This is the first book from Seanan McGuire that I have not liked, not one little bit. I've loved works by both McGuire and Grant, but this has not lived up to the standards set by her other works. The only telltale McGuire trait is the worldbuilding being rich with beasties and monsters, with excellent details given, but after that... everything falls flat.

To begin, we are given a cast straight out of some of the worst parts of Urban Fantasy. Verity Price, who has nothing positive to say about much of anything, and Dominic De Luca, the trope-laden Catholic Italian swarthy love interest who is a stereotype from top to bottom. Things we hear about way too much: Verity's loathing of her job, Verity's desire to embrace her passion despite being a member of a hunted group of rogue cryptid hunters (putting herself and her family at risk to follow her dreams), how much she doesn't like her more-aggressive sister Antimony, and her weird family business when it doesn't relate to the plot. These characters are all paper thin and none of them get fleshed out beyond their barebones archetypes, and very few of them are even likable. The only one vaguely likable with a hint of an inner life is Sarah, and she feels like she's there because a telepath was needed for plotpoints.

The rest of the book is something straight out of a Buffy The Vampire Slayer script bible. If you are a long-time fan of the genre, you have read this book already. You have watched this show already. This brings nothing new to the table, and what it does bring to the table is stale bread and a glass of water. I am so deeply disappointed because it's candyfloss fluff, but it's not even good candyfloss. It's empty air where a much better book should have been. I know this, because I know Seanan can absolutely do better than this and right now I'm confused as to why she didn't.

Either way: 1/5, would probably .5 if I could give it, and that's only because it does have well thought out magical world and history... but if I wanted to read a book only to enjoy intricate worldbuilding, I would have picked up a Sanderson novel. ( )

silly (although not as silly as anticipated) and entertaining ( )

Listened to the audiobook for this, which was likely a good idea as the narrator (Emily Bauer) gave Verity that cheerful bouncy voice that suited her well.

Overall I enjoyed this book as much as I thought I would. Verity, and by extension her family's business as Cryptozoologists, is fascinating.

It did drag a bit for me, and I was a little flabbergasted with some of Verity's choices in trust, but enjoyable still.

Now I really want some Aisling Mice please (hard to feel down on yourself when a field of mice have a feast day when you blow your nose). ( )

This urban fantasy is the first book I’ve tried by this author. I found it a fast and entertaining read.

I enjoyed the narrative tone that didn’t portray Verity and her problems too seriously. The light style made it easy to accept improbable aspects of the background and decisions that were (to my thinking) downright peculiar. There were interesting backstory snippets, but I didn’t feel terribly invested in the characters. In particular, I wasn’t keen on how the love interest developed: their encounters felt unnecessarily contrived (but you may remember I’m not big on romance anyway). There were also a lot of different mythical creatures/people/entities which at times just felt thrown in randomly. Perhaps they’ll return in later books.

Entertaining urban fantasy, though I’m not rushing to pick up the sequel.

I'm gonna be honest here. I've seen this book constantly in my recommendations but because of the atypical cover combined with the title, I avoided it for over a year.

Yesterday I actually checked out the genre list and reviews and decided to finally give it a try.

It wasn't as good as I hoped but it was far better than I expected considering the appearance.

The action scenes were purely written to be stylish without much consideration for consistency or logic. One example that particularly stood out to me was a gun being reloaded but before there was a chance of it being fired again the MC picked it up and an ammo check resulted in 3 bullets left. I mean, yea, it could be that the person reloaded a mag with 3 bullets but come on. But the problem is broader than just details like that. The battles are more in line with an action game than a real fight. For example, the MC fighting 8 enemies at once but they all wait for her to finish styling on one of them before the next one attacks, and so on, and lots of other similar issues.

The plot was a little all over the place with quite a few story threads and hints that just lead nowhere.
I somewhat enjoy unconventional tension arcs in books because I got fed up reading the same "proper" arc-focused story structure over and over again. It's not that you can predict what exactly will happen in books like that but you get a feeling for what kind of thing will happen when and that kind of spoils some of the enjoyment of being surprised.

The story makes use of a lot of dated and shallow clichées but maybe that can be at least somewhat excused by the release date of 2012? I have no clue about the timeline of the UF genre development.

The heroine sadly is quite useless despite her fighting prowess and is mostly just accidentally dragged into the plot resolution without much active contribution. I've read much worse offenders in that regard but it still took away some of my appreciation for her character.

The author doesn't seem very interested in telling a story but rather uses the story as a tool to set up cool scenes she wanted to write. I feel it should be more the other way around.
Don't get me wrong, the plot actually is pretty decent but the way it is implemented didn't present it in the best light.

All in all, it's an average read which I rounded up as I think it would be unfair to rate it the same as some of the crap I have among my 2-star ratings.

I will try out the next book but I predict I will probably drop it early on, scratch that, after reading the blurb of the second book I decided to not continue. ( )