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The most recent book selection from Novel Predictions (so recent that only the predictions episode has been released thus far) is Tinker by Wen Spencer.
What to say about this book...? It's a mix of fantasy, science-fiction, action and romance. The world-building is bonkers - Pittsburgh now sits in an interdimensional portal between Earth and Elfhome (yes, the planet of the elves) and only properly returns to Earth for one day each month, during which none of the magic works. The protagonist, nicknamed Tinker, works in a scrapyard despite the fact that she's a mechanical genius who is particularly good and melding machinery and magic. An elf by the name of Windwolf (or Wolf Who Rules The Wind to give him his full title) stumbles into the scrapyard while being chased by magically-enhanced dog-creatures and is saved by Tinker. Thus ensues much adventure and a fair bit of UST.
None of this was a problem for me. I have no issue with wacky world-building as long as it's done well, which it is here. And Tinker initially seemed like an appealing protagonist as she is very snarky and good at standing up for herself.
However, I didn't actually make it to the end of Chapter Two before giving up, I'm afraid.
First off, the audiobook narrator has an almost robotic monotone which made it very difficult for me to concentrate on the story, and caused me to lose track at several points. Her intonation did get more varied once more characters turned up and there was more dialogue, but it was still a bit of a struggle.
I could have lived with that, if not for the appalling nature of the romance aspects of the story.
All the men not actually related to Tinker in this book appear to be scum (or at least the three I encountered before I stopped listening). First, we have Johnny, the paramedic who arrives after the opening battle and says he will only treat Windwolf's wounds if Tinker sleeps with him. Yeuch! Fair enough - he's meant to be a bad guy, and Tinker feels perfectly able to trick him into helping Windwolf without putting out (though she isn't given the option of solving the problem for herself because Windwolf intervenes). So, I didn't quit at this point.
Nathan, the seemingly nice policeman who is genuinely helpful at the start, turns out to have been lusting after Tinker since she was fifteen (and he was twenty-five), and her response to this revelation is to agree to go on a date with him. Yeuch! Though this also wasn't what made me stop listening, because I didn't actually get to this part - I just heard about it in the Novel Predictions episode discussing the opening sections of the book.
What really put me of was the age-old romance trope of setting up a relationship between a young-looking but immortal 200 year old male and an 18 year old human girl with zero sexual experience. Worse, he knew her when she was a child. Even worse, she has a sexy dream about him that includes the lines: "Claiming he knew what was best for her, Windwolf held her down and [proceeded to engage in oral sex without her consent]". The fact that this prompts her to have an earth-shattering orgasm does not mitigate the non-consensual nature of the act. Still, this may or may not have been all in her head, so perhaps you could argue consent from that point of view (though there is the suggestion that their connection allows them to interact in her dreams so it could really have been him). But it's still not great to present this as an acceptable way for a lover to behave. This is further exacerbated during their first proper scene interacting with each other. Tinker is injured in the fight and intends to get her cousin to take her to the human hospital in Pittsburgh later on. On recovering from his own wounds, Windwolf goes in search of her. Any reasonable person would knock on the door, wait for an answer, and have a conversation about how the doctors at the elf hospital could probably take a look at her injury, since they're already there. Instead, Windwolf breaks into her house, picks her up, carries her into the hospital, and essentially chloroforms her with a magic flower, without asking her permission or explaining what he's doing, despite the fact that she repeatedly asks what's going on and tells him to put her down!!
Just, no. There's no way I could get on board with a romance between these two after that.
On the Novel Predictions episode, neither Alyson nor Kales commented on this specific behaviour of Windwolf's, which surprised me, though Kales did condemn some similar stuff that apparently happens later on, which just made me even more glad I stopped when I did.
So, a second DNF for me with the Novel Predictions books - one picked by each of the co-hosts, so at least it's equally divided. I'm still really looking forward to the full review episode to hear more of their thoughts on this one.
What to say about this book...? It's a mix of fantasy, science-fiction, action and romance. The world-building is bonkers - Pittsburgh now sits in an interdimensional portal between Earth and Elfhome (yes, the planet of the elves) and only properly returns to Earth for one day each month, during which none of the magic works. The protagonist, nicknamed Tinker, works in a scrapyard despite the fact that she's a mechanical genius who is particularly good and melding machinery and magic. An elf by the name of Windwolf (or Wolf Who Rules The Wind to give him his full title) stumbles into the scrapyard while being chased by magically-enhanced dog-creatures and is saved by Tinker. Thus ensues much adventure and a fair bit of UST.
None of this was a problem for me. I have no issue with wacky world-building as long as it's done well, which it is here. And Tinker initially seemed like an appealing protagonist as she is very snarky and good at standing up for herself.
However, I didn't actually make it to the end of Chapter Two before giving up, I'm afraid.
First off, the audiobook narrator has an almost robotic monotone which made it very difficult for me to concentrate on the story, and caused me to lose track at several points. Her intonation did get more varied once more characters turned up and there was more dialogue, but it was still a bit of a struggle.
I could have lived with that, if not for the appalling nature of the romance aspects of the story.
All the men not actually related to Tinker in this book appear to be scum (or at least the three I encountered before I stopped listening). First, we have Johnny, the paramedic who arrives after the opening battle and says he will only treat Windwolf's wounds if Tinker sleeps with him. Yeuch! Fair enough - he's meant to be a bad guy, and Tinker feels perfectly able to trick him into helping Windwolf without putting out (though she isn't given the option of solving the problem for herself because Windwolf intervenes). So, I didn't quit at this point.
Nathan, the seemingly nice policeman who is genuinely helpful at the start, turns out to have been lusting after Tinker since she was fifteen (and he was twenty-five), and her response to this revelation is to agree to go on a date with him. Yeuch! Though this also wasn't what made me stop listening, because I didn't actually get to this part - I just heard about it in the Novel Predictions episode discussing the opening sections of the book.
What really put me of was the age-old romance trope of setting up a relationship between a young-looking but immortal 200 year old male and an 18 year old human girl with zero sexual experience. Worse, he knew her when she was a child. Even worse, she has a sexy dream about him that includes the lines: "Claiming he knew what was best for her, Windwolf held her down and [proceeded to engage in oral sex without her consent]". The fact that this prompts her to have an earth-shattering orgasm does not mitigate the non-consensual nature of the act. Still, this may or may not have been all in her head, so perhaps you could argue consent from that point of view (though there is the suggestion that their connection allows them to interact in her dreams so it could really have been him). But it's still not great to present this as an acceptable way for a lover to behave. This is further exacerbated during their first proper scene interacting with each other. Tinker is injured in the fight and intends to get her cousin to take her to the human hospital in Pittsburgh later on. On recovering from his own wounds, Windwolf goes in search of her. Any reasonable person would knock on the door, wait for an answer, and have a conversation about how the doctors at the elf hospital could probably take a look at her injury, since they're already there. Instead, Windwolf breaks into her house, picks her up, carries her into the hospital, and essentially chloroforms her with a magic flower, without asking her permission or explaining what he's doing, despite the fact that she repeatedly asks what's going on and tells him to put her down!!
Just, no. There's no way I could get on board with a romance between these two after that.
On the Novel Predictions episode, neither Alyson nor Kales commented on this specific behaviour of Windwolf's, which surprised me, though Kales did condemn some similar stuff that apparently happens later on, which just made me even more glad I stopped when I did.
So, a second DNF for me with the Novel Predictions books - one picked by each of the co-hosts, so at least it's equally divided. I'm still really looking forward to the full review episode to hear more of their thoughts on this one.
