3,5/10 - 1,75/5 I firmly believe if the book had been half its length it would’ve been quite entertaining. There are good ideas behind it and the writing isn’t too bad. The author also clearly has her heart in the right place. But the way this book ended up, it’s a massive drag and just so so so boring. It’s 600/700 pages of literally nothing. The entire plot can be summarized in a few sentences without leaving anything out. <spoiler> Lily dies, ends up in paradise and because she’s bored and curious, goes to visit Hell and opens up a Help Desk where she works. She starts playing online with her demon friends, where she meets Bel, whom she later meets irl and they immediately hit it off and start spending time with each other. She adopts Sharkie, a deeply traumatized child. At some point she and Bel start dating and later sleep with each other. Inbetween this they go to trivia nights and Bel sometimes goes off to fight against an invading Universe, which ultimately culminates in a war which is won after Bel is deeply wounded. He heals and Lily decides to forfeit reincarnation to stay in Hell forever and becomes deitified which resolves her book long struggle of wanting to be a mother (normally mortals cannot have children in the afterlife). The end. </spoiler> The rest is mostly fluff and filler. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the first 100 pages because my expectations were so low and the book was refreshing. Lily was already in her mid-30s, bisexual, had tattoos and a difficult life. It hit the right beats for me value-wise and I was looking forward to what was going to happen. But then…. nothing happened, ever. The book has some great moments and things that really DO hit, but that’s totally wasted because it’s so boring. I feel like the author wanted to cram as much as possible into the book even if it didn’t need to be there. It feels like it's quantity over quality. And many of those things were good ideas but they just didn’t have the right packaging, so to say. You can’t write so many pages and have nothing happen, even if the intentions and values are good. You need to have a story to accompany it. I wouldn’t even say this is a good cozy fantasy because NO book can have so little happen. Personally I think you need some conflict to hook your readers or something that has to be achieved in the end that makes you interested in reading further. An interesting storyline, or relationship dynamic or characters. The book didn’t have that. Every conflict (like the war) is resolved within moments and you never get stressed or excited because the book never builds up any tension. Everything always goes perfectly immediately. It’s like slice of life in the afterlife but the characters aren’t interesting, it’s not funny and nothing happens. It’s not even smut, despite the characters being horny 24/7, there are only like 5 smut scenes. I'm not even a smut reader but if the book wanted to be that then I would've understood it. Regarding the hinted at war in the blurb, don’t fool yourself, it’s not really part of the plot. You have like half a scene that’s actively set in the war, the rest is Bel telling the reader how much he wants to go back to Lily and Sharkie AFTER he finishes a mission. And the war is absolutely inconsequential for our main squad as well. It could’ve 100 % been cut out and it wouldn’t have mattered, hell that would barely amount to like 50 pages. There is one thing that I can say I genuinely enjoyed and that is the depiction of religious trauma. I’m not religious and I haven’t endured anything like that so I have no idea how accurate it is, but it was well written and touching. <spoiler> Lily’s soul file chapter was probably the best part of the book for me. It was gripping and even made me cry. But it also came at the wrong moment. Still, viewed on its own it was good. </spoiler> Regarding Sharkie, I feel torn. On one hand I appreciated the adoption storyline and loved seeing her progression. On the other hand I think Lily’s obsession with having biological children kind of undermined it. The whole time I was just thinking “but… you already do have a child!” <spoiler> I would’ve loved it if she had dropped that bio kid thing after Sharkie started calling her mom </spoiler> I do understand that seeing a child grow from birth is different and I understand her reasoning but imo adoption storylines need to be handled carefully. Especially when it's a child who has been abandoned like Sharkie. And after the first chapters with her (which I liked, they were really wholesome and endearing) she kind of became an obstacle for Bel and Lily. You could really feel how the author had to “get rid” of her so they could be alone to get freaky. This led to her becoming kind of absent for a larger portion of the book. The book really should’ve picked one of the two, either the adoption storyline or the smut. Or done one after the other, but this way they weakened each other. There’s also a ridiculous amount of characters. Some of them play a bigger role of the ensemble but most of them are just so so unnecessary. There’s one character who appears like once and then again to drink coffee with Lily just to never appear again onscreen. Most characters also have partners that get introduced as well. Sometimes deities appear just so they can gloat Lily and then vanish. Oh well, now we can talk about that. Lily is a perfect character, who despite her traumatic past and alleged character flaws always does everything correctly. She makes inappropriate sex jokes, is really nerdy and tells us all the time how broken she is. And no offense, but I really thought that would’ve amounted to a uh, how do I say, more terrible backstory. And what happened to her was no doubt terrible but she acted like it was way worse. Well, she SAYS that, but she behaves perfectly normal. When she started talking about being beyond broken and stuff I was really confused what she meant cause she didn’t struggle for a moment except for saying that she did. Anyway, everyone loves her as soon as they meet her, the only exception being the bratty souls in hell. But those are either silenced because her clap backs are so good or because she literally beats them. Her clap backs are supposed to be snarky and smart or funny but honestly, they’re not. It’s more like a power fantasy of a frustrated customer service worker and some of the clap backs just work as shower thoughts or on reddit while they’re a bit cringy when spoken out loud. At some point she starts greeting the souls with “funny” lines that are word plays or deeply macabre. Lily at some point says this to someone who is not a bad person and just confused and she immediately berated herself for this but… she herself has stated multipleuu I times that not every soul in hell is evil but if she uses those dumb greetings then she is 100 % going to hurt someone!!! Imagine you’re deeply confused and you get an unserious “funny” greeting from a person who is supposed to “hellp” you. I just don’t see how Lily is providing any real help to the demons at the gate. She doesn’t do anything special. Anyway, how is it possible that in the hundreds of thousands of years of mankind's existence no one ever thought to go down to hell? And even after Lily starts working there no one wants to go there? Are you kidding me????? What about all the emo, goth and satanist people? Or just downright curious people. You can't tell me no one ever thought of that. Another thing is, because she's a contemporary character being lowkey isekaid character and she has read fantasy books she of course knows that wings are sensitive and shouldn't be touched without permission. That was sp cringy!!!! It wpudlje Overall she is just a boring, flat character with no real flaws. The most interesting thing about her is her religious trauma but that’s her past, not a character trait. She lacks quirks and flaws that make her real and fascinating to be in her head. Instead she's already perfect and has nothing to work on. Even when it comes to Sharkie she handles everything about her well and never messes up. Bel isn’t much better. He is comically large and buff. Obviously he’s super handsome and sexy and funny and nerdy and just everything Lily ever wanted from a partner. Literally no conflict or character flaw to work on. He of course has also a sob story past which is ridiculous. <spoiler> I feel terrible making light of this kind of experience, I’m sure it’s traumatic to lose your parent to suicide. Except, what happened here wasn’t like suicide but more a terminally ill person deciding to turn off the machines. And it also happened HUNDREDS of years ago. And Bel correctly identifies that MANY demons choose to do this at some point because of loss or because they feel their time has come. He knows that. His father told him so. He told him he loves him before he went to the void, it’s not like he vanished from one day to the other. So why the fuck is Bel still hung up on that hundreds of years afterwards??? And you’re telling me, all those years he had a letter from his father that he just didn’t open? And that letter immediately makes him understand and accept his father’s decision despite cointaining no new information at all???? </spoiler> Their relationship is perfect, they never argue, they never struggle. They both are into the same things and whatever the other wants, they are fine with it. You want to take some time? Cool, me too. Boring. The smut is fine. <spoiler> Although I could’ve really done without the lowkey breeding kink towards the end </spoiler> If it would’ve been up to me, this is what i’d shave off the book: No sharkie (or no smut) No war No trivia nights Less characters I imagine that would easily cut the book in half. Overall I don’t think it’s a terrible book, like I said there are some good ideas and concepts, but this needed to be edited down greatly and the author needed to decide on a theme for the book instead of trying to do everything at the same time. The worst thing about it just is how terribly dull and long it is. I’m shocked the book has so many positive reviews but I also kind of get it? I suppose some people simply come from tiktok and others just like the wholesomeness. But personally I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.