booking_along's reviews
1806 reviews

this is a bit of a strange one to read and review. 

mostly because this is one of those books were the strangeness it has either works for you as a reader or it doesn’t. 

for me it didn’t really work. 

i didn’t dislike it but i also didn’t enjoy my time reading this. and this strange duality kept going for everything in this book. 

iliked the commentary it has on topics but at the same time it didn’t? 

the same goes for the characters -i liked that we had a 40 year old woman doing the rescuing! but i never really got a good character out of her, nothing stands out in a way that after reading a few other books after this one i will remember her because she lacked actual development.

the creatures could have been interesting but there wasn’t enough of what is going on with them to really make it either interesting to learn about them or make them spooky or horrific or just fantastically enough to be interesting because of that. they were kind of just the, did their few seconds or a line like an unimportant side character in a play that isn’t even really shown to the audience. 


there was potential and i can see it but the writing and how this story was told didn’t work for me. 
i could say that it was too strange for me and that i seem to be type of reader that needs all the information and more pages and just more in general for it to work for me but in recent years i have been enjoying strange shorter books. 

so i think this is just the case of this strangeness isn’t my kind of strange. 

i am sure it will work for people that love fairytales and books like alice in wonderland -the kind of writing that leaves it mostly up to you just throws you a line or two and from there you as the reader has to work to make the story complete. 


it was okay. 
and maybe i will reread it to see if it will work better for me when i know what’s coming and what i will get from this. 

but for now? not my type of book nor my preferred writing style to read. 

this was a bit of a mess. 

the idea had so much potential and the writing was okay BUT there was a lot lacking. 

starting with having two main character names be Paul and Jessica which might have not been as everyday names in the 60s in the USA (maybe?) and because of that might have seen more special but at this point in time it just is annoying to have those two names constantly thrown in between sci-fi and fantasy words and situations. 

also the mother/son relationship is just utterly strange. on one hand Jessica is supposed to be this highly trained and knowledgeable person that taught Paul and still has so much to teach him but than he becomes the person she refers to? why? 

also the utter laziness of having Paul just… know things for no real reason other than making it easy and unnecessary to explain things because why would there be a need the explain things if Paul can just understand it all out of thin air?!
mhm. 


so i disliked the laziness of the author if just making it too easy for himself instead of actually guiding this world and literal space this takes place in in real and understandable ways, actually building it up and explaining things. 

also the whole plot of lazy fat people (how can they all be that utterly overweight if they are in a place were water is the rarest material?!) kill everyone that gets in their way, trying to put down everyone else and a newly arrived boy is the foreseen saver?! mhm. 
once again that could have been done better? 


all that being said the world itself with the worms and the spices (which i while have loved to get a deeper and better understanding off) was fascinating and i wish the author would have actually made the entire world and planet more of a plot point especially with how many pages are spend running around and away from the worms. 


this wasn’t bad and it’s definitely a product of its time and i wish the women in this book would have been given more than the assistant side appearances especially BUT it has potential and i can see why some people love this especially if they read it as teenagers or some years ago. 

it’s a book i do want to reread, going into a book again knowing what to expect and knowing what i didn’t love sometimes helps me see the other things and find more things i enjoy because i am less focused on all the things i notice are lacking. but for right now: 2.5 stars and a little disappointed that this is such a hyped book but didn’t manage to come close to fulfilling that promise for me. 

this book had a lot of flaws in ways that a published book shouldn’t be showing up with. 

the romance was too fast and didn’t feel realistic at all and i am sorry but the sex scenes were bad. 

i saw a good amount of other review say this read like fanfiction or a wattpatt story and while i am not in wattpatt i can’t say i read a fanfic in at least 15 years that was this wishy-washy -from characters and what’s important to them to their passion and knowledge about that passion to just general things that made no sense or were inconsistent. let alone the writing that to me read like … yes okay a fanfic written by a teenager but let’s face it most adults tent to not read those once we grow out of the unrealistic insta-love and over the top sex scenes really quickly. 

so no for me this didn’t read like a fanfic, because i read better quality fanfics.


this all sounds like this was horrible. it wasn’t. 
but it wasn’t good. 

there was no actual development of characters or their arcs, they are both supposed to be passionate about their sports but especially anastasia didn’t seem to care about the details -aka knowing how to fuel her body to be the best she needs to be to be the best she wants to be- and non of them care enough about the details to actually show me that they love and care more their career there are supposed to be beholding in this book than about the stupid sex they are having. 

i get this is a romance but don’t write a sports romance about people that want to be come professionals in their areas and then write them as if they could care less? 

look i don’t know a lot of actual sport enthusiasts let alone professionals or wanna be professionals BUT the ones i do know or knew made damn sure they knew how to build their bodies to be the best they could be in all ways from mental to physical to what they out in themselves. 
so having a female lead that gets a meal plan with no carbs and basically no protein and doesn’t see a problem with that while she is heavily training and also shows no issues while training while undereating to an apparently extreme? mhm. 
doesn’t seem right in all the ways things can be wrong. 



and while i do think that the ending before the time jumps was okay… i think it could have been better. 
someone purposefully trying to harm a partner in a sport shouldn’t just be allowed the continue on without trouble. and a coach shouldn’t be standing by or make anyone do anything once it becomes apparent that someone has been abused and tell them to have to step up next to their abuser. 
so even with the ending… i had problems with. 


honestly for me this was a bit of a mess from start to finish and felt like the author tried to stuff to much in one story.

two different people in different sports being competitive about it and having to work together for some reason and becoming lovers and having to learn to work together. that would have been enough story. 

why add all the other stuff and the issues and the troubles in as well? 

for one with just the above mentioned this book would have been around the 300-350 page mark and that would have been plenty. 
and it wouldn’t have felt too much.


i don’t know if i am just overly picky or what but for me this wasn’t more than a not good done erotica trying to be more but didn’t manage. 

i wish more romance would focus more on actually building relationships instead of in “steamy” sex and write actual good characters the reader loves and is interested in and just doesn’t want to leave behind. 

but sadly this wasn’t that and it wasn’t for me.

but clearly it’s popular. so good for the author. 

2.5 ⭐️

the idea was there and if everything would have been build up and out and filled in more this could have been fantastic. 

the writing was a bit clunky and filled with often used phrases BUT if the rest would have been done better that could have worked as an easy to read story. 


honestly the biggest issue with this was that it was a novella. 

the characters didn’t have the time to be fleshed out and made interesting enough to want to care about them, the world building was thrown in but unfinished  and to clunky feeling while at the same time just not giving enough to really understand what could and couldn’t be happening. 

as an introduction to something larger - this would work. as a beginning and first part of something? it didn’t really work as a good hook.

a inspector team working on a dark murder mystery with fantastic element in a fantasy setting is all well and good and can be done fantastic even without the best lyrical or well throughout writing - but there has to be something given to make the reader want to come back and be interested in more.

either the characters have to be so well done that i want to know what else the author can create or the world has to be so utterly intriguing that i can’t wait to get back to it, or the fantastical elements have to draw me in…. something has to be the hook.


this novella tried to hook too many things at once and just threw those lines in there and didn’t use a net for it (let’s just stick with the fishing thing i am apparently going with here!) but non of the hooks had bait and all were thrown out too far from each other to really work together. 


there are interesting characters here but it’s too short to make it really interesting with them. 
the world could be interesting buht we just get the bare minimum to work with here. 
and the fantasy moments oh well those are basically skimped and thrown in as a bit of seasoning but too little too late.



all in all it’s okay. 

it’s not bad but it’s not great. 
it could have been 100 or so pages more? build just one thing out more, focus in on something and make the reader really get into it and make that ending work? that would have done the trick for me. 


this isn’t bad at all. 

but it reads like something not quiet competed yet.