Review: I'm in Love With Mothman by Paige Lavoie

 

I've been excited about this book since I first heard about it on Booktok. Mothman, a queer icon plus romance? Yes, please. As many people know, Mothman is a cryptid with its own statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. A statue that I have not seen personally, but I hear has a nice butt. Mothman has captured the hearts of many a queer and many a monster lover. People just really want to get with Mothman and obviously, I'm here for it. 

Heather is a social media influencer, but not just any influencer, she's a mommy blog baby grown up and turned influencer. She's spent the entirety of her life behind or in front of the camera, documenting every bad hair day, breakfast, and break up. Influencing seems like the dream job. You can work from home, you get to do fun things for a living, you get lots of free stuff, and love from fans. However, Heather is exhausted from sharing every detail of her life. She finally decides enough is enough and impulsively buys a cabin in the middle of the woods and moves to it. 

Heather is a city girl and doesn't really know herself outside influencing, but now she's determined to figure it out. She makes some small-town friends and begins to feel more confident about her decision. Of course, she then makes the ridiculous choice to climb a tree. And when I say climb a tree I don't mean one or two branches, this girl decides to climb to the top of a tree. In a skirt and stylish boots. (I wish I could say that this isn't something I would do, but as a once tree climber and a stubborn person, I know I'd probably at least try to do the same). Once she climbs the tree, there's no getting down, so she plummets. Lucky for her, a mysterious forest monster saves her from death. 

Later when the same forest monster winds up hurt on her property, she brings him in to nurse him back to health. As she grows closer to him, there's only one problem, one of her friends is a monster hunter and he's determined to get her monster. 

This book was a great balance of silly, emotional, romantic, and cottage core. I liked the characters, except for Chris, we hate Chris. It's a good representation of a mid-size or possibly plus-size character (it's not specified) and a person with a chronic illness (thyroid issues). Mothman is a lovable yet strange character and honestly, I want to be him. 

This book does contain adult content but it is pretty tame compared to a lot of the other books I read. It's descriptive of adult intimacy but in a more vague way. Content warnings for this book include but are not limited to adult sexual content, gun use, injury, discussion of self-images and body image issues, and more. As always I turn my readers towards Storygraph for a list of content warnings as provided by other readers. 

I would love it if you'd purchase this book on my Bookshop.org page. This allows me to get a percentage of the profit from your purchase of the book and it is a great alternative to Amazon. As always happy reading and I will see y'all soon.