Cheep!?

Cheep!?, Book 1

By: Michael Adams

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Charles Monroe survived the disappearance of his parents, did his best to hold things together for himself and his sister. He survived when she, too, vanished, leaving behind nothing but a cryptic note.

After suffering through several rounds of chemotherapy, Charles Monroe thought that things might finally be looking up. That is, until a virulent strain of ebola swept through the city. With his immune system strained as it is, the odds don't look good for Charles.

Now, on the bridge between life and death, he hears a voice claiming to know where his family went. It claims that it needs his help and that it can give him a second life, one far away from all the pain he's ever known. So, Charles answers as any reasonable person would.

He says no. Charles isn't ready or willing to die yet.

With no other option, Charles chooses to make a deal with the spirit of a distant world that's seeking a wild card in its battle against the gods, monsters, and mortals that threaten its existence.

Someday, he'll find where his family went. Someday, he'll uphold his end of the bargain and hunt beings powerful beyond anything he's ever known. Someday, he might even—hatch?

"CHEEP!?"

©2023 Michael Adams (P)2023 Tantor

I just can't...

This story feels dragged out, I am barely 3 hours into the book and not much happens after the first chapter. Too much of the chapters are internal monologue.

Slow moving. What the peck.

I stuck through this book., hoping it would get more interesting.
The good: The fight scenes are good. The world is set up so that living creatures contain essence/magic -- other creatures can gain magic by eating them. This system is done consistently. The world seems interesting.

The bad. The amount of introspection is way, way up there. This slows down the whole novel a lot.
Can the bird communicate? During one introspection: "Why didn't I just write something in the dirt?" Yet the bird never does this.
Character 1: Here's the obvious course of action. Other characters don't do that, explain why it is wrong, they do something that has terrible results. Several hours later, they finally get around to Character 1 had the right idea. I could have skipped all that needless drama and having multiple characters ganging up at length on their reasons for stupidity.
The story doesn't really go anywhere in the course of 23 hours beyond meeting characters and light travel.

Pleasantly Surprised

Almost skipped over this gem due to the lackluster publishers summary but I’m glad I gave it a shot. Found the book to be a combination of endearing, comical, and entertaining. MC had depth and author did a good job slowly adding to the world building, already heading to RR for book 2. Kirby Heyborne isn’t my favorite narrator and lacks some variance in his voices but did a good job, his voice fits the MC well.

Enjoyed Begrudgingly

I’ll try to keep this short, but I honestly really wanted to dislike this book.

Some aspects of the story felt forced by the author rather than organic (no animal instinct should be able to overpower sapient rationality imo).

Then, we have the first third of the book seeming like a different book than the rest. Mostly due to almost no world and plot development in the beginning.

And finally, I was really annoyed that a book about a person turned bird almost immediately evolves from a bird of flight into a flightless bird, for reasons that aren’t explained even by the end of the book. It’s kinda silly of me, but unless expressly made clear at the beginning, if you write a book about a bird, I expect them to be able to fly.

I will mention right away that there are hints that he can evolve again into a creature capable of flight later in the series. But still, I didn’t like how in the dark I felt for a good chunk of the book.

My complaints aside, I really liked this book. The story is interesting. The magic (or essence in this case) is unique but not completely foreign. The characters were fleshed out pretty well. And the next book seems promising.

So would I recommend this book? Yes, but reserve your opinion of it until you read the entire book. Otherwise, you might miss out on a book you’ll really like.

a bit fast and not near long enough

it's a great book if a bit fast passed for my taste. I just wish there were 10 more hours of it to listen to. narrator is good with excellent quality, voices, and appropriate tone. wrighting too was spot on with good vocabulary and grammar. my issue with length has to do with side characters not getting enough time spent with the main character compared to how much time he spends alone.

Highly Underrated on Audible.

This is a very well written and compelling story. Moreover it’s a much more interesting and better realized Isekai book than most of what’s available in the Audible catalog.

I’m surprised by the low overall ratings. Compared to the other audiobooks with similar content and standing in the (admittedly terrible) Audible 5-star rating system, this book is far better written and more interesting.

If you like the reborn into another world genre then this is definitely worth your credit. Even for those who are new to it, this is an excellent place to start. Admittedly, there are a couple of very minor things in the book that I would change if it was up to me, but they are trivial in light of the Author’s somewhat unique take on the standard Isekai plot and the fact that I just couldn’t stop listening in spite of necessities like sleep and productivity.

If you’ve read this far into the review, then be assured that you will be happy you spent the credit on this audiobook.

Where's the siblings.

I enjoyed this book and wonder where's talon gabby and yak are. looking for them to show up.

Very slow moving.

It doesn’t need to be so slow moving. You have a lot in the set up for the story to move along at a good pace.

Drags on the last 9 hours. Introspective is extreme. Good world and essence system tho.