Academy Of Beasts I: Reverse Harem Shifter Romance

Books very good but too short. It says the books are 100 pages but in my experience most are closer to 75. Each book is 3.99 which is pricey for me since they are less than 100 pages. So far I have spent roughly 45.00 on books 1-12. I felt that was too high even though they held my attention and left me wanting more. For less than 100 pages the cost per book should be more like 1.99 instead of 3.99. Even when buying with the book bundles it was not much of a savings. I also found the price too high considering the books could have been edited better. There are many grammatical errors. I am giving the book plot 4 stars but the editing and cost 2 stars. Averaging a 3 star review.

What a way to start a series! Academy of Beasts 1 starts out with a bang - well, a blaze, and it doesn't let up. This first book introduces us to some of the characters as well as the Academy, and since it is a serial, we don't get very many answers yet. The story is told from Fiona's perspective, and it's full of mystery and a bit of danger. Add to that the fact that Fiona is surrounded by shifters - handsome shifters - and this is shaping up to be an exciting shifter serial. Becca Fanning gives us a variety of shifters in this one, and then we have the heroine, who is surrounded in mystery, and it all came together to leave me impatiently waiting for the next edition of the Academy of Beasts. This first book has the feel of a young adult story, but the characters are college age, and the blurb does promise a reverse harem romance, so I would say this serial will fall firmly into the new adult category.

I am reviewing 1-40 here because you should have this info up front, and this is likely going to get a little long. I am also going to refer to them as episodes because they read to me like podcast episodes. All of these are shorts, written as a serial so you will get cliff hangers at the end of each (not all of them major) and the longest one is I think 83 pages. Overall the story is good, characters are relatable, I found myself crying at points. There is a little bit of everything in this story, romance, action, humor, drama, you name it. I binged the whole lot and went back to the beginning to read a second time, immediately. Episodes 1-10: Editing is a little on the poor side. There are grammatical errors, and poor word choice, there are even a couple parts where it seems like there is a sentence missing. And spacing to indicate time jump is either not there or placed in the wrong spot. Then there are some inconsistencies. Nothing that I would say fully detract from the story, but one is definitely a major one that you don't realize how major until a bit later. That being said the balance of interaction with the guys is good. The story gives you just enough info and gives you enough new questions to keep you interested. Episodes 11-25: I'm on episode 12 of re-read and I am getting a strong suspicion that someone else wrote these. There is a major romance plot point that never happens, even though it is mentioned at the end of episode 10, there are story plot points that are brought up as though they never had been before. The writing and the editing get poorer. It's like someone that speaks English as a second language wrote it in places. It's also like it was dictated and the speech to text got it wrong in places. There is a bigger concentration on the action and less on the romance. The interaction with each of the guys is not as balanced. There is A LOT of repeat of info we already know. It feels like filler not like story. This section of episodes is the poorest. However, the action picks up, Fiona comes into her power more and there is enough satisfaction that I remained engaged. Episodes 26-40: This is part of why I feel like they read as podcasts. We are brought into this section of episodes as though there was a break. We get a vision, then we get a review of Fiona's situation. We do find out that we are in her second year at the Academy and they did have a summer break so it kind of makes sense. If 11-25 were written by someone else, we are back to the original writer in 26. The editing gets better, the grammatical stuff gets better and the balance of interaction with the guys gets better. The balance between action and romance gets better as well. This section is where the major inconsistency from 1-10 gets spotlighted and the inconsistency of it gets worse. However other inconsistencies have been reduced and the story reads much better. The humor picks up but so does the drama. This is the section where I cried. But I also laughed a lot more. Over all if you are going to binge this, it's a lot of money and may not be worth it to you. I was very invested in the story so it was worth it to me, though it was a bit more than I would have liked to pay, even with the bundle option. I'm giving it 3 stars because of the overall of it. But I would give the story itself 5 stars.