A review by leximoonbeam
Unhinged by Vera Valentine

fast-paced

3.5

Unhinged 
Rating 3.5 stars - weird, but didn't take itself too seriously and was kind of funny

Would I recommend this book: on sheer weirdness alone, but the themes themselves are not particularly special

Overall: do you like weird books? Do you want a short read? Are you looking for a different kind of paranormal/fantasy boyfriend and don't want to take it too seriously? This is the book for you. I spent a lot of time wide eyed reading and laughing, but the door magic aside it's not particularly innovative in terms of trope - just enough new/weird with comfortable themes you already know. It's like the princess and the frog, but if the frog was a door. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual content, Violence, and Stalking

I read it so you don't have to. Now what the fuck did I just read:

Okay, the entire thing is from the perspective of a sentient front door of Tana's apartment. He's definitely in love with her already and feels like he's her protector. Tana is so much nicer and gentler with him than the previous two guys living there who slammed him around. But he's worried about her superintendent, who took one girl into the woods one night and she never came back, and also he's bad vibes. The door wants to protect her. The door gets visited one night by some guy claiming to be his dad dressed in weird clothes (surprise, it's Zeus) who tells him how he came to be. The door was basically a dryad who was stuck as a tree, and the tree got cut down and turned into a door. Why is Zeus, king of gods telling us this? Great question. After a WILD line about appropriately placed tree holes and mead, Zeus suggests he might be the door's dad and that he's in big trouble with the missus. Because he's in trouble for all of his canon compliant Zeus romps, he's come to tell the Door that he can become human if he gets his love (Tana) to use him in a reverse of what Zeus did to that tree. Yeah. She's gotta get on that knob. Zeus helpfully informs The Door that he will grant The Door the power to speak to Tana in her dreams for one night to try and convince her to do it. And then fucks right off. The Door manages to fall asleep and visits Tana in her dreams, telling her he's her door. It goes about as well as you think, until he starts telling her about her super who comes in when she leaves the apartment and steals her underwear. This makes her start to believe him, but then she wakes up. She avoids him for the day (Door-kun is hurt) and leaves. While she's gone, the super shows up and dumps pills in her orange juice (apparently he knows she loves mimosas) and tries to take more panties. When Tana comes back, she catches the super as he's leaving (says he's helping the old lady) and finds one of her panties on the floor once she gets in. So the solution to this, obviously, is to drink wine and fucking go for it (fuck your door). Cue sexual cleaning scene where she sprays his Knob with Lysol and wipes it off and then puts a condom on it. And then she fucks herself on it. She apparently was into it, new kink unlocked. And then goes to shower. Door-kun is like wow that was great but did it work oh no I'm getting sleepy! And then wakes up a human. The door is gone btw like there's him in the doorway, scaring the old lady across the way and scaring the hell out of Tana. Btw he's nakey. Door-kun manages to convince her it's him (he's got the condom on and everything), the man in her dreams and also her door. She decides this calls for more alcohol, and goes to make mimosas to which Door-kun is like a cat batting something off a table telling her it's drugged. She threatens to kill the super and then they hug. Touching moment - but wait! The door! They order a new door (you can do that on door dash apparently). Something something hot pink tool kit and pink tax, he is confused by the prospect of paying more for worse quality items marketed towards women, she approves. BTW we're not calling the police, we're fixing the door and then maybe calling the police. They watch a movie. She decides to call him "Drys" which I think is inspired by Idris Elba in Thor. She falls asleep and he watches her, which if you've watched Twilight you know is NOT creepy. The door arrives and him, despite being human for a few hours, installs an entire door. He insisted on a door without knobs because he didn't want her to get tempted btw. Also he does mention feeling jealous of the new door because now it's protecting her. She wakes up and suggests calling the police, but the Creep messages her. It's a creepy ass line about helping with big packages. Drys says he knows her schedule because he watches her from the windows and that he's going to come over and suggest mimosas. Obligatory line about Drys being the "stalker" since he knows her schedule. They both want to kill the super. She's genuinely concerned that she doesn't have enough evidence for the police to convict him and that she would put herself and other women in more danger, and also is worried because Drys doesn't have any documents. They table the subject after disagreeing on what to do (she hopes the new door will work, he thinks they should go to the police) - obviously so they can have a shopping trip to get him clothes and for him to tell her she need ice cream because her sad days are coming up. There's a funny line where he suddenly kisses her, starts to apologize for not asking first, and she's like nah it's cool I did have your knob buried in my coochie earlier it's fine. They get home, she starts cleaning her sheets because she's worried what all Creep-kun has touched and done. He starts helping her and she tells him that he was a very good door for trying to keep an eye on Creep-kun. there's a femme Domme scene where she gives him a handjob and walks him through his first ever orgasm by calling him her good boy - he's really into it. and then has him lay down in her lap for some sweet aftercare. Moments over! It's creep-kun, intoxicated and waving a gun around threatening Tana because he thinks she called the cops on him, and he's freaking out. He low-key confesses to killing that other girl (something about being better for her, being a therapist, some kind of nice guy bullshit) and Drys attacks him. Drys gets shot and turns into a door again and knocks Creep-kun out, but "dies" in the process, saving Tana. Time passes, guess what he's alive but in and out of consciousness as he's taken from her apartment and part of the investigation. Eventually he "comes to" as a door again on the floor of Tana's apartment. That "wood putty use" was not sexual by the way, I don't know why it was included in the content "considerations". She just repaired the bullet hole with it. Door-kun is worried that with Creep-kun gone, she has no use for him since he's not even her door anymore and he can't protect her as a human. To try and bring him back, you guessed it - she's gotta sit on that knob. Yeah, so apparently several months passed and despite being together or like 24 hours max she was in love with him too. She mentions this recurring nightmare of being buried in the woods, but one day Hera visits her dream and tells her how to get Door-kun back from the police and how to make him human again. So with another wine glass and Lysol, she's in her lingerie and getting down with the door knob on her living room floor. When she sits on it successfully, he's so turned on that the door rattles I guess and that's her cue that he's still in the door, I guess. Then we get this line. "She let out a little cry of alarm as my body bowed and grew beneath her, my wide, short knob lengthening into something between my door self and human self deep inside her, causing both of us to groan." Which I thought this "between" meant he's some kind of half door half man half shifted weredoor, but he is able to like hug her and really get pumping so maybe not? Anyway more femme Domme scene, he gets a little shy and ask if he do a good job. This door has a praise kink. Okay, the rest of the final chapter is an epilogue basically. So the old lady neighbor called the police because she saw him leaving her apartment while she wasn't there. Creep-kun didn't die, he's facing charges and the girl he killed is properly buried. Tana drops the knowledge that apparently, Drys is going to turn into a door every full moon. I'm not joking. Anyway, every full moon, and she has to have sex with his knob to turn him back (something about magic pussy), which Tana is fine with because she's into it. There's implications Drys will get better at the change as time goes on...? Also, some guy in a bathrobe showed up last night, asked about Drys saying they were family, left a gift and dipped. It's a wallet with cards, money, an ID for Drys, who is apparently a Greek permanent resident, with a passport and birth certificate and a card for a job (something about tell them dad sent you, but it's at a pawn shop????) Then they go to dinner the end.