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Book Review: Beautiful Thing, Beautiful Lies, Beautiful Agony, by Ever Nightly

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I am kind of enamored with the whole idea of blue aliens. I mean, why blue? I even wrote a whole blog post about it once. Plus, I truly enjoy cheesy sci-fi sometimes. No shade. So, I picked up the first book in this series Beautiful Thing (by Ever Nightly) as a freebie, just for the fun of it. Then I bought the Beautiful Lies and Beautiful Agony. I wrote each of the following reviews as I finished each book. You can kind of track my disillusionment.

beautiful thing cover

About the book:

Just out of college, I’m recruited for a top-secret linguistics job. Easy, right? Translate for a few foreign prisoners and I’m home free. But when I arrive at Area 51, I’m swept into a world of secrets and lies. And the prisoner? Yeah, he’s not even human. His name is Specimen-One and he’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But he’s an alien, so not exactly boyfriend material. I’m not sure he agrees, though. He wants something, and I have a sinking feeling that something is me…

My review:

You know, sometimes you dive into a book knowing it’s gonna be all sorts of bonkers. But you do it anyway because you want a little bit of silly fun. That was me and Beautiful thing. I knew the story wouldn’t be deep, the plot complex, or the events believable. But I figured it be a fun Sci-Fi romp. And I was right.

Ava enters what is supposed to be a high security military facility, but it’s run with a laissez faire I’d be surprised to find in the academic back halls of a community college. Which means ridiculous things are allowed to happen that no serious reader would believe. It’s also very clear what they want and why Ava is there, but she’s somehow oblivious to it. Which would be impossible to believe it I was meant to take it seriously. The romance is of the insta sort. But none of it takes itself too seriously. So, the reader isn’t expected to either. Which is why it’s fun.

beautiful thing photoThere were some formatting inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story on occasion. For example, sometimes Specimen One was referred to as S1 and sometimes as S-1. Sometimes telepathic communications were italicized, sometimes they’re weren’t. Which meant I had to stop and figure out from context what I was reading—that sort of thing. It could have easily been cleaned up. It is also a cliffie of the sort so common these days. It ends in the middle of dramatic scene. I know it’s not just this book or author. It’s basically the industry standard now. But I cannot emphasis how tired I am of books that don’t end, just stop. *sigh* But I have book two. So, I’ll continue.

beautiful lies coverAbout the Book:

I’ve been kidnapped, and I’m completely alone. Area 51 has been destroyed, and S1 is gone. I’m left to sift through the pieces of what happened, and figure out how I’m going to survive. But as I dig deeper into the government’s secrets, one thing becomes abundantly clear…

Nothing is what it seems.

My Review:

Meh, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as book one. It’s very much a middle book. Ava and S1 spend basically no time together. Ava just reacts to whatever is presented to her, with no particular agency of her own. It ends abruptly and, since this book is only 136 pages long and the next 156, there is literally no reason it’s broken in two, making this a trilogy instead of (at most) a duology. I don’t just mean beautiful lies photobecause the number of pages make it possible, but also because this book feels really incomplete. It feels like half a book.

I don’t mind paying for books, obviously. But I do resent having to go back and buy a second book when the previous one feels so lacking in substance and completion. Like, just make it one book and price it accordingly. Otherwise, I feel like I’m paying for two half books. And I resent the hell out of that, even if the cost is the same in the end. Just saying.

beautiful agony coverAbout the Book:

To say the entire universe is against us is an understatement.

The government is hunting us, and I’m learning things about myself that are truly terrifying. In the last few weeks, my whole world has been thrown into chaos, and I’m not sure of anything anymore. Danger stalks my every step, and I’m not sure whom I can trust. S1 has secrets of his own. Secrets that could threaten everything we’ve built together…

It’s ironic, isn’t it?
S1’s love saved me, but it might just destroy me in the end.

My review:

*Sigh.* So, while I enjoyed the silly-fun of book one, and accepted that book two might not have the same spark, being the second/middle book. I expected the series to redeem itself, here in its conclusion—book three. It did not. The series started fun because it didn’t take itself too seriously, so the reader was free to laugh with it. It loses that freedom here at the end. It takes itself seriously and asks the reader to do the same. But it’s still silly Sci-Fi romance. (That’s not a dig, I love silly Sci-Fi romance). It doesn’t have the depth of plot, development of characters, or basic cachet to truly be taken seriously. So, it feels like a kid playing dress up.

But where the book (and series) really fails is in S1. I accept that his character wouldn’t develop much in book one. But then he’s basically not in book two. And in book three—where the author really should have given his character some character—she just doesn’t. He and Ava have one brief conversation. The rest is just sex and running around. So, by the end of the THIRD BOOK I still know essentially nothing about him…neither does Ava. So, what is their great, intergalactic love supposed to be based on? I don’t know. I still don’t know THREE BOOK IN.

beautiful agony photoThere are also plotting inconsistencies. Ava kills a man, for example, and it’s said that she’s in shock because she’d never taken a life before. I just went (out loud, I might add), “You shot a man in the throat—dead—in book two!”

The result of all of this is that the series finished with a pathetic whimper. The series lost it’s ‘don’t take me too seriously’ fun, but didn’t replace it with anything of any substance. Doesn’t give the reader a romance they can sink their teeth in. Doesn’t unfurl a plot that keeps us invested. Doesn’t create characters you know well enough to love. It’s all just sort of meh.

Other Reviews:

Scary Mary the Hamster Lady – Book Review: Beautiful Thing, by Ever Nightly

 

 

 

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Book Review: The First Starfighter, by Grace Goodwin

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I borrowed an audio copy of Grace Goodwin‘s The First Starfighter though Hoopla. It was narrated by Tor Thom and Avery Reid.
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Starfighter Training Academy. It was just a game. The newest, hottest video game release of the year. Choose a role. Build the perfect hero who joins you on missions to save the Vega star system from the evil Queen Raya and her merciless Dark Fleet.

Play for hours? Check.
Obsess over the in-game romance between your avatar and the sexiest alien you’ve ever seen? Check.
Win? Beat the heck out of the game? Check and check.

Open your door at 3:00 in the morning to find that smoking hot alien you thought you made up in your head standing there? Um… okay.

Wake up on the other side of the galaxy with that same alien insisting you’re his… and that you haven’t been playing a video game, but completed the training program to become the first Starfighter from Earth?

Holy sh*t.

my review
I needed to do some tedious and fairly mindless tasks over on my Sadie’s Spotlight blog—cut/paste and checking links are live sort of stuff that I could easily do while listening to an audiobook. So, I decided to listen to a book that had been featured on the blog. That’s how I ended up listening to The First Starfighter.

Now, you have to understand that I sometime really like to lean into cheesy sci-fi romances (or romantic sci-fi, since the romance is more the point than the sci-fi). I enjoy the cheese. That’s part of why I read books like The First Starfighter. I’d never pretend to be surprised that sci-fi romances are sometimes cheesy. But there is a fairly thin line between laugh-with-the author cheese and cringe cheese and this book crosses that line about half the time. Which makes it about a half success for me.

The mechanical writing seemed fine, as far as I could tell in an audio version, and I liked the characters well enough. But Goodwin just rushed things a bit too much—the plot is very, very thin, even by romantic sci-fi standards—and tried to take the ridiculous plot too seriously, which took it from laugh-with-the-author to cringe-worthy.

But a half-success is better than no success at all and I think I’d be willing to give another of her books a try (which is good because I own several of them).

the first starfighter photo

Other Reviews:

Review: The First Starfighter – Grace Goodwin

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Book Review: Eclipsed Heart, by K. Margaret & Dagmar Avery

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There is a new Indie Book Store/cafe, called Spine, not too far from my house that I’m super excited about. I stopped in, had a cortado, and bought some books recently. Eclipsed Heart, by K. Margaret and Dagmar Avery is the first of two books I bought.
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The Apocalypse is coming. The Brotherhood has watched and protected this world from the oncoming darkness for as long as time has existed. Each age brings a new threat, a new way for the darkness to eclipse the light forever. It has been over five hundred years since the last major trials, and the world is due.

Isaac Tsagakis dreams of the end, and the woman he must find. Beautiful and perfect, she is the first of four that is needed to ensure the world does not end, and humanity isn’t thrust into the depths of an unimaginable hell. But finding her in a city as large as Savannah, Georgia is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. He needs to find her, bond with her and keep her for always. And he is ready.

Magnolia Morgan has no idea just how special she is. A librarian obsessed with the ancient world, she stumbles onto her wildest dreams just talking to Isaac one night. A man she would never consider talking to her, she is enraptured and excited that for once, her normal dull existence is going to be shaken up by the sexy bar owner who kisses like the devil. But other forces are at work against the Brotherhood, forces that have been working in the shadows, watching, planning…and they want Maggie as well. Isaac is going to have to rely on all his strength and experience to ensure she becomes his for all time because the fate of the world is in her hands.

my review

In a lot of ways this book is fine. The writing is fine. The sexy times are fine. The world and the plot are shallow, but fine. The editing is a little dodge, but mostly fine. The book is mostly fine. I’m sure plenty of people will enjoy it.

The problem is that it is like someone said to me, “Hey, go ahead and make a list of ALL your most hated cliches and tropes and we’ll just put them ALL in a single book for you.” Man, this story and the characterizations in it hit just about all of my least favorite things to find in a book, especially a romance.

But what really clinched it for me was two things. One, Isaac goes about bonding Maggie (and all the men knew he was doing so), but at no time is Maggie made aware of this. Which I considered problematic. Consent is a thing, ya’ll! And, two, all the men—the MC and the side characters who will be the MCs of future books—were complete douche bags, especially in the way they thought and talked about women. It’s kinda hard to invest yourself in a romance with men you literally find yourself wrinkling your nose and sneering at. And that’s before we even get into all of the gross gay, “lady boy,” and sexist jokes. Take the worst locker room, dude-bro banter and multiply it a few times.  No, I did not appreciate these MCs at all. And I have no desire to spend any more time with them.

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