Friends with Bunny Feets: Threadbare, Book 4

First off, I feel a need to note that just because a series is about an animated teddy bear does not mean that it's necessarily for younger children. The language gets much saltier in this book than the prior ones, at least as I remember it. That said, on to the book.I was thrilled to see yet another entry in the Threadbare saga. I honestly felt that the first trilogy finished things up in a nice place, and I was expecting further entries to explore other parts of the realms, such as with the Small Medium series. That said, it does not disappoint. Now, Cylvania is much more developed, and a lot of Threadbare's problems actually come from that most pernicious of areas, politics. Humans were used to being on top, and are currently fighting back against the influence of the golems and doll hunters. Celia, for her part, is dealing with severe body dysmorphia, but feels that she should not burden her friends with her problems. Add to that a troupe of bunny pirates/actors, a mysterious dungeon from which no one is returning, and sinister machinations from another nation involving new golems, and it is an interesting adventure. We do get some callbacks to the Small Medium series, including the return of Chase and crew, as well as an explanation of how the Golems got there during those books.Overall, I had a harder time getting into this book than some of the prior ones, but I can't put my finger on why. Some of it is that we keep bouncing between plot threads. They mostly tie together, but it was a bit distracting. There were a lot of new characters added with their own plot threads to care about. There really aren't any true plot twists to speak of. I don't know... it just didn't grab me, and I almost have a lower rating were it but that Amazon's rating system makes a mockery of using it for honest feedback, particularly for books you like.

For people who’ve read any of the author’s previous novels, this will be a nice chance to return to Cylvania.

Just like a beloved stuffed animal, reading these books is like returning to an old friend. I truly enjoy the world of Threadbare. Great characters, plot, and systems.

I really enjoyed this book, I'm a big fan of the audio books too, a really great voice actor helps bring the books to life, all of Andrew Seiple's books that I've heard I've enjoyed. I can now hear their voices as I read this book.

It's been a couple of years since Threadbear saved the country. There is plots and internal intrigues afoot. We get a catch up with our favourite Spirit Medium as well.Can't wait for the next book.

I started the first volume of Threadbare on a whim, and I fell in love with the entire concept. I especially enjoyed the puns. There weren't any particular surprises in the plot, but a well-crafted formulaic story is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.But I'm not the only one who noticed what really felt like a heavy-handed insertion of intersectional politics into the first third of this volume. I'll be the first to agree that there are a lot of interesting ways that considerations about sapience, legal arrangements and the like could play out in a fantasy setting like this one.Dracosnack being genderless is perfectly logical: it's literally a toy given locomotion and an artificial mind. Gender has no meaning for such a creature, and any adoption of relevant language conventions would be entirely semantic. The same could be said of Threadbare. But the scene doesn't play out that way in the book: in-universe, the scene shouldn't be treated with any significance by any of the characters present. Instead, it plays out more like a 'nonbinary' human in the real world talking to what is obviously meant to be an *extremely* heavy-handed caricature of Donald Trump, as scripted by a political activist who hates the latter. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen skits made by political activists that played out exactly this way.Literally the man's name is Thrump. It's only mentioned once, of course, but it's clear what the audience is meant to take from this by the way the scene plays out.It's not that you can't write a story like this. It's that it's out-of-step with the previous volumes. The earlier stories were very much focused on the humorous antics of the titular protagonist Threadbare as he explored a world he knew little about and had difficulty understanding. One of my favorite indie series - Everybody Loves Large Chests - is a darker take on this same concept. And in a world of magic spells, some of these issues would have serious implications - if a magic spell could trap your soul in a doll, for example, it would have a dysphoric effect on your psychology.And perhaps this was where the author always intended to take this story - I don't believe that for a second, but it's possible. What I find more likely is that the vicious infighting in YA Publishing puts rookie authors into a position where they feel they *must* insert heavy-handed political commentary into their works as a means of self-defense. The commentary has to be heavy-handed, mind you, because their attackers deal exclusively in bad-faith attacks, so properly nuanced and balanced subtle commentary (the kind that could pass muster with a discerning audience) simply doesn't offer enough protection.I don't like that we live in a world where a new author can be bullied out of a publishing contract because people who *didn't even read her manuscript* don't like the fact that she included a particular subject in her plot, but we do live in that world - and I can hardly expect unestablished authors who lack f***-you money to be able to simply ignore that reality.I cannot, however, finish reading this book. I tried to push past it, but I'm 39% of the way through the Kindle edition and I'm simply not enjoying this new volume the way I did previous books. I've got a backlog of manuscripts too long to waste my time on a book I'm not enjoying.

These books all have that feeling of discovery and adventure that I haven't experienced since I was a child. Fantastic characters, a fascinating world and wonderful time all around.

Another great novel in the series, though I was disappointed that the MC didn’t grow very much in the time that passed before this book takes place. I look forward to the next!

This is an enjoyable and compelling sequel to the original books featuring Threadbare, though not the best place to start if you're new to the series. As always, I look forward to seeing what adventures Threadbare and company have in the future.

Threadbare and his friends discover shenanigans are afoot meet a crew of bunnygirls undertake another quest and make some new friends along the way too

As is usually the case with Seiple, a fun read staring one of my favorite little bears. He’s a bit older and wiser now, which honestly is too bad, I always enjoyed the misunderstandings that came from his ignorance, but it was still a nice little adventure. If you haven’t read the other books in this universe (specifically the Small Medium series), I definitely recommend doing so first. You can probably get by without it, but there are a few things that won’t make sense to you, and they’re fun stories on their own.