Hello, you're listening to an unlocked bonus Patreon episode of Who Watches the Watch. We just thought it'd be fun to unlock one of these every now and again, so you can get a taste of what you can get if you donate to our Patreon. So, yeah, enjoy the episode. Alrighty then.
Alrighty then. It's pretty fun how long... Somebody have talked me. How long are we meant to jump-ended up being, by the way?
I think it's because we like to talk to each other. Yeah, it's almost like we are friends. It might be the thing, yeah. We talk more to each other if we can just talk about anything than if we have a specific thing to talk about.
There you go. We've gone out at one point. If we don't, we're just going to trail off to anything. I don't know.
This stays in the episode and you're listening and you have some input on how listeners will demand a drum-stepping and if you want them shorter maybe. Yeah, do you want us to stick to three topics or something for each amount of drama? Yeah. If you want us to do like a three-hour long-ended drum.
You can't do a three-hour-minute drum. Oh, we're just putting it up unedited. Oh, I mean, you know. Just raw.
I thought that's what they do in Shriekess. So, I mean... Yeah. I mean, I guess...
I'm a little cracky-doke and then no one laughs and so what I do is when I'm editing it is I remove that silence. Yeah, I know I do that at the time. Yeah, I do that with everyone else jokes though. It's equally good to do.
Or if someone's like... I don't know, if someone said something awkward or got confused then I cut it, said that they seemed... Coke here. Yeah.
I'm not doing that. Yeah. So, what's this series called? Okay.
LSpace. What's up gamers? Welcome back to the LSpace. I should say what's up readers.
This is... What's up bookworms? Oh, no. That's awful.
Welcome back to LSpace, which is our Patreon bonus content where we discuss self-published. I don't know. Are we just doing Bella Forrest? Maybe we'll go into more books.
So far, yeah. I think for the next... For the foreseeable future we might only do Bella Forrest. But...
This is Bella Forrest cast. It's so sad that we have a whole podcast about her books and she'll never know. I know, it's really sad actually. Yeah.
The one woman. One woman, no wonder. The one person. The one person.
So, this past like two, three weeks within reading Dark Light, which is the first book in another one of Bella Forrest's many, many series. Dark Light vampires, you know, Twilight knock off kind of in the cover. Yeah. And not very similar in the content.
No, not at all. It almost feels like one person who may or may not be better for it. Roto vampire novel and this was the most effective way to sell it. Yeah.
It's like the aesthetic of a knockoff, but it's actually like not a knockoff. No, it's its own thing. It's some really weird thing. It's pretty weird.
Yeah. I don't know how to say about this book. I feel like we need to like, structure this in a way that we can first talk about, like general stuff, plot stuff. And then we need to get into the weird fucked up themes because there's like some stuff, this is kind of a tough book to discuss, honestly.
Because Cheeto vampire was just like, ton of bad awful stuff, badly written, badly, you know. Whereas this is competently written. It's pretty good. With some exceptions.
I think it's engaging in a way that I think Cheeto vampire wasn't. Yeah. It was necessarily called engaging, but it was more engaging in Cheeto vampire. Yeah.
That's not very high power as the issue. I listen to the audiobook for this, which I love an audiobook. I always get more engaged in a book if it's an audiobook. I'm not sure why I think it's just...
Interesting. I think it's taken at slower pace and I think if I'm reading something, I tend to go that fast sometimes. Yeah. It was in this.
I felt like I was being forced to take in every single detail and make a much slower face. Yeah. The one of the characters in this book is Scottish. Mm-hmm.
When hiring whoever did the voice. Oh, I have some stuff on her. Okay, good. But when this voice actor cannot do a Scottish accent.
Yeah, regarding that. Regarding that. Because I also listened to the audiobook. I would say it was very helpful to me.
She did an okay job at making... I don't want to shit on this person too much. Her name is Stacy Glambowski. She is a real person.
And she has a website. No, because I looked at her website and she's done a ton of work. This is the only... Darklight is the only Bella Forest series she's done.
Okay. But she has also done books by... Or just click on the audiobook section on her website. She also has to read some of the guest book feedbacks that she got.
But she also did books by other similarly real authors such as Mackenzie Hunter, Mark Goodwin, Rebecca Road, The Numbers Game. I'm loving this Princess Games book that she wrote. That sounds very Bella Forest. So many games.
Wow. A heartfelt Christmas promise with a little puppy on the front cover. Oh yeah, I see. Some of those typical sexy stock photo lady covers here.
Mm-hmm. I wonder if it's the same woman in some of these stock photo covers. It's like a woman in a dark, best-topped jeans looking directly at the camera with a hair off to the side and she's holding a weapon of some sort. It's very funny that they're all still like that considering that style of Jean and Cher is very 10 years ago.
Yeah. Yeah, it does feel like they did not. But also the people who write these don't necessarily realize that it's not anymore. But also, yeah, it's probably just don't get updated.
There's literally four best-topped jeans in her entire list of audiobooks that she's done just in a group of, what, 30? Yeah. Less than 30, I can count four of those. That's very much how I wanted to look as a teenager.
Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to vest. Yeah, so she can't do this. She can't do this. Yeah, I was going to say, there's a section on her website that says clients where some of them are, you know, some, where there's like a bunch of reviews of her, like, poor quotes.
Either by, like one of them is by a reviewer from gingermomreids.com. Thanks. Like some glowing reviews. But I want to, I just want to put your attention to the third review here by IniKshawa and a reviewer.
And they say, the narration was brilliant. The narrator performed the variety of characters so well, I forgot that I was listening to just one voice. This is emphatically not true. No, I, she's not a bad...
She doesn't really do voices. Like she can do. She can maybe do like two and a half. Like maybe one in the head.
Like, so for some of the guy characters, or her women characters sound the same, just her normal voice. And then for the guys, he's doing like a deeper voice. Yeah, she does like a slightly deeper tone. It sounds exactly like you right now, yes.
Yeah. And then for the character of Zack, she did like a mopie teenager voice. Like it was like, he was like, the same deep voice but like much mopier in a way that didn't fit the character at all. Yeah, because he's not a mopie.
He's like an army boy. Yeah. But Zack was like really mopie. And then there's of course Bryce who was this country.
Obviously, yes, someone who can do six distinct character voices. Oh, she can't do six. You could wipe the floor with her any day. Okay, good.
Yeah. So Bryce got a shaxon. Sounds like somebody who was born in Russia but with parents who only spoke Russian. Then only learned English from somebody who lived in Glasgow.
Yeah. I clipped out a clip earlier. So you can just like, I can just send it to you again. And then you can just insert it in here.
So I'll do your patrons. We also get a taste of her incredible Scott Jackson because it's really like you do listen. No matter where you live. No matter if you've ever tried doing a Scottish voice.
You can probably do at least as good a job at it than she did. Yeah. My Scottish Jackson isn't very good. Like it was just so I can't even try and do it.
Yeah, I can send you one where it's like it really went into raffin. Yeah. So here is an example of how he sounds. Hold on.
Captain Bryce said sternly. Not letting Jim's game get to him. We need to talk logistics here. This is yet again explicitly against the trial period statutes.
Come on, Jim Brind, weedling. Put that executive decision making a good use, Bryce. Bryce rubbed his temple, his breathing agitated. The previous task didn't involve slumber parties.
Wow, that was a great example. Wow, that awful. Yes, we all heard of him in our separate recording studios. I worry that this isn't going to make sense until we tell people what the plot of this book is.
Yeah, let's tell people the plot of the book. I think that should be the next thing. Okay. So I'm going to just do a brief run through of what happens with the book.
And afterwards we can talk about how it's insane. So the main character is called Lyra. The main character of his black materials, but don't worry about it. She runs new daughter.
Oh, shit, I forgot. I mean, it's a constellation, but still. Okay. She is part of an organization that kills big vampire birds called Red Bills that drink people's blood.
They got like a big sucker, mosquito, mouth, and they drink your blood. I can't really imagine them, but they sound kind of cool. And her, she's part of like an army offshoot. It's kind of low key.
So people know that these birds exist, but they think they're just like an evolutionary marvel, but they're actually like supernatural. She loves being in the army. It's the best. It's really cool.
She's like 21. She just exists. It's like so fucking cool. Her entire family's part of the army, her brother is like her partner in the army.
I don't know of something like that. Her parents are like involved in the organization. And her uncle is like the head of everything. He's cool.
Adam. He's cool. Yeah, he's a good boy. We love him.
So she goes and fights the Red Bills and there's more of them and they're getting bigger. And it's a big problem because he's eating people. But she does some cool shit. She's got like, you know, it's kind of high tech sci-fi sort of like armor and shit.
Which is kind of cool. So Brice is part of this guy is the captain here. Yeah, the captain is a guy called Bryce. And I was like, okay, so this is like an interesting spin.
I have no idea what this is going on. And I did. He's going to be a Twilight Ripley. Yeah, I was like, this is completely different.
It starts out like really, really like military sci-fi. Yeah. It's like, so it ended the game, you almost. Yeah.
And, but then once she's on a mission, she gets kidnapped by an vampire. What? Because they, all the vampires are supposed to have died out. They all were killed by this organization who knows about vampires.
They used to kill them. And all the vampires disappeared, which is like kind of sad in a way. But you know, it's good that they're not killing people anymore. But Lyra is kidnapped by one who is called Dorian.
I like her. Dorian is a pretty sick name for vampire. This book doesn't suffer from normal. Oh, his names are very not normal.
Yeah. But like the vampires are going to have, you know, els. Yeah, I don't, I like it. I think Dorian's a sick name.
I think there's some really funny ones, but we got to. Yeah. So he can, the vampires in this world, they have like cool skin that's like got dark shapes like cloudy behind it. And they're like kind of cool.
I think they're cold. Did I cold? I don't think she specifies that. Yeah.
They're like, look sort of marbly and interesting and they got weird eyes and shit. But he can, and she's like, ah, vampire, you're going to kill me. And he's like, nah. I just want you to help me.
And she's like, how can I help you? And he's like, well, I'm part of a small group of vampire refugees. And I'm about to blow your mind. So you see, there's two worlds.
There is the other world beyond like a rift. And in that world, it's full of like evil immortals and vampires go between the worlds and your organization kidnapped a vampire and forced him to take them beyond the world and caused a rift between these two worlds. And this caused all the vampires to like be killed by immortals and stuff. This is like not touched on that much for the rest of the book.
It's just sort of dumped on you. Yeah. I feel like maybe it would come back in the book. Fuck you.
Yeah. It's significant in that it's like. From what I saw of that, I looked a little in the plot somewhere in the later books. Yeah.
From what I can tell it's supposed to be like a hint that her organization basically taught you the vampire until he took them through. So maybe they're not that great, you know, maybe they did bad things. No, I can't be right. She does herself.
The corruption in my view. I do think it was very funny that she is through the entire thing. Like we're good people. Military police, good people, you know, protected.
Which is kind of good in that it's a vested because it I think she does have like a character which I thought was nice. Yeah. So some of the reviews I saw on this on Goodreads or Amazon were like so amazing characters later. It's like one of the most interesting characters I have ever seen.
I don't think that's true. I don't know. She's got more in her own. She's better than fucking Sophia.
Yeah. She's not just like a cipher. She does like she is kind and she does have like empathy. She has motivation, but she's also very awkward and she's also like believes in her weird organization, which you sort of understand why, but it makes it good that she's wrong.
Well, we don't know yet. Let's just try to do the summary quick. Yeah, I know. It's just very funny to talk about all the details.
I know. Basically the vampires. We need to talk about them later. Yeah.
So the vampires ask for to be taken in as refugees basically by the bureau and be allowed to live in the world freely because they can't go to the immortal world. And she's like, oh shit, but I thought you were evil. And he's like, no vampires only kill people who are bad. Bad people have bad blood and they're full of evil energy, which is what vampires live on.
Haven't you noticed that crime rates have gone up since the vampires all left? It's just a pin in that. Yeah, just file that though away from later. That sounds about right.
So she goes to ask and they're like, okay, we will give a trial period where we'll see if the vampires can go for an amount of time and not kill people. So what they do is they put the vampires in a vampire refugee concentration camp where they're all basically in like a weird warehouse prison with like jail cells and shit. And it's like children as well. And children.
And they're not allowed to drink any blood for I think it's three months or a month? Six weeks. Six weeks. It's six weeks and they just have to see if they're like good or bad, you know, and learn more about them.
And it's like the child vampire has to like drink the old vampire's blood because of those whole stuff. Yeah, let's put another pin in that. Yeah, which is cool. And while they're there, they sort of there's a group of these bureau sort of 20 year olds who like, you know, they will all the vampires and all the humans are learning about each other and they form bonds and they're like, oh, maybe we're not a different.
And Dorian and Lyra are like, oh, we are very attracted to each other. Or maybe we have a connection. But every time they like touch or whatever Lyra gets like chest pains. And I genuinely thought this was just like her not knowing that she had a crush on him until they got really bad.
And just having have never been horny before. And she's like, I'm like, I'm dying. I'm nervous and I'm around someone. So I think I am dying.
But no, she is actually like in genuine pain. And like, horny moments are like, I guess, realizing how sexy Dorian is moments are very funny. Yeah. We can talk about them in a minute.
Her reaction is just, yeah, I've got some quotes. It's very funny. I think I've highlighted exactly the same things you have, apart from maybe some extras. Yeah, so they're in this and while they're there, they do like bonding activities and they go on raids where the vampires help them peacefully get rid of the red bills and send them back to the immortal realm where they're from, because the vampires write them.
And then they use Dorian and some other vampires like ability to sense evil to catch criminals. Which goes really well and they're like, wow, the vampires can be an asset to us because they can help us catch the bad people. At one point they go to an Amish camp and it turns out the criminals are actually the police who are doing all the trafficking. Which was else does a terrible moment for all of them because vampires hate it when people who are supposed to be good do bad things.
That's the worst thing you can do to a vampire. Yes. And Larry's like, but people protect and serve what's happening. And so the experiment is very successful but they have a party and Larry and Dorian test and when they do she basically enters into a coma.
And when she wakes up all the vampires are being very grumpy and I'm not talking to them. Dorian rejects her because he's like, ah, this is too dangerous. Obviously there's something fucked up going on here. And grandma vampire is like, you should never have known this.
Yeah, I don't know how her name is spelled in the books, but in the audio book they pronounce her name like Hala. Yeah, it's like H-A-L-A. Hala. Yeah, I think it's supposed to be Hala.
There's another weird name pronounced here. Like there's also a vampire who I thought like from reading the name would be Lainey. But the narrator was pronounced her as La-Yanny. Oh, I thought I was Lainey.
Yeah. It's got to be Lainey. That's not her name. I kind of like Lainey.
Like none of them have normal names. What I'm called like Rome. Yeah, the music is called psych. Yeah.
Um, yeah, so the vampires are being grumpy and I was like, I can't believe this whole time our relationship was a lie and I was being used so that the vampires could get a safe place to live and that concentration can't bond, guard bonding was a legit. But actually it's, he's just like trying to protect her. And then it's like reveal that they, the trial period has been successful and they're meeting all the vampires for like a cool, nice housing complex where they can all live happily in the message of the viewer. Yeah.
So everyone's so nice. I love that for them. I can't believe this. So everyone leaves and she goes to see her uncle.
And while she's there she happens to hear some words going on in a meeting and she happens upon a plan for this housing place when they're building all these houses but they're putting, they're going to put, put, point this gas into the, into the houses to kill all the vampires. Kind of like something else from history that slipped my mind. But with vampires and she's like, well, that's fucked up. I'm going to go tell them.
So she and Bryce who's a good guy still, they rushed back and then there's a big epic fight scene where they kill a bunch of evil bureau people. And they see the vampires and half of vampires are like, I knew this was a bad idea. Humans hate us and one is dead. We should go live in the immortal realm.
And the other half are like, no, I'm going to stick with Dorian and try and live my life here in the human world. And I was like, I can't believe you were being mean to me. And Dorian's like, I do like you, but it's just like really hard because you die every time we touch. Every time we touch.
I get this feeling. Every time we touch. I go into a three day corner. Yeah.
So she's like, no, I will prove it. And then they make out and it's great. But also she thinks you might die. Yeah.
This is like straight after they've realized that the vampires have all split up and one of them's lost as kids. Yeah. The humans are going to gas them and then they just start making out in front of me. It's not like they start making up.
It's like Lyra is getting really frustrated and angry by the situation. And Dorian is still denying all of it. So she just goes up there and kisses him. Yeah.
One of the last time a girl kissed a guy in the... I'm just saying a bit dubious consent here. Um, John Green voice. Um, yeah.
It's pretty standard romance. Yeah. Fantasy romance stick. But yeah, so it really hurts.
But they're going to try and go for it anyway because that's how much they like each other. And they're just going to hang out and look for a new place to live because now they're both refugees. And they're all on the run from the bureau who wants to kill them for some reason. Uh huh.
And that's the sort of end of the book. So once again, like, not like, I think this book doesn't end in a different way than, like, Shadow Vampire doesn't end because, like, Shadow Vampire really just feels like they just cut off the last scene and put it into the second book. Yeah. Uh, so this kind of feels like it's a closing of a chapter, I guess, kind of cliffhanger.
But like, still, I still feel like this was a very unsatisfying not ending. I think it's very much trying to immediately send you to the sequel. It's like, you literally have to read the sequel because there's no conclusion everyone's on the run. I don't think it's a terrible way to end the book, but the scene is a bit weird.
Yeah. Yeah, it will say the audio book at the end once it's finished. The audio book lady is like, um, if you enjoy this, you can find the second dark, like dark hunt audio book available from Amazon. And if it's not there yet, it will be soon.
It's also in the audio book, it tells you the... Also in the e-book, it also says, uh, like, it ends with, you know, it ends with the sentence, please don't close there. You can't really say quietly by searching for the engineering, expanding, or cutting as desert surrounding as you might need it. And then it says, ready for the next part of the library story?
My thought... My thought is... The last line, I'll be honest. Do you remember how, um, a lot of sort of like fantasy books used to have like the first chapter from the next book at the end of the book?
Like, it's a sneak preview of the next one. Yeah. That was kind of a well. So, this one doesn't have that, but this one has...
Here's a preview of the cover. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Which just is enticing, really.
Yeah. Which is not a thing, Bella. Like, Dark Life is at least like a fucking... What's it called when it's like two opposite things stick together?
Oxymoron? I think Oxymoron. Yeah, Oxymoron is... Yeah.
So Dark Life is like, at least an Oxymoron. You know, even though it's not a real way. But it is at least like evocative in a way, right? Dark Life is just what?
I think the other thing is right. Okay, so like, the Dark First thing is because the vampires feed on darkness in people and we'll come back. Oh my god, okay, alright. So it makes sense.
But not really... Like, the darkness isn't even a huge part of this book. It's just kind of dropped in. Yeah.
And the implications are pretty questions. The implications are so funny. Yeah, we're gonna have to... We're gonna have to...
So there's a few elephants in the room. Yes. It's a miracle circus. Putting the elephants, yeah, we're just like connecting them into a circus, like putting them into the corner.
We will get back to you. Mm-hmm. But if you want to like, I do think we need to at least talk about like some of the smaller stuffs before we get to discussing those. The baby elephants.
The baby elephants. The seals with the people on the room. Yeah, the clowns that are like the pre-attractions to do. Yeah, pre-attraction, how fucking dare you?
Okay. So I have some of the good reads stuff if we want to dive into that. Okay. Okay, yeah, let's do it.
I have an Amazon review that will directly listen to the discussion because it actually kind of cuts into the things that we're gonna talk about the most in a very funny way. Okay, good. So I'm gonna... This is a 3.5 thousand good reads.
Which... Yeah. It's like every one of them good reads. And there is one question about this book which was asked 11 months ago, which says, just judging by the cover, I know I'm not supposed to be but anyway, this appears to be a toy like Ripoff.
Is it? No. No. And that's the only question that no one's answered her.
So I don't know if she's still waiting on that. Who knows? Okay. So here are the reviews.
This first one is, did not finish this. I got mostly three poems. What? Just not interested enough to finish.
It became a tool to read. I like young adult books, but maybe just two YA for me. It's not like a fan fake of other vampire books. They also have girls slash women in that like the men that kidnap them, stop home syndrome much.
But then go back and forth about being awful. Also maybe I'm in love, gross. Okay, my question with this. That is not a tool.
That is not a tool. He doesn't kidnap her. The majority of this book, she's his god. Yes.
Yes. She's his prison god. The Stockholm syndrome thing is funny though because there's like in the first like 40, 50th page of the book which I think is the least interesting part. Yeah.
Right. Because it just starts with them being on. Red Bull missions. Red Bull missions, yeah.
And then she meets the vampire. And then she constantly keeps thinking as she's realizing Dorian is hot. She's constantly like Stockholm syndrome much. She's literally thinking it.
Yeah. And like it would have been, this would have been a fitting thing in shade of vampire willy enough. She didn't, like Sophia didn't think of it. But like in this one, it's like barely even, it barely even applies to the situation.
Yeah. So I don't know what that was about. And then it's like completely dropped. Like it's really just in the first section of the book before the main plot, I guess, starts.
Yeah. Yeah. Because he can't have to briefly explain that the vampires need to seek asylum from the humans. And then like he gives her enough reasons to trust him and then gives her like a nice rock from his home planet that's kind of like a nuclear wasteland but with like Shinigami or whatever.
And then he sends her straight back. And then the rest of it, like he's the one with Stockholm syndrome arguably. And even then he's like having to like act nice to humans so that his race isn't wiped out. So I don't know if Stockholm syndrome applies to her.
I don't think it does. I think there is interesting, I mean it's pretty bad but like there's an interesting like power thing where he's dependent on her and their approval for like their races survival. So kill her very easily. Which I think is interesting and a bit more interesting than normal vampires that for us just that he could kill you.
Yeah. I have questions on whether he can even kill her but we'll get to it. Okay. Is it like the main problems?
Oh yeah. I mean in some ways the idea of disempowered vampires is sort of interesting but this just is a way of doing it. A way of taking that. Yeah.
So I'll continue with some of these. I quite like this one actually I kind of agree. Can someone please explain to me what the vampires are and are not familiar with. Dorian can't work a phone and doesn't know what high vibe is but he's also able to laugh at jokes about airplanes or looking like a clown in a bar.
Yeah. So this is very not thought to I agree with this review. And also, now I have another thing that really bugs me about this is that whilst reading this, you have this whole like first chapter kind of section where the humans talking about doing red-bill missions and I was about to say Sophia and then Lyra is like we call them red-bills because of their red-bills. I'm imagining them like doing that kind of thing but then she's like we just called them out and then we're introduced to the vampires and the vampires also called them red-bills.
I guess it's not an obvious thing to call them that honestly. No. It's not. Big birds or whatever.
Big, I'll tell vampires the things. It's possible that they know what the miracle they're meant to call them something different in vampire language. They never say that. I'm just saying these aren't things that I really noticed when I was reading.
Oh, me neither. But it's very valid because I think it ties into the whole thing of what I suppose all of Bella for us to book is that there's like the very first drafty. Yeah, do you know what this reminded me of? It reminded me of a pretty well written long form fanfiction AU.
Yeah. It's a supernatural fanfiction that I read years and years ago where it was like took place in a world where there was demonic stuff and there was a big wall that kept ghost out of a big city and there was all that sort of stuff and there was a romance that took place alongside that. See, like a full-fledged fantasy world but someone is using the art characters. Yeah.
Yeah, and it's got pretty good world building but it's also kind of fanfiction-y and that's what this really reminded me of. Like very strongly. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Yeah. Find a replace of the character names but you swap them out for like, I don't know, Elena and Damon or whatever. I mean, I don't know if it was that or if it's just the same aspect or... I don't think it was.
I just think it feels like that. Yeah, no, but my point is the reason why it might remind you of that might be also the same thing I was saying about how it's like there doesn't seem to be a very thorough editing process in these books. Like there doesn't seem to be a dedicated editor who would point out these things. Yeah, no, I would agree with that.
I would also say about what do and don't vampires know, there was like a section where they did speed dating. Yeah. Like a drama woman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Except the weird power imbalances but you know. Except they're in prison. It was like vampires and humans were sitting next to each other and they were swapping through and they were asked to ask questions of each other, etc. And there it was like, so one of the things that bothered me a little about that is that vampires didn't know about chess.
Yeah. Like the oldest board game. Yeah. It seems like such in every other vampire fiction these they would at least be familiar with chess.
Like it seems such a, you know, they're into old things always. Most vampire books I've read have had vampires who are like chess masters. Yeah. And they learn chess in this one and they're good at it.
Yeah. There's a very like question about how much familiarity the vampires do have with human culture which I guess leads into the references thing where it's like, and sometimes they seem completely unfamiliar with very basic things. Yeah, they can sort of socialize very normally and they seem to socialize very similarly to humans. Because like when they're doing makeup and Ira's putting makeup on him and he's like, why do a human female is weird, the makeup on the face?
And she's like, makes sexy. Yeah. He's like, I do not like this. He's amazed by the concept that you would go to a date wearing makeup, basically.
Yeah. But then he comes out of it after she's made him up and all of his vampire friends have jokes ready to go about him being like a clown. Yeah. They're like, this is really funny that you got this stuff on and it's like when you just be really confused.
Yeah. I guess I get that he looks like a human. Yeah. Because I guess that's the issue that he looks human.
It kind of reads to me what is like a masculinity thing, but I think that's me projecting. I think I found it as well that it's like, well, why are you trying to look like a human that's very embarrassing? Yeah, I think I was reading into that bit, but it was very funny that weird scene kind of like fits a bit. Yeah.
Okay. I have a couple more reviews. Okay. So, okay.
This one's a slightly longer one. All right. I want to give Bella another chance. I was hoping she would impress like she did with her shade of vampire series before it's not 60 bucks in.
I was dreading it was going to be the same part of shade of vampire, but I was pleased that it wasn't. But they had the same main female character, the extremely smart, resourceful, popular, talented, beautiful, headstrong, bland character. That's what I got again. That's going to be wrong.
This was a different take on vampires, which I appreciated. I just didn't like Lyra at all. She was boring AF. This also should not have been a 400 page book.
She was too much. Lyra was a horrible narrator. I'm a professional. I don't think I can stand hearing that phrase ever again.
So, what do you think about this review? I will agree that this book is way too long. They could have cut like 150 pages easy. But what I feel when I read this because she's comparing it directly to shade of vampire, shade of vampire was too short in a way.
I feel like shade of vampire as bad as it was read itself very quickly because so much of it was not thought through at all. So you could just consume it. But since there's a bit more thought into it and a bit more skill, it feels longer than the same number of pages of shade of vampire it would feel. Jana vampires was a warp-ad fan fiction and this is an AO3 fan fiction.
That is a fiction between them. That's so true. That's very funny. I can't understand becoming frustrated with Lyra as a narrator at some points, which also ties into one of the elephants.
So we will discuss that. But I don't feel frustrated with her because I think she's like Sophia in the shade of vampire. No. Sophia isn't a character.
I would argue whereas I think Lyra is and has some agency. Yes, Sophia just reacts to things. I do feel like Lyra is like, she's not like a very extraordinary person actually. I don't think she is like beautiful and smart and perfect.
I think she's like, she's very normal. But neither is like, yeah, I guess we were led to believe that Sophia is beautiful and smart because everyone told us she was. But wouldn't get it from her POVs. Nothing she does is actually smart.
It's just what others tell us about her. Whereas I think Lyra is smart, but she's not like all the men are obsessed with her all the time or anything. There's just one vampire who's into it. But even he is like, it's not like he's maybe because we don't get his POVs with Derek, but it's not like we constantly notice Dorian fully obsessing with her.
He's much more of a nice boy compared to who was just awful. Dorian's pretty nice and Derek is like a probably a racist. A rapist and a mass murderer and owns human slaves. They've kind of killed a bunch of human slaves.
I'm so conflicted to decide if I liked this or shade of vampire more because... Oh, I liked this so much more. I'm objectively. This is better.
But also I think I... and this also has some deranged stuff, but I feel like shade of vampire was more like just absolutely, you know, cat-lose deranged stuff, like stream of consciousness writing. But the thing is I like, yeah, I tried to read shade of vampire too. It was also very deranged, but it was also boring and I couldn't Google it to read more of it.
I can't believe it has 90 books. I know. And also that the person who wrote this review read 60 of them before getting sick of it. By book 60, I began to think the series was going downhill.
It's me on season 14 of Supernatural. I'm going to read one last review. Okay. I did not finish.
I don't think Bella Forest is for me. I don't care if I've had style of storytelling. I have good news for you, reviewer. You might have one of her other series written by the Tally Different Person.
Yeah. This is not the same person who wrote shade of vampire. No. Oh, 100%.
But it's interesting because there's those kind of reviews. I've seen also some of those on Amazon. And there's also the other type of review, like the positive reviews. I also often like, if you're a Bella Forest fan, this won't disappoint.
Bella Forest did it again, etc. It's clearly not the same author. Yeah, it's an entirely different writing style in that this one is coherent. Yeah.
Yeah. And I mean, yeah, no. There's no way. You can be definitely advocate about it and say that this was written five years after shade of vampires.
Maybe she's improved. But I highly doubt that the newer shade of vampire books, I like. If we assume that the entire shade series is written by one person, then I would be interested to at least read sections of the newer shade of vampire books just to see if it's stylistically similar or different to the one we read. I think we should read the newest one.
What, like book 92? Yeah. Yeah. We should try to read that just out of context.
That could be interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to figure out what's going on in those 1990 books between. Yeah.
So stuff I want to talk about before we get to the big stuff. Just let's go through the vampire names real quick. Okay. So we have Dorian.
I guess there's like Dorian Gray thing. I like that. It's a good vampire name. That's a fun story.
Dorian is pretty good. Then we get friends out of five. We have Rome. Yeah.
How's it spell in the book? Our HOME. Oh, like, home. Home.
Home. Rome. That's a city. Okay.
Capital of Italy. Then we get came. Yeah. Well, that's how I thought it was felt because I think I don't know how any of the characters needs to spell.
Yeah. No. Rome and Lainia are the only ones who I spell really I think. Yeah.
Yeah. Then we have Kane who is like a wrestler and Republican Senator Mayo or what is he? He kind of sucks. Like the actual Kane.
Yeah. The Kane in this book is just like an edge event player who is like. Yeah, actually. Yeah.
There's a real guy named Kane who is a wrestler. I know, I know, but like Kane enabled, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I spelled the way this is spelled K-A. Yeah. I thought they were just doing like an edgy thing where they were like, he's came at it because he doesn't like his. I would just think it's like literally the exact same way as Kane.
Yeah. No, I was thinking it was the brother thing as well. It probably is. It's just like what you call the evil, well, the not evil, but like grumpy vampire.
You're like, oh, cool and Kane. That's about fun. Yeah. Like in a vampire dark, so the evil brother's called demon.