SPFBO (Cassidy's Version)

Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater

Bad Angels…Good Intentions. Wow, did this book surprise me! From first glance I did not think this book would work for me with a contemporary setting. However I was pleasantly surprised with the characters and world.

So what worked for me?

Characters: I loved Gadriel and Holly and their relationship. It felt real and made me happy to read about their journey. Furthermore the side characters were funny and had different voices within the story.

World: While it was set in modern day London I love how the world and the sin and virtue system was implemented into the story where all the points lost or gained were tracked within the chapter which made the world feel more alive and consistent.

What did not work for me?

Plot: The main plot was kinda thrown in at the end of the story which did not really affect my enjoyment but I wish there was more fleshing out of the story.

Similar Media?

For me this book felt like Good Omens by Niel Gaimen and Terry Patchett and the tv show the Good Place.

Score: 9/10

Character: 9

Plot: 8

World-Building: 10

Writing: 9

Enjoyment: 9

Watch Mels Review In Her Vlog. It’s the first book of the vlog.
click here

A cozy urban fantasy!

Another book for SPFBO 8 that surprised me with my enjoyment! I had a fun time reading this. We follow gadriel a fallen angel who spends their days making ppl sin in small ways (think eating chocolate or cutting in line etc ) But gadriel ends up being called to do a "higher" purpose, make one character sin because she never sins and it's causing an imbalance.

This book is witty and smart and insightful ! If you typically like a cozy fantasy, read it! It's not my normal read and not my preferred genre but even I saw the reasons that so many people can love this one.

It is small scale, not a lot of world ending plot. And you follow characters who it's easy to root for!

My full thoughts are in my SPFBO 8 finalist vlog

https://youtu.be/ahEh6DSSDQM

This is so far outside of my wheelhouse that I'm not going to rate it, as it would be unfair to do so.

I read (or listened to, actually) this as one of the SPFBO8 finalists, and while giving all titles a fair shot, I'm not going to pretend that this one won me over. I thought it was absolutely terrible, but that big caveat is there to say that this is absolutely not to sort of book I would ever read under my own steam (hence no rating), so there's every chance that if you like this sort of thing, it will at least work for you.

The writing is completely not my style, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it, it's just a conflict of tastes. I didn't like a lot of the humour in it, and particularly in the footnotes, which were annoying enough for me to listen to, without additional ones being added for unnecessary jokes. The change of tone to a snooty upper-class narration for the footnotes also did not work for me at all.

In the audio itself, the sheer number of footnotes—94, if I counted correctly, in a 250 page book—broke up the flow as well, as each was bookended by the strumming of a harp, and of course, footnotes don't always come at a convenient place in the text. With so many of these—nine in chapter one alone—I found that my eyeballs started to twitch every time I heard that harp.

I didn't find anything of note for the plot or the characters. Both aspects were well-enough written, but without any memorable merit to speak of. Once more, however, this is really not my thing, so that, as with the rest of my review, should be taken with a humongous pinch of salt.

I absolutely did not expect to enjoy this so much, but I loved almost everything about it! Rounding it up to 5, but more a 4.5

I read this for SPFBO (Cassidy's version). Watch my reading vlog with more thoughts here:

https://youtu.be/xFK7zjfW6AQ

SMALL MIRACLES by Olivia Atwater is a cozy fantasy set largely in the real world. Gadriel is a fallen angel who specializes in petty temptations. Gadriel has a bit of a gambling problem and has racked up a lot of debt. When given an opportunity to wipe out said debt by tempting the upstanding Holly to do a little bit of sinning, it is an easy yes.

It should have been easy, but Holly proves strangely resistant to temptation. She has taken in her niece after her sister’s death and is even more determined to keep her life on the straight and narrow to provide for the troubled kid in her life. Gadriel gets involved in both Holly’s life and her niece’s and begins to realize there is more to this assignment than originally suspected.

This was another of the #SPFBO8 finalists and I can see why it advanced to the final round. It was a really fun and fast read and it has a lot of charm. This is compared to Terry Pratchett’s and Neil Gaiman’s GOOD OMENS and that is a very apt description. This takes on a similar irreverent humor and writing style, including the footnotes which add information and offer asides on the main text. It took me a while to get into the writing style as the footnotes at times were a bit much as it kept providing updates on characters’ sin scores, but I did wind up enjoying it in the end.

I found the characters in this one good (though I did joke that I might have to take character points away for Holly’s dislike of chocolate because that stretches the imagination). Gadriel’s balance between a past as a guardian angel to a present as a tempting fallen angel gave a good mix. That angels can put on different forms and different genders on a whim also added an interesting dynamic.

There isn’t a lot of world building to be done as this is largely set in a world we would all recognize (we start off with Gadriel standing in line at a coffee shop), the angels and their powers were fairly well developed. A lot of the information was given through the footnote in a more infodump format (for example the angels’ changing of genders), but I thought the author hit on the subject enough in the text as well to flesh it out a bit.

As a cozy fantasy, this isn’t heavily plot driven, but for what it set out to do I think it really accomplished it. It brought in a few different storylines between Holly and her niece and how they intersected with Gadriel’s involvement. The constant tally of since scores added a bit of context as well to the progression.

Overall this was a really fun read and I had a good time with it. This wasn’t a book that I necessarily expected to love from my original predictions upon reading the synopsis, so I was very pleasantly surprised. I would definitely pick up more from this author!

https://youtu.be/Dx1GXp_JGmw

https://youtu.be/tkH5ov_5JdA

https://youtu.be/XlWwdjEZlHM