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gailbird's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
It’s been a year since Jared almost died after going on a crazy bender with his girlfriend and mistakenly broadcasting his presence to a group of disgruntled, shapeshifting otters. He lost a toe and his girlfriend, and committed to sobriety so nothing like that could ever happen to him again. Unfortunately, he’s still a son of the trickster, drunk or sober. And the otters aren’t the only ones looking for someone with as much mojo as he is proven to have. He attracts magic and spirits like lint to a sock, no matter how many times he dutifully smudges his apartment.
Moved out of party city (aka his mom’s house), Jared is enrolled in university, looking to make something of his life, reconnecting with grandmothers, old and new, and dodging his mother’s psychotic ex who is stalking him. A ghost who loves Doctor Who, a grandma with a reptile under her skin and a wolf pack for relatives, a doorway to an interdimensional pocket universe painted on the bedroom floor by a paranoid artist named Edgar Six… Jared never knew living with his aunt could be this much fun. Until things start trying to eat him, of course.
Jared’s journey picks up without much fanfare, beginning slowly while he navigates uncertain housing in Vancouver and gets settled in with his mom’s sister, who doesn’t believe in magic but believes in civil disobedience for social change. It is, as always, an eclectic group of characters living in his aunt’s apartment complex—cousins, step-siblings, a zombie ghost, the usual—providing some really fun colour and personalities for Jared’s third-person limited perspective to comment on. Though a large portion of the book is seemingly uneventful plot-wise, there is a thread of tension running through it as, not only is Jared being openly stalked, but he is also maintaining his hard won sobriety. And, like in the first book, the supernatural menace emerges with a vengeance at the end, culminating in a showdown in another universe.
Jared is the type of guy I would like as a friend—down to earth, randomly cooks and cleans, wicked dry sense of humour. A good listener who also knows how to just be in someone’s company without having to chat. His struggles with his family, his addiction, his power, and, tied in with them all, his identity are really compelling and although he doesn’t always know what the right thing to do is, he keeps going.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail
dcheers's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Stalking, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Drug abuse, Terminal illness, Grief, and Alcohol
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Toxic relationship, and Kidnapping