Whilst I really enjoyed this book, it just didn't live up to my expectations. There's nothing really memorable about it. Which is disappointing since I was expecting to love it a whole lot more.

Oh wow was this such a let down. I thought I would enjoy this book because of the description, I definitely did not enjoy it.

One positive would have to be that the cover and title are quite nice. However, the TWs should be in the description, not just in the foreword because as soon as I had seen the TWs I knew this probably would not be the book for me.

I dnf this book very early. I usually push through it, but I couldn’t for one. The first chapter felt exhausting to read and it didn’t get any better. There was some unexpected racism when it came to characters of color.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.

Voice from the Dead by Aster Shock is getting 1 / 5 stars from me.

I want to thank Aster Shock, BooksGoSocial, and NetGalley for giving me a ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thoughts: The book occurs in Germany 1961 and follows Tosho, the son of a Nazi. He is tormented and harassed for his heritage, and subsequently murdered. He finds himself in the world of the dead where he is chased by thieves who wants his power, put on trial to figure out where he belongs and his quest, and told he has the soul of Merlin inside his body.

The book itself is a trainwreck. I had to DNF at about 40% in because A) it reads like middle school fanfiction, B) there is too much information being thrown at the reader, C) scenes need fleshing out, D) the large amounts of racist commentary and E) the book needs to go under heavy rewrites and editing. I cannot, under good conscience, recommend this book to anyone because it is such a waste of time. It had such good promise and ultimately fell through.

Themes, Tropes, & Warnings: Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Nazi and Nazi Camps, Physical/Emotional Abuse, Murder, Infanticide, Forced Marriages, Slavery, Suicide, Genocide, Self-Harm, War, Discrimination, Prejudice, Violence, Magic, Supernatural Creatures, Death, Religion, Land of the Dead, Mythological Elements, Chosen One.

Reviewed under RosesandSundragons16 @ Amazon, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and NetGalley

The cover is super pretty, it's what drew me in. The blurb made the book seem super interesting and I couldn't wait to start. I started reading and had to DNF a few chapters in. The writing style kept kicking me out of my reading zone and I couldn't get passed the bad racist stereotypes that other reviewers mentioned. The main character for annoying quickly and I couldn't finish the book to see if he grew out of it or not.

I just got back to this and I’ll admit I was excited about it. Not because I knew a lot about this book (I didn’t), but the cover and overall the aesthetic of this book seemed appealing to me. However, this book was archived before I could read it, so the rating is very inaccurate.

––Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ebook ARC of this title. I received this book in exchange for an honest review.––

It's rare for me to DNF a book, but after about three chapters I had had enough of this book. My first issue with the book was the numerous grammatical errors. It appears that an editor had never even looked over this prior to being published. I have a lot of respect for authors who choose to self-publish their work, but this one would've benefitted from heavy editing––both in content and grammar.

After reading a few chapters, I had no idea what was going on. The writing style was extremely hard to follow and I could never create a mental picture of all the things that were described. Maybe the setting was too whimsy for me to imagine, but, based on other reviews I've read, I'm not the only one who has had this issue.

I was extremely disappointed with the poor writing in this book. The cover is beautiful and the synopsis was quite engaging, but it left out key details from the story and was a bit misleading. Other reviews I've read said there was a lot of racism in this book, so I'm glad I didn't get to that point.

I would recommend this book to an editor who wants to put some hard work into it, but other than that I'd avoid this one.

The blurb for this book sounded so good, and the cover is wonderful, but sadly this isn't a book I enjoyed reading.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for the ARC so I could provide an honest review.

Well, I’m unfortunately not going to like every book I read. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t read this one. Voice From the Dead is a “portal” story…or if you’re an anime nerd like myself, it’s an Isekai! It’s the first book in a series called The Power Thieves and written by Astor Shock.

The main character is thrust unwillingly into the afterlife when attacked by bullies. Our setting is post World War II Germany (1961 to be precise) and Tosho is the son of a Nazi war criminal. In the afterlife, he’s sent on a quest to hunt down a sword. I honestly had a hard time understanding the reasoning? Oh, and Merlin’s a character?

Now here come my biggest complaints. I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve got more.

The dialogue didn’t feel natural. And by that I mean, it didn’t feel like how people normally talk. Writing natural dialogue can be hard. Fortunately though, this is a skill that can be easily honed by working with some alpha readers and practicing.

I also have a hard time liking a book if I don’t feel empathetic towards the main character. I know our protagonists need to go through growth and development, but there needs to be a reason for the reader to feel instantly connected with a character. One way to do that is by “saving the cat.” We need to see the character’s moral compass almost right off the bat, and I feel like it was hard to find that moment in this book.

These aren’t the only things I noticed, but they were the pieces that stood out to me the most.

Something I will say. The author definitely has the potential to write a good novel. Shock clearly has the passion and desire to write (they’ve already published one other book), so by keeping up the hard work, listening to feedback from alpha readers and utilizing editors, there’s room for improvement and I hope to witness them grow as a writer!

Oh, and did you notice the cover? It’s gorgeous.

I was interested in Voice from the Dead from reading the summary but this didn't work for me and I won't be finishing it because of the disappointing prevalent stereotypes in the characterization.

I received an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here it comes...
I actually had to DNF this book... At first, when reading the summary i was hooked and thought i really would enjoy this read, also, the cover i thought looked really good. I really wanted to know more about this book! Unfortunatly, 50 pages in, i really started to think that this book might not be for me, and finally, about 200+ pages in i had to stop. I really wanted to like thid book but i don't think it was the right pick for me.

This book really wasn't for me. I tried my best to connect with the story but things feel a bit over the place. I feel lost very easily with how things are going and after reading +200 pages, I still don't understand where I am at in the plot even when I try to put on my full attention. Plus, the writing started off okay but then it felt a little too teenage-like type of writing, not something I am specifically fond of. I DNFed.

A 50 pages in to the book, I realised the story wasn’t for me. Also don’t really like the writing style. I was to much.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Unfortunately, I did not finish this book. After the first chapter I had stopped, because this was not going anywhere good for me. The cover, the titel and the summery are absolutely gorgeous and I was really excited to try out this book. I was kind of disappointed to be honest.

At the very first page I was confronted with Nazis (?!), which where no where mentioned in the summery. So, hello? But where did you come from? I was caught off guard I have to admit. A trigger warning or something like that should be placed, but okay. The framework and idea was okay, but the writing did not deliver at all. It was kind of wonky and not making sense for me here and there. So the book needs editing to round up the rough edges.

Well, in the end I did get not what the summery promised me. So, 1 Star from me for a book I could not finish.

DNF after chapter one.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review: 1 star.
I tried…I really did but the writing style is very choppy and hard to understand. I’ve been trying to read this for almost a month and I just can’t. Also something to note: this book is about a nazi’s son which isn’t mentioned in the synopsis. I don’t feel like this book is what I was promised in the synopsis.

The description sounded great, but right off the bat there a LOT of talk of nazis-- and the main character's father was one. It seems Tosho, the main character, hated his father for that, but there was no mention of nazis in the description of the book, even though it factored HEAVILY into the first chapter (and was the reason Tosho was killed). The writing was also hard to get through. It jumped around a lot, and new information was introduced in a way that was often incredibly confusing. It also read really young, prose-wise-- it read like lower MG. Overall, I was so confused.

This is a book that will obviously divide.
If you are into atmospheric literary pieces, this is not for you. It's quick, minimal, with a huge cast and an evolving universe. As a fan of Japanese light novels, I am totally on board!
This book is vivid, bubbly, bursting with ideas and I read it like a Ghibli studios movie. It totally changed my mind of things and left me full of energy.

A lot of first-book issues with writing style and syntax. Didn't like the choice for the main character. Wanted to really like this bc the premise sounded interesting!

"She turned, knocking over a giant fan precariously piled with various unidentified objects. Over it shone her bright face with impossible snow white skin, blood-red lips and amazing blue eyes. She tried to catch some of the things before they crashed down. She was an oversaturated photograph, too extreme to be real. She broke into a smile. She looked about 16.
'Good morrow, sweet sir,' she said.
Her smile was utterly contagious and embarrassingly beautiful."

I had high hopes when I began reading this book — the cover is absolutely beautiful and the summary looked promising.

Unfortunately, I believe that most of the book needs heavy editing before it should be published. For one, the writing is awkward and teeming with purple prose, making it tiring just to read (look at the above description of the character Elise, and then imagine that this happens every single time someone else is introduced. Except it’s not just limited to introductions: florid examples of characters’ ‘sea-green’ and ‘piercing’ eyes pepper the descriptions without any prompting). Throughout the book, spelling, grammar and mechanical errors can be found, and most strangely of all the entire last chapter is copied and pasted twice.

Although the book presumably begins in 1961 Berlin, the characters talk stiltedly and unconvincingly, and the introduced characters seem to fall more into stereotypical archetypes than actually fleshed-out people. In the beginning, the plot with the bullies seems like bumbling buffoons from a post-WWII B-movie, complete with brutish name-calling and a battle of machismo over a girl’s affections. (The same kind of stereotypical evil bad guys appear again much later in a scene set in Indonesia, which left a bad taste in my mouth when I read it). There’s a brief interlude with a Turkish family that’s mentioned in one page and never seen again, before we move on to the aforementioned Elise, who for some reason speaks in stereotypical medieval speak straight out of a Nashville Renaissance Faire. I did have some affection for Bartholomew’s strange British accent (‘Cricky-O-kazawee’ made me snort), which for some reason carried over to the other characters and resulted in Tosho, a presumably Berliner of German descent, saying ‘bloody’ and ‘blimey’ in his monologues, and Merlin the presumably ancient mage saying ‘old chap’. Lil’Mon the spirit guide introduces us to the Egyptian pantheon and there are mentions of various other mythologies, which did little to immerse me in fantasy but only made me feel vaguely like I was in a Percy Jackson ripoff. Merlin, Tosho’s evil but flirty(?) companion who resides inside his soul, is just exactly that and nothing more: his villainous motivations are flat and throughout the entire 30 chapters we see nothing more from him.

The plot moves at an incomprehensible pace that makes it hard to follow, especially at the beginning, where all of a sudden Tosho is dumped into this fast-paced fantasy world and meets an eclectic cast of characters that serve only as ornamental side-pieces but not actual characters. We don’t see their goals or motivations, only marvel at the strange ways they speak and act. My main concern is that while Tosho does grow somewhat throughout the novel, nothing about him makes me want to sympathize with him or anyone else. The romantic subplot seemed forced and there is no real buildup for it. To the author’s credit, the writing does improve as the plot goes on. I did think some of the plot devices about souls and spirits had potential to be interesting, but Shock did not delve deep into any philosophical questions/thoughts which I was extremely disappointed by, because there was just so, much, potential! There isn’t much I can take away from Tosho’s hero journey, despite it spanning a pretty lengthy amount, because Shock does not expand much on detail but focuses only on writing the next plot section which makes for an uninteresting read.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A boy who dreams of brighter futures finds a world in need of a hero. After being killed by bullies at 16, Tosho collides with a mind-bending afterlife that's gripped in a battle for leadership of the dead. But while a vibrant resistance group of teens welcomes him with open arms, someone in the afterworld wants him gone. Not only is Tosho carrying a heinous family legacy, but he had a gift for angering the powerful in his past life. Now, someone with a monster of a grudge is set on taking their revenge and devouring him down to utter oblivion. Pursued from one end of the afterworld to the other, the trap closes in. Barely escaping the gnashing jaws of the nightmares hunting him, Tosho must figure out who wants him gone, or his new friends will become victims once again. With the status quo crumbling in the afterlife, will Tosho figure out who’s behind the evil force hounding him? And will the beautiful world his friends have built for centuries be ripped from them and destroyed?

Bland and might just have driven me into a void of reading slump. Even though, the cover is super gorgeous, sadly, I can't stand our MC, Tosho. He's....he's just meh. The whole book is just disturbingly bad. I'm so sorry but I can't enjoy this book as much as the other readers that might like it just fine.
Thanks Netgalley for the copy!

I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn’t connect with the characters or writing style. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good book, of course—everyone has different tastes so if the description appeals to you, give it a go.