Serena’s Review: “That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon” by Kimberly Lemming

Publishing Info: Orbit, January 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: NetGalley!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Spice trader Cinnamon’s quiet life is turned upside down when she ends up on a quest with a fiery demon in this irreverently quirky rom-com fantasy that is sweet, steamy, and funny as hell—perfect for fans of  Legends & Lattes  and  The Dragon’s Bride. 

All she wanted to do was live her life in peace–maybe get a cat, expand the family spice farm. Really, anything that didn’t involve going on an adventure where an orc might rip her face off. But they say the Goddess has favorite, and if so, Cin is clearly not one of them… 

After saving the demon Fallon in a wine-drunk stupor, all Fallon wants to do is kill an evil witch enslaving his people. And, who can blame him? But he’s dragging Cinnamon along for the ride. On the bright side, at least he keeps burning off his shirt.

Review: I’ll be honest, I definitely requested this one purely based on the unique title and the cute cover. Both were unlike any book I’d seen before, and after reading the synopsis, I was looking forward to reading a romantic fantasy with a heavy dose of comedy, ala some of T. Kingfisher’s work. Alas, it didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s hard to say whether it was a book problem or a me problem or a combination of both, but this will be one of those books that I think needs just the right reader to land perfectly.

For one thing, while the book is definitely high fantasy in its world-building and magic, it was very modern in its language, both the dialogue and some of the narration. And when I say modern language, I’m not talking about standard English (a qualifier that you do actually have to make for some fantasy that calls back to older forms of English, or formal English, or what have you). No, this is modern English in that there is tons of lingo thrown all over the place. And this is where I find one of my first points about the narrow lane for readers who will enjoy this book: this is a romance book that is heavy in the “adult themes” of its romance, but on the other hand, the jargon and lingo used is very much on the younger side. It’s not a comfortable pairing. I suspect that many of the adult readers who will enjoy the romance of this story might be put off by some of the ridiculousness of the language. And, honestly, I’m not sure it’s a great example of the use of the lingo even for younger audiences. It just felt corny and try-hard much of the time.

And this points leads right into my second major struggle area: I didn’t connect with the humor at all. Most of the jokes landed with a thud, and rather than laugh, I caught myself rolling my eyes more and more. At its best, humor is not only funny but endears the characters to the reader. Here, the humorous “takes” from our main character had me rapidly losing all respect for her and becoming increasingly annoyed by her choices. At one point, Cin makes some “snarky” remark about how books always have “bandit rapists.” And while I get what the author was trying to do with this meta level of awareness, the scene itself doesn’t go any further in unpacking this trope than using its inclusion as another moment for Cin to say something “witty.” It’s not subverting a trope if you just threw it in there to make your heroine seem clever for recognizing that it’s a trope in the first place. Then, later, there are other moments where horrific violence occurs, and Cin is written as just not really caring about all of the consequences? Throughout it all, she simply became pretty unlikable.

Beyond that, I was uncomfortable with the romance itself. I wasn’t expecting a “fated mates” romance, and those are my least favorite, so that’s just a personal preference thing. But due to this nature, you never feel any true connection between these two other than lust and the fact that they are simply “destined” to be together. On top of that, the book strays hard into dubcon (dubious consent) territory. Now, I’m not a hardliner on this front, as I wouldn’t say that one character kissing another character without directly asking before is dubcon or anything like that. I think if you stray too far down those lines, the entire romance genre becomes fairly unworkable. That said, this book went way further than that. And, again, I know that some readers enjoy these types of romances, but not only do I personally not, I thought that this sort of romance sat uncomfortably against the “cozy,” “humor-centric” story that the marketing presents it to be (cover, title, even the book description itself). So, again, I think there may be a mismatch between readers and books.

Overall, I was really let down by this book. While some of these complaints are definitely personal preferences (and if they’re your jam, you may in fact enjoy this!), but I also think there are some serious quality issues with the lingo and the comedy aspects of the story. It simply wasn’t funny most of the time and instead read as very cliché and as if it was trying way to hard to be cute and quirky.

Rating 6: The humor landed with a thump and the main character became increasingly annoying as the book continued.

Reader’s Advisory:

“That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon” can be found on this Goodreads list: Books with Drinks on the Cover