Jonathon

Fun ideas, exciting characters, questionable narration voices and a bit immature

Revisado: 05-05-25

I was trying to find the right word but landed on "immature." I find most of the story really fun and interesting but the author's attempt at romance leaves me cringing. It isn't really romantic, it is rushed, and the reader/listener doesn't really get a chance to experience the growth of the feelings. The story would have been much better without it.
I also think this story suffers from poorly written female characters. They often reduced to stereotypical women with no depth. The MC behaves like a fedora guy who tips his hat and says, "mi'lady." He references women in a very old fashioned type of way, close to chilvalry but reeks of light misogyny. It is mostly inoffensive but I feel the need to point it out. It is "gentlemen" talk but just comes off as awkward.
Next there's the narration. It is largely very well done by Matt. However, Allie's performance starts off strong but suffers by her inability to produce varied voices that don't sound so unusual. She tries branching out of her comfort zone and all you get are garbled sounding voices. The words sound strained and aren't pleasant to listen to. Matt's animal voices are also kind of bad but I can kind of see what he's trying to do even if I hate them.
The story itself is compelling and fun even if it suffers from a little too much referencing. It lacks a lot of depth but it still allows for a fun listen.

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good but not fulfilling

Revisado: 04-26-25

Good book but it really felt like not a lot happened. I understand how the story had to be told, and I even understand that it's a lead-up into something grander... but the book felt incomplete. There was no climax.
I hope the next book has something more exciting in store!

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solid book... but maybe best suited for younger audiences

Revisado: 04-21-25

I didn't really have a lot of expectations of this book, but it was overall a good experience that I could easily recommend to younger teens to get them into fantasy. It is simple and somewhat unimaginative, but it hits the core points of the fantasy genre really well.

as for the narrator, he was competent but somewhat lacking. He has a very monotone voice and he doesn't seem to express the characters very well. His accents are generally pretty weak and inconsistent, and when he uses a voice for a female character, they all kind of sound the same minus the ones he gives a Scottish accent.
beyond that, he sometimes messes up words, but it isn't that huge of a deal--I just thought I'd mention it.

I'm unsure if I'll continue the series because I don't think I'm the correct audience. Although I love the idea of the plot, the sausage scene really drove home what audience it is trying to entertain.

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Fun but still suffers from lack of editing

Revisado: 04-17-25

The overall humor of the story is definitely fit for YA audiences. The author is having fun and it shows throughout the series, and I think that's great.
As someone who swears freely, I feel as if the author is being a bit TOO liberal with the use of swear words--most specifically the F word. Normally I wouldn't care but hearing it so often gets kind of annoying. It's like baby's first word and so it gets repeated too frequently.
Moreover, I think the author's release of his writing might be inhibiting the enjoyment of the story. It often repeats meaningless non-changing descriptions of the characters (like Douglas' crown) or it retells you something that happened recently as if you didn't just experience it or hear it.
I think this is because the author may be releasing the chapters separately on their patreon so it fits the style of release more appropriately if the story is being told weeks or months apart to the reader. It doesn't translate as well when released as a whole in my opinion.
STILL, overall it is a good and fun story.
specifically to this book, I didn't find the final villain (of this book specifically) to be particularly interesting. Her arc seemed a bit too long and she always found a way to get away no matter what. it was kind of annoying to listen to but it didn't detract too much from my overall enjoyment of the book.

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Very fun but could use editing

Revisado: 04-13-25

Overall I really enjoyed the story and it was a lot of fun. I would recommend!
I think it suffers from a few issues, one is probably most evident because it is an audiobook. The story constantly reads out the stat screen even when most of the information isn't important and he's just glancing at it. It is kind of unnecessary and doesn't add anything a, "I glanced at my stat screen ..." and moving forward instead of reading it out so often.
The other main issue is the narrator is wonderful but the editing in post has the voice fluncuating as well as him performing different accents/voices for people that he didn't use previously. it was less common as it went on but it did happen quite a few times. still, the narrator is engaging and fun.

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slow

Revisado: 04-01-25

the narrator in the beginning is almost lifeless. you'd expect more soul out of TTS. he does start to pick up as the story goes out but it never really gets exciting.
overall it's a fun story with small audio quirks.
the "sound effects" are bad. it sucks that they feel the need to make the sounds via using the words with their voices instead of added effects. saying "rumble" or "squeeeek" doesn't really sell the experience that well.
still it is an overall decent experience and fun story

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

weird audio quirks

Revisado: 04-01-25

there's weird audio changes where it's harshly cut in and obviously done with a completely different sound setup every once in awhile. it is a bit jarring.
on top of that, the narrators onamatopoeia effects are... bad. They're pretty nonsensical and don't really sell the environment trying to be described. they're just loud and also jarring.
the narrator is decent but there's not a lot of life to his voice. it's a very base level narration without any excitement. he does decent enough distinct voices though.

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More of the same... to its detriment

Revisado: 03-29-25

The author is delivering a consistent story and where it was once fun and exciting, it has started to become boring and predictable.

I really loved the concept of the story and I really loved the characters. however, the author seems to devoted to long and detailed inner monologues. In some ways, they are well done but in others, the character keeps having the same conversation with themselves with very little variation. It's not even just a handful of times. It is constant. it feels as if the author has been given an assignment by a teacher and told he needs to reach a certain number of words. I could feel myself zoning out of the monologue only for me to come back in and having actually missed nothing. Because it was irrelevant or had already been said before. It rarely advanced the plot.

Then there is Sen. Sen has developed to be untrusting and cautious, with his reaction to any strangers is to immediately threaten them and refuse to listen to anything they're saying. Understandable? Sure. But it feels artificially extended and hard to listen to. If it only happened once, it would even be fine. But it doesn't.
Sen has become aggravating because we are only getting the same story with stagnant growth. He has become preachy, self-righteous and indignant, and while I can even understand his PoV, he is very unlikeable. However, we keep seeing him "grow" only for him to have the exact same interactions with people...
I can't deny there's a complexity to the character outside of these scenarios; however, it has gotten stale and repetitive. I want to see how this story ends, but I doubt I will enjoy the rest of the journey unless there's some change in it's delivery.

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Pacing...

Revisado: 02-22-25

The pacing was so glaringly bad in this book and the previous but this one being the final really felt bad.
The ending was written like a TV show trying to quickly wrap things up and give us glimpses into the future after the story "ends" felt really... and it felt disappointing.
Instead of fleshing out story and relationships more, it felt--more than ever--it wanted to have lengthy rants about duty and honor and everything else. it never felt like a conversation but essays written and THEN you get to actually experience glimpses of actual human interaction. I feel like there was more of a balance in the first three books but it just got marginally worse because it was trying to speed-run such a fun and exciting story. I wish the author didn't feel the need to rush it all to make this the final book because I really wanted the author to stick the landing.

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Still a good story

Revisado: 01-18-25

The pacing is definitely letting up from the previous books. There were a lot more skips before but now it seems to be steadying.

It is definitely slow burning the romance which I'm rarely a fan of but at least the reasoning makes some sense. I just wish the MC would be less oblivious about who her love interest actually is.

The narration is amazing but she does tend to do the same voices for all the "old people," but it is never really an issue.

I will be continuing when they finally release Book 4 on audible

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