Shachar Haad
I enjoyed the book, apart from some caveats, and am excited to read the following one. The story flowed well, and I didn't experience it standing still or being dragged along. The characters were memorable and likable. The plot barely exists, making the story more of a "Slice of Life" where you focus on the characters, settings, and worldbuilding.
There are a few elements where the story fails:
- The protagonist is presented as too dumb for the supposed benefit of the reader. It's as if the author thought very little about the reader's capacity to understand nuance and clear connections in the story, forcing the protagonist to ask questions repeatedly and assuming they couldn't understand anything from context in the story. This made him look dumb, more than a person who lacks information about the world he is in.
- There is way too much exposition at the start of the book. It would have been fine if it were to have been spread over various conversations and locations, but the author focused on one long, and sometimes a bit tedious, conversation that exposits information not yet relevant to the story. The protagonist doesn't see or experience events, and then another character explains their meaning after a context is established. The latter part does happen later, but as mentioned above, only for mostly self-explanatory names, events, and places.
- The protagonist is placed in a school filled with women. He needs a roommate. So, to make it simple, he is paired up with a lesbian. I liked that pairing. It can answer the problem of mixed gender cohabitate and it opens the story to a male/female relationship without the option of romantic entanglement. Unfortunately, this is not what was done here. The woman is a lesbian to the point where it's convenient, becoming bi, and it's not.
Sam wants to be added to Noah's family; there is a reason for that, and in context, it works with the worldbuilding. The problem, she is a lesbian, and the process to be 'added' requires sexual activity. The story leads to the point of doing it that one time for the benefit of the ritual, but as the story progresses, all illusions are removed, and the sexual tension between a man and a lesbian becomes silly and then ridiculous when faced with the enjoyment the lesbian has with this straight sexual encounter, compounded by lust afterwards, where the lesbian can't get enough and willingly jumps to more sexual encounters.
This would have made sense if the story had made her realize she was bisexual throughout the story, setting the stage to reach that point. While I'm not a lesbian or a woman (which seems to be a requirement to becoming a lesbian), I have a hard time accepting that this is how lesbianism works, which takes away from the story.
I enjoyed the book, apart from some caveats, and am excited to read the following one. The story flowed well, and I didn't experience it standing still or being dragged along. The characters were memorable and likable. The plot barely exists, making the story more of a "Slice of Life" where you focus on the characters, settings, and worldbuilding.
There are a few elements where the story fails:
- The protagonist is presented as too dumb for the supposed benefit of the reader. It's as if the author thought very little about the reader's capacity to understand nuance and clear connections in the story, forcing the protagonist to ask questions repeatedly and assuming they couldn't understand anything from context in the story. This made him look dumb, more than a person who lacks information about the world he is in.
- There is way too much exposition at the start of the book. It would have been fine if it were to have been spread over various conversations and locations, but the author focused on one long, and sometimes a bit tedious, conversation that exposits information not yet relevant to the story. The protagonist doesn't see or experience events, and then another character explains their meaning after a context is established. The latter part does happen later, but as mentioned above, only for mostly self-explanatory names, events, and places.
- The protagonist is placed in a school filled with women. He needs a roommate. So, to make it simple, he is paired up with a lesbian. I liked that pairing. It can answer the problem of mixed gender cohabitate and it opens the story to a male/female relationship without the option of romantic entanglement. Unfortunately, this is not what was done here. The woman is a lesbian to the point where it's convenient, becoming bi, and it's not.
Sam wants to be added to Noah's family; there is a reason for that, and in context, it works with the worldbuilding. The problem, she is a lesbian, and the process to be 'added' requires sexual activity. The story leads to the point of doing it that one time for the benefit of the ritual, but as the story progresses, all illusions are removed, and the sexual tension between a man and a lesbian becomes silly and then ridiculous when faced with the enjoyment the lesbian has with this straight sexual encounter, compounded by lust afterwards, where the lesbian can't get enough and willingly jumps to more sexual encounters.
This would have made sense if the story had made her realize she was bisexual throughout the story, setting the stage to reach that point. While I'm not a lesbian or a woman (which seems to be a requirement to becoming a lesbian), I have a hard time accepting that this is how lesbianism works, which takes away from the story.