Thursday, November 07, 2024

#BookReview: Dating & Dismemberment (Monsters and Mating #1) by A.L. Brody



ABOUT THIS BOOK:
Emily Henry meets Grady Hendrix in the funniest and most and original romantic comedy of the year: a monstrously feel good cozy fantasy full of love, laughter, lore, and limbs.

Darla Drake, Duchess of Death, is a legendary monster who has haunted the woods around Camp Clear Creek for years. Until an existential crisis forces her to take a sabbatical from wreaking havoc on pimply teens while she figures out what she really wants from the rest of her (possibly infinite) life. But what does a monster do when her malevolent days are over? For Darla, it’s spending time with the decapitated―yet still overbearing―head of her mother, reading romance novels she steals from campers, and struggling with one monstrous case of melancholy. Until Jarko Murkvale arrives in Clear Creek and turns Darla’s life upside down.

Jarko is a conceited, arrogant, infuriating, and unfortunately for Darla, kind of hot. And with the Duchess of Death on the shelf, Jarko has staked his claim on Camp Clear Creek. But Darla refuses to go down without a fight, and so in order to reclaim her territory she challenges Jarko to a series of hunts to see who the most fearsome monster really is.

But the more mayhem they cause, the more Darla begins to realize there’s more to this brash monster than she believed…and that Jarko may just be the antidote to her ennui. But there’s a reason Jarko came to Clear Creek, and in order to fill her nine-chambered heart, Darla will have to unravel the mystery of who this closed-off monster really is. And if they can manage to not literally tear each other limb from limb, Darla and Jarko just might find that couples who slay together, stay together.







RAITING: ⭐
REVIEW: 
Darla Drake, Duchess of Death, is a fearsome monster that has been tormenting Camp Clear Lake for decades. She enjoys striking fear into the wrongdoers of the camp until it suddenly is not enough. While Darla tries to find her spark again, a new monster moves in on her territory. Will she be able to give him the boot? Or will they form an unlikely bond?

I was super interested in this book. A couple of monsters in a romantic comedy? It was practically made for me. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up getting along. The story took a long time to take off. The first several chapters were focused on Darla’s unrest and nagging mother. I feel like we didn’t need as long with that inner monologue for her unrest to come across. It felt like the plot didn’t start until about page 58 with the introduction of Jarko. Even that series of interactions dragged. This story was also not for me because of the humor. I could tell that the banter between Darla and her mother is supposed to be funny to me at points, but it didn’t really get there. Overall, this book was not for me. I wouldn’t completely discount it based on this review. You might like this book if you are looking for a lighthearted book about a monster going through an existential crisis and a romantic comedy plotline.


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