Ik had niet verwacht dat een boek met zon FUCK ASS BOB op de cover zo goed zou zijn. Die cover voelt als bewuste sabotage.

Het duurde even voordat ik de wereld snapte en er een beetje in kwam. Toen ik begon dacht ik namelijk dat het een young adult was, maar ik kwam er al snel achter dat het eerder new adult is.
De manier hoe? Onze love interest was een 30 jarige boekwinkel eigenaar die als een van zijn eerste gedachten fantaseerd over een klant op te eten. Dat is een beetje de norm van dit boek. De gedaante verwisselaars of "shifters" zijn essentieel dieren die kunnen veranderen in mensen en houden van mensen vlees.

Het imago dat new adult voor mij heeft is als YA maar dan met enorm veel smut. Maar dit boek was squeaky clean. D slow burn is sloooowww. En daar hou ik van.
Ik vind dat dit boek perfect de new adult label draagt. Het gaat over volwassen mensen wat het geen YA maakt, maar is voor beide doelgroepen interessant.

Dit hele boek was best wel traag. Normaal kan ik daar absoluut niet tegen maar ik denk dat ik wel zin had in zon boek. Handelingen worden uitgebreid beschreven. Het halve boek gaat essentieel over Meg die een nieuwe saaie baan krijgt en een baas heeft die haar op wil eten.

De karakters ware interessant en soms een beetje griezelg op een ongemakkelijke manier, maar ook wel vertederend. Wat essentieel de love interest is, wil ons hoofdkarakter opeten voor minstens 80% van het boek. En dan niet op een sexy vampier manier, van oh een slokje bloed. Maar op een "ik wil je lever" manier.
Ik kan me de ongewone toon van het boek niet echt uitleggen. Maar ik denk dat het een groot deel was omdat ik eigelijk een Engels boek in het Nederlands aan het luisteren was. Iets wat ik bijna nooit doe. Ik lees echt sinds mn jeugd geen vertalingen meer van het Engels. Ik denk dat ik het wel leuker zou hebben gevonden om het in het Engels te luisteren maarja. Dit is wat gratis op Storytel stond.

A brief story of the world: "Once upon a time, the wolrd was divided between US and the OTHERS. We humans live along with terrifying creatures of myhts and legends and an unstable alliance exists between us."

Well, at least until Meg Corbin comes into Simon Wolfgard's life and the Others begin to realize that the world is not entirely black and white, meat and... useful meat. :)
I liked this kind if urban fantasy. Alexandra as a narrator had a great voice and the voices of the characters were given to their best abilities. I really have to wonder how in the span of four-five(?) books Anne Bishop will manage to give more of the romance element. It is there, slowly brewing but I want more of the funny pages and the way everyone became friendly with Meg.
The ending holds promise and I really going to head on the next audiobook!

I am binge reading this series right now. Because of that, the books have all blended into one another in my head. So no thorough review here. That said, I am in LOVE with this series. It's wonderfully unique compared to other urban fantasies I have read (and I have read a lot of them). It almost feels wrong calling it urban fantasy because it doesn't follow the usual UF formulas (UF can get a bit cliché). It's also surprisingly thought-provoking. I think I could write over a dozen college papers on this and still have more to discuss. I really love that. So major props to Bishop for writing an innovative fantasy that make you think about it even after you've finished reading.

Now onto the next book!

I was super excited to jump into this--I've long been a fan of Bishop's Black Jewels series, and really enjoyed her Tir Alainn trilogy--so I was really interested by what she could pull off in an urban fantasy setting.

I absolutely loved the world-building in here. This is an alternative Earth, with everyone knowing about the terra indigene (aka The Others, a broad term used for all of the supernaturals) and their existing having shaped the world. As creatures that view humans as primitive monkeys and snacks, this leads to an interesting dynamic. These are not sparkly vampires or sweet, puppy dog werewolves.

Unfortunately, the world building wasn't enough for me when I couldn't get invested in the characters. The most interesting character for me was Monty, but as more of a side character this certainly wasn't about him. Meg came off as a fairly bland character, and while her ability as a prophet was interesting, the whole cutting thing was pretty uncomfortable. Simon felt fairly generic as well, and as a love interest I didn't care--the most interesting thing about him was the relationship with Sam.

This is definitely a fun enough urban fantasy, and I hope she writes some more in this world involving different characters because I really do like what she did here.

3.5 / 5 - Audiobook

I do have to say that listening to this was easier than trying to read it. It was recommended to my by a friend and when I read the synopsis, the different terms and words that I wasn't sure how to pronounce made me want to put this off as the last one to read this year. But when it came up on Audible, I decided to give it a shot and was glad for it. Hearing the words that I was having trouble with was nice and made it easier to following along with the story.

That being said, there were still a few things that kept this book from being rated higher for me:

1) There were so many different POVs in this story, and without any clear "Meg" or "Simone" at the beginning of each section, that if I missed the character's name, I was lost as to what character I was "listening" to. It was written in third-person so I expected some flip-flopping around, but when 3 or more character POVs appear within the same chapter, it caused some issues.

2) This next one is an issue with the audible version itself. I don't know if it was the equipment that was used to record the narrator, Alexandra Harris, or what, but her voice was almost a constant hum throughout the book so it was hard to distinguish some words spoken. I had to turn the volume up beyond comfortable levels in order to hear exactly what was being said. Alexandra's impressions of the female's POVs were fine (understandably), her grumbly male characters needed some work.

The story overall was good and I want to learn what happens with Meg's Controller. But do I feel the rushing need to buy the next book and get started? Not really.

A summary of this book in emojis:

I loved this book. The characters were great and the plot took some really neat turns. I really enjoyed the pacing and the fact that the character back stories and motives weren't super obvious and forced. You had to piece things together based on interactions, etc which provided good depth.

Ok, 2 is a little harsh for just the first book. But let me save you a lot of time by warning that this series goes absolutely nowhere. The romance? So unbelievably awkward and devoid of chemistry. The story? Never leaves the one town it starts in. The main character? Almost zero growth. I kept hoping SOMETHING would happen, that finally we’d get the real plot moving - but it just never gets there. I was left feeling like all I got was a series of previews for a movie that was never made.

Pros: the foundational idea of a blood prophet and the addicting property the prophecies have on them is interesting and unique, at least in the scope of what I’ve read. Buuut that’s about it.