Galaxy Quest is one of my go to feel good movies. Years ago, they had a special midnight showing event at a theatre here in Hollywood with a Q&A from folks who worked on the movie and it was so much fun

There are elements to show this is going to be heavily interconnected with things (that's the reason I will keep reading) but this was a tv episode or almost just a the tiny bit like a fanfic and I didn't enjoy that as much. I enjoy a lot of their writing so yeah. Meh for me.

What I wanted and didn't get was what Ilona does well IMHO with other books-- each story is a confined story, not necessarily an episode, at the beginning as they draw you into the world. Then you get the connective pieces to a larger thing going on as you go but the single story makes sense.

I'm not kidding when I say if you've seen Solo Leveling recently, that this character is extremely similar in many ways. The story specifics are different (some underpinnings are the same) but you are going to see the parallels in the FMC and Sung Jing Woo immediately.

That's kind of why it feels flat for me I guess. I knew (because that's the way this trope goes) that the FMC was not going to lose anything at all. I mean yes the FMC has lost something more ephemeral but it doesn't seem to be that important to her in the grand scheme - that's the trope.

Not going to lie, if we'd had an Artax from the neverending story moment (there kinda is one? But you're not going to believe it) that may have brought a little more intensity to my feelings about the struggle and really connected me to how deeply difficult the survival actually felt to the FMC.

Ok so deeply into the thread now, spoilers, I do feel like the FMC became too good too fast. Like she went through so many beats of "problem to overcome" that I never felt like she wouldn't make it even when she described her own feelings of not going to make it.

If you aren't well versed in the trope from specifically recent anime like Solo Leveling or aren't into D&D, then most likely you're gonna to be hopefully super intrigued -- I recognize not everyone tracks across all the same niches so this could be really different for some readers.

BUT the confirmation of the "twist" makes it worth seeing where it goes. This book one is basically just a prologue to the actual story. It sets up the world, the twist, the baseline for the characters. The next book will tell us if this is really good or if it still just meh for me.

That said, it is still a regurgitation of really, really common anime and D&D tropes. I get it, I understand it, these are very popular right now but I can't help but wish it was a more unique premise if that makes sense.

Otherwise they are happy to see me. I'm doing a lot of laundry 🫠

There are six litter boxes in the house so it was definitely vengeance

ok end rant lol

I hope more authors realize some of the best stories are the ones where the payoff is worth waiting for

I feel like the ability to pull readers along on an adventure or slow burn a romance and leave the reader screaming that they want the kiss scene but aren't getting it is becoming less and less with the newer books and authors. everything reads like fanfic nowadays and I love me a good fanfic but