Morningwood (Everybody Loves Large Chests #1) (2024)

"Do you prefer big chests or small chests?"
"Big" answered the Mimic immediately, how was this even a question?
Bigger treasure chests had more shiny things inside them.

Clever conceit, but appallingly sexist

The idea of a mimic slowly becoming smarter and more bafflingly powerful is smartly done and might have been more entertaining if it hadn't also been accompanied by the most sexist descriptions of women I've seen in my life. Every woman will have her breasts described. Every woman will be called a sexual name and be dehumanized. The main female character enjoys being raped and tortured and humiliated. The book contains lines like "Males are smarter, but females are more vicious." And absolutely none of it was necessary. This feels like a childish vendetta, and I need a shower.

Also, the author clearly doesn't understand past participles, so if you expect someone explaining their past to say "he had thought they would have known better," give up. "He thought" is sometimes past, sometimes present, and it's a constant irritation if you care about clarity. Not a deal breaker, but it clearly marks the book as an amateur effort with minimal editing.

This was a potentially fun idea that was even well paced. I just wish anything else about the book was recommendable.

I'm reading Nevin Iliev's Morningwood: Everybody Loves Large Chests. I was drawn in by the admirable punistry of the blurb, the bluring of the meaning of the word "chest." I figured it might be clever.

And it is. As shown by this quote: How come he didn't notice it earlier? Ah, probably because it was behind Xera's back while her voluptuous breasts were, as expected, on her chest.

Clever, right? Tongue in cheek? Amusing, even? Yes. All of those. And those kinds of jokes (which is to say clever, tongue in cheek, and amusing) are fairly prevalent among gamers, which is why some women (myself included) go on hanging out with gamers, and indeed, gaming. So what's my problem? Why am I complaining about a book which lured me in with puns about breasts being focused on breasts?

Because, despite the interesting point of view, the odd plot twists, this book is barely readable for the sort of casual misogyny with which female gamers are all too familiar, and sadly accustomed.

Every female character, without exception, is described as having "breasts nearly the size of her head." Every one is presented as being dressed immodestly. Every one is described through comparisons with prostitutes, bimbos, and so on. At one point, the statement is made that "all female casters were a bit crazy."

Did you notice that? Not all casters were a bit crazy, but all female casters were a bit crazy. Even the protagonist's first kill is of a higher-level female adventurer who has stopped in a dungeon tunnel to masturbat*. This behavior is not repeated by any of the males in the book.

Although there is constant mention of female characters being "wet," we never hear of a male adventurer walking around "hard." Although the female characters' breasts, butts, and midriffs are described in considerable detail, the same detail is not lavished on the male characters. In short, the author clearly suffers from the common geek perception that women are nothing but sex objects whose entire purpose in life is to cruelly deny him, specifically, of the pleasures of the flesh.

While the book is middlin' clever, and reasonably well written (I did, after all, read it to its conclusion) I sincerely doubt I will ever read anything else by this author.

I'm not even sure how to start with a review for this completely crazy LitRPG story. I knew going in that the premise of the story was a little out there and both the pun filled title and the cover image indicated a lot of the craziness would be played for humour but even considering that this one turned out to be a more bizarre read than even I anticipated!

Lets start with the good: the premise. I always like a LitRPG (or any book really) that gives me a crazy twist on a familiar genre and this book definitely had that going for it. The main character of this LitRPG was not your typical human sucked into a LitRPG fantasy world but was instead a low level mimic demon that sprung to life in a low level beginner dungeon. The mimic demon takes the form of a treasure chest. The average treasure chest in a dungeon grants the adventurer a bit of loot. Our particular treasure chest was basically just a disguised mouth waiting to gobble up greedy humans! Sounds like a great set-up for a potentially weird but hilarious tale and it actually played out that way...for the most part.

This story had two other good things going for it. The first was that Neven Iliev's writing was fairly engaging. It was easy to get sucked into this story. The pacing was pretty good and the story contained a nice mix of action, adventure, plenty of hilarity, and a few moments of horror. The second big thing this had going for it was the unique main character. A demon that chomps greedy adventurers and looks like a treasure chest sounds ridiculous and hard to take seriously but Boxxy, as the creature later got named, ended up being as horrifying as it was hilarious. It was not a human and was new to life so had absolutely zero morals and little in the way of intelligence, especially in its early days, so mostly just acted on instinct. Its main instinct being to feed itself and its main food source being those idiots who kept invading its dungeon. The creature was probably inspired by that talking plant from Little Shop of Horrors! Boxxy was not a super likeable lead character, what with it being a murderous demon with limited intelligence and zero morals or much in the way of understanding in general, but it was a super fascinating lead character and its story was a fun one. The creature managed to level up by a combination of luck and skill in much the same way as any other character one would find in a LitRPG story and that ended up being a lot of fun as even with increasing powers, levels, and a bit of added intelligence our box mimic demon was still a very alien soul.

The story had a lot of fun and amusing moments as our "hero" grew in skill while rampaging around stuffing itself full with any poor fool unfortunate enough to stumble into its path (or gaping jaw!).

The big negative for this one and the thing stopping me from giving this the 4 star or 4.5 star rating it could have earned on the basis of its crazy main character and mix of readability and fun humour was the rampant misogyny. Now given the title I was expecting a bit of misogyny. Though I must admit I was hoping more of it would be played for laughs. The potential was there with the main character being a genderless mimic demon shaped like a treasure chest to poke a ton satire and humour towards the general misogyny that is rampant within the genre. The potential was there for that even more so when our lead picked up a succubus for a familiar. Alas, while we got plenty of humour we also had to get plenty of horrific misogyny and half of that was unfortunately in earnest it seemed. It was a pity that Neven Iliev felt the need to include so much casual and rampant misogyny in the story as without that this could have been a really fun story! Even just the change to add a bit of this style of humour in the form of just flat out mocking other books in the genre would have been fun but instead Neven Iliev just went and fell into the traps typical of the worst sort of books in the LitRPG genre and we had to deal with every single female being a sex object and a lot of eye-roll inducing generalized sexist statements along the lines of stuff like: "All female mages were crazy". Yeah, only the female mages. And gems like "Females are more ferocious but males are more intelligent". Why oh why does it feel like 90% of LitRPG is written by (or maybe just for?) teen boys who have not encountered a real life woman and so just give us an approximation of them based on their browsing of various, kinky, p*rn websites! I swear that in-between writing LitRPG instalments these same idiots frequent places like Reddit and Twitter and post endlessly about how Star Wars was ruined for them because a woman got cast in the lead and now they feel totally emasculated. The sad thing is the misogyny was only one of the issues as on top of that Neven Iliev included a few of his more bizarre and out there p*rn fetishes within the story. I could have lived happily without ever learning that cannibal p*rn was an actual thing that existed!!!

The strange thing is that this book was so crazy and over the top that even the negatives did not end up damaging the story enough to completely kill my enjoyment of it. I feel if this book had went to a real editor then a few extra rewrites could have eliminated or tweaked a lot of the worst bits and delivered us a really great LitRPG story. Even with its strong flaws this one still had a lot going for it.

All in all what we got here was a real mixed bag. This was both one of the better and more original LitRPG stories I've encountered so far as well as being one with a few really bad flaws! My feeling is that I'll move on to the second book. I'm curious to see where Boxxy goes from here and it will be interesting to see if the author makes any changes (positive or negative) in regards to the feedback from this story since I think it was his first published work.

Audio Note: This was performed by Jeff Hayes. He is one of the best narrators in the LitRPG genre and just a super talented guy in general. Always brings a story to life and is fantastic at voicing a variety of different characters all on his own. He is even pretty good with the female voices!

Rating: 3.5 stars. I'm a little torn on the rating. This was a great LitRPG in some ways and the story was super engaging and amusing at times but it did have those serious flaws that held it back from being a book that was just fun and easy to enjoy. Which is a total pity as that is what this could have been with a few tweaks!

A Murderously Fun Time.

This book is violent, often tasteless, sometimes salacious, and frequently hilarious. The humor is often dark and bitter, but very well done.
Follow a deadly and murderous toddler as it meets a fantasy world that is vaguely game-ist but lethal and serious. Watch it bumble, struggle, and grow.

Not for children, but good for fans of villainous adventure, black comedy, or creative novels.

While I found the blurb completely misleading to the plot of this book, I can't say that it's completely unrelated. The main character of this story is a mimic whose mostly used shape is a wooden chest. Unexpectedly, this chest grows in abilities and gains lots of extra points, making it a great evil the humans fight against. This part of the story I found it quite interesting, and a quite original POV.

Then we go to the large chests described in the blurb. The women in this book are detailedly described, often mentioning that they have breasts almost as large as their head, which is empty most of the time. They are also compared to bimbos or prostitutes, and their clothes are not sensible at all. There is also a woman described as so masculine that it was difficult to realize she was a woman. Her breasts were mentioned but not described.

This could have been okay, even if most of women were silly, but they tended to get wet in the most extraordinaire of situations, like when being attacked by an evil chest. Then we had a succubus that enjoyed so much being abused, hurt, and eaten, the she had multiple org*sms. I couldn't go on after this.

I have to say that the premises were interesting, with an original POV, but the way this book deals with women was just too much for me. I guess this book will be mostly enjoyed by men who are not men enough to be able to talk to women as equals.

Jeff Hays's narration was very good and really went well with the text. His interpretations were very expressive, and he used different voices and effects, which was a nice touch. Her female voices sounded a bit silly, but this really goes well with how the book is written.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

I laughed......out loud......at work.

I read a lot of litrpg. Like some, hate others. I was extremely confused by the end of chapter one. I had no idea where this book was going. I bought it and kept reading. A book has never made me laugh as much as this one did. Download the sample. If you like the sample, you WILL like the book. Hugely entertaining at the very least. Love it. Instant buy on volume 2!

This is a very different take on LitRPG! If you're expecting a traditional story about a gamer that gets sucked into a VRMMORPG and works to level up, this is not that type of book. It doesn't really have a traditional story structure or an antagonist. It's just a bawdy tale about a monster's adventures in a world that happens to operate with the same mechanics as a game.

What this book did have was humor, and plenty of it. It was a really entertaining and fun read. The characters were hilarious, and had me snort laughing out loud. The story flowed right along, the main character was unexpected, and the whole thing was well-written. Ugh, I resisted hard, but yes, I'll say it. This book was tasty.

Jeff Hays' performance was outstanding, it really suited the book. He had great comedic timing and just delivered those deadpan lines perfectly. He performed different voices for each character, including female voices, and there were some awesome sound effects. It just brought the whole thing up a notch, the book would have been a fun read, but the narration made it a hilarious listen.

Although I loved most of it, I wouldn't recommend reading this book if you're easily offended. It spends a lot of time satirizing women (God I hope it's satire). I requested a copy of the audiobook, and I'm voluntarily leaving a review.

Somehow my review for this got deleted.

Really loved this book, Reminded me a lot of Dungeon Born.

I love large chests

This book is a serious dark comedy. The character changes over time from a unthinking non-gender specific character into a dim witted character with flashes of brilliance. You'll get that joke of you finish the book.

An entertaining story from a completely unexpected and unusual pov (unexpected, given a blurb which accurately sets the tone of the book but which is also very misleading), this is entirely a niche novel. It is written to entertain RPG gamers and their associates. A juvenile and chauvinist view of women means that it will also appeal more to male players than to females, generally speaking.

The above caveats having been noted, the writing is light, mildly witty, and enjoyable, if one is either not terribly offended by the almost deliberate trampling upon anything which might even some time ago have been tainted by the concept of being politically correct, or if one actually shares the author's views. Many young, male RPG gamers whose social development is vestigial or less may indeed share those views. The sentence prior (first sentence in this paragraph) should be taken as reflecting this reviewer's advanced age, and not as a reflection of Neven Iliev's style. The author generally writes shorter, more effective sentences.
If you happen to be offended by such a rank generalization, then consider how female RPG gamers might feel, or how female readers might respond to the universally large-chested, pea-brained, hormonally driven female characters portrayed in this book.

A fun read for a certain set of undemanding readers, but this book is not for everyone.

I loved this. Seriously loved it. The book summary does not do it justice, but I see the quandary, as I'm having a hard time coming up with a summary without spoiling some of the better points of the story.

I'll just say that it's snarky, funny, and just damn fun to read. Also, has less to do with breasts than I expected.

0 stars. Casually offensive, sexist and othering.

World: The world building is fine, it's very solid in it's portrayal of RPGs and fans of the genre will get a kick out of the constant reminder that this is an RPG book. There are countless stats information throughout the book that constantly remind you of it. I did wish that the world had more depth in it other than the stats, I wish the world was actually described more and developed more.

Story: Oh boy, this is where the book completely falls apart. The premise is interesting but not executed well at all. Yes the idea of Mimic slowly gaining powers and the journey it goes through is an interesting one and it could be fun and for the first quarter of the book it felt like Scott Meyer's 'Magic 2.0' where nerd culture was taken for a satirical trip and fans would nod and wink at the cliches and tropes and there would be fun. But the story doesn't really go anywhere except for the endless leveling up, I don't know about other readers but playing an RPG, it's fun to level up and grind but what makes a great RPG is the story and this book forgot that a story was needed cause there isn't one, it's just grinding grinding grinding and that's it. Then there is the casual sexism and female objectification that is present in this book. Normally I'm not that irked about it cause I imagine this was satire and parody and done in fun, but having this objectification tied to the constant use of retard is the thing that make me check out of this book. It's 2018 and this book was published in 2017, we don't use retard anymore, not even in what the writer perceives as good fun, it's pretty offensive the amount and the way it's used and the intention of the writer to use this word as a descriptive is fairly othering. As I said add that to the sexism and objectification which I would have given a pass as parody and it doesn't sit well. Nope.

Characters: The Mimic is interesting and his journey is unexpected and well thought out in a detailed RPG kind of way, there's even the factor of 'Luck' which is explained well. However his transformation doesn't really allow for sustained storytelling and plot making it quickly the story and the book being a grind (not the best part of an RPG). Then there's the succubus, which is designed to give boobs and sex to this book and often times jarring in difference to the rest of the book, but oh well. In the end these characters have no depth and are there for base basic boobs and violence and fan service.

I did not like this book, I liked the premise and I thought I would be having good nerdy satirical and parody fun like Meyer's Magic 2.0 series but what I got here from the writing and the language use was othering and objectifying so yeah...nope. I'm really surprised the constant use of retard was not caught on by the editor or the publisher at all.

Onward to the next book!

I used to think that erotica was probably the easiest genre to write, but I was incorrect. LitRPG must be the easiest genre to churn out by far.

The plot of this novel is that random adventurers (and a few monsters) run into a mimic (a monster that resembles a treasure chest) and get eaten. That's it. This happens over and over and over until the end. We also get an insane amount of exposition that would never fly in any other genre. When we meet anyone new (and when the mimic "levels up") we are given giant info dumps that read like a spreadsheet (level: 3. HP: 75. Strength: 60. Dexterity: 45. Spells: Fireball. Etc. etc. etc. endlessly). As this novel is a novel and not an actual RPG with actual rules, most of these numbers are actually useless to the reader (or could at least be conveyed without smashing the reader in the face with it constantly).

The only saving grace of this book is that I listened to the audiobook version and Jeff Hays delivers a fantastic performance.

This is my first LitRPG novel and likely my last. Plotless novels full of massive amounts of pointless exposition just aren't my bag. And, yes, I have played MMORPGs and I totally understand what they are going for here. I just don't think RPG stats and level grinding translate well into literature (hell, it eventually gets boring even in game form).

Lovely gem of a read

This book is a positive hoot of an adventure with an interesting set of outcomes that twist in inhuman ways. The fact the lead character has no moral compass still doesn't make the plot suffer, just more devious in unexpectedly satisfying ways that make you love the monster.
Looking forward to the next book.

Boxxy lives! (on Amazon now)

I've been reading ELLC on royal roads since I found it. A wonderful series about a monster making its way in the world. The middle drags a bit, but the wonderful carnage starts here once Boxxy get enough wits to properly think. It's hard to enthuse enough about Boxxy's adventures. Perhaps not for the squeamish, it would fit right in on adult swim.

I read a lot of fantasy novels & i don't mind certain satire stories, but only if its well written. I have a pretty dark sense of humour as well, but I just didn't like the humour in this book. The idea of a lesser mimic gaining sentience & becoming a warlock simply by eating enough victims just didn't appeal to me. It might have been better if it hadn't been accompanied by the most sexist descriptions of women I've read in a book of this nature.

I'm not sure if I'd recommend this to anyone.

A fun spin on conventional fantasy

Worth a read. Funny in a gorey way, good plot and a few really good curve balls in the story.

A lovable different protagonist

the main character is a mimic who lucks out and starts levelling up. What are you still doing here? Go read it.

This was a really fun book to read. Definitely crude at times, but a great read from a point of view you don't normally think about.

Как да не подходиш с оптимизъм към книга с такова заглавие (и корица), още повече от български автор? За съжаление освен двете игри на думи в заглавието, в книгата нито има секс, нито големите цици са някаква значителна или дори забележима част от действието.

Главния герой е буквално голям сандък (a large chest, get it? ha. ha. ha.) и приключенията му в ядене на хора не са дори наполовина толкова забавни, колкото авторът явно си мисли.

Subpar for its subgenre

So have read a lot of trash in this subgenre of monster levels up and I got this one because well good ratings funny premise and it might not get ruined by the Japanese way of going funny gimmick... proceeds to not be funny. The closest thing I can compare this with is I was a vending machine when I reincarnated but no that premise was sillier and the book more light hearted. But it suffered from the same issue bland, bland and more bland. The characters were generic, the jokes fell flat, everything proceed as normal and there were no wild twists or ramp ups it was just there.

I still maintain my stance that I'm not LitFRP material. I just hate reading through stats pages even while I play, let alone reading about imaginary character's FRP adventures.

However, this one is hilarious and it was well worth my time (except, well, stats). The premise alone of stupid chest that somehow manages to rule the playground in spite of its stupidity, or actually because of it, is just irresistible.

And onomatopoeia, oh onomatopoeia... Would definitely make me laugh even if totally out of context. As a part of the package, it made me wearing sh*t eating grin from start to end. Maybe I'm just a stupid chest after all.

This book has introduced me to the LitRPG Genre. I will have to look further into the genre as this book was amazing.

Laugh out loud funny.

All reviews in one spot: Night Mode Reading

It all began rather simply. A hero was raiding a low level dungeon on his own, expecting some not too dangerous monsters to help him level up. Then he could at last move on to bigger places, where loot and treasures were automatically better. His wish almost came true when, finally truly lost, he noticed a low level treasure chest at the end of the corridor. Hey, it may not be a monster he wished for, but treasure chest is a treasure chest, and he wasn’t big enough level yet to pass one when found. The chest waited patiently as hero came closer. And as the man finally bent over to open the lid – chest ate him whole. For the treasure chest wasn’t really a treasure chest. It was a mimic in whose nature it was to look like one, that’s all.

After mimic has sated the immediate hunter, it was ready to slump back down and await another traveler. Yet, an undefined thought spread in it’s brainless little head: his surroundings were suspicious, what with all the blood and discarded gear, and might scare off potential food. This logical decision to tidy up has sent the snowball rolling, levels gained, abilities unlocked, decisions more complex than going after food getting made, and even a very beautiful summoned companion mimic could, at the very least, eat up while bored.

The book was very amusing. At first one can’t even expect this is not a story of a hero on a stupid quest, but rather of a little low level mob. It is also very well written and funny, even with all the random gore there and here. Definitely a 5 out of 5.

I feel like there is little I can say about this book that hasn't been brought up by many of it's other reviewers.

I agree that the pretense was amusing and the narration engaging (I listened to the audiobook) and that if it had been written with a little more class or tact it could have been a five star read for me. I almost dnfed it several times and as it is the only reason I finished this book at all is because I had the audiobook and I could listen to it passively.

This book was published in 2017, pretty sure it hasn't been okay to use the word retarded for a long time.

The depictions of women in this book are appalling. The sexism is rampant and often contained in irrelevant throw away lines such as "all female casters were crazy" and "Males are smarter, but females are more vicious." Such lines are completely pointless as they added nothing plot wise and aren't even clever or funny. They seemingly just exist to be offensive.

The depiction of a would be rape scene as pleasurable for the victim was quite frankly horrifying. The author tries to give a reason why it is okay but I'm not buying it. There is nothing funny or entertaining about rape.

This book hit on all the worst things you hear about the reddit gamer stereotype. I don't know why, but I was expecting something better then that.

Other than the p*rnographic fan service sh*t (hence minus 1 star), I truly enjoyed this book. The main character is so original and the book is much better edited than some eBooks I’ve read. There are moments when I pretty much saw this book as a thickly plotted hentai in my mind’s eye, which I’m not exactly sure how to feel about. It was like reading a book written from an anime that already existed. Anyways, I’m hooked to the main character so I’ll keep on reading.

I am torn between rating this a 3 or a 5. I enjoyed the story a lot and the narration style was interestingly unique. The erotica part was poorly done, had no real bearing on anything involved in the story, and had an air of underlying toxic misogyny that made me somewhat uncomfortable. This ultimately leads me to rate it 3-stars while without the bad erotica/poor attempt at humor I would have given it 5.

Hilariously in bad taste. Highly recommended.