Sniff it! Adventures in Happyland Book #1 by C.C. Reverie

Sniff it! Adventures in Happyland Book #1 Reviews

• 
  Hidekisohma

  So....this book was interesting. It's hard to describe how i feel about this book, but i'll try. As i'm the first person to review this on here, i'll do my best to explain myself with this book.
  
  So first off, the story is basically a dog and a wizard mouse team up to stop an evil human mayor from exterminating all the mice in a town. That's the long and short of it. However, herein lies the first problem with the story. That's only half the book. the other half is about a pair of humans going off to also stop the mayor.
  
  This i thought was a bit strange. You'd think that "Wizard mouse" and dog teaming up would be enough to fill a 170 page novel. However, the author felt that there needed to be humans in half the story, which really cut between the two stories and felt strange.
  
  The weirdest part is that the dog and main characters only meet up once and that's almost at the end. Keeping their stories separate was a strange decision i believe.
  
  As this is only the first book in the series, i believe that Pepper (the main dog) and Hank (the main human) will have more scenes together but as of right now, it's a bit strange.
  
  Okay, I have a bunch of things to say about this book so rather than jumping back and forth, i'm going to make lists of what i liked about it, and what i didn't
  
  Liked
  -General idea: A wizard mouse and dog teaming up to stop an evil dude from killing mice. Easy enough story to follow, but works well. good for a shorter novel.
  - Length- it didn't overstay its welcome
  = Easy read: it read pretty fluidly and didn't drag or have overtly confusing dialogue
  
  Disliked
  - Pacing: the ending wrapped up ridiculously fast. like... 1 page fast. the epilogue is basically the climax, which was really weird. i kept looking at the end going "there's only 4 pages left. there's no WAY they can wrap this up in 4 pages" It kinda felt like it was ended it at the second to last boss battle
  - Hank/Alice (aka the two humans): This romance is just, well, it's not good. from basically the MOMENT hank meets thsi girl he's instantly infatuated. There's really no "will they, won't they" it was more of a "let me skip ahead 10 pages and...yep okay." I honestly don't like these two as a couple
  - Hank: Hank as a character is very....meh. don't like him really at all. if they made cookie cutters for male protagonist, this would be him.
  - they really downplay the whole "Wizard mouse" thing. they don't really use his magic....well hardly ever. the only time his magic is used in the whole book is to have the main dog understand human speech. That's about it. CRIMINALLY underutilized.
  
  It feels like there were a lot of good ideas here, especially with the dog and mouse (the mouse disappears for the entire climax btw) but the execution needed a major overhaul. I would still be interested in reading the second book though (which as of this review is coming out next month) and see if the pacing gets better. all in all, 2.5/5. Not bad, not great. for a 170 book, it told its story well enough for me to finish, just felt like it needed a good content editor to take a look at it.
• 
  Pat Eroh

  This is an incredibly cute and short story that is so much fun. If you love dogs (or just all animals, even people, like I do) then you will enjoy this book. I read it with the kids I work with and they loved it and they loved Pepper and friends. I am looking forward to the next book.
  
  I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.