Nico

As someone on GRs said, “no plot just vibes,” but even the vibes were a miss for me. I felt like I was kept at arms-length. It’s an interesting premise, but I never was wowed by Penny, Dallergut or the store, and - maybe because of the state of my cold, dark heart - I never felt my heartstrings pulled, even though I craved it. My favorite of the stories were about the customers addressing their trauma and the musician struggling with inspiration, but even those felt too brief and just at surface level. I just felt nothing with this one.

Penny gets a job at the Dallergut Dream Department store, a place where you can purchase dreams ranging from meeting a celebrity to seeing a family member who has passed. Told in a series of vignettes, you follow Penny as she bumbles and learns the ropes while interacting with customers.

I think fans of When the Coffee Gets Cold might enjoy this or vice versa, folks who enjoy the cozy subgenre, or *maybe* light novels (I’m pretty ignorant about these, but this somewhat reminded me of light novel The Haunted Bookstore by Shinobumaru - maybe it was just the cutsy protagonist in the vignette style, though I prefer that one).

Love love love love love this book. I CANNOT wait to see what Blackgoose writes next.

If I wasn't crying my eyes were filled with tears. I highly recommend the Tiffany Aching subseries of Discworld for adults and teens alike, even if you haven't read the other books, although I do suggest the witches subseries.

There's a lot of battle scenes, which isn't really that interesting to me. But the game is afoot and I can't wait to see how the Long Price Quartet series concludes.

3.5 stars, rounding to 4? This was a fine, single-POV character-focused story about Maia, fourth in line and who no one thought would become emperor. I liked Maia and some of the politicking, but some things were amiss for me that I can't put my finger on. I would say this is a lighter book and I can see this being a comfort read for some because Maia is so likable and you see people liking him for who he is, except Maia does receive bigotry because he is mixed goblin-elf and there are references to being raised with mental and physical abuse by his alcoholic cousin.