A review by seilahuh
Mirror Monster On My Wall by Tam Nicnevin
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
okay. i want to be nice to this story because of what it means for the author and i tried to enjoy it, but there's only so much disbelief i can suspend.
tl;dr: it's a decent manual on engaging with kink at best, but overall it barely pulls from its supposed inspiring material and the story lacks coherent plot and characterization and it is neither erotic, fantastical, nor romantic.
*lot of complaining forthcoming
the dialogue is boring, and every monster has an indistinguishable voice. and while i accepted that the monsterf*cker world is weird with the inclusion of mandibles and knife glass bodies and tens of eyes like spiders (nawt my thing at all), somehow even with the monsters the story is unbearably, yes unbearably, human and not fantastical. which could be fine i guess if the smut, which everyone came for ig (not me really, but it's the selling point) were interesting even with the glass bodies. but i was bored.
yes, i was bored of the monsterfucker story.
and of the storytelling which certainly told me a lot, like how much the monsters loved alice and yet the interactions felt loveless and mechanical and unsexy and boring (i mean they've known each other for years and the dialogue was an incredibly passionless and detached "we love you, you are our queen" speech every time that could be abt literally anyone).
in fanfic this is what would be called porn without plot, which is a shame cause the bones of a plot are laid after the prologue sex scene which becomes especially boring retroactively since EVERY scene is like it exactly, and yet the plot never comes to fruition. it's just full of boring and unerotic sex indistinguishable from nonmonster boring smut i've read and subsequently put down. i only powered through to overcome a slump but god i really wanted to quit. it's at best a manual on proper kink etiquette but everything else it promised to deliver it fails, cause a kink manual is not a story.
it is not fantasy, the alice in wonderland inspo is slight, bu WORST of all it is not erotic. if i hadn't known the author's background i would think it was a teenager's self-insert fiction (especially the murder of her evil stepmum at the end which i could rant about for seven pages, this victorian age woman sees horrific monsters and murder for the first time and is coherent enough to beg alice nay anyone for her life? that is just not realistic nor justified by fantasy and the scene was so...bad) like it's not good and im mad. it suffered terribly from a lack of imagination which should never be an issue in a *monsterfxcker* book. i mean you're already imagining grotesque creatures beyond normal humanity and you made them act like humans. i still don't understand why human physiology and norms were imposed on literal otherworldly monsters; the shadow dxck was only interesting cause it finally felt like some fucking fantasy! but it saddened me that these monsters were given human shame enough to be worried somehow alice wouldn't like how their bodies presented genderwise. is the thrill of monsterf*cking not a freedom from human conventions and indulgence of unadulterated fantasy? why were these monsters *who don't live in the real world* beholden to human conventions? where was the fantasy exactly? i don't mean to get philosophical but wow, again i've read many a smut just like this sans monster, that i hated just the same for its emptiness so this didnt wow me of course. and dont let me start on that fucking cat. like all around you can call it fantasy only in that monsters removed this all just wouldnt happen. and god the logic of her monsters being "unable" to tell her how to escape with them and then they SOMEHOW do that EXACT THING WITH LETTERS THAT DIRECT HER EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT. and this took 19 years, mind you. 19 years of abuse and starvation, which her monsters who would do anything for her and loved her soooo much apparently just let happen. and that's supposed to make sense and not spoil the entire context of the story? the novella needed to cook in the oven a lot longer cause it's far too underdone and beyond half-baked. like the story all around didnt even make sense??? and then the sex was boring?? it made me wonder what did i even come for cause everything the novella promises simply wasn't delivered.
tl;dr: it's a decent manual on engaging with kink at best, but overall it barely pulls from its supposed inspiring material and the story lacks coherent plot and characterization and it is neither erotic, fantastical, nor romantic.
*lot of complaining forthcoming
the dialogue is boring, and every monster has an indistinguishable voice. and while i accepted that the monsterf*cker world is weird with the inclusion of mandibles and knife glass bodies and tens of eyes like spiders (nawt my thing at all), somehow even with the monsters the story is unbearably, yes unbearably, human and not fantastical. which could be fine i guess if the smut, which everyone came for ig (not me really, but it's the selling point) were interesting even with the glass bodies. but i was bored.
yes, i was bored of the monsterfucker story.
and of the storytelling which certainly told me a lot, like how much the monsters loved alice and yet the interactions felt loveless and mechanical and unsexy and boring (i mean they've known each other for years and the dialogue was an incredibly passionless and detached "we love you, you are our queen" speech every time that could be abt literally anyone).
in fanfic this is what would be called porn without plot, which is a shame cause the bones of a plot are laid after the prologue sex scene which becomes especially boring retroactively since EVERY scene is like it exactly, and yet the plot never comes to fruition. it's just full of boring and unerotic sex indistinguishable from nonmonster boring smut i've read and subsequently put down. i only powered through to overcome a slump but god i really wanted to quit. it's at best a manual on proper kink etiquette but everything else it promised to deliver it fails, cause a kink manual is not a story.
it is not fantasy, the alice in wonderland inspo is slight, bu WORST of all it is not erotic. if i hadn't known the author's background i would think it was a teenager's self-insert fiction (especially the murder of her evil stepmum at the end which i could rant about for seven pages, this victorian age woman sees horrific monsters and murder for the first time and is coherent enough to beg alice nay anyone for her life? that is just not realistic nor justified by fantasy and the scene was so...bad) like it's not good and im mad. it suffered terribly from a lack of imagination which should never be an issue in a *monsterfxcker* book. i mean you're already imagining grotesque creatures beyond normal humanity and you made them act like humans. i still don't understand why human physiology and norms were imposed on literal otherworldly monsters; the shadow dxck was only interesting cause it finally felt like some fucking fantasy! but it saddened me that these monsters were given human shame enough to be worried somehow alice wouldn't like how their bodies presented genderwise. is the thrill of monsterf*cking not a freedom from human conventions and indulgence of unadulterated fantasy? why were these monsters *who don't live in the real world* beholden to human conventions? where was the fantasy exactly? i don't mean to get philosophical but wow, again i've read many a smut just like this sans monster, that i hated just the same for its emptiness so this didnt wow me of course. and dont let me start on that fucking cat. like all around you can call it fantasy only in that monsters removed this all just wouldnt happen. and god the logic of her monsters being "unable" to tell her how to escape with them and then they SOMEHOW do that EXACT THING WITH LETTERS THAT DIRECT HER EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT. and this took 19 years, mind you. 19 years of abuse and starvation, which her monsters who would do anything for her and loved her soooo much apparently just let happen. and that's supposed to make sense and not spoil the entire context of the story? the novella needed to cook in the oven a lot longer cause it's far too underdone and beyond half-baked. like the story all around didnt even make sense??? and then the sex was boring?? it made me wonder what did i even come for cause everything the novella promises simply wasn't delivered.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Fatphobia, Murder, Death, Sexual harassment, Ableism, and Violence