A review by pagesandprozac
Grilled Cheese and Goblins: Adventures of a Supernatural Food Inspector! by Nicole Kimberling
1.0
this seemed pretty promising at the beginning due to the very original premise - supernatural food inspector who thinks a place is serving up human flesh? count me in. something that i wasn't expecting was that this is actually a collection of short stories, which isn't a problem, it's just a bit weird that it's not stated on the cover - it sort of implies it with "adventures of a..." but that's very vague. anyway, minor thing, not really an issue, just thought i'd mention it in case y'all thought it was a novel/one continuous narrative.
so basically, there's a couple of mystery-type novellas that make up most of the book, and in the middle there's also a couple of mega short, quite cute flash fictions that explore the relationship between keith and gunther. they were enjoyable, but for some reason i didn't really find their personalities particularly exciting. keith was uh, Not the most likable character though, and not in an interesting way, just in a "ah, bit of a jerk" kind of way, and gunther was a bit flat.
i also wasn't fond of the mysteries. whenever i don't like a mystery, my main problem is nearly always the same: stakes. there aren't enough stakes. the culprit just turns out to be this person out of many other people who we don't really connect with, who don't enter the narrative in any particularly exciting way, and who are not surprising at all. a good mystery has excellent rendering of characters, so it's surprising when someone turns out to be the culprit because you thought their feelings/motives were this but it actually turns out to be that. you know what i'm saying? but when it's just Random Goblin #1, Random Goblin #2, Random Vampire #1 and Random Vampire #2, i just... don't care who it is. because it's not interesting, and there aren't any stakes.
tl;dr good concept, bad execution. one star does seem kind of harsh but at the same time i was BORED!!! so i think it deserves it. also, there was this offhand comment about how keith thought one of the suspects, a highly unpleasant person, had "ADD" or "autism" and this was presented in a negative light and that just rubbed me the wrong way. like, it's 2018, we're not going to be doing this lads.
so basically, there's a couple of mystery-type novellas that make up most of the book, and in the middle there's also a couple of mega short, quite cute flash fictions that explore the relationship between keith and gunther. they were enjoyable, but for some reason i didn't really find their personalities particularly exciting. keith was uh, Not the most likable character though, and not in an interesting way, just in a "ah, bit of a jerk" kind of way, and gunther was a bit flat.
i also wasn't fond of the mysteries. whenever i don't like a mystery, my main problem is nearly always the same: stakes. there aren't enough stakes. the culprit just turns out to be this person out of many other people who we don't really connect with, who don't enter the narrative in any particularly exciting way, and who are not surprising at all. a good mystery has excellent rendering of characters, so it's surprising when someone turns out to be the culprit because you thought their feelings/motives were this but it actually turns out to be that. you know what i'm saying? but when it's just Random Goblin #1, Random Goblin #2, Random Vampire #1 and Random Vampire #2, i just... don't care who it is. because it's not interesting, and there aren't any stakes.
tl;dr good concept, bad execution. one star does seem kind of harsh but at the same time i was BORED!!! so i think it deserves it. also, there was this offhand comment about how keith thought one of the suspects, a highly unpleasant person, had "ADD" or "autism" and this was presented in a negative light and that just rubbed me the wrong way. like, it's 2018, we're not going to be doing this lads.