Warping Minds & Other Misdemeanors

4 stars — This was a fun introduction to another side of the Guild Codex Universe! I loved that after reading most of the other two series, I can catch glimpses of things I recognize, but in general there wasn’t a lot of overlap or anything. This was my first listen of Iggy Toma, and I have mixed feelings on him. His delivery of Kit’s humour and heart was bang on. I thought his pacing was great as well! I was meh on his other voices though, specifically his female voices. They just didn’t work for me, or conjure up images of those characters. Now, that’s just a personal taste thing, and I totally get how hard that skill is. I’d probably still listen to more by him, but it’s not a MUST. Kit was pretty adorable actually. He was a lot more screwed up than I had been anticipating, and I kind of like that yet again we have a main character who is kind of out of their depth. In this case he does have a super cool power, but he’s just barely starting to learn about the mythic world. He was so lonely, and his guard was so high, it broke my heart. He hid it behind his hilarious sense of humour, but I really felt for the Kit underneath it all. He had all these instincts of self-preservation that made me cringe, but he started to figure out his way by the end of it. I loved his movie jokes and pop culture references, and he just amused me in general. Now, my fave is pretty much always going to be dual POV books, so I did miss Lienna’s POV in this one. But it felt a bit more like Kit’s introduction anyways, so it wasn’t too bad. I can see missing it in future books more than I did with the other two series, so we’ll see how the authors work with that. Lienna was obviously fascinating, and we did get to see quite a few glimpses of who she was through Kit’s eyes. I loved her soft heart, and her mix of complete competence with insecurity. And, being a fellow rule lawyer, I did enjoy her rigidness and black and white view…but mostly I enjoyed how Kit challenged that rigidness at every turn and opened her eyes. As with all the books in this universe, I feel like I learned a different angle on the mythic community. I loved seeing how the psychic powers came into play, and the variations therein. We met some interesting folks in this one, both villains and allies…it’ll be interesting to see if any show up in future books. All in all it was a totally enjoyable new series, though I will admit I’m slightly less sucked in than the other two series. But I can see a lot of potential, and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

I wanted to buy the book so I could quote the funny lines, but then I realized it's the majority of the book! Seriously, there are so many points where I couldn't help giggling like a child at the commentary ambling through Kit's mind. The story is good with well fleshed out side characters (as much as a first person single perspective book can be, of course), witty dialog, engaging suspense, and lots of interesting magic.