Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Despite it being marked as being 322 pages on StoryGraph (which I recommend using more than Goodreads because it’s independently made, woman-founded and has 0 ties to Amazon unlike our ol’ friend Goodreads), this book felt so short. Like novella size short (and novellas are typically less than 200 pages). I genuinely loved the fact that it felt so short because now I know I can easily binge-read the whole series of 17 books, which is actually insane but hey, I kinda love the noir vibe of this. Luckily, the books aren’t as long as the Wheel of Time ones or the Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archives books so I can easily get through them because while I loved Eye of the World and adore Stormlight Archives with my whole entire being, they! are! very! long!

So, after days of watching Émi’s (slavicreader on IG) reading and flying through the first several books of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, I decided to give it a shot as well. Well, not right away because I was feeling iffy about starting a 17-book series so I went to the SFF book group on Facebook (listen, everyone is really nice, and I always have a fun time chatting in the comments even though a lot of people my age don’t use Facebook anymore lol) to ask for advice and while some told me to avoid it because of the sexism and misogyny, most were like “go for it! But keep in mind that it starts getting better after book 2”. So, I caved and downloaded the e-book from the library. However, I didn’t download the first book but I actually downloaded a “collection” that was available at my library via e-book and it was books 1 through 6 which honestly helped me get through the books very quickly (as of writing this, I am reading book 6) and it was very convenient to not have to take out the next book individually!

So, what’s this series about?

Well, it follows Harry Dresden, the only wizard in Chicago and also works as a PI and helps the police when something supernatural happens, especially something that can’t be explained simply. I highly recommend going into this series without reading the synopsis because what I just told you is all I really knew.

There are supernatural creatures such as vampires and werewolves and Fae/Sidhe and honestly, I was having a lot of fun. I definitely felt a bit uncomfy with the descriptions of the female characters because some descriptions were…not necessary but alas, it was a fairly solid first book in a series.

I think a lot of the negative reviews come from, as I mentioned before, misogyny and sexism but I have also read that this is a noir-inspired book (or rather is part of the noir genre) and this problem is common in the noir genre but that it gets better later on.

That being said, this book wasn’t the best one I have ever read but I liked it enough to continue the series (lol).

Rating: 4/5 stars

Love,

Mila