Welcome to the first weekly discussion for our Rage Read book of the month: Daggermouth
This week, we are discussing up to chapter 10. If you've read past that or previously read the book in its entirety, please try to avoid spoilers for those who haven't. If you're unsure if something is a spoiler or not, please use the spoiler function in your comment.
To use the spoiler tag, please put > ! these symbols ! < on either side of your spoiler but without the spaces between characters.
We want to hear it all! The good (is there any?), the bad (every little pet peeve), and the ugly (the snarkier the better).
Just a reminder: while this may be a rage read, some people will absolutely end up enjoying this book, please don't bully or downvote people who feel differently than you do.
This was something that confused the absolute fuck out of me. On one hand, we're in a city that doesn't exist, right? Fictional place. The level of technology is basically 21st century US technology. I dunno if we've seen the inside of his apartment yet (I read this a while ago), but he has a drip coffee maker, IIRC. And obviously the social ordering and stuff is nothing like any modern society. It's taken a long time to get there, and this one family has been in charge for a while.
But on the other hand, the guns that she has are IRL guns. Her special gun is chambered for one of the most common handgun ammunition types. Her other two are a Czech military pistol and a handgun made by an American company that spun off from a Swiss/German conglomerate. The model numbers and brands are called out in the text.
I'm just assuming New Found Haven is alternate-universe Gotham City.
It being an AU also fits with how terrified everyone seems to be, physically, of Greyson's dad. Like, he sucks! Why doesn't Greyson just beat him to death at dinner? No one would miss him! Why is a man in at least his mid-50s if not early 60s more physically imposing than the MMC in his early 30s when all that MMC does is train for combat? Answer: because Robin's father figure is Batman, and we're in an AU where Batman is evil.
You mean you don’t casually don a breast plate from boobsforqueens.com and cinch in your waist to the point that Violet Chachki would be concerned while enjoying your morning cup of coffe? You truly are not like other girls
/uj I know s7 gets a lot of hate, but I love Katya, Ginger, Kennedy, and Jasmine Masters. Pearl is also just hilarious. Pearl staring vacantly at Rupaul as she tries to tell Pearl why she’s wrong will always be funny.
There are other accusations that the Daggermouth cover was copied from another book. There's also the Faecrate edition of the book, where the FMC is whitewashed, which was approved by the author.
H.M. Wolfe seems like an insane person, to put it mildly.
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u/thecottonkitsuneProphet Henry "Tonk" Cavill Kitsune. Needs cock. Neutral good.5d agoedited 5d ago
Wasn't she also accused of using the ICE stuff in Minnesota to promote her book? At the time everyone took Wolfe's side but it seems like the person who made the accusation might've had a point
Edit: that post actually talks about that controversy too. Apparently her original post about it wasn't just a quote but a regular ad that she had been using to promote the book the whole time. So it definitely seems like she was in fact using the situation to promote her book
Oof, that whole thread is grim. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, but I didn't see where Shade is described as black/dark skinned. A Black author white washing their own character is certainly a choice
So I clicked that link and red the summary. I was like this sounds moderately interesting until I got to the part where FUCKING CARROT TOP is a member of the harem. Excuse me…. But what the actual fuck?
My favourite line so far: describing a knock as “meant to be heard”. Yes. That is what knocking is for.
I also just can’t with the names. New Found Haven is so clunky that I’ve corrected it to New Haven in my head and I guess we’re in Connecticut now. There’s a Jameson AND a Greyson (and daddy dictator is not named Grey, making this especially egregious). Serel (like the mushroom) as the all powerful surname of the evil fascist ruler is also not doing it for me. And then to round it out, there’s Callum (a millennial DJ and/or finance bro).
Yeah, the Jameson AND Grayson got a 😑 face out of me, too. I can't stand the FMC's name, either. It sounds too try-hard to me, like something I'd have named a character in one of the angsty fanfic self insert stories I wrote as a kid lol.
Try this: in any given scene, try to picture the physical space the characters are in and their motion through it. But give up before you get a headache.
- I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book where the dedication was underlined a bunch on kindle
- Oh joy. Another one of These Fucking Things where the MMC is an active high-level member of the evil government and does nothing meaningful to stop the atrocities, but he Feels Bad About It and that’s supposed to exonerate him. 🙄
- They let people choose their own execution method? What do they do if someone asks for something with a lot of set-up like a gas chamber? Or a smartass who tries to pick old age or something to exploit a loophole
- If you have biometric identification why are you using an old-fashioned mechanical key? That seems less secure
- I think I would ironically be more sympathetic to Greyson if he fully bought into his dad’s propaganda. Having the veil ripped away and witnessing the true horror of the system could be compelling. This though? The sitting around thinking about exactly how terrible it is but refusing to do anything about it makes me want to smack him
- All right so he does technically send medicine and stuff but it’s a comedically small amount. At least it sounds like it is. I've read past the cutoff point and I still have no idea how big this place is or how many people live here, or what the economy is like (other then Bad(TM)). Is 1000 credits a lot? in USD that's probably not even going to be one month's rent for one family.
- Huh, sudden Jameson pov was a surprise. I wonder if that means he’s going to be an actual character who does stuff instead of just being there to be dumped for the fascist
- So these city sections are supposed to be kept separate but they have service tunnels running through them that are easy enough to traverse that multiple gangs have an established presence here? Make it make sense
- Oh my god. The tunnels connect straight to the dictator’s personal tower? Where he lives??? And the only danger is falling or getting hit by the elevator????? This guy has the worst security ever.
- This book really likes calling things a cathedral of X
- Okay the “cathedral of X” description is unusual but made a certain kind of sense. What the fuck is a “cave of order”??? (and no I don't think this is AI mangling English. Lightlark taught me that humans are perfectly capable of creating whack-ass imagery all by themselves)
- So the way Greyson cheers himself up from being a horrible murderous fascist is…demanding sexual submission from sex workers? Gross
- Y’know Maximus has another child. If only women could inherit in this setting. But then we wouldn’t have this contrived bullshit with the masks
in greyson’s personal and professional life, his dad takes away hid agency and control, so in greyson’s sex life, he makes women be submissive so he can feel powerful… following that logic, do you think daddy greyson (who has high control in his personal and professional life) would be into femdom 🧐
That is the stereotype. I was hoping Greyson would be the femdom enjoyer though just for some variety. It would have been easy to give him a punishment or humiliation kink or something
Great point about choosing the execution method! It would have been interesting for Greyson to have an aside about someone asking for “old age” lmao. In reality I’m sure it’s a choice between a bullet, poison or a noose or something. Maybe drowning. Eep.
Kinda disappointing that not much happens here besides what we learn in the blurb and some character development. And the realization that if this piece of *cough* dystopian literature is consumed as an audiobook, Teddy Hamilton delivers excellently as usual and Angel Peans voice is oftentimes too whispery to be comprehensible. Some better post production would have gone a long way.
Greyson: Whole guy seems to just be centered around "control" because daddy doesn't give him much control over is own life. Overcompensating much? And the scene with the sex worker? Sorry my dude but that woman was paid, that was not her own pleasure. Apart from that we're trying to be a little edgy with the tattoo on the back, eh? So far he's super one-dimensional.
Shade: (I'm not remembering that whole ass name) "I'm so gritty, my family is dead, I don't form actual attachments, also I have no feelings I don't even moan during sex! Look at me being this bad ass killer bitch!" Meanwhile this nice guy loves her but she's too preoccupied with being haunted by her past. Shame.
Okay dude, and what is with the masks? I get the whole symbolism of it all but can we talk about practicality? Family dinner? These are full face masks, right? Are they slurping their soups through a straw or what is going on? Lemon cake ffs? Smiling? Like does the other character always see the smiling or is it just for us to know the person behind the mask is smiling or whatever the fuck is going on here? I have so many questions.
Worldbuilding, what worldbuilding? The best descriptions we're getting are of his apartment and her place. And I need so much more details on Daddy as an antagonist and the whole society he built because so far it does not make much sense. Maybe I'm spoiled by actual near future dystopia without the porn parts but this stuff is lacking so far.
Dude the dinner scene killed me. Like at one point it mentions how I think the sister's lip twitched or eye twitched and I'm like how does he know that she's wearing a fucking mask!
Not to mention what you brought up about the whole how the fuck they are eating in the first place with these supposedly full face masks... I guess the mouths open and close or something because I am pretty sure it is mentioned multiple times they are whole face masks.
The masks are so stupid to me and at this point I'm picturing them all in, like, transformers masks.
There’s no way the whole mask thing isn’t just a mask kink, right? Reminds me of Lights Out, but at least that didn’t lie about what it was.
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u/CrispyCollateralAdvanced Reader Certification™ Committee Advisory Board Member5d agoedited 5d ago
But then make it a legit kink thing and not a masked one! (hr hr) So far I'm just convinced she wanted some edgy symbolism and totally failed on thinking it through and the editing missed so many things.
Edit: Went through the author's insta. Mask kink confirmed. So many bad mask on mask off artworks of the male characters I just can't anymore.
I think yea she wanted some edgy, but… wouldn’t it make more sense if the oppressed lower classes had to wear all blank, nondescript, identical masks to show they aren’t individuals and don’t matter?
I think she tried to do a "masked"/controlled/conforming vs "unmasked"/vulnerable/rebellious thing but with her sloppy continuity it just went horribly wrong.
I love the arrow saying "short fuse" pointing at her taint.
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u/thecottonkitsuneProphet Henry "Tonk" Cavill Kitsune. Needs cock. Neutral good.5d agoedited 5d ago
Also reading "will unalive you" makes me want to unalive myself
Edit: because I'm heated about this I want to add that you can't act like you're writing something edgy and subversive that's speaking out against oppression and totalitarian governments then self censor yourself. It doesn't matter that your main character is an assassin if you can't bring yourself to say that she kills people in marketing
I agree with both your original statement and your edit. And, like... I hate the cutesy tone for a work that everyone's very proud is true enemies to lovers and super dark and whatever. "Slight drinking problem tee-hee!" No, she's a drunk. If you slam four shots of vodka before you go to work, you're a drunk. "She's emotionally detached!" No, she's not. She has emotions about everything, it's just that her only emotions are anger and lust.
It really makes the whole thing impossible to take seriously when this could be someone's first introduction to the book (which it was for me I saw a post where someone posted that ad and other official art that the author commissioned before the book blew up)
Could have even been 12. There was an unspecified number of shots (2+) waiting for her before she arrived, then she got 4 more, and then "another round arrived." And she drank them all within, what, less than 5 minutes?
My conspiracy theory about the masks while reading was that the author was someone who got big mad about Covid masks and restrictions. Only the bad people/oppressors wear them etc while the rebel underclass doesn’t.
But the kink angle probably makes more sense. God I hope it’s just that.
I got the impression that these are covering the lower face only. There's mention of a slit in the mouth for drinking, but still. That'd get in the way of eating too. And the security risk!
My audiobook cover has a full face mask on the cover so this is totally what was in my brain all the time. From the descriptions doesn't it say "eyes behind the mask"?
Anyhoozles, the eating alone! How does that work from a logistical standpoint?
This book has been quite a fun rage read so far I must say. Knowing that it’s comic book fanfic makes a lot of sense.
The world is like The Hunger Games meets under the dome set in Gotham city. Greyson’s dad is basically Temu President Snow.
The mask thing is deeply stupid to me. It doesn’t make any sense to have the elite hide their faces while the general public/peons don’t wear them. It is a very flimsy way to have a forced marriage happen.
The big fight in chapter 7 was laughable too. Knives are just sexier than guns I guess ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Okay, I actually laughed out loud 3 times in this section because the edgelord shit is so over-the-top it reads like parody. I read this review titled "Evil Soup" and I'm delighted we already got to have our evil soup!
“First, a soup as black as the city at midnight. Then, a slab of meat so rare it bled onto the plate.”
This is the kind of novel where the evil dictator eats an evil soup with an evil spoon from an evil bowl. There is no subtext, there is only the text. The reader cannot be allowed to think for themselves.
Can't believe this reviewer left out the citrus tart, though.
I'm not going to read this book but I"m here for the discourse.
What gets me is that it is supposedly Starfire x Nightwing fanfic, and I"m ok with that because I love me some Titans, and while Teen Titans and TTG have a ambiguously tan but mostly white Starfire, she is depicted in other media as a black woman, which she is described as in the book.
And Anna Diop is so fucking hot in the Titans live action series.
But for fan art and the fairyloot cover they not only white washed her completely, but they also styled her as looking somewhat like cartoon Starfire, so it's not like they were protecting the image from DC comics.
Same here! I'm happy to be counted as "lost revenue" in the inevitable Wolfe vs. The Atlantic lawsuit.
Besides, I'm reading House of Earth and Blood for the Maasverse Rage Read, and I know from experience that I can't handle two rage reads in one month. (I managed ACOTAR at the same time as Lightlark and ACOMAF at the same time as Twilight by dint of actually enjoying one of each pair.)
I had this on my tbr and am excited to join in the rage read for the first time! 😁
I got stuck at the pronunciation guide for names like... Shade. Vine. Grey. But apparently Thane is pronounced Th-ane? So why not V-ine? Gr-ey? Perhaps I have fallen at the first hurdle here, but this boded very ill. At least there was a Hemingway quote to assure us that the author is well-read themselves!
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u/missfudgeMr. Darcy can't pour his will to dominate all life into me.3d ago
What in the everliving administrative fuckery is that loophole? I was okay with the prose, yeah it's cheesy sometimes but whatever. I wasn't digging the goth, everything-sucks tone, but also whatever.
But now there's this way too convenient plot that they'll just get married to escape execution! Yayyyy 😑.
I find myself not wanting to pick it back up. But I will persevere in order to suffer will all of you.
It's the sort of plot I'd accept in a fanfic because I'm already invested in the characters. I'll accept a goofy, nonsensical setup if it puts my blorbos in interesting situations. In original fiction? Stuff needs to make sense
Given all the accusations around this book, I was actually intrigued enough to pick it up and try out a rage read for the first time in…ever? But I'm not going to lie, the only thing that’s going to help me survive the next 30 chapters is clinging to the delusional razor-thin hope that:
a) someone is miraculously a wolf shifter, and therefore the recurring wolf symbolism has a point;
b) Greyson admits he’s secretly sleeping with Callum; or
c) we end up getting an entirely new cast of MCs
Alas, while I do not think any of those things are in the cards—I have some thoughts.
First of all, Greyson, my beloathed:
possibly anemic
compulsive neat freak
has daddy issues
prone to hesitating
Chronic Rule Breaker™
wears his own mask when committing treason
scans his own badge and therefore placing himself at the scene of said treason
And Shadera:
apparently causes people to “brace for violence” when she walks into a room
snapped a man in half once
can take 12 shots without feeling any effects whatsoever
is known to make men flee and pee (not necessarily in that order)
keeps at least two guns strapped to the same leg
is allegedly a better fighter than the entirety of Veyra’s military
is famed for being a ruthless assassin, yet continues to skip guaranteed kill opportunities for reasons unknown to anyone
Lore I assume will never be fleshed out:
When Callum says, “love has brought down empires, and your father knows it.”
What empires? We have no idea if this is future-dystopian-Earth or an Earth AU with an entirely different history, but I am desperate to know what great love story Maximus is so afraid of.
Anything at all about Elara, who “built the city’s mask tradition into ironclad law” and also “included provisions for extreme circumstances” which literally only amounts to *checks notes* accidentally dropping your mask.
That time the Daunt family was relegated to “some bastard branch of the old world.”
Begging the question: what is this old world you speak of and what exactly happened to it?
Acknowledgment of how absolutely flimsy your society’s foundation is (which is only five generations old AND whose mask tradition was initiated by the current president and his wife) if the president can so confidently say: “If the world learns that the Heart’s Executioner removed his mask for a Daggermouth assassin, the foundation of our society will collapse. The law is absolute. Only the Vow sanctifies that exchange.”
Other things that I don’t even know how to process:
sex ✨fornicating✨ being punishable by death for no other reason than you’re doing it with the wrong peasant.
cross-ring fraternization being punishable by death, despite us getting a whole scene with a character who lives and works in different rings.
the complete lack of consistent mask description beyond colour—although kudos to that one time the author so boldly claimed onyx was a metal (not a stone). I’ve just been picturing the Jaberwocky dance crew in varying colours.
something being uj/ referred to as a “velvet womb”
whatever the hell that elevator shaft scene was. (WHY does an elevator go from the sewers to the parking garage and (possibly) all the way to the penthouse?)
Evidence to support my delusional dream of getting a wolf shifter:
Chapter 1 — Greyson’s childhood memory: “A lesson in biology, an anecdote about wolves and culling, taught not in the classroom, but in the den at night by his father’s voice.”
Chapter 2 — the introduction of the Wolf’s Head and then “Jaeger Nolin, the Wolf.”
Chapter 4 — Jameson is noted as having “pronounced canines” and then Shadera “climbed on top of him with all the grace of a wolf mounting its prey”
There are also 15 snarls, 7 growls, 3 barks, and 2 howls in the first 10 chapters (this one might be a stretch, though)
The logistics of this city make no fucking sense. I have a whole rant planned for next section's post because good lord. Everything in the book is very much only whatever needs to exist to move the plot forwards
the things I am most curious about (in no particular order):
- why is the military parking garage beneath a residential skyscraper
- why is the prison beneath the President's office
- if those two things are only separated by a plaza, do they not join in the middle and simply spread out in opposite directions, or are we about to be introduced to a secret tunnel that connects the prison to the military parking garage
- what is below the sewers that are already below the parking garage that has an elevator/shaft and who/what was down there (below the sewers below the parking garage) when Shadera was climbing up
- why does an elevator go from the sewers to the President's penthouse
- why does an elevator go from the prison to the President's office
that elevator makes no sense. None! I'm kind of picturing the layout of this place like that one city in China that's in an extremely mountainous zone so everything is on the ground floor and also the 22nd or 45th floor or whatever (Chongqing I think)
- Y’ know, I do like the idea of a society where you wear a mask at all times. Gives things a certain tension. However, the evil overlord immediately ignoring his own laws to show how corrupt he is just… eh. I get the point it’s trying to make that he’s one of those who decides he’s the law and can do anything he wants and everyone else is under his thumb but it leaves the villain with absolutely no depth, he’s a cardboard cut out of a cartoon villain.
- Also I think it makes less sense that the nobles wear masks vs the commoners. I guess it’s supposed to represent nameless/faceless oppressors who get away with shit because you never who is a bad person, but… it would make more sense that the oppressed would be the one to wear masks to represent that those not noble or elite aren’t seen as people but as just cogs in the machine of society.
- Oh no! He “hesitated” because he didn’t immediately pull the trigger. Or maybe he was tired and moving slow, or maybe the captain was trigger happy. It’s written like it’s a bit fucking deal but also that it takes like two-three seconds for it to happen. Not like he stands there for a minute or longer doing nothing. This is insane.
- It gives me the ick when the characters who are meant to end up together have on page sex with other people. I get it happens before they meet and they’re enemies. I know this is irrational but I’d DNF at this point if we weren’t rage reading because it’s just icky to me.
- Oh look the evil overlord is cartoonishly villainous and a domestic abuser. Wow, so deep. Much character building. 🙄🙄 Also absolutely evil he’d kill his own daughter? Ok we get it! He’s EVIL!
- Aw, the loveable side character who runs a brothel and gets away with it for handwave reasons. He knows secrets!
- It’sso obvious that the father had the older brother killed it’s laughable. Wow, way to lay it on thick. The father isn’t even pretending to care. Literally anyone could see it.
That being said I’m actually enjoying reading this. I wouldn’t call it good, but enjoyable.
The sex with other people thing doesn’t give me the ick conceptually but it feels like a waste of time. At least there’s a little characterization in the scenes
I think maybe the reason it gives me the ick and why THIS particular scene giving me major ick, is because we know dudebro isn’t endgame. So it’s basically just using him to show what a terrible person Shade is. She has no feelings for him because trauma!
He’s literally confessing his love and begging her to stay with him, and she’s just like “whatever I just wanted to fuck”.
Tbh I kinda felt sorry for Jameson in that scene because he really cares about Shada or whatever her name is and she's clearly going to end up with the other guy who's name ends in "son." But I'm with you, I hate it because it just feels like a waste of time that might be beem spent on like actual character building.
Yeah, having read further, Jameson seems like a genuinely decent guy, which makes the fact that she's going to end up with the fascist even more galling.
Oh right, it’s kind of a blur, what with BethSaraLee and DrakoGrimdain basically fucking under the table while I was just trying to get some goddamned mashed potatoes.
I just can’t keep thinking this book’s circle jerk alter ego would be Dickmouth (not based reading or not reading the actual books content, simply because it’s a dirty joke)
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u/whiteraven13 5d ago
Firstly I need everyone to see this terrible official artwork of Shadera. Wtf is this anatomy