Big thanks to Nobilis Reed, the published- Riverdale Avenue Books, and Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

So I'm not going to lie. I've read some tentacle sci-fi books before and I'm not quite sure that it's my bag, so like any good scientist, I decided to try some more. Ya know, for science!

This story follows an ensign in the space army whose role is to be an emissary to space tentacle monsters, and to do that... wait for it... they have to bang them. The rest of the book is pretty much what you think it is. Now, the actual sci-fi story and world-building are pretty interesting and diverting. This is an actual story. I know, I was surprised too. But the whole "romance", coupledom, and erotica portions are exactly what I expect from a dude-bro to write. The big 'O" always happens with no lead-up, the attempt at polyamory, and the actual interpersonal couple-y interactions are very surface based.

Honestly, despite the glaring, just nope aspects, I kept trying to give this one a second, and third, and fourth chance. Ugh, yeah. This was just a hard pass for me.

This was a interesting read. It's definitely one that has a narrow niche of readers but if you find the ones who enjoy this type of read, it's a fun one.

Big thanks to Nobilis Reed, Netgalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for the eARC in exchange for a review.

The story follows an Ensign in the space army who's role is to.. well... satisfy tentacle monsters. Essentially, humans have made it far enough into space travel that new worlds and species have been discovered. The tentacle monsters are treated more as pets, or a commodity that can be owned and worked, rather than a sentient being.
Different government and civilian factions are disputing the role tentacle monsters should have with humans, essentially risking a war between humans and tentacle monsters.

This was a bit of a ride. Getting into I was expecting some down and dirty tentacle stuff, and this does just that. There were some cringy lines and, as per typically male written smutt, the orgasms happen pretty much immediately without any specific work up to it.

The sci-fi was decently well done. There is not a lot of world building. It's very assumed that the reader understands humans live with aliens now and science tech is easily accessible. The author does delve into the dynamics of how the lgbtq+ community became more widely accepted through varying levels of acceptance over time.
The main character is in a poly style relationship, specifically a polygamy style relationship in the beginning, which changes a into a polyamorous relationship by the end. Also with tentacles on the side.
Overall, 3 stars, maybe pushing to 3.5

Boy howdy this book was something else. This was totally outside my normal reading but I wanted to challenge myself and what a challenge it was. All the world building and made up names were hard to follow and I lost all sense of reality when the monsters were described as smelling of cilantro

I have read a bunch of different books. So I have read anything from the fade to black romance to the smuttier monster side of things. So when I saw this title on Netgalley I was excited because it was different than the normal books that are on here usually. While I had a general idea of what this book would entail- I can honestly say that I was a bit let down by the reality of it. It's not necessarily the content as a whole that bothered me but rather there seemed to be a severe imbalance between actual story and smut to the point where it couldn't only be called an erotica because there technically was a bit of a story but not enough of a story to have substance. From the first chapter, it really was in your face and I feel like we were missing a bit of a backstory or even more of a present-day story. I will say that the author did have a way with writing that I found to be interesting, but overall the sex scenes I think overshadowed the story as a whole and started to all blend together because they felt the same.

Listen, sometimes sci-fi romance gets a little weird and Monster Whisperer: Second Class gets more than just a <i>little</i> weird. But what's a little tentacles among friends?

Being a reader of romance, I'm not exactly new to the world of smut. These things generally come in different shades of burn: Fast or Slow. Slow can be anything from a clean read, to a feisty kiss, to a smut scene toward the end. Fast burn usually means there are multiple sex scenes throughout the book and it doesn't quite take that long for the MC to jump into bed with someone.

And while I wouldn't really call this a romance, it's the closest comparison to the level of smut because this book takes Fast Burn to the extreme, in fact the very first scene is on page.. 2 or 3 where the main character who is training to become a monster handler gets a crash course in what it means to being these monsters desired prey. (Which means submissive and a touch of fear)

It's a little wacky story where these monster creatures have the power to jump instantly through space, and somehow they really like having sex with humans. I got the impression that the sex actually fed them and their powers, but it was never explicitly stated. It was more of an "this is how we bribe these amazingly powerful creatures to work for us".

It's not pure erotica, but it's pretty darn close. There is a plot there where the MC have a romance life (outside the monster fucking), and there's drama there. And there's a war to prevent, and people trying to sabotage the mission. But mostly it's Sandra Tevins getting laid.

I wanted more though, I wanted the story to go slower and give me more information. She was being trained in these monsters, learning about their habits, preferences and habitats. I wanted more of that instead they kind of glossed over it and just threw in the sex scenes.

It's the closest thing I've ever had to pure erotica on my kindle. And if that is what you want, this could be a fun read (Tho I wish there were bigger differences between the sex scenes since they were with different creatures). And while it was fairly well written, if you cut out said smut, the story you get is a fairly thin one.

I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. If tentacles are your thing, then this book will fulfill that need for you. Ensign Tevins begins the book by training to offer select services to space tentacle monsters, and it goes about as far as you can imagine from there.
While I admire the author's creativity, this is not a stand alone book. Ididn't know that there was a first book, so I had no idea what was going on for a good 20% of the book, and there is a lot of assumed knowledge that didn't get explained for a large chunk of the story. The plot is wild, but my main issue with this book is the formatting. I had to change font sizes four times to stop losing sentences from one page turn to the next, which really broke my concentration. There were also a few minor editing issues, but the formatting was the major problem. Otherwise, this book was very creative, and it is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the genre.

I enjoyed the author's writing style, but this book just wasn't for me and I couldn't get into the story.

Sandra is part of the Star Patrol tasked with being a monster tender. This means she has sex with monsters. Tentacle monsters are used as civilian consultants to help with space travel. Monsters seemed to be viewed as untrustworthy. Sandra gets swept up in conspiracy and lots of sex. This book had a interesting plot but seemed to be mainly focused on the sex.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this book.