If you ever find out who posted this, /u/faustyna, let me know and I'll summon Satan all over their hard drive. :)

Sometimes I wonder why people even bother to review books outside their preferred genre? They aren't going to like it, they're just wasting their time, and they're not helping the author. But, just for lulz, I'm going to review this review.

I want to explain why, and not limply.

You already failed there, buddy. All you had to say was, "Romance isn't my preferred fiction, but I gave this a try and didn't like it."

I do think this book lacks a certain calibre, and definitely falls down into, in my opinion, a large well where slushy, poor, self-published works exist.

Can you do better? Let's see you prove it.

If the purpose of writing is to make things clear and draw you into the world, all it serves to do consistently is jar.

Clarification may be the purpose of informative writing, but informing the reader is the province of non-fiction. As a novelette, Larkspur was no doubt written with other purposes in mind. It is presumptuous in any case to impose an intent upon the author.

No real atmosphere is generated within the world (besides a feeble construct brought about by amateurish tautology).

Dafuq? How much atmosphere do you expect from a 15000-word novelette focused primarily on character?

Only an attempt to emulate far better stories that falls short of the mark.

Again, I'd like to see this person do better.

This work is truly and solidly dead, and even a necrocræfter can't do much to solve that.

They said the same about heavy metal, but those with more refined tastes still appreciate what the uncouth deride as "dead".