I tried so hard to get into this book & I just couldn’t. It was so hard to follow. I loved the cover & thought the story sounded good, but I had no clue what was happening. Maybe this isn’t my kind of humor but nothing was funny to me. The footnotes really threw me off. The newspaper clippings were cool, but in the eARC, they were like 20 pages long it felt like & I didn’t know what I was reading.

Thank you to NetGalley & Unbound for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

“Who would even buy something like this? Nerds? Yep, probably had something to do with nerds.”

Hot Singles in Your Area by Jordan Shiveley
⭐️ ⭐️


QUICK SUMMARY 🖊️
Two time lines follow two separate people. One who needs a new job and another who seems to have been left behind in a silent city.


FINAL THOUGHTS 💭
Oof. This book. Was painful.
It reads more along the lines of fantasy / horror but without the world building needed to make the story feel complete. It was so disjointed and the 50+ pages of filler (I’m not kidding, DM me if you want examples) kept taking me out of the story. This had so much potential to be a good story but with the fillers and just the NOT ENOUGH left me beyond disappointed. The only reason for 2 stars is because I see the potential in the story.

This was a DNF for me. Honestly it was almost unreadable. I have no idea why there was approximately 15% of just newspaper clippings? after only 5% of the book, but I cannot push myself to continue with this, Sorry.

An intriguing premise with a strong start that showed great potential. However, the writing began to lose momentum midway and could improve significantly with further polishing. An interesting read with room to grow.

2.5* stars.

Thank you for the arc, I really tried to like this book but I struggled alot. Mainly with just understanding what was going on in places, I found alot of the book confusing especially around Malachia's chapters. Once I managed to format the newspaper pages correctly I actually found these the best and most enjoyable part of the book. Id be really intrigued to read more by Jordan Shievley in the future, as some parts I really enjoyed.

I am a fan of odd stories so the premise of this one alone had me intrigued. Where it started off grasping my attention straight away, around the time i reached the middle I was struggling a little. Overall a unique idea but it just wasn't for me.

4 stars- WOW!! I wasn't sure what to expect but this is a wild ride. thanks netgalley & the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This must be the first book in a series. I was pretty confused through most of it, but wondering if the formatting was off and it would be more organized in final form.

Two POV’s: Noah and Malachia. Noah is a new hire at Printed Matter and things start off weird with his new hire orientation. Malachia is a human in some other plane of existence.

Much preferred Noah’s pov as it was more linear and made more sense. Again might be a formatting issue

What a premise, right? A surreal horror novella with a title that begs curiosity and a promise of unsettling vibes all in under 200 pages. I went in expecting a quick, sharp punch to the psyche. And to its credit, it had a great start.

The book begins on a strong note, introducing us to a protagonist who's lived a tough, unremarkable life. His frustrations—working as a janitor, cleaning up blood and teeth—feel visceral. When he stumbles across a job posting for a mysterious publication firm, the story gets intriguing fast. Shiveley does an excellent job immersing the reader in the protagonist’s disorientation. Disjointed and repetitive printed articles, coupled with strange interactions with Linda (a hiring manager who might just be a vampire), build an atmosphere of surreal unease. It’s chaotic in the best way, making the reader feel just as off-kilter as the protagonist.

But then, around the midpoint, things take a hard left turn. We’re suddenly introduced to a second protagonist who resides in an alternate dimension known as the City of Silence. This twist feels like being dropped into a Dungeons & Dragons campaign mid-session with no clue about the rules or story. The world-building is imaginative and strange, almost reminiscent of *The Phantom Tollbooth*, but it feels crammed into a space too small for such an ambitious concept.

I love weird. I love stories that don’t spoon-feed me. But this veered into “too much, too fast” territory. As a standalone novella, it reads more like a prequel to a sprawling series, leaving me with more questions than answers.

That said, I applaud the creativity and unique narrative style. If this ever gets expanded into a series, I’d be curious to revisit. For now, it’s an ambitious, if slightly overstuffed, read.

Thank you for an arc copy of this book. I normally like body horror books but this one didn’t seem to click for some reason. I don’t know if it was the pacing or what but I just didn’t connect with the book.

This was a very strange book and I’m honestly not sure exactly how I felt about it. There are a lot of pieces that work really well and wish would be expanded on. Honestly if it was just a short novella with Noah’s section I think I would even like it more, but as it reads now it is difficult to follow. There are a lot of great ideas however and the satire of media is at times very darkly funny.

Body horror, bones bones bones, spells, lots of teeth and weird eyeballs (not to mention tentacles), other dimensions, and a decidedly unusual advertising company... this book is dark, surreal, strange, and filled with a sharp sense of humour.

Unfortunately for me this is a DNF at the 50% mark. I liked the premise for this, the blurb gave me real 'John dies at the end' vibes. However, that is where the comparison ended.

I have absolutely no clue whats really going on. It's as if the book has just been thrown together to just be weird with no real plot behind it.

The Two stories don't intertwine and feel confusing and may have worked better as two short stories rather than being told in alternating chapters.

In Noah's story - I'm not sure whether the newspaper ads are supposed to be unreadable or whether its an issue with the kindle version?

And Malachia's story? I don't get it whatsoever.

I hate not having anything positive to say about a book, but for me this was a massive disappointment that I just can't bring myself to read further.

Its unfortunate that I found the writing style confusing and disjointed because the plot of Hot Singles in Your Area sounds right up my alley AND the cover is so very interesting! I made it to 20% into this book and decided to DNF. The writing was a struggle to get through and although I was intrigued, it was not enough to push myself through the following 80%.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC copy.
I hope this book finds its niche audience!

Hot Singles in Your Area dives into the eerie underbelly of loneliness in a digital world, blending horror with dark humor in a way that's both funny and unnervingly relatable. Shively’s writing taps into the isolated feelings and absurdity of online dating culture, giving voice to the dark thoughts lurking behind all-too-familiar dating app notifications. Each page holds a mirror up to the reader, reflecting a society yearning for connection yet haunted by its own superficiality. The surreal blend of prose and illustrations adds to the unsettling tone, creating an experience that feels like a late-night fever dream about the digital world we can't escape.

It’s a unique and refreshing read for anyone who enjoys a mix of horror and satire, especially if you have a soft spot for the weirdness of internet culture!

Initially liked the bizarre story and chaos. It felt very "Welcome to Nightvale" - inspired. For the same reason, I initially loved the graphics with their absurdist humor and cynicism .

What made this less than three stars and ultimately a DNF for me was the editing and formatting. It feels unfinished, and even if it's intentional it was frustrating and distracting instead of immersive.

In terms of editing, there are lots of run on sentences. These made it hard to follow along...I often found myself flipping back pages to re-read and check my comprehension.

The formatting was the most challenging part of this book. It was especially hard to read the graphics as they were often broken up in nigh-illegible ways. I ended up skimming a decent bit because it bothered my eyes . If sentences/paragraphs were at least together instead of split down the middle I would appreciate the weirdness more and be less annoyed with the eyestrain. This could also be a formatting issue withthe epub in particular. Either way, it was not reader-friendly.

Footnotes were also not formatted to be clickable on ereader. Single footnotes sometimes end abruptly, with the story continuing on, only for the note to resume on a later page. There are a few random text cutoffs.. I'm stillvery unsure of this was an editing error, a formatting error, or intentional.

With all this in mind, this was a DNF at 25%. I will not be cross posting my feedback.

Sadly, this one just didn’t work for me. Initially I wanted to read it based on the title and cover - I go into most books without reading the synopsis - but this one was so hard for me to really get into and it didn’t make much sense to me. We have two very different characters, one being more fantasy/sci-fi like, the other seeming to be just a regular human and it felt like such a disconnect. It’s a short one, but because it just didn’t flow well for me I found myself taking breaks from it. I will give the author another try in the future though. Thanks to Unbound for my eARC.

Oh this was such a strange book!! It felt a little anime in it's presentation. It had that comic book style of language, and the descriptions also felt that way. There are two entwining stories, the first I gelled more with Noah gets a job at a weird back street publisher with some strange fellow coworkers.

Malachia's story was more difficult to follow and had me rubbing my eyes quite a bit. I wasn't a fan of the footnotes as when reading on a kindle you usually have to turn the page to read the footnote and by the time you get to them you've forgotten what the footnote was for.

Unfortunately didn’t like this book. It was trying too hard to be weird and different but it missed the mark and just didn’t make much sense. I DNF at 25%

I went in to this one with such high hopes. I love a weird little book and love to spend time trying to work out what is going on, but this one seemed to just be weird for the sake of being weird.

The stories were very disjointed. I could follow Noah’s story and I could understand where the author was trying to go with it, but Malachia’s story just seemed all over the place.

The repetitive words on multiple pages was overkill and the pages and pages of nonsensical adverts was just too much.

Such a shame this just didn’t work for me .