Sara Cooper

Engaging and sweet! Just the right mix of grounded storytelling and lightheartedness.

Revisado: 05-11-25

The narrator is fantastic, and I genuinely love the characterization - both in the writing and the reading! - of every character! Everyone felt real and believable, with their own flaws and inner worlds - even the occasional brief cameo characters. I love the grounded weight of the emotions and worldbuilding. Its rare heavier subject matter is also handled realistically, naturally woven throughout the narrative without ever tipping over into moroseness. Beautifully written with a ton of heart and good humor the whole way through, I think this is a lovely book. ❤️ I’ve subscribed to the author!

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I Think I’m Going to Read the Physical Book

Revisado: 04-21-25

This book was sweet and entertaining, but the narration was very hit or miss. The first narrator was solid, and I enjoyed her soft snark as Ulsa. She was good at distinguishing the characters from each other, both through different voices and through her general tone. I wish she had narrated the whole book, and I’m not sure why she didn’t.

Unfortunately, while I appreciate the second narrator’s efforts, I feel their style did not match well with this book. Their cadences and emphases were awkward at best, and their general lack of emotion made the story difficult to follow. I often found myself repeatedly replaying entire chapters, and I’m still almost certain that I missed important dialogue and plot points, simply because their narration was so awkward and disengaging.

The story itself is serviceable, with some lovely heartfelt moments. I expected it to be a lot darker than it was, but most of the struggles were interpersonal rather than plot-related, by narrative design. I’m sure I’d be more enthusiastic if the first narrator had just read the whole book, because her sections are the only ones I really remember, and I just finished the book five minutes ago.

Overall an easy listen, with some fun found-family characters in a fairly realistic-feeling medieval setting, even with the fantasy elements. But if you’d like to fully engage with the material, I recommend reading the physical book. I think I might do just that.

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I’ve listened to this like ten times now💗

Revisado: 04-04-25

I really, really love this book and its voice actor! The plot is engaging, the characters are complex, all the relationships feel honest, and the writing style is absolutely hilarious the whole way through! The narrative balances its tone very well, which is a feat with how funny it is - the lighthearted moments are fun, but the heavier themes and scenes are never cheapened or played for laughs. This is a very heartfelt story, all in all, and the main romantic relationship is both honest and absolutely adorable.

The voice actor is also fantastic - every character has an individual voice and feel, which is made even more engrossing by the excellent writing. The narration is done with such a seamless ease of flow, that it even makes the proprietary slang feel natural and easy to understand. Their narration style manages to be both energetic and smooth-paced, lending itself well to the cleverly interwoven worldbuilding.

I listen to this audiobook at least once a month, and sometimes (like this last time) I start it right over again from the beginning. It’s that fun!

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I hope there’s a sequel!

Revisado: 09-03-24

The only thing I wish were different, is I wish there were more of the same! I hope we get a sequel in the future - I’d love to see a continuation of these characters and the world they live in.

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Great characters, and wonderful voice work!

Revisado: 07-08-24

This is such a cute story, with a pleasantly surprising amount of plot and intrigue that I wasn’t expecting! I love the way the main relationship is written, and the naturalness of pretty much all the dialogue. I also appreciated that al the characters in the story feel like real people with their own histories, without weighing down the plot. The worldbuilding is subtle enough to allow for natural discovery by the reader, and when exposition is given, it feels interesting and earned. The voice actor is also wonderful, and brings the already-individualized personalities of the main and side characters to life!

All in all, an enjoyable, cozy read that I’ll definitely be revisiting!

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Is there a plot??

Revisado: 11-30-22

I really wanted to like this book, so I’m pretty disappointed. The concept is solid, and I feel like the story could have been great if it had more of a plot. As it stands, this is essentially a 21-hour-long road trip through a fairly generic fantasy forest, with no plot until the last forty minutes of the book. And that ‘plot’ is wrapped up in a single scene. It’s a good scene - but it just left me wishing we’d spent the book doing that actual plot, instead of walking through the forest for two weeks while pretending like Aurora’s ‘secret identity’ isn’t blatantly obvious.

Speaking of Aurora - I had a lot of fun with her at first! I liked that she seemed to take a lot of the silly tropes that tend to plague female fantasy characters, and turned them on their head. But the more the book went on, the more I realized that these tropes weren’t actually being given any real depth like I’d thought. It feels like the author is just ticking off every single 2000s DeviantArt Not-Like-Other-Girls trope they can think of to give Aurora. And that’s not inherently a bad thing, it’s just… boring after a while.

And about the romance…
I appreciate that we sapphics deserve silly, smutty fantasy romance too, but I was frustrated with this one. I felt a real lack of any meaningful connection between Aurora and Evie. And Evie herself is… really unlikeable? Like, I loved her at first, but she is JEALOUS as HELL, and that issue is never addressed within the narrative. They’ve only known each other for two weeks, and already Evie is like ‘how dare you SPEAK to your ex! How dare you maybe even possibly find women other than me attractive!’ It was really uncomfortable. I kept waiting for them to sit down and have a serious talk about her insecurity and controlling behavior, but they never do. And since Evie and Aurora standing around talking is literally the WHOLE BOOK, we aren’t left with much in the way of meaningful conversation or character conflict.

Honestly, other than the occasional sex scene or jealous outburst from Evie, they seemed to do and say a whole lot of nothing for most of the runtime. It got so egregious that I, someone who regularly hits the ‘explicit’ filter on AO3, was skipping past the smut scenes bc I was so bored. I didn’t even listen to the whole last scene of the book bc that’s all it was.

So I guess in the end… it’s ok? The narrator does a decent job, and there were some good ideas. I just wish the story had had more substance to it, or been much shorter. If all you’re looking for is some lightly messy romance and a lot of explicit sex, this book could genuinely be for you. It just wasn’t what I was looking for.

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Very, very long, but worth the journey.

Revisado: 04-08-22

This is probably my least favorite of the series, but I think that owes a lot more to my personal preferences in pacing than to the quality of the story itself. This book is very, very long and goes to some dark places - but it’s worth it. The symbolism and imagery is spectacular as Libba Bray’s work always is. The characters are lovable and fun, even in their darker moments.

I really appreciate the representation in the cast, the message of the central narrative, and the journeys every character is allowed to go on throughout the book. And given the size of that cast, I’m also plainly amazed that Libba Bray managed to keep such crisp, identifiable personalities and ‘voices’ for each character. The voice actress is also extremely talented, and brings every character and interaction to life! She even sings the songs - well!!

If I could change anything about the book, it would be its length. If you’re looking for a light read, or a fast-paced action-adventure, this may not be the book for you. There are certainly many moments of action, but the pacing tends to slow down a good deal between big, action-y plot points.

There’s no doubt this is the most introspective of the books in this series, and while I genuinely enjoyed that about it, it could get tedious at times. I think the plot got away from her a little bit in places. There were a number of scenes (and even sequences) I might have left on the cutting room floor.

But all in all, I’m glad I listened to this book in its entirety. It took me a few false starts, but I made it, and now I’m planning to listen to the whole series again!

.... in a little while!

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