5 stars. Would read again if I ran out of things to read.
Sometimes you just want to run a tavern. You don’t want to save the world. You don’t want to be the hero any more. You’ve been doing that for 200 years and it’s time to take a vacation. You don’t want to get involved in politics. You don’t want to be hanging around with nobility. You just want to make the best beer that you possibly can, and run a tavern.
This is the premise of the Tipsy Pelican Tavern book series, and it really works for me.
Things I liked about the book series:
- A slice of life story about a tavern keeper and his friends
- Solid writing
- Written with good humor
- Slow pace; things take time to develop
- Breaks a lot of the tropes for books such as these
- Gets right into the story without any back-story on the characters; back story comes in bits and pieces
- Strong female characters who don’t need to be saved, with a strong male lead who is very competent
- Most of the characters have depth and are not shallow 2D characters
- Given a few chances to end his “vacation” early, the MC holds strongly on the “just want to be a tavern keeper” dream
Things that took away from it:
- It feels like some prominent characters in book 1 disappear by book 3, with no real closure on those stories
- I think some of the main characters can experience more personal growth and development based on the events they were put through
- The books are a bit short. I read the books (1-4) in one day each.
This is not LitRPG because there is no system nor attribute points. Although there are no levels, there is this concept of “gates”. This person has no gates open, while someone else has two gates open. The number of gates you have open is a rough measure of power.
I recommend this series, and will eagarly be awaiting the next book.
