okayish. It wasn't a particularly exiting read (since there seems to be not a lot of conflict and the small conflict is solved far too early), but since this was a relatively short story, it wasn't too boring either.
The author could and should have spent more time to show Brendans hesitations and more conflict consulting from that and other things with his boyfriend. But I suppose there wasn't enough plot to go around for that...

This was a sweet little story (with a rather predictable plot, but it was a 1 hour audiobook, so that was to be expected). I enjoyed the time listening to it.