lauriereadslohf's review
DNF
I was expecting a fun monster romp when I saw the cover for Rise of the Thing Down Below. Wouldn’t you? Though there are a lot of vividly written and sometimes over the top sexy times going on here, they’re not with a monster (boo!). The monster has a small community in fear for their lives but other than that he hasn’t really made much of a splash in the rest of the plot. It’s more a story about a bunch of men hooking up, having fun and creating amusing new boardwalk sexcapade attractions for their beachfront community. There are also two adorable pups and some decently written friendships and a lot of cheeky humor. I’m down with all of that and I can go with the flow if a book hooks me but, most unfortunately, this one would hook me with some cute couple or turn of phrase, then lose me , hook me again, then quickly lose me. Several weeks later, at about 75% of the way in, I had to call it a day, give it a DNF, and get on with my reading life. Here’s why.
There are so many characters and couples introduced in this story that I spent the first 50 or so pages straining my brain to remember who was who and who was humping who. Eventually I caught on but by then my poor brain was toast. And then at about 75% complete (or so) more men are introduced and I had to call it quits. The book would shift from one couple/trio to the next and reference past events and it just couldn’t keep me.
I’m so sad right now. I thought this story was meant for me but it wasn’t meant to be.
This, of course, is completely my fault. This is a middle of a series book which I didn’t realize when I requested it from Netgalley (I will not lie, that cover & blurb sucked me in). If you’ve read the previous books recently or have a brain that works better than mine, you more than likely won’t have any such problem. I also read in 30 minute increments (on a good day) so that did not help. If you have a large chunk of time to sit down and read this in one sitting you probably won’t have as much of a struggle. Alas, this is not my life and I will not force myself to finish a book anymore.
I’ll finish this up with a few tidbits:
1. A fish man arises from the sea, slimy appendage at the ready. Yes!
2. Men start turning up dead. Uh oh!
3. If you’ve read the previous books you’ll probably be thrilled to meet all of the previous characters who keep on coming as the book continues. Yeah, I see what I did there.
4. There is a lot of crazy, over the top, messy sex. It’s more amusingly campy than arousing, if you ask me (and I know you didn’t).
5. There are adorable puppies! Puppies make almost everything better.
6. There are so many sex-crazed men in this town that we don’t have enough time to get to know many of them very well. But you may already know them very well from previous books, perhaps?
7. I’m selfish. I prefer a more intimate story with a small handful of characters. But that’s me.
8. That’s all I’ve got because I’m a quitter.
I was expecting a fun monster romp when I saw the cover for Rise of the Thing Down Below. Wouldn’t you? Though there are a lot of vividly written and sometimes over the top sexy times going on here, they’re not with a monster (boo!). The monster has a small community in fear for their lives but other than that he hasn’t really made much of a splash in the rest of the plot. It’s more a story about a bunch of men hooking up, having fun and creating amusing new boardwalk sexcapade attractions for their beachfront community. There are also two adorable pups and some decently written friendships and a lot of cheeky humor. I’m down with all of that and I can go with the flow if a book hooks me but, most unfortunately, this one would hook me with some cute couple or turn of phrase, then lose me , hook me again, then quickly lose me. Several weeks later, at about 75% of the way in, I had to call it a day, give it a DNF, and get on with my reading life. Here’s why.
There are so many characters and couples introduced in this story that I spent the first 50 or so pages straining my brain to remember who was who and who was humping who. Eventually I caught on but by then my poor brain was toast. And then at about 75% complete (or so) more men are introduced and I had to call it quits. The book would shift from one couple/trio to the next and reference past events and it just couldn’t keep me.
I’m so sad right now. I thought this story was meant for me but it wasn’t meant to be.
This, of course, is completely my fault. This is a middle of a series book which I didn’t realize when I requested it from Netgalley (I will not lie, that cover & blurb sucked me in). If you’ve read the previous books recently or have a brain that works better than mine, you more than likely won’t have any such problem. I also read in 30 minute increments (on a good day) so that did not help. If you have a large chunk of time to sit down and read this in one sitting you probably won’t have as much of a struggle. Alas, this is not my life and I will not force myself to finish a book anymore.
I’ll finish this up with a few tidbits:
1. A fish man arises from the sea, slimy appendage at the ready. Yes!
2. Men start turning up dead. Uh oh!
3. If you’ve read the previous books you’ll probably be thrilled to meet all of the previous characters who keep on coming as the book continues. Yeah, I see what I did there.
4. There is a lot of crazy, over the top, messy sex. It’s more amusingly campy than arousing, if you ask me (and I know you didn’t).
5. There are adorable puppies! Puppies make almost everything better.
6. There are so many sex-crazed men in this town that we don’t have enough time to get to know many of them very well. But you may already know them very well from previous books, perhaps?
7. I’m selfish. I prefer a more intimate story with a small handful of characters. But that’s me.
8. That’s all I’ve got because I’m a quitter.
purplemoonmyst's review
5.0
Sometimes you just need a good book to take you away and forget about the cruel hard world. I admit I requested this book from NetGalley because I like books that have a supernatural element to them. I had no idea that this book was a campy, horror gay sex book. I mean I was reading and I was all like
I even asked my gay friend if some of the sex scenes were real or did the author have an over active imagination. My friend told me they were real. OOOKKK. WOW.
Aside from learning a lot about gay sex I really enjoyed the plot of this book. The world building was excellent and it reminded me in a good way of the campy horror stuff you would find in the 70's. The plot was really believable. The Rise of the Thing Down below was written in such a way that you did not have to make giant leaps with the plot to fall into the story like you do with some books. When I read this I was wanting to get lost in another world and forget about reality for a few hours. This book accomplished this and more.
I also really enjoyed the supernatural elements to the story. It was really creative and believable and I even had a fun, good time with it. You know how some books with supernatural elements leave you with the feeling of having to remind yourself that this is just part of the authors imagination and wont REALLY happen...You hope. Well this book is such that even if it REALLY DID HAPPEN you could deal and you wont be turning it over and over in your head hoping that God does not have such an active imagination.
The characters were all fully formed with emotions and actions that real people would have. I could relate to the characters (well not the gay part as I am straight) but like when one dude finds puppies and gets all happy I could feel the excitement along with him.
The ending felt kinda flat. I would have liked more info on the "Thing" but other wise I felt like the story wrapped up pretty well.
This book is part of a series which I did not know about before I started reading. There are events that are related to events in earlier books so I would recommend reading them in order. I did not feel totally lost but I did feel that I would have gained more from the story had I read the earlier books.
This review was originally posted on Adventures in Never Never Land
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