Sarah Hawley
Autore di A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: Headshot of Sarah Hawley, © Mahina Hawley Photography, retrieved from https://www.sarahhawleyauthor.com/about
Serie
Opere di Sarah Hawley
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Nazione (per mappa)
- United States of America
- Attività lavorative
- podcaster (The Wicked Wallflowers Club)
archeologist - Agente
- Jessica Watterson (The Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency)
- Breve biografia
- Sarah Hawley is a co-host of The Wicked Wallflowers Club podcast and the author of A Witch's Guide to Fake-Dating a Demon (Berkley, Spring 2023). She has an MA in archaeology and has excavated at an Inca site in Chile, a Bronze Age palace in Turkey, and a medieval abbey in England. When not dreaming up whimsical love stories, she can be found reading, dancing, or cuddling her two cats.
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Witchy Fiction (1)
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 4
- Utenti
- 650
- Popolarità
- #38,841
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 12
- ISBN
- 11
- Lingue
- 1
ok enough kvetching about smut. we all know what it is lmao. and like no judgement if that’s your thing that’s so valid my dude. it’s just not my thing. anyway. characters. at first i absolutely loved Mariel. she was charming and goofy and sweet and relatable. but eventually she started to get kind of annoying. like ok we get it, you’re amazing and powerful with a sacred connection to plants and the natural world (that i’m jealous of lolol) but you don’t know it and ur family sucks. omg she’s not like other gorls🤪 and at first i liked her relationship with Ozroth a lot. but imo the slow-burn just wasn’t slow-burning right. it jumped from hatred to lust and feelings way WAY too fast. and then stayed in lustiness with no movement for too long. all of the characters were incredibly cliche to the point where it started to get annoying. i really tried to give them a chance but eventually hearing about Calladia’s powder blue lulu lem— i mean workout set— and her glowing muscles started to become pretty whatever and Themmie’s quirky social media presence literally isn’t a thing like stop why do people keep trying to make that trope happen??? i thought we as a society agreed to get over that after 2017??? and don’t even start me with the exotic rich parents where the mom is clinically insane with zero boundaries or self awareness and the dad is just kinda there? and allegedly loves his wife but no one can understand why. the characters are all a little too conveniently built but still not dynamic enough for it to be ok. ( the exception is Alzapraz. LOVE that guy. an absolute legend. ) also what happened to Mariel’s therapist?? it was mentioned she had one once in the beginning but never again? or at least up until page 174. i thought that would’ve been so interesting and refreshing and satisfying to see a character going through therapy. imagine the growth and positive change we could’ve seen in Mariel if she’d just done a little DBT.
the environment was also a little too perfect. id love to see some more variation in the environment. it’s just too perfect and convenient. as much as i absolutely love love love that kind of fantasy world and wish i could live in Glimmer Falls myself, it’s just not that realistic. we needed more history and variety. no place is ever just that conveniently perfect. and using magic as the answer to everything is well…i dare say…lazy? i hate that word. so please forgive me. but idk like, really?? there are SO many ways Glimmer Falls’ perfection could be explained that would be interesting and exciting and thought provoking. but “magic runs through everything bc of the witches and mythical creatures”? idk. it’s giving Disney’s Dreamlight Valley (don’t get me wrong love that game but you know what i mean hopefully).
despite all the negative i’ve said, there are still things i liked. i still really like the premise. i think it’s interesting and i’m really curious to know what happens with the deal between Mariel and Oz. Especially with Oz’s mentor situation. it’s a strange situation that i haven’t seen anyone explore much before. i really like the idea of navigating that loophole. it’s very creative and unique and witty! I also really like the way the demon plane and society were built and explained. id LOVE to explore more of that. gimme a (smut free) book about that or somethin. give us a prequel about Oz’s upbringing. sold. take my money. yes. oh and like i said before. ✨Alzapraz✨the legend, the king, the icon. id love a book of his story.
tldr: i seriously could’ve done without the mention of demon d🤡ck every couple pages and the plot and characters dwindled too much for me to keep reading through the smut. If it was rewritten without the constant smut or even as fade to black, i would absolutely give it another try. but please, for the love of Hecate, make the characters and environment more dynamic. except for Alzapraz, he is perfect.
edit: after reading some of the reviews i can confidently say i am SO happy i didn't finish this book. the more i think about the faults and failures of this book, the more pissed off i get. just like what everyone else said, every trope you can possibly imagine was thrown in but NONE of them were done right. it's like the author got this awesome idea for the premise but then rushed the process so much just to get the idea out into the world that it just sucked as a result. no thought went into what was actually important for the novel to be stable (with or without tropes). also, everyone is absolutely right, the main characters and friends seem far more like teenagers or people in their early 20s. definitely not someone in their late 20's reaching 30. ALSO so many of the things that were supposed to be funny were really just insufferable and extremely awkward to read. most involved the mom. also why did the mom have to be in SO many scenes??? it was awful and i felt emotionally tired after reading her scenes. i literally had to close the book for a few hours after on multiple occassions. i thought some of the renaming of popular things were funny in an ironic way where it was so stupid it was a little funny (eg. my alchemical bromance, pixtagram, bumbelina...) but then i realized...i was supposed to be laughing with the author, not at. it was so stupid that i thought the fact that it was stupid was funny. if that makes sense. i always hate when books and tv shows/movies try to be relatable to modern society by making puns out of current things. its so cringe. it hurts. and in this case, talk about lazy writing. and lastly -just guessing based on the cover of the book, i have not read it- is it true that the sequel is about Calladia falling in love with that blondie demon mentor guy? because if so then COME ON DUDE. also just saw that the third book is called "a wearwolf's guide to seducing a succubus"...no...im out.......goodbye...
edit 2: there was SO much potential with the whole “demon gets a soul on accident” thing. but instead of exploring it to the fullest, the author chose to primarily focus on his newfound romantic and lusty feelings. like ok the demon plane is a surprisingly chill place but Oz was denied that from a young age so he could be a bargainer. it would make sense to explore that more. maybe his new human soul makes him jealous or makes him feel betrayed that he wasn’t able to have the good things that other demon children got? or how about how him suppressing his human feelings will lead to depression like it does for most humans? it’s like the reverse of the Bechdel Test lmao poor Ozroth is out here only being allowed to exist and feel as it pertains to Mariel. that’s not interesting or fair to the character. oh and don’t even start me on how all of the supporting characters are just plot devices for the world revolve even more around Mariel.
ps i find it amusing that she dedicated this book to her parents… (altro)