2.5 ⭐️

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for a copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

“My name is Zoe Hearty, and I am a killer, but I am not a monster. ”

I was expecting a different book, reading the first pages I thought the protagonist was a badass ready to exterminate a host of aliens. I expected it to be gory and ironic.
Instead I found myself with a desperate housewife because of her husband's behavior, scared and looking for her children.
So my doubts arose when the book started to get really depressing due to some topics such as domestic violence, rape and kidnapping of children. I generally have no problem reading about these issues if they are handled in the right way.
The central part was really boring. I gave 2.5 stars for the ending which was the busiest part of the whole book.
I expected much more, I was a little disappointed.

I thought that my lack of enjoyment of this book came from the fact that it was not what I was expecting, but once I wrapped my mind around the fact that it would not have a bit of comedy (it has none), I still did not enjoy it. So dark with triggers for abuse victims that I did not see coming.

I definitely thought, based on the title and the cover, that this would be a comedic romp through space but it definitely is not. Overall it wasn't terrible, but the author spends a lot of time establishing that Zoe is a powerless housewife only to suddenly reverse that at the very end. I think the final surprise would make more sense if the housewife section had been shorter and her character development more drawn out in the end. TW for rape and domestic violence, just fyi,

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, & BooksGoSocial for a copy.
This was a quick read and a decent first book by the author.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style or characters, but it will appeal to others. It was also less thrilling/horrifying than I thought it would be, so reader beware.

Zoe hearty and the space invaders by TE Norris.
What would you do if your other half is a real monster? And I do mean real...
Zoe Hearty is a serial killer. Even Netflix says so. Well—either that or aliens are real, they invaded Earth and possessed her husband (cheating scum), kids, and God knows who else and Zoe had no choice but to become a killer to stop them and save the world.At least, that is what Zoe says.
But no one wants to hear *that* story.
Really enjoyable read.  Loved zoe. 4*.

Zoe Hearty believes that her husband has been taken over by Aliens, and she has saved us all. But is she manic, psychotic or are Aliens real? Read the book and find out. Thank you to Norris Publications and NetGalley for the ARC. The views published are all mine, freely given.

I'll start my review with positive notes. The narrative was a fairly solid one, the writing mostly decent. It's a reasonably enjoyable book. However, the title is deceiving and the official synopsis utterly off the mark. I downloaded this from NetGalley due to the title and synopsis which led me to believe it would be (at least somewhat) a more lighthearted tale along the lines of Jason Pargin, Yahtzee Croshaw, etc. In fact, there was nothing lighthearted about it at all - it was a serious AF Sci-Fi/horror tale about a woman who endures her husband being seduced/taken over by an alien society trying to infiltrate humanity, forcing her to eventually fight and kill to stop them. If that's the type of story you're looking for, it's successful in those regards, but if you're looking for laughs, you won't find them. My other issue with the book is the fact that most of the book is told in the first person, but neither the narrator nor anyone who's quoted in the story uses contractions. Whether the author was just trying to pad his word count or is just completely out of touch with how people converse, I don't know - he's especially afraid of the word "can't;" everybody says "cannot" and that's not how people talk - but the consistency of characters speaking stiffly and robotic took me out of the story.

Zoe is happily married with two kids – or at least, mostly happily married. But when her husband starts acting odd and hiding even more from her than usual, she knows it’s time to do something about it. She’s expecting to find out about another affair, but instead stumbles across something much more bizarre and sinister, something that makes her question her sanity.

I liked the premise of this work and the promise of a sarcastic, kick-a** heroine with a good deal of humor. But this work ended up being dark, including rape, abuse, and multiple murders. But the tone of the work fluctuated between what I was expecting and as dark as the events that occurred, which made it feel awkward, like the author couldn’t quite settle on what tone to use.

The characters were lacking in any real depth, development, or growth. Zoe was the only character that had some development, but it wasn’t that much. She and the rest of the characters came across as bland and unrelatable, making it difficult to become invested in their stories and struggles.

On a more technical note, I don’t think that this work underwent any editing. The number of errors encountered throughout the work was unacceptable, ranging from missing punctuation to incorrect punctuation to misspellings to names not being capitalized – the list could go on. Similarly, the dialogue was stilted throughout the entire work, which made it even more difficult to connect to the characters or to really become immersed in the story. The author also overutilized heavy-handed foreshadowing (really just spoilers) through the exposition, which in many instances completely took away from any buildup or tension. For example, the author used this technique to let the reader know a character was going to die, but the death didn’t happen for another four or five chapters; I lost any investment in the character or their actions because I already knew they weren’t going to make it out alive.

Unfortunately, this work fell short of my expectations. If it underwent a thorough editing, I would be willing to increase my rating.

I received a complimentary copy of this work. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.