 Hello everybody, he here a welcome back to 31 days of Halloween Today and the rest of the week is Indie week Indie small press both So we're gonna be doing Four books and then not today Would be doing a book Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday and then on Friday. I'll be doing a top five Indie small press horror top five Friday But today we are talking about my good friend. I need to tell you up front before I say anything else I have worked with this author I have What is it called commissioned artwork from them? They are a good friend of mine a long time friend And that is Cassie daily. This is her debut novella brutal hearts It is a short. I guess it'd be a novella. It's about what a hundred and I'll see here Yeah, it's a hundred and forty eight pages all the books this week are gonna be novellas I needed short stuff that I could Review in time to get them up here on the channel and I didn't want to do books that I had read previously I also didn't want to tackle anything large. So they're all novellas the storyline behind brutal hearts is as follows a group of friends go up onto a mountain where a year before one of their boyfriends had Disappeared vanished I Like this book for the simple fact that it is kind of like an homage to Christopher Pike and that that era. I think it's set in 1994 1997 something like that. So it's a 90s, baby I Enjoyed many aspects of it. I enjoyed the the creature. I enjoyed The interaction between the friends and because of that, I'm gonna give the book three stars I did have several issues with the book And I'm not gonna go into great detail here because most of them are subjective I will say objectively there were quite a few errors and I think the book could have had at least one more proofreader But as far as the age group that this is This is aimed at I'm not totally sure that too many people are going to notice And I'm not saying that younger people don't pay attention to errors and whatnot They're just more forgiving than us old heads Especially someone like me who I have an issue and this is my problem. I have an issue getting past multiple errors in a book Because my editor brain kicks in because I'm a writer myself and I'm like, okay Well, that that needs to be fixed that needs to be fixed and it takes me out of the story So that is a that is my one major criticism here that it could have been a bit cleaner other than that It's a perfectly serviceable story. It was good enough that I finished it And I like I said, I did and I did enjoy the creature even though I feel that the reveal at the end was rather Obvious and I hate to say any of this stuff if you can't tell I'm a bit Conflicted and nervous today because Cassie is my friend and I tend to be brutally honest Brutal hearts. Anyways, I tend to be brutal brutally honest with my friends Some people don't like that about me other people's other people do but I say all this in the hopes that That you know, they'll I don't even want to say that they'll take my advice and grow none of that stuff I'm just I know I know that Cassie has a future ahead of her. I know that This is definitely a debut novel and there is a lot of Potential here There are just some things that subjectively I did not care for Another thing is there's a bit of and this is like Cassie's whole thing too So I I kind of I don't even want to mention this as a criticism But the the book has a bit of an identity crisis in so much that it it reads very much like middle grade Younger YA, but it is very very brutal again. Thank you words brutal brutal hearts anyways And I do I do wonder about the target audience Like who would I give this to would I give it to my my oldest who's 17? Yes, I would would I give it to My youngest who's 10. I probably wouldn't So it's but that's always been Cassie's Cassie's thing as long as I've known her you mixing the horror horrible and the horror Along with the bright colors and the the rainbow scheme all that stuff She is definitely a light in the darkness And this book was kind of like the opposite a darkness in the light because if you to read the stuff That's at the end of the book or even some of the stuff that's in the middle of the book You look at this cover and you think that is a very cute very colorful very pretty color cover Some of the stuff in there. It doesn't fit. So that's where I'm that's what I'm talking about when I say identity crisis But these are just my opinions I'm sure that I know people love this book and I liked it well enough I was like I said distracted by the by the errors there were quite a few enough so that I started Not taking count but I started marking them so that I can pass them along to Cassie Cassie if you're watching this and you Want them? Let me know but there's some on page 58 60 62 73 87 124 There's quite a few and those are the that's only when I started counting so it could have been cleaner but You know subjectively the story wasn't really for me Even though I didn't want to stop reading it But I do hope that Cassie continues writing I see I see potential here And I would read anything else that she comes across and I know this video is Very awkward and I'm sorry But I wanted to get this review up because I promised her that I would read it and that I would review it For 31 days of Halloween. So there you have your review Cassie I hope you don't hate me because I love you to death So many times in the past. I have been honest about my friends books and I have lost those friendships So I hope that doesn't happen here But I can only be honest with my following and I can only be honest with you But have you read brutal hearts by Cassie daily if you have let me know what you think about it down there in The doobly-doo, but until next time. I have been a you've been you This has been another episode of 31 days of Halloween. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Bye