Envy of Angels

This is fantastic! It made me smile a lot and laugh out loud more than a few times, which is not really all that easy to achieve. I'm very excited to continue with the series. I can't believe this is not a hit TV show already, and I won't be at all surprised if that happens. I don't know why it took me so long to hear about this series, but I know I'll be recommending it far & wide.

It's original, as you can tell from the summary, with some very appealing and realistic characters, but it plays with a lot of concepts that will be familiar to any fan of urban fantasy. Buffy/Angel fans really need to read this in particular, as the humor is similar. It's as fun (if not more so) as the original voyage to Lorne's home dimension. But unlike Buffy/Angel, there is not any heavy interpersonal stuff, at least not in this first outing; it's pretty lighthearted in that way, although I did really like the friendship between Lena and Darren. I can imagine so many potential stories in this world.

This is in third-person omniscient, although we don't see everyone's PoV all the time, and it works well for the story that's being told. It focuses on several sets of characters: the young chefs Lena and Darren (who is gay, although that's only mentioned once); the catering company's procurement team, a group of fantasy-quest-type characters led by a grizzled magician in the vein of John Constantine; and the world-weary executive chef, Bronko. There are lots of other fun characters, too, such as the pothead busboys, who felt a little bit like Statler and Waldorf at first, and the douchebag chef, who seems like he's going to be permanently at odds with Lena, but probably not in a tiresome sexual-tension way, as the narrative makes it pretty clear the guy is an actual jerk.

The plot is about orchestrating a major banquet for warring demon clans. The pace is fast, and the story takes more than a few surprising turns. It's fun, hilarious, and smart, and none of the humor made me uncomfortable at all. I only cringed at a few disgusting moments, and I'm sure I was meant to.

Great book, and I am diving into the rest of the series immediately.

So basically one day I had no idea what to pick from my to-read list, so I decided to ask a friend of mine to point at something based on the cover alone. This was before lunch, so those chicken nuggets looked really good and she went with this one. (At least it's no some million page series, I told myself. I have a hard time picking them up when I know it will take a lifetime to actually read them.)

You know, I do love food. Eating it, making it, reading about it, looking at shows and photos. I have a bit of a love affair with those shows where they show little video clips of stuff being made and the food ones are my favourites. It's all fascinating and I am convinced that if we need to eat multiple times a day for survival, we should make it nice, not just another chore.
I also really like urban fantasy. The idea of supernatural elements being part of modern life and taking place in situations that are so familiar is just fun to me. They ways you can integrate them to a completely non-fantasy setting can go in so many absolutely fascinating ways.

Well, in this case it's... meh.
In the artsy-fartsy New York gastronomy scene there is a place where they serve supernaturals with ingredients a bit more exotic than the normal grocery store selection and I don't mean artisan crap. Two people get invited for a job to this restaurant and things aren't exactly culinary school lever.

The idea, I love it. It sounded like a nice blend of things that could have been so refreshingly fun. Instead, the author went with this upper class idle hipster way of looking at everything. It all really felt like the fantasy of some guy who only ever went to restaurants as a customer and saw maybe 10 minutes or Gordon Ramsay action.
The characters were nothing interesting, just paper thin caricatures of human beings (like Lena, who is super good at EVERYTHING and is the moral superiority of it all, or the chef guy who we know is a dick from the get go because he has the wrong kind of facial hair). It all felt so superficial and simplistic.

I didn't expect depth. This thing is really short, you can read it lightning fast, but this... no. I'm sorry, I can't vouch for a book that's so underdeveloped. Sure, be light, be funny, I love me some reads like that. Seriously, I am the last person to demand seriousness and heavy things at all times, but this just didn't measure up to what I call truly worth my while.
It is possible that with more stories coming out this universe and idea will be properly formed and it will all make sense, but right now I feel like it is more like a cool little idea you write down in a little notebook that you could totally work with later.
It just wasn't good. It really wasn't.

Shoo now, I'm hangry.