Monstrous growth (pun intended) of our chest shaped main character continues. Fleeing the empire’s spymaster whom the square man eater genuinely fears, disaster with a lid has left the predominantly human empire and has arrived in the predominantly elf republic. Infiltrating as a new species and a new ‘person’ protagonist has one goal, actually several, collect all the shinies, eat as much of delicious tasties as possible and get strong enough to get revenge on that abysmal human Edgar.
Comparatively to the prior books larger part of the story is told from the point of view of other characters besides the protagonist and his posses, i.e. Morgana with constant self-critique, description from the artist how would Morgana feel in situation a, react to event b, regular soldiers on Republic’s side, FIB etc. Additional monster characters that are shaping up (pun intended) to stay relevant for the story for the long run have been introduced (Claws, Ambrosia). The extent to which Boxy is suppressing his monster desires to stay in shape (pun intended) for the cover with the ever more desperate internal monologue made me burst out laughing on several occasions.
You can find the complete internet novel of Everybody Loves Large Chests online for free. Also, if you understand Russian, there is a youtube channel that is publishing weekly recordings, production value is so~so and it’s a single voice actors project and still ongoing (hasn’t reached the conclusion of Everybody Loves Large Chests), but it’s available for free. Originally this was very upsetting, seeing as the US Audible marketplace audiobooks are still way behind the finished story. Over time, more so now on second listen the production value from Soundbooth Theater is self evident.
Conclusion: 3/5. Listened on Audible 1 credit. Narrated by: Jeff Hays, Annie Ellicott. If you like American humor (think, ‘Scary Movie’, ‘American Pie’ etc.) you will enjoy ‘Everybody Loves Large Chests’. ‘Morgana’ sort of marks act 2 for ELLC. Boxy has graduated from being a monster obsessed with shiny/tasty things to a monster obsessed with shiny/tasty things that knows the concept of delayed gratification. This has made this it x100 times more dangerous. Interesting to note, how the evolution of monster class/job has impact on the monster’s desires. Small but cool world building aspect (plus, explaining the change of character traits) from Mr.Iliev. Bad value for the length of the book – 1.41 $/hour ( 24.95 $ / 17 hrs 43 mins ).
Values:
Terrible: >1.66 $/hour
Bad: 1 – 1.66 $/hour
Good: <1 $/hour
Dream: 0.4 – 0.27 $/hour