Joy101 reviewed How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster) by Marie Cardno (Monster Girlfriend, #1)
None
(not provided)
English language
Published Nov. 17, 2022 by Rare Design Ltd..
Life is tough when you're an eldritch abomination.
Trillin isn't technically a person. She's a tiny breakaway piece of consciousness from the all-devouring Endless, doomed to eventually rejoin it. But when a human witch stumbles into her world, Trillin suddenly has a new reason to figure out individuality-one shape-shifting tentacle at a time.
Sian is sure important magical discoveries are just around the corner, if she can just get her portals to work reliably. Reaching the dimension of the Endless without being eaten on sight is a dream come true, and Sian is determined to explore every bit of it. For science, of course, not for the strangely adorable life-form who keeps popping up and trying to... flirt?
But Trillin's world can be a dangerous place, and keeping Sian safe might risk drawing the attention of the Endless itself-which will swallow Trillin up along with all her dreams of humanity. …
Life is tough when you're an eldritch abomination.
Trillin isn't technically a person. She's a tiny breakaway piece of consciousness from the all-devouring Endless, doomed to eventually rejoin it. But when a human witch stumbles into her world, Trillin suddenly has a new reason to figure out individuality-one shape-shifting tentacle at a time.
Sian is sure important magical discoveries are just around the corner, if she can just get her portals to work reliably. Reaching the dimension of the Endless without being eaten on sight is a dream come true, and Sian is determined to explore every bit of it. For science, of course, not for the strangely adorable life-form who keeps popping up and trying to... flirt?
But Trillin's world can be a dangerous place, and keeping Sian safe might risk drawing the attention of the Endless itself-which will swallow Trillin up along with all her dreams of humanity. Together, can this unlikely duo escape the Endless, figure out the optimum number of appendages, and maybe even find love?
How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster) is a sweet F/F romance between a witch scientist and a shape-shifting Cthulhu monster. HEA guaranteed!
(not provided)
Short little cosy fantasy novellas (100 pages each) about a witch who falls in love with a fragment of the Endless Void. Trillin may be unable to control where her tentacles and extra eyes appear, and Sian's witchy colleagues may want to burn Trillin out of their plane of existence, but it's a match made in extradimensional terror between these two girls who just want some quiet time together. It may not be groundbreaking or epic but it's a cute, easy read for anyone who thinks Lovecraft needed more sapphic romance and what I can only describe as a demonic tribble companion.
The worldbuilding and general feel of this remind me of Naomi Novik's Scholomance books, albeit slightly lighter. Similar themes, too - Trillin in particular has the whole "my natural talent is for being a terrifying monster but I choose otherwise" thing going on.
Sian & Trillin trying to figure out interspecies flirting is very amusing.
This is how I imagine a drug trip... on one side very philosophical and deep and on the other side kinda ridiculous with a lot of WTF sprinkled into it.
It's not bad but clearly not made for my brain and that's ok.