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jdavesphd's review
It took me almost 3 full years to get almost halfway through the book, and at that point I almost found myself skimming. While I enjoy meta books, this one got too convoluted for my personal tastes.
sheriff's review
4.0
Really good book with fun tropey characters with a lot of fun 4th wall breaks of realizing they are tropes and how to work around them. My only complaint is that it wasn't longer so we could spend more time with these characters and go a little deeper into their characterization
7.9/10
7.9/10
cardlikecredit's review
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
max538's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
error_'s review
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jemofabook's review
2.0
Rating: Not for Me/Alright
Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for the eARC of Lost on a Page in return for my honest opinions.
This book was a bit of a gamble. The premise is one that I think is really cool, but the execution just fell a bit flat for me. Essentially, the book follows a group of fantasy characters whose author created in his current WIP a library that has every book ever written or being written. This includes their own books. Realizing that they are actually fictional characters gives these characters self-realization and allows them freedom of decisions unencumbered by their author's wishes. Their desire is to escape from the world of books and to confront their author for everything that he has put them through. They enlist the help of a mystery detective and then set about collecting things that they need to escape the world of books from other books that are currently being written, causing chaos amongst the authors whose books and characters they hijack.
I thought that this premise was fantastic. It's a lot of fun; however, it is one that I think would take a lot to not come off as slightly cheesy. Something that I did really enjoy was that we get the correspondence of authors with each other and their editors as they are trying to figure out what is going on as their stories keep changing. Then they are teaming up against their characters and sometimes with their characters to make certain events come about. So those interludes were pretty fun.
I also think that these interludes allowed for some addressing of larger themes of what does it mean to be alive/human and what the value of life is. I would have liked for these ideas and conversations between the authors to be fleshed out more fully, but I do appreciate that they were touched on. It made it feel like there was a larger meaning to the story than just something fun and silly.
Honestly, I think that this story and concept would make a really interesting TV show. We don't really spend much time (if any) in the fantasy novel, but we have a bunch of fantasy characters, and we go through mystery, romance, sci-fi, and apocalyptic/horror genres. I think that if this were being done via film or television, it would have made for much more enjoyable interludes in each genre. Unfortunately, for me, the way that is written just came across as parodies of each genre. It felt very cheesy and almost like it was supposed to be a joke; however, there was no bigger punchline or reason for it to be a parody, which just made it awkward and hard to read for me personally.
The characters were very flat and two-dimensional. They were all very cliched archetypes of their genres, and they didn't have much personality that allowed me to connect to them. I also had a difficult time with the way the romance genre and heroine was portrayed. The authors of the fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi genres are all men and they all end up working together. The horror author never responds to their attempts to contact him, but he is a man. Then the romance author is portrayed as very aloof and snotty and does not join them or attempt to help them in any way. She is also the only female author. It's very small, but it did bother me. It didn't help that there were female protagonists and supporting characters in the stories within this book bc they were so flat.
Overall, this book was a miss for me, but the concept is still one that I am intrigued by and would 100% watch if it were turned into film/television. I think that if people were looking for something that is purely a silly nod to a bunch of different genre archetypes and tropes, this may be something that they would enjoy. I think it could especially appeal to a younger audience.
Lost on a Page releases July 1, 2021.
Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for the eARC of Lost on a Page in return for my honest opinions.
This book was a bit of a gamble. The premise is one that I think is really cool, but the execution just fell a bit flat for me. Essentially, the book follows a group of fantasy characters whose author created in his current WIP a library that has every book ever written or being written. This includes their own books. Realizing that they are actually fictional characters gives these characters self-realization and allows them freedom of decisions unencumbered by their author's wishes. Their desire is to escape from the world of books and to confront their author for everything that he has put them through. They enlist the help of a mystery detective and then set about collecting things that they need to escape the world of books from other books that are currently being written, causing chaos amongst the authors whose books and characters they hijack.
I thought that this premise was fantastic. It's a lot of fun; however, it is one that I think would take a lot to not come off as slightly cheesy. Something that I did really enjoy was that we get the correspondence of authors with each other and their editors as they are trying to figure out what is going on as their stories keep changing. Then they are teaming up against their characters and sometimes with their characters to make certain events come about. So those interludes were pretty fun.
I also think that these interludes allowed for some addressing of larger themes of what does it mean to be alive/human and what the value of life is. I would have liked for these ideas and conversations between the authors to be fleshed out more fully, but I do appreciate that they were touched on. It made it feel like there was a larger meaning to the story than just something fun and silly.
Honestly, I think that this story and concept would make a really interesting TV show. We don't really spend much time (if any) in the fantasy novel, but we have a bunch of fantasy characters, and we go through mystery, romance, sci-fi, and apocalyptic/horror genres. I think that if this were being done via film or television, it would have made for much more enjoyable interludes in each genre. Unfortunately, for me, the way that is written just came across as parodies of each genre. It felt very cheesy and almost like it was supposed to be a joke; however, there was no bigger punchline or reason for it to be a parody, which just made it awkward and hard to read for me personally.
The characters were very flat and two-dimensional. They were all very cliched archetypes of their genres, and they didn't have much personality that allowed me to connect to them. I also had a difficult time with the way the romance genre and heroine was portrayed. The authors of the fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi genres are all men and they all end up working together. The horror author never responds to their attempts to contact him, but he is a man. Then the romance author is portrayed as very aloof and snotty and does not join them or attempt to help them in any way. She is also the only female author. It's very small, but it did bother me. It didn't help that there were female protagonists and supporting characters in the stories within this book bc they were so flat.
Overall, this book was a miss for me, but the concept is still one that I am intrigued by and would 100% watch if it were turned into film/television. I think that if people were looking for something that is purely a silly nod to a bunch of different genre archetypes and tropes, this may be something that they would enjoy. I think it could especially appeal to a younger audience.
Lost on a Page releases July 1, 2021.
katfromthelilycafe's review
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
One Sentence Summary: It's an odd day when PI Joe Slade is rudely pulled from his book because characters from a fantasy book need his help to escape to the World Where Books Are Written to have a heart-to-heart with their author.
Overall
Lost on a Page is an ambitious novel about characters realizing they are characters and deciding to drop in on other books currently being written to take what they need to escape the fictional realm. At times, it delivers on the overarching story. At others, it's hard not to wince at. It is indeed a humorous novel, but lacked overall finesse and the ability to really be immersive in all of the genres it touched on. Still, the characters were fun and I loved that they took on lives of their own. Though I did not appreciate the semi-cliffhanger ending as I don't see this is part of a series.
Extended Thoughts
Detective Joe Slade is on the case, sneaking around in the dark, trying not to be caught by the bad guys. Everything's exactly as it should be. Until Ski Cap arrives, and tells him some rather unbelievable tidbits he refuses to believe. But that's not all! Imagine getting whacked on the head with a trash can and waking up in a library.
But it's not just any library. It's the World of Words, a library that actually exists within a fantasy book series still being written. There, Joe is introduced to Ellodrine, a wizard; Kribble, the dwarf; and Aelrûn, the elf. They've lost their protagonist to their antagonist, the Lord of the Void, and need a new protagonist who can help them get two items from other books in order to escape to the World Where Books Are Written to, well, get mad at their writer, I suppose.
With Joe on board, a fun and sometimes hilarious romp through historical romance, science fiction, and worse ensues. They singlehandedly change all the stories they jump into, creating chaos and blurred lines.
As well as make their authors, who get to read their characters leading their own lives, frantically try to make things right and prevent their protagonists from dying.
Lost on a Page is a really ambitious novel. It sounds like it'll be a lot of fun with jumps in and out of other books. But all these other books fell utterly flat to me. The characters, too, were set with the task of running away and creating their own lives and story lines, but can't seem to escape the archetypes they were written to be. It's a fun story of characters who become aware and long for more, but they're seriously trapped.
The problem with writing multiple stories within one story is that, when multiple genres are thrown in, there's an expectation that they feel authentic. I really wanted to read a piece of an historical romance or science fiction or fantasy novel and then watch how things go south as soon as Joe and his new friends jump on their pages. But all the different stories felt similarly lackluster. They lacked authenticity. I get that they're WIPs, but, maybe with the exception of one, none of them are the first in a series or standalone. I mean, nine books in to a series, I would think the author of it would be a little more polished! They all sound like first drafts of first, or close to first, novels. Other than stories and characters and the bits and pieces that definitively define a genre, they all kind of sounded the same.
The characters, too, lacked interest. I loved the idea of them struggling to free themselves from their stories, to be free to create and live their own lives. But they all were stuck in archetypes. The wizard's magic manifested in different ways in the different genres and she could not break out of the mold of being the know-it-all (mentor). The side characters were nothing more than side characters. The antagonist could only be beaten after something climatic. No matter how hard they struggled, they were still defined by the archetype they were written to be in the genre they were written for, and it was just kind of generally accepted. I did like how Joe tried to step out of it, worked hard to use his hardboiled PI mind, but, overall, it just wasn't enough.
Still, the characters were consistent and I adored Kribble, an overly enthusiastic and grizzled dwarf. I loved that many of them were able to take their own and new knowledge and shape it all into something useful to help drive the story forward. As frustrating as it was to see them stuck in the archetypes, they definitely owned them, so it was fun to read how they played on the archetypes and tropes. Though I do feel the novel relied on the archetypes and tropes a little too much.
What I did absolutely love, though, were the authors' interludes. Each work in progress has it's own author and most of them end up working together to try to untangle the stories and keep their characters alive. I loved how it progressed from one author thinking someone was sabotaging him to the small collection of authors being relatively helpless as their characters came to life to form their own crazy, genre-bending story. Their interactions felt crazy and authentic and it was hard to not be amused by them.
Lost on a Page is a wild adventure. I liked that it crossed several different genres and blended stories and characters together, but it could have been done with more polish and more attention to detail when it came to each genre. The characters helped hold it all together, but I was disappointed by the end. There's no indication there's another book, but it definitely feels like a duology, at least.
Overall, an interesting read, but perhaps a little too jumbled and a little too reliant on literary devices. Lost on a Page does deliver a humorous story, though, with characters trying hard to break the mold.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.
Overall
Lost on a Page is an ambitious novel about characters realizing they are characters and deciding to drop in on other books currently being written to take what they need to escape the fictional realm. At times, it delivers on the overarching story. At others, it's hard not to wince at. It is indeed a humorous novel, but lacked overall finesse and the ability to really be immersive in all of the genres it touched on. Still, the characters were fun and I loved that they took on lives of their own. Though I did not appreciate the semi-cliffhanger ending as I don't see this is part of a series.
Extended Thoughts
Detective Joe Slade is on the case, sneaking around in the dark, trying not to be caught by the bad guys. Everything's exactly as it should be. Until Ski Cap arrives, and tells him some rather unbelievable tidbits he refuses to believe. But that's not all! Imagine getting whacked on the head with a trash can and waking up in a library.
But it's not just any library. It's the World of Words, a library that actually exists within a fantasy book series still being written. There, Joe is introduced to Ellodrine, a wizard; Kribble, the dwarf; and Aelrûn, the elf. They've lost their protagonist to their antagonist, the Lord of the Void, and need a new protagonist who can help them get two items from other books in order to escape to the World Where Books Are Written to, well, get mad at their writer, I suppose.
With Joe on board, a fun and sometimes hilarious romp through historical romance, science fiction, and worse ensues. They singlehandedly change all the stories they jump into, creating chaos and blurred lines.
As well as make their authors, who get to read their characters leading their own lives, frantically try to make things right and prevent their protagonists from dying.
Lost on a Page is a really ambitious novel. It sounds like it'll be a lot of fun with jumps in and out of other books. But all these other books fell utterly flat to me. The characters, too, were set with the task of running away and creating their own lives and story lines, but can't seem to escape the archetypes they were written to be. It's a fun story of characters who become aware and long for more, but they're seriously trapped.
The problem with writing multiple stories within one story is that, when multiple genres are thrown in, there's an expectation that they feel authentic. I really wanted to read a piece of an historical romance or science fiction or fantasy novel and then watch how things go south as soon as Joe and his new friends jump on their pages. But all the different stories felt similarly lackluster. They lacked authenticity. I get that they're WIPs, but, maybe with the exception of one, none of them are the first in a series or standalone. I mean, nine books in to a series, I would think the author of it would be a little more polished! They all sound like first drafts of first, or close to first, novels. Other than stories and characters and the bits and pieces that definitively define a genre, they all kind of sounded the same.
The characters, too, lacked interest. I loved the idea of them struggling to free themselves from their stories, to be free to create and live their own lives. But they all were stuck in archetypes. The wizard's magic manifested in different ways in the different genres and she could not break out of the mold of being the know-it-all (mentor). The side characters were nothing more than side characters. The antagonist could only be beaten after something climatic. No matter how hard they struggled, they were still defined by the archetype they were written to be in the genre they were written for, and it was just kind of generally accepted. I did like how Joe tried to step out of it, worked hard to use his hardboiled PI mind, but, overall, it just wasn't enough.
Still, the characters were consistent and I adored Kribble, an overly enthusiastic and grizzled dwarf. I loved that many of them were able to take their own and new knowledge and shape it all into something useful to help drive the story forward. As frustrating as it was to see them stuck in the archetypes, they definitely owned them, so it was fun to read how they played on the archetypes and tropes. Though I do feel the novel relied on the archetypes and tropes a little too much.
What I did absolutely love, though, were the authors' interludes. Each work in progress has it's own author and most of them end up working together to try to untangle the stories and keep their characters alive. I loved how it progressed from one author thinking someone was sabotaging him to the small collection of authors being relatively helpless as their characters came to life to form their own crazy, genre-bending story. Their interactions felt crazy and authentic and it was hard to not be amused by them.
Lost on a Page is a wild adventure. I liked that it crossed several different genres and blended stories and characters together, but it could have been done with more polish and more attention to detail when it came to each genre. The characters helped hold it all together, but I was disappointed by the end. There's no indication there's another book, but it definitely feels like a duology, at least.
Overall, an interesting read, but perhaps a little too jumbled and a little too reliant on literary devices. Lost on a Page does deliver a humorous story, though, with characters trying hard to break the mold.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.
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