A favorite

This was a GREAT book, i literally loved every second. I love the author too, I have been reading his books for a while and sheesh, he is GREAT. this book lit had me scared, confused, heart eyed, and totally THE BEST!!!!!

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Twist and turns

Overall I enjoyed this novel. It had a few surprises I didn’t see coming. I won’t give away spoilers, but if you like magic, vampires and some teen angst I would recommend. I did find the queer relationship at the center of the story refreshing. It was great to read about gay character who knew who they were. The novel does wrap up nicely, but leaves room for a sequel. The only real complaint I had was several of the characters fall out of the story for a bit only to show up when it was convenient.

Surprisingly original, well written.

genuinely enjoyed this one more than most recent books i read. Vibe wise its pretty similar to buffy, but lore wise incredibly well thought and original!

The problem with this book is...

The problem with The Fell of Dark is that the book description is NOT an adequate representation of the book itself. The description makes this come across as a lighthearted paranormal mm teen romance with a spot of mystery. And that's how the book begins. By mid-fourth chapter, it's like the author forgot what he started with and goes off in another direction. Most of the fourth chapter felt like filler. As if the author wanted to get from the end of the 3rd chapter to the end of the 4th chapter and threw in a couple annoying scenes with no apparent use to fill up space. And in that instant, we go from lighthearted teenager to a mix of superhero wannabe and severely angsty teen and the whole "Chosen" annoyance too many teen books use as a plot point that's so old it should be buried.

In addition, Jude, the 'cute vampire boy' makes one appearance in the first few chapters. One. So much for a love interest.

So if you're looking for YA MM romance, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a superhero story, there's not enough of it, look elsewhere. If you're looking for angsty teen who doesn't know who to be or how often to change who he is and flips back and forth on wanting to be the chosen one, this might be the book for you.

I ended up DNF'ing the book because I lost the ability to care. At one point I wished some vamp would kill the hero and put me out of my misery.

The performances were fantastic. The book, not so much.

SOOOO much fun! Def. give this one a listen

The story itself is really enjoyable, and audibly page-turning, and it was hard not to hunker down and listen to the whole book in one go. I really enjoyed the storyline, the well-drawn characters, and the tantalizing sensuality that kept popping up over and over again. Never too much, but just enough to keep you glued to your seat and coming back for more. I would not hesitate to pick up another Caleb Roehrig novel in future..

But, the real hero here is the narrator, Michael Crouch. I don't know how he does what he does, but he's quite the master of his domain. Who do you turn to if you need a voice for a centuries-old malevolent being, a Southern California-accented surfer dude, a sexy British vampire, a teenage girl best friend, and an octogenarian Latina abuela? Well, you turn to Crouch, apparently, who easily slips in and out of these characters' dialogues, their thoughts, their dreams--and he brings not only Roehrig's written words to life, but also imbues spaces between those written words, filling in the silences, pauses, and unspoken subtext of who these characters are to life. If I could afford to have him narrate MY life, I would do it in an instant. Be sure to check him out here, and I will be searching out his other efforts, too. He's amazing, and surprising and hypnotizing at every turn.

Bottom line: really fun novel with characters you come to identify with and care about, brought to life by the skill of this gifted narrator. Fantasy well worth the money. Buy it.

OMG

WHERE IS THE SEQUAL!!!!!!! I devoured this book and NEED another fix lol, everything about the book made my knees weak, Caleb Roehrig is my new fav author, no joke, if you’ve ever wondered why gay guys complain about female authors not getting being a guy, and totally missing the boat(which I do frequently) just read this book and find out how it should be done....the MC was his own hero, he didn’t wait for some love interest to save the day, he was vulnerable without appearing weak or spineless, maybe it’s cause Calebs kinda hot, not sure lol but this story and these characters went above and BEYOND any and all expectations.......great job to the narrators also, course I can’t go wrong with Michael Crouch,;-) please PLEASE tell me there’s more coming...not even necessarily from this world but from this author!!!!

An Epic Ride

Wow! What an amazing listen. A totally gripping supernatural thrill ride, with more twists and turns than the best roller coaster. thoroughly enjoyable characters, and an brilliantly realized LGBTQ lead, made this an instant favorite for me.

Caleb Roehrig

Caleb Roehrig will write a Pulitzer Prize winner some day. There’s something about his prose that inspires, surprises, and delights in equal measure. He obviously enjoys writing in the YA fantasy/horror genre, and he’s good at it, but I see a greater story between the lines that spans decades—the type of epic that the Pulitzer fiction committee likes. With “Less”, “Kavalier and Clay”, and “Middlesex”, a LGBTQ+ book can be a winner. I’ll wait the 10 or 15 years it may take for him to submit a final draft , but I’ll be delighted when he does. “The Fell of Dark” is a terrific novel and is almost as good as “White Rabbit” and is better than “Last Seen Leaving”.

Did not like it

The ending did its best to redeem this story but the annoying journey to get there was just too much for me. The sheer amount of crying and bad decisions from the MC had me wanting to hit him over the head for 80% of the book and the 3way love interest did not work at all for me. I do not recommend this book.

exhausting

Things I liked about this book: the plentiful queer rep, the few dashes of humor, and the first...four (maybe) chapters.

I am so disappointed at how much I did not enjoy this book. Mystery, horror, dark fantasy, the supernatural...those things are my JAM and unfortunately this story was only decorated as such. This fell into the same old stereotypical storyline that most supernatural stories are made up of where there’s a surprise society with rules. Literally every chapter was about the SAME thing. I listened to the same conversation for 9 hours. The characters had no depth. I did not care about a single person. There was no point or moral to the story. The only thing I felt afterwards was “thank god it’s over”. The author TELLS you everything. It’s like the reader isn’t trusted to put clues together or understand the text, or isn’t allowed to question it??? I never felt emotion because I was told what emotions to feel. Do you get what I’m saying? No showing happening in this story. Speaking of clues, there was no mystery. Everything drugged on for so long that any reveal made lost its punch. I just didn’t care. This was literally all boring plot and no character. No chemistry between any of the characters. Too many similes and metaphors. No character was allowed to just SAY anything my god. I got an actual headache multiple times pushing myself through this. Everything was just so...flat. And like, I get that the MC is a teenage boy but do I really need to know he has an erection every 2 pages. Is that really necessary. So much potential, every ounce of it dropped. This is not fun or weird. Just bleh. And like....none of the MC’s felt flawed??? Idk. Annoying. Let things be more vague and loose. Give me more character. Gah.