User:Matt620

I like editing things and making things look nice.

Stories I liked
The Crown and the Flame (All books) - Exciting pacing, great characters, and the portrait asethetic had this oil painting-esque quality that brought out it's fantastical charm.

Most Wanted - Great plotline and constant high stakes action. Both characters felt distinct and were incredible reads.

Hero - I did feel like I was in a comic book, the art style worked here. And the characters were kinda fun with their different abilities.

It Lives (Both books) - Fond of them both. High stakes, lots of fun. It Lives Beneath was slightly better because it felt more like a team effort than It Lives in the Woods, but the first one allowed multiple deaths and really let me feel the consequences of my actions.

Veil of Secrets - An enjoyable mystery with great action scenes and a real sense of discovery. Plus had some of the most likable characters across the books.

America's Most Eligible 1 - Loved the cast, took a second to figure out the mechanics of it, but it really brought out a competitive edge and made me want to win. And the cast were a lovable cast of rogues.

Bloodbound 2 and 3 - Ramping up the action and excitement while playing down the romance was definitely the right choice. Also liked the plotline built in the for the Main Character with the whole Bloodkeeper thing, she felt more connected to the world and not some random schmuck. The stakes were constantly raised and I was hooked.

Desire and Decorum (All books) - TBH, I went into this not thinking I'd like it, but it's charm, authentic nature, and likable characters won me over. Book 2 was the strongest overall, but the others are good too. Fantastic cast of characters with just the right touch of mystery.

Big Sky Country (Both books) - A bit of a cliche, but charmingly acted and the style felt refreshing from the more urban looks of the other Choices books. Also had a well made supporting cast.

The Elementalists (Both books) - An easy to pick up mythos and collectibles focused around success made it well acted and wonderful. The holiday special was good as well, and I'm usually not fans of them.

The Heist: Monaco - Fun premise with a lot of enjoyment and hilarious characters with interesting backstories.

Open Heart, Book 1 - Wonderful characters, immersive in the setting without being overmuch and well written romantic scenes.

Nightbound - A fantastic mythos with lots of action and intrigue, a properly written tragic villain, and a real sense of emotion between father and child.

Platinum - The struggles of the main character felt realistic, she felt like a newcomer to an industry and had to work for her stardom. And the songs had an earwormy quality. Supporting cast was also very well written, and I always felt like I earned the choices I made.

High School Story: Class Act 3 - Giving the player a book-wide goal that could be improved made the smaller scale of the story feel more engaging, and the aesthetic felt unique. The struggles of high school students felt very well acted.

The Royal Masquerade - Engaging plot with a likable main character, a slight touch of mysticism, refreshingly honest villain, and authentic to its style without being overblown and pretentious.

Blades of Light and Shadow - Exciting action packed scenes with a believable immersive world.

Queen B - Ridiculous, trite, everyone in the story is utterly irredeemable. And I love it. The story never tries to be anything other than a guilty pleasure, and it does it immensely well, except for being forced to side with Zoey.

The Unexpected Heiress - Delightfully authentic to the time period and full of mystery and intrigue.

Wolf Bride - A cliched start that quickly turned into an incredibly interesting story full of magic and wonder.

Laws of Attraction - Slick and sophisticated, with tons of great looking suits, an ability to go purely for my profession rather than some self-righteous crusade, and a fun supporting cast, though it was quite preachy with the Marcus Sharpe case.

Wake the Dead - Excellent supporting cast, definitely feels like my choices mattered, and tight focused narrative.

Crimes of Passion - Incredibly engaging characters with great personalities, maybe a little over-the-top with the corruption. Engaging supporting cast and good chemistry between leads.

The Princess Swap - A wacky adventure that feels straight out of a cartoon. But the story never pretends to be otherwise and overacts it with aplomb. It never forgets that it's a silly comedy and plays it with earnest.

The Cursed Heart - Always feels like a fairytale, had some excellent lore, and extremely dark characters without being overmuch.

Immortal Desires - Story with excellent background lore, collectibles that felt useful, and an interesting set piece.

Stories that were okay
Rules of Engagement (All books) - Eh, started out all right, but the story got very samey and dragged on and on for far too long.

Endless Summer (All books) - The story was fine, actually pretty good. But I could not get behind the weird art style, and it was really a diamond sink.

The Haunting of Braidwood Manor - Too short to really get anything out of it, one way or the other.

The Royal Romance and the Royal Heir (All books) - Enjoyed it's more political coup nature, but in the end it felt like a long, drawn out romance. The political nature was stepped up in The Royal Heir, but I feel like the villains made their moves too early and the story began to drag.

High School Story (All books, and Class Act 1 and 2) - Lower stakes made it less interesting, but the characters were all right and I could understand it for the high school setting. Class Act had a great idea with the twin sibling that made for great storytelling, but it felt squandered. The focus on building a greenhouse rather than the implementation of the Class President felt like a throwaway.

Red Carpet Diaries 1 - A little too unbelievable with going to a high paid actress right away, but a lot of the earlier scenes had charm.

Perfect Match (Both books) - Started out all right, but I saw the twists coming. Perfect Match 2 upped the main cast greatly with great character interaction, and the ability to play as a complete nymphomaniac, but a lot of the supporting cast like Khaan and Winona were pretentious and I felt forced to like them.

Bloodbound 1 - A bit cliché in the beginning, but established its mythos and found its footing to be great by the end.

America's Most Eligible 2 and 3 - Not a bad idea, and decent new characters, but the rehashed plot of being run by a bad showrunner made it get really old really fast. The 3rd story does make me want to play it, but without the first two stories, it would've been bad. However, it had an extremely well written redemption arc.

Across the Void - Great looking characters, and the collectibles were useful, but a good story is more than pleasant design. The plot should've had more focus on the war and less on the cruise liner.

A Courtesan of Rome - As a history buff, I liked the setting, but it was too overmuch, too many uses of Latin words made this feel more forced than anything else. Plus, the mechanic of Wiles and Seduction felt very odd, like it was haphazardly implemented.

Ride or Die - The marketing person for this should've been fired. If it wasn't called a romance and focused more on cars and unintentionally getting involved with crooks, it would've been better. Instead it was a fairly cheap romance.

Passport to Romance - I hated the whole petty criminal aspect of the story, but it started out pretty good and the female characters were fun.

Sunkissed - A decent idea that got sidelined for boring family drama and overacted personal matters rather than some larger goal. Had some fun moments with the LIs acting as friends and some really fun circumstances, but that was it. The collectibles were also fairly disappointing.

Bachelorette Party - I liked this more as it went on. I think because it was so different from the other stories, it should've been released all at once. Has great supporting characters with Courtney and Reed.

Save the Date - Really started off badly with the main character being an unhinged lunatic. But the weddings themselves were quite charming and it felt like the main character learned from her mistakes.

Open Heart: Second Year - They try, and some of the scenes are kinda nice. But honestly, the cast gets infinitely more boring. Elijah being unprofessional at his job, and everyone falling over themselves, including the main character, to fawn over Esme is ridiculous. Bonding with Aurora and the realistic struggles of a non-profit hospital are the only saving graces.

A Very Scandalous Proposal: Seeking out the secrets of British peerage was an interesting concept, but the secrets seemed to come up so infrequently getting them was only so interesting, and the end result was that only some of them seemed to matter. And the MC is quite an insufferable brat.

Hot Couture - Fun concept with lots of great ideas, and it was especially cool that the MC only got her job because someone in power wanted to spite a total monster. At times, though, I felt like it wasn't enough about the character being a designer.

Foreign Affairs - It really just became another book about scandals and ignored it's political overtones. But the supporting cast was decent.

Ms. Match - It was okay, but the only thing to recommend it was the dad.

Slow Burn - It's fine, but if they're going to give you recipes, they should actually provide actual recipes rather then concepts.

Shipwrecked - It focused on survival and gave a strong narrative, which worked, but it could also just as quickly shuck survival for romantic interactions.

Untameable - It's decent enough as a romance, but it doesn't branch out into its genre at all.

Stories I hated
The Freshman (and all subsequent chapters) - I'm willing to excuse a lot in exchange for early installment weirdness, but this story was just dull and duller with melodrama and boring behavior.

#LoveHacks - A group of people that were either pretentious (Horatio, Leah), obnoxious (Cole), whiny (Mark, Brooke), or all three (MC, Sareena). Ultimately an ending that gave me nothing and diamond choices that felt irrelevant. Not a single character in that story was remotely likable.

Red Carpet Diaries 2 and 3 - A desperate attempt at being topical ruined some great ideas. And it was relentlessly both boring and preachy about it the whole time. Plus, the movie I was starring in felt pretentious. The third one started out okay and let us produce a movie, but only so much came out of it, and the author of the book was overly pretentious. Plus, the MC is a complete Mary Sue, everyone is ridiculously obsessed with her.

Home for the Holidays - The hate this book receives is overblown, but not undeserved. Dull cliche plotline with only the charm of the mother and pilot romance plot to save it.

Wishful Thinking - A ridiculously cliched plot with an unsatisfying ending, totally wrecked redemption arc for the early stage villain character, and cliched villains made this completely unsatisfying.

Mother of the Year - Whiny unlikable main character who is, dare I say it, a bad mother. Whom I'm forced to play and get along with. It's a shame when the supposedly unlikable ex-husband and his young girlfriend would be better off raising the kid. Love interests are boring and side characters are obnoxious. Completely forced villain redemption arc, and the end of the book proved the MC was nothing more than a gold-digger.

Baby Bump - I tried to give this book a shot, and while the Blanket was really cute for a collectible, the characters were mostly annoying, the MC felt shilled to high heaven, and the book was preachy as hell.

Witness: The MC is a whiny unlikable brat, and I see no reason to bond with the love interest after I slept with him in Chapter 1. MC gets everything handed to her.

The Nanny Affair: It started out okay, but it got real old real fast.

With Every Heartbeat: Schmaltzy and lightweight, and the choices never felt like they meant anything.

My Two First Loves: A story that's just all over the place, with uninteresting characters.

Rising Tides - Extremely cliché, utterly unlikable characters, boring plot, and nothing to recommend it.

Open Heart: Third Year - Every character quickly became unlikable very fast, and the only redeeming feature is the adorable robot.

Surrender - Extremely unlikable characters, alienating premise, and a constantly shilled Mary Sue MC.

Things I'd like to see

 * A post-apocalyptic setting a la Fallout or Wasteland.
 * Mystery and suspense novels
 * An adventure novel a la Indiana Jones
 * Once mentioned a buddy cop, but after Crimes of Passion, I can say I got what I was looking for.

Things I don't want to see

 * Stories that are gender-locked without good reason. Bloodbound paid lip service to it in Chapter 2, but the later stories have no excuse
 * Shilled characters. When characters tell me how good someone else is without those traits being on display (or a good reason for someone to say things otherwise). These are characters like: Blaire Hall (bad businesswoman but everyone tells me she's good and fires people when they do things she tells them too, excuses theft); Winona Johnson (told she's a great journalist, actually isn't and springs surprises for ratings, as well as letting her guests get attacked); Emerald (pretentious eco-warrior full of herself), Selma (did nothing but act pretentious)
 * Negative shilled characters. When I'm constantly told by others how bad someone is for no reason than to make me the reader feel that way.