Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm Queen of the Dead

By: Richard Roberts

Narrated by: Penelope Graham

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Avery Special is the world's only living necromancer, and she's pretty bad at it. She also just moved to LA, where trouble has been waiting for a necromancer. Trouble that doesn't care how strong she is or that she's only 15. Monsters, magical artifacts, occultists, and television producers only care that a real necromancer is back.

There are definitely upsides. Chris, Annie, Sue, and Peggy have their own creepy superpowers and are the best friends a girl could hope to make on her first day in a new city. Her Pudgy Bunny coloring book can teach her more than a stack of grimoires. Her ghostly ancestors are so eager to help it's annoying.

Not that she has time for any of that, because Chris and Sue are both in love with her.

©2022 Richard Roberts (P)2022 David N. Wilson

Edging uncomfortably close

I really enjoyed the first series and the first book not focused on Penny, but this one is uncomfortably close to a sexual fantasy. especially when Alicia Black takes over. I stopped reading a chapter into Alicia Black's narrative because I knew I wasn't going to listen to this book a second time and I returned the book. I don't know if this means Audible will remove my review or not, but I am posting it anyways. I understand the dynamic of why both Sue and Chris both love Avery and I appreciate the affection they have for her, but Alicia Black pushed the relationships to a point where I didn't feel comfortable.

slow narrator

the only real issue is how slow the narrator was.
she reads 30% slower than most other narrators.
i had to crank the listening speed up to 1.3x to make it sound like story was at normal speeds instead of being read in slow motion.

that being said this was much better thant the last book.
if there aren't going to be any more stories about penny then out of the protagonists from the last two books Avery is a much more interesting character to follow in comparison to Magenta

I like it but not as good as the others

one thing I wish the author noticed is he constantly uses the term husky for the characters talking, such an awfully way to describe someone's voice and it is used alot in this book considering it has alot of time spent talking about seduction and relationships.

but besides that it is a good story with a good continuation of building off the original series with just enough call backs and tenderness to the original series to remind you they are in the same universe

Not up to the standard of the previous books

It was decent overall but not outstanding. I have listened to the entire “Don’t tell my parents” series and in my opinion this one falls short. I heard people complain about the narrator but I had no problems listening, she wasn’t monotone or screeching and did an overall good job

There is alot of focus on the developing bisexual poly relationship between the main character and 2 of her friends. The relationship exploration was done pretty poorly. The MC treats everyone badly even taking into account the author portrayed her as self righteous and a self centered teenager.

The character development definitely didn’t feel up to the authors previous levels and the MC felt very one dimensional and frankly unlikeable. The parents also appeared to be cookie cutter stereotypes (rich parents, southern, new age, working mom) interactions felt more like an afterthought than driving even a minor subplot.

Storyline was decent and interesting enough to keep me entertained but not like the previous volumes which had me hooked and I’ve relistened to multiple times. A few throwback references and characters were included to the prior world building. Unlike the prior books the school and school life played a minor role and didn’t seem to matter to the storyline, you could easily age the characters to 18-25 year olds in college and it wouldn’t change the story much.

Loved the concepts but it felt hurried/forced/censored, author introduces the concept of discrimination but didn’t explore it, touched on colonialism but didn’t explore it.

Definitely not a reason to abandon the series and worth a listen. I’m looking forward to another sequel to see what happens next.

good story with some weak points.

i like the overall story. it has a lot of potential.

however there is to much focus on accent. it detracts more than it contributes to the whole.

and the main character comes off as a mary sue in that good things just fall into her lap without effort and bad things don't leave a mark, washing off pretty quick.

that could be fixed i think if this were a much longer work likely about 3 books. to flesh out the friendships that just happen, work in the motivations of the villains more, and flesh out the world.

other than that the title is click bate. the main character never hides her power or status from her parrents.

with that primise the title should be "don't tell my parrents i drive a crypt"

Good story but a dead end

I really enjoyed the story but there isn’t anywhere for our necromancer’s story to go

better than the previous book

the last book didn't stand out on its own well. this one did for sure.

I'd like to see the author get back to a mainstream set of characters rather than jumping around every book. but I'm hopeful he is building up to something.

fun stand alone

another fun offering in this unique and interesting world. I was not expecting this to be a standalone book, and was expecting it to be a continuation of the previous novel much as the first three covered a story arc. I did not enjoy this character as much as the previous four books, but it was still a worthy effort and a great fun. if you've enjoyed the other books in the series I think you'll like this one as well. if you're just starting the series this is not the best one in it, but it's a simple easy standalone and is not a bad place to start. recommended.

Great story, slow narrator

This story was great except that the narrator reads at about 75% of the speed I'm comfortable with. Fortunately, the playback speed is adjustable.

This story also doesn't really fit the "please don't tell me parents" format, because there's nothing Avery needs to keep secret, except maybe the specifics of her adventures. However, that's a minor quibble. The characters are likeable, the story is great, and the world building is excellent. I recommend this to both fans and newcomers. One thing bums me out tho - I want more Lucy Far😭

Good book, but felt like text was missing.

There were quite a few times where it seemed to cut off mid sentence. I'm not sure if that was deliberate or not, but it felt like content was missing.