Shaun Kennedy

A Slice-of-life complain-a-thon with lotsa sex.

Revisado: 10-06-23

I approached this audiobook already a bit lukewarm towards Misty Vixen as a writer. I really enjoyed their prehistoric fantasy series, RAW, but found the other series I tried, Haven and A Warm Place to be rather lacking or annoying. I think they are a good writer and make interesting characters, but so often they fall victim to giving their characters some massive chip on their shoulder and spending half the book complaining. Sadly I have to say that Our Own Way fell victim to the author's more egregious habits, and in-between all the hot sex and relationship building, the rest of the story was filled with constant complaints about the state of the world.

I'm a fan of slice-of-life stories, and exploring tales set in modern times, but escapist fantasy should still manage to be escapist and not attempt to constantly draw attention to every little bad thing out there. The main character (who is a very thinly disguised vehicle for the author, the MC is even a writer who wants to do caveman erotica) has a very negative outlook on the world at large and the people in it, with the exception of the few hot girls who fawn over him.

To switch gears a moment, there is some positive aspects to this story. The characters feel fleshed out and interesting, they all have a history, all have preferences and likes. The relationship building is excellent. Characters talk to each other, discuss their hopes, dreams, insecurities, worries, fears, hobbies, kinks, and everything else. The relationship feels very healthy, and everyone is treated with respect. None of the characters come off as stupid or make dumb mistakes, that being said so little actually happens in the story that there's not much for them to muck up. Aside from a few shopping trips, one low-key party, and a trip to an ex's house and a diner, pretty much the whole novel is just stuff happening around the house, and lots and lots of dialogue.

It's because the characters are so well fleshed out and interesting though that it becomes increasingly annoying and eye-roll worthy whenever they decide to derail the story to pull out a soapbox and wail about how awful the world is and how shitty everyone who isn't in their small circle is. What do they complain about? Well how stupid and arrogant every male who isn't the MC is. How messed up the whole "system" of working a job you hate is. How awful people in power are. It's a lot of vague rambling that's sorta about something, but really about nothing specifically. It just doesn't feel like it adds anything to the story, and instead drags down the characters as being very much driven by negative emotion, which conflicts with the very positive and uplifting aspects of their relationship.

It's not even so much that I disagree with their assessment of the world, it's just not what I came to this book for. I don't read romance, an escapist fantasy, to be constantly bombarded with rants and tirades about how awful the real world is. I'm sure some readers don't mind this, and if you are cool with it, or can look past it, Our Own Way has a lot to offer in terms of character and relationship building. I still have to admit I'm willing to give the next book a shot, but I wanted to write this review as a disclaimer and trigger warning to anyone who may not want to put up with the soapboxing and grandstanding that goes on a lot in this book.

One final note, I think the narrator did a fantastic job. Melanie Hastings is very enjoyable to listen to and is pretty good at doing a variety of female voices, though her male voice leaves a bit to be desired, but I can't fault her for trying, and it works well with the character she is portraying.

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A decent but unfocused starting point

Revisado: 12-11-22

Having really enjoyed Misty Vixen's other story RAW about a primitive "caveman" type, I was excited to begin another of her celebrated series.

Haven certainly shows promise, but also feels more like the author was floundering a little bit trying to come up with a good story. The characters are generally likeable and interesting, though the pace of their relationships is rather quick (and handwaved due to the setting). For those looking for numbers, the MC gets to get down and dirty with 4 women in this first book, though only one could be considered "more than a friend with benefits" at this stage.

The biggest issue is that there doesn't seem to be any clear direction. The characters just "do stuff" and then "things happen". Even high stakes moments where the characters are fighting for their lives seems to lack much agency or real thrill as it's often little more than a series of headshots. Speaking of which, the survival elements are definitely not written by a survivalist. The blatant disregard for ammo conservation and over reliance on "prepackaged food" should have killed off these characters way before the story even started. Not to mention the time frame for this being several decades after an apocalypse and everyone is still scavenging old buildings for supplies? Luckily I don't think too many people are going to be reading this for it's survival themes.

The sex scenes are plentiful and enjoyable, though the author could really use a thesaurus as you'll hear the poor narrator of this have to utter the word "pussy" somewhere around 200+ times.

The girls are interesting and varied enough, and despite this having a bit more of a real-world tone, it heavily focuses on "monster girls", as all but one of the girls the MC gets with is inhuman as they are called. One being a reptilian woman (called a Rep), one being a catgirl (called a Jag), and one being a huge giantess woman (called a Goliath) and this does create some fun differences that are explored throughout the story, not purely for sex, but also just in how their different physiques contribute to their survivability.

Ellory Lane does a decent job narrating this, though at times it feels as if she is just "going through the motions" and isn't really getting into the story she's trying to tell. She does a decent enough job giving each character their own voice and distinct personality, but sometimes when listening to a sex scene you can almost get inside the narrator's head and imagine her going "I can't believe I have to read this smut", though she certainly can give some very animated "moans and noises" for those who enjoy their onomatopoeia.

Overall it's not a bad book, and is an okay start, but I will have to hold out for the next book in the series to really get a feel for whether it's going to do anything interesting with it's premise.

I will also mention the book is VERY short, even by harem standards, at right about 6 hours you can get through it in a week of casual listening (I only listened during my work commute). So it may be a book to wait for a discount or use a credit on. Maybe I can recommend it a little higher once I get through the rest of the series, which thankfully I am still open to experiencing even with the few drawbacks I mention.

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Great Performance, Decent Narrative, Rough Pacing.

Revisado: 06-26-22

I rather enjoyed the first book and felt it had a nice pace to it as it built up to a decent ending, though it's harem elements were more a tease than an actualization.

In this one we get much more time spent developing relationships and really examining the characters, but the story beats are not well paced out. Many subplots are introduced and then left completely unmentioned or acknowledged by the book's finale. While there is indeed a sequel, it's not like a dangling subplot left to be fixed later, but rather new more severe story elements render those previous subplots moot. Like what point is there to help a little old lady get her cat out of the tree when a meteor destroys the woman's entire house with her inside of it? It's just odd to spend so much time developing these story beats and intriguing plots just to cast them suddenly unresolved at the feet of breakneck pacing that doesn't even acknowledge those elements. So many promises are made, and while it's possible the sequel may make good on them, it would certainly feel a step back to be dealing with minor missions when compared with the grand scale of events unfolding. Rather similar to mopping up side quests after a video game's main narrative concludes, it simply doesn't have the right feel to it, though I am still eager to see what the Author does with these plots. Nothing is a deal breaker, though it certainly feels a bit jolting, particularly at the end. It's like the book can't decide what it wants to be, it tries to be a political fantasy, a harem fantasy, an epic fantasy, a war fantasy, an adventure fantasy, and monster girl porn all at once (though it very tepidly dips it's toe in the latter as it rarely makes use of the monster girl's physiology in any interesting ways). Ultimately it tries to be too many things at once and feels like it under delivers on all of them as a result.

As for the performance, I can say nothing but good praises for Rebecca Woods, she manages to do so many different voices flawlessly and while she doesn't have the same range of deeper masculine voices as her feminine ones, each character sounds unique and only some of her aristocratic highborn ladies feel like they share the same voices. She does such a good job it makes you want to search for other audiobooks by her just so you can hear her expert narration again.

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