Book #65 of 2023: Babysitter of the Apocalypse | Book #66 of 2023: By a Silver Thread | 2 DNF

[thistlechaser]

Babysitter of the Apocalypse by Courtney Konstantin. If this book hadn't been so short, I would have DNFed it. Though it's not marked as a novella, it only took me an hour or so to read.

Set during a zombie apocalypse (yawn), due to the most unbelievable of reasons, a nearly alcoholic bartender ended up with a stranger's kids (a 5 years old and a 2 year old girl).

Even though I have less than zero interest in zombie apocalypse stories anymore, I think I picked this one up because the idea of dealing with it while trying to protect kids was at least a somewhat new idea. Too bad the writer's skill just wasn't up to the task of making this a good story.

By a Silver Thread (DFZ Changeling Book 1) by Rachel Aaron.

After reading the Forever Fantasy Online trilogy (the "trapped in a video game" ones I just finished), I hadn't intended to read anything by Aaron again for a while. While scrolling through my Kindle looking for my next book, I clicked on this one by mistake, so figured I'd just read it.

I had thought I loved Aaron's writing, but after the trilogy and now this one, I wonder if maybe her books I liked had been the exceptions...

This book was about fairies/fae, changelings, and some other magical stuff. I really, really, really don't care for fae and changeling stories, so I had picked this one up based only on the author.

The plot was about a changeling (Lola) who was controlled by a blood mage (Victor). Set in Detroit Free Zone (DFZ, a living city), there were only four laws in the entire city. No blood magic was one of the four. Keeping slaves was another of the laws, which he did as well.

Victor was such an utterly boring bad guy. Mustache-twirling, no layers, nothing at all that made him an interesting character.

Lola made me endlessly yawn. Plus too often she sounded and acted like Tina from the Forever Fantasy Online trilogy, which is NOT a good thing.

I guessed the big plot twist in one of the very early chapters, which was especially annoying since some of the strongest characters on the planet didn't put the pieces together until the very end...

It felt like it took me forever to read this book. I kept checking how much more there was to go every page or two. I should have DNFed it, but usually I like Aaron's books... (Or do I?)

DNF #130: The Brotherhood of Pirates by William Gilkerson. Not a badly written book at all, it just didn't hook me and I got too bored to continue. Set in 1952 on a Canadian coastline, a boy and his mother ran an inn. A man in a boat crashed during a storm, a man who seemed to know a lot about pirates...

I was surprised when I saw the book was set in the 50s, it felt way way earlier than that.

DNF #131: Into the Gray by Kathleen Palm. Another not badly written at all book. the reviews on Goodreads are glowing, I think it just wasn't the book for me. Written from the POV of a very young child (who used "diddly darn" as a curse way too often, I kept hearing it in Ned Flanders's from the Simpsons voice), I just couldn't connect with the story at all.