Donna Augustine

I enjoyed the opening of this book a lot. It was dark and it felt real.
But as soon as she got actually involved in it all things stopped making sense.
I was totally on board with how she found reasons to live again without even realizing. I really liked the whole cut-throat attitude of the underground but the whole debt thing was extremely far fetched and utter nonsense tbh. I probably would try to murder someone that indebted me to some unknown party for an undefined but insanely high amount without being asked beforehand.

I get that she has few options but the way she is seemingly being manoeuvred into these bogus situations that supposedly can only be resolved by her indebting herself is just ridiculous and utterly unbelievable not to mention infuriating as hell and the whole speel about snitches getting stitches was equally absurd.
I get that running to the boss weakens her position but that is not her only choice. To begin with, she can hint that she has reason to believe that people are trying to boot her out and if he doesn't want her to end up dead that he should keep an eye out for her safety. He clearly needs her a LOT even if it is just for the spells she may be able to provide. In regards to the cotton decay spell, I am just speechless. That entire thing made no sense whatsoever. How the hell did those witches expect her to hide this from Kain when they know she has to work with him daily? And if he found out they were done for even without her snitching on them willingly. The entire move was just suicide and they just got away because against all odds she managed to organize magical clothes from random dwarfs. Are you shitting me? This is head vs desk levels of bullshit.

And even leaving all these massive logical errors aside the way she is willing to willy-nilly take on debts of unknown size or consequence is just ridiculous. She isn't familiar with the underground, yes, but she otherwise doesn't act the naive damsel or like the typical tstl heroine but comes across rather street smart and intelligent. I can't even put my frustration into words properly over this mess.

It's just extremely lazy writing. Despite me enjoying the opening to a degree that I started to hope I might actually have found a gem, I am just not able to look past all that crap regardless of how trivial or insignificant the consequences of all this bullshit might end up being.
I strongly suspect much of the plot will revolve around how she will get out of all these bullshit debts with boldness and cunning whit and how she will incur debts from various parties over and over again, keeping her trapped in a vicious cycle. *edit: I was wrong. This is not at all what happens.
You know what, I just realized I am frustrated enough to keep listening to the audiobook on 80% speed (or something) just to see if I'm right with my predictions and to have confirmation for my rant. The book officially counts as dropped in the mid of chapter 15 though.

Edit: It got even worse than I imagined. The MC rapidly devolves into a star-struck drooling idiot that throws around childish tantrums constantly but ultimately lets herself being pushed around by Kain like a paper doll. She just takes all his shit because reasons and feelings and stuff all the while prancing around announcing how tough she is and that she will show them all eventually. It's really embarrassing. The screwed up logic never went away either. It just keeps piling up.

I have to admit a large part of my intense frustration with the shallow and inconsistent story is because I just didn't expect it after such a serious opening. Most authors fail miserably in accurately describing real trauma or the resulting depression and apathy like that but this book nails it. 10/10. I even want to go as far as to say that this author probably has personal experience in some form. This made me expect a more serious story that has the intent to be gritty and real. But the book pretty much made a 180° turn and mostly turned into a soap opera. The heavier vibes never really went away but the light and silly magical academy romance atmosphere (there is no actual school involved. The book just manifests most of the same clichées.) clashes horribly with this darker theme and makes it impossible for me to take the darker parts serious while at the same time drawing attention to the idiocy of the lighter parts.… (mehr)

Not bad but not particularly good either.
Initially, I enjoyed it a lot.
I really liked the main character and how her daemons made her into who she was in the beginning.
She had the makings of a badass female lead I could learn to care for but it's all lost bit by bit throughout the book.
She keeps acting like a brave hero-type gurl but the discount moral dilemmas really degrade that and the romance was the cherry on top that does her in. It all just makes her look immature.
The author tried to force-feed the reader that the world consists of shades of grey and isn't shy in pointing this out to the reader constantly while still telling a run of the mill baddies vs goodies story. I just didn't buy it. Everything in this book strongly hints at a very standard plot. It completely misses the actual core points of the issues it raises and tries to portray the missing information necessary to resolve the conflicts as shades of grey. This is a rather common mix-up, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. I really couldn't say in this case.
And now together:
If a baddy is bad but we don't know how bad exactly yet that doesn't mean there is a grey area there. It just means we don't know he is bad yet. That has nothing to do with shades of grey.

The book always chose the default plotlines in general with all the usual tropes and clichées I've read countless times before.
I was interested in the world even tho I am generally not a big fan of super soft magic systems like this.
Ultimately what it comes down to is the absence of logic and common sense of all the people involved. It made it all feel very contrived.
So,
good: interesting and believable mc (initially), interesting world
bad: contrived plot, missing logic, discount shades of grey

I won't continue the series as I am confident the next one will just compound the flaws and issues I had with the first one.

bye… (mehr)

A Bridge to Nowhereland by Donna Augustine
Going Nowhere series #1. Urban fantasy. Possible romance later in the series. Cliffhanger.
Billie’s Gram tells her that she’ll be gone soon. Billie knows you can’t predict the day you are going to die, so basically says “ok Gram” and runs off to work after a warning from Gram to “tell them you have a reservation”, whatever that means. As Billie runs over a bridge, her life changes and she’s trapped in an outpost between Topside and Nowhere. Whatever that means. Billie is told she’s a tinker and get used to this new existence.

Not a lot of world building here yet. It’s a magic world since they can obviously change the outcome of events plus there is a good and bad side of the world. The heroine is full of snark and defiance and also, possibly, attracted to her new boss, Kaden. So far, he is mostly mad at her but also protective. There is a spark here. And why is purple the best? It’s certainly one of my favorite colors, but we don’t know the background in this new world yet.
I’m interested enough to put the next one on my tbr.
3.5… (mehr)