My 2024 reading is NOT off to a good start, y’all.

In fact, I have so many thoughts about this book that I’m postponing my review on the last book I read in 2023 to talk about this one instead. And the sooner I write down my opinions, the sooner I can forget this ever happened.

So I received an advance reader’s copy (ARC) of That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming. Since this version is just a proof and not the final version, I won’t quote directly and will keep my comments general.

In That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon, Cinnamon is a spice farmer, but she gets roped into helping a demon defeat an evil sorceress who is posing as a goddess. As she and the demon, Fallon, travel across the land together, they grow closer. But can their burgeoning love survive all the obstacles in their way?

I really tried to give this book a fair shot. I thought the title was wacky in a good way and the premise sounded like it might be a fun time, a silly little light-hearted romance book with a person of color as the main character. And maybe for some people, this is a great time; if you enjoyed reading this, that’s wonderful! I know my taste isn’t everyone’s, and vice versa, and I’ll never begrudge someone having a good time with a book. However, for me, I had a bad time.

First of all, the dialogue was incredibly irritating. The characters live in a fantasy world full of demons, dragons, and magical beings, and yet they speak as if they’re influencers on social media. It doesn’t make any sense, and is so jarring against the backdrop of the setting. I’ve seen things where modern languages work in a historical or fictional setting (such as in Our Flag Means Death), and it can work, but in this book, something about it really didn’t work for me.

It doesn’t help that the characters came off as very annoying and inconsistent. The protagonist Cinnamon (an odd name, even for a spice farmer) is sweet sometimes, but not at all well-rounded or interesting. And Fallon, the demon love interest, is pretty off-putting, at least to me. Maybe it’s because he almost exclusively refers to Cinnamon as “Rabbit” or “woman” instead of her name, but he really didn’t endear himself to me at any point. Even him turning into a dragon in the final act didn’t move me at all! That’s how you know this is serious!

Also, I either missed it, or there wasn’t an explanation for why he calls her Rabbit. Ugh.

And listen, I understand that this is basically a bodice-ripper set in a fantasy land, but Lemming is clearly aiming for there to be at least some plot, some substance. And that’s fine and great and all, but the pacing of the story is really lacking. We whiplash from facing a false goddess manipulating and controlling entire cities, to graphic sex, then back. It’s not at all a well-structured narrative, so I don’t know why there was even an attempt at a story.

Speaking of which, the section of the book where Cinnamon and Fallon discover a town that’s been enslaving demons (due to the false goddess’ magic) was… weird. The basic takeaway is that the two protagonists know that slavery is bad, which is true, but that’s hardly a groundbreaking concept. Cinnamon actually says “I freed you because slavery is wrong” on page 123, and—not to be rude, but—duh! I appreciate the attempt at conveying the theme of goodwill and being pro-abolition, but it’s presented in a very ham-fisted way.

And then, there’s the sex scenes, which I quickly found myself dreading. I’ve read books with fairly graphic sexual content before, and don’t mind that sort of thing, but something about this was painful to read. The first one had me feeling awkward and VERY unhappy, and I promptly skimmed the rest of them (for reference, here’s how I felt each time another one happened). There are too many sex scenes. In fact, one was too many.

So. In the end, That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon was a terrible time for me. I found myself hoping, praying, begging that this was a parody of bodice-rippers, but I never got that impression. It’s as earnest as anything, yet the characterization, setting, and plot structure are, at best, mediocre, and at worst, a total mess that drove me up the wall. I feel kind of bad for saying this about a self-published, up-and-coming author, though. I’m sure her writing will improve, and I have nothing against her as a person. But wow, this book was not at all to my taste. I only finished the book so that I could have a full opinion on the entire story for this review. And needless to say, I’m not reading the rest of this series.

But hey, at least my reading this year can only go up from here!