#how fucked up his arc & everything that happened with him and declan was.

[ronanlynchbf]

we need to talk abt this again i think.

[crimeronan]

as an Irish person reading trc/tdt what do you think of Maggies characterisation of the Lynch family??

oh i LOVE this question. anon so kindly giving me permission to infodump....

the short answer is: i love it?? i love it. i have varying quibbles about how niall's "redemption arc" is done and stuff like that, but purely on the irish side of things, i love it

further necessary context: i'm irish-american a few generations removed from ireland (who happens to have a hyperfixation on irish myth), my closest familial connections in the country are some distant cousins that my great-aunt traced recently. direct relations to her, but given that she is like 96, much less direct to me. so my perspective is very different from that of an irish person raised n living in ireland, & most of what i love most about the lynch family is directly related to diaspora and intergenerational trauma stuff

i said i was gonna infodump and then couldn't decide where to start. waow. okay so i've talked before about most of the worldbuilding in the dreamer trilogy being based in irish myth - ronan being from the otherworld (eldritch god, fairy, same thing), fintan mac bochra and the hawk of achill, not giving your true name/address to people at the fairy market, etc. these stories are woven through the whole fabric of the series

then the concept of irish storytelling itself is Also woven through the whole series, on both a meta and in-canon level

traditional irish storytellers will take a myth and make it their own, you can trace the origins of different tales back dozens or hundreds of years. the goal isn't to tell the story the way it's been told in generations past, but instead to tell it how You'd tell it. so there are these books repurposing irish myth in this unique way, but also these characters who are all so in love with storytelling in their own ways

you can see it in how niall and aurora tell their stories, how niall's always have a focus on action and tragedy and grisly death while aurora's are more focused on the love and the feelings and the soft fade-out of a tragic hero

you can see it in how declan has inherited niall's propensity for storytelling (the twitter confirmation of his middle name being "tadhg" still makes me Big Eyes Emoji) and also inherited niall's propensity for reckless idiocy, Geis Of Bullshit indeed.

then there's the way that declan and ronan both find themselves playing out different parts of niall's worst traits, how intergenerational trauma seems inescapable, how every damn person in the family is So Mentally Ill. this isn't necessarily the case for every irish-american family but it sure is for kitkat's. hoo boy we love giving chronic pain, psychosis, and inescapable depression to our offspring

that greywaren quote about "diaspora always idealizes the homeland" has stuck with me for a while because there's this kind of muted longing in the books' depiction of ireland itself, but also in the books' depiction of the barns, a place that niall and mór Made ronan's homeland. and more than that i see it in declan's views on his parents themselves, how he's able to reconcile with mór Because she's so distant and unfathomable and never personally fucked him up, so it's easier to forgive and forget everything she's done... how niall is dead and gone and can no longer change his behavior or grow or learn or fuck declan up any worse, so it's easier to accept his love as uncomplicated and good. child idealizing his distant homeland because that's what he's Supposed to have

truly don't know if that was the authorial intention but. it's the only way declan's arc makes any sense to me. that one line does a shitload of heavy lifting

and on a less theme-heavy note i love little details like. the brothers being so in touch with irish culture as second-gen immigrant kids, love that they play the uilleann pipes and attend the fleadh, love that ronan can do an irish accent on command, love that declan keeps photos of ireland in his bedroom but they still don't quite reflect his True Self like his attic does, love that mór is a gaelgeoir (irish speaker), there are other details i'm forgetting now

this post is ungodly long so i'll leave it here. these r my thoughts. it's good shit o/

[shywhumpauthor]

I.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do for Noah when it comes time for “rescue”

Usually with my stories I have a vague idea, though they never end up getting written, but with him? Nope. Nothin.

Under the cut more rambling about Noah

The main arcs I have are

Training

Undercover

Capture

Flip

And then what? Declan’s going to have to be stopped eventually. Most of Noah’s organization is dead. As far as he knows, there’s no one who knows that he’s even there. The only people who did were the council, and like I said. Dead, dead, and deader.

A rescue would be practically impossible, unless there was a team on the inside working to help him, which there can’t be. After Noah’s discovery, Declan really cracked down on security. Anyone and everyone who enters the building is loyal.

Same with escape, impossible. And even if he did, there would be nowhere for him to go. Even if he managed to get out of the compound, past all of the security, and evade recapture while he finds his way back to civilization, there would seriously be nowhere for him to go. He’s alone, legally dead, he has nothing left. Maybe a shelter would take him in, but where from there? It would be nearly impossible for him to get a job, and he honestly wouldn’t be able to go on for long by himself.

I suppose maybe a raid would work, but it wouldn’t be able to be connected to any authorities and whatnot. The law is on Declan’s side. It’s a fucked up world. If you have enough money, anything can be stretched to fit that grey space that’s not illegal but definitely not ethical. If so, it would have to be connected to another organization. Noah’s was the main group fighting against Declan’s, there’s not really any other influential enough to pull off anything like that. It could be a rival company, but they wouldn’t be likely to succeed. Declan would find them and find Noah. Wouldn’t lead to a rescue arc

I suppose there’s potential for others to still be alone. Missionaries like Noah who were out at the time of the bombing. Or I could make it so that their group was tipped off and able to evacuate before it was blown up? But then they’d have to go on the down-low, and wouldn’t be able to send out a rescue mission.

And Noah’s not really worth a mission. He did his job, he was an expendable piece. Like a pawn in chess. If he were to be rescued, it would have to be coincidental. Some other mission that just so happened to run into him and were kind enough to save him—another issue. They wouldn’t be. It would be an unnecessary risk to compromise their mission, which they wouldn’t take for the sake of a single life.

Declan would just continue to use him for labor, condition and manipulate him until Noah was determined loyal, and he would just work for Declan until… whatever.

So no escape, no release, no rescue.

I don’t know what to do. He deserves at least some peace in the end, after all that crap. I don’t know how to get there though.

Maybe Declan’s whole organization could collapse? His buyers are suddenly no longer interested, or are caught and apprehended, so there’s no one buying. The lack of income leads to a halt in production, which will lead to implosion of the company. Bankruptcy, failure. Declan would have to figure out something else to do or shut down completely. He wouldn’t be able to keep the branch running without the money, so it would probably fail. He would have to disband the whole thing, sell everything underground and flee before his actions caught up to him. I don’t know what would happen with Noah then. Declan would either take him (unlikely) or kill him. Sure, he likes Noah, so that’s a possibility, but he probably wouldn’t be able to. And he can’t let Noah go.

Maybe he could give Noah to a higher-up in the company? (Not higher than what Declan was, but higher than a standard supervisor or whatever) and have them “hold onto” him until Declan figures out what the hell to do. And then what would happen? He would either completely abandon Noah, realizing that he wouldn’t ever be able to recollect him without risking what little he has left, or he would take him back to help with whatever new operation of his, which wouldn’t lead to a recovery arc.

If he leaves him with the higher up, I suppose there’s possibility for a rescue. Very small. The guy (g/n) wouldn’t have much experience with, you know, captives, and they wouldn’t know what to do. Noah might bounce around captors for a bit (I say captors but not really. More like handlers. He’s pretty compliant if it ever gets to this point) or he’d just stay with that one dude (g/n) who would exploit him for work once he finds a new position now that he’s out of a job.

Maybe that would work? There’s a few details in a backstory piece that I’m working on that could help maybe, I’m not spoiling yet though. At some point, either during a routine raid or by pure tracking and searching specifically for him (which would mean there was at least one person who kinda cares, and was willing to break the rules of the organization to help him).

If I go the routine raid way, that could be easier. There could be someone in the team who just so happens to recognize Noah (although years have passed by this point, and he’s looking pretty rough). They wouldn’t be allowed to help him because that’s against mission protocol, but maybe they actually have some fragments of morals (almost unheard of in Noah’s world lmao) and they’d go back to get him out on their own.

Maybe that would work???

Maybe???????

None of this is edited or thought through. I typed as I thought. This is my exact deduction process, welcome to my mind.

If the story ever gets that far. It would be a lotttt of things to work out but hey. This is hypothetical right now. And fun (but slightly stressful) to think about.

Thoughts/opinions?

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 3.9

hmmm. How often is Avery using Guilherme's glamour? I don't think I know enough about how it works to say for sure if this is bad, or if it's more a fake-it-til-you-make-it confidence builder, but I am worried.

... is Avery just mentally editing out Declan's friends' names because she doesn't care, or are both his friends also named Declan (and if so, why does they let him be the unnumbered one)

Relationships with the Kennet Others have deteriorated, which seems inevitable but sad. I wonder if 10+ arcs down the line this will seem like a minor hiccup, or if instead the period before this falling out will be the aberration, and the first two arcs will seem as if they had training wheels.

It wasn’t that they were all named Declans, but dad had joked they were all so similar in their tastes, fashion, and stuff, that they could be Declan one, Declan two, Declan three, and Declan four.  Declan Four had been pushed out of the group after giving some change to a girl they all liked so she could buy something at the school book sale, so that made things a little simpler.  And sadder.  When they were at Declan two’s house, the names changed so they were whatever one, whatever two, whatever three, and so on.  She didn’t actually know Declan two’s name.

Very funny answer to make to my question above! Bizarre though

“He’s weird.  He doesn’t hit her or anything, that I know of.  But like… I can imagine her getting old enough and leaving and not ever talking to him again. It’s not like- there’s not anything I can really explain.  He makes her do a lot of chores and he complains at her and like… I don’t know.  He blames her for their divorce or something?”

yeah. fucked up but not to the point that anyone feels like they can intervene. and nothing super concrete to point at, everything is emotion-based.

“We worry about you so much, Avery.  Your dad and I and your siblings adore you, we do.  And we want good things for you.  We failed you so badly, not noticing how lonely you’d gotten, until your teacher reached out to us, and right now, not to make our concerns your burdens, but… I have this feeling like you’re pulling away and somehow we’re failing you, maybe in a worse way.”

:|

Avery dusted her fingers with the glamour in her back pocket, then pressed it to her heart.  Being treated as more adult.  Communicating.  Navigating tough conversations.

Another case of glamour!

If a year passed and Guilherme told her this was all in her head, and using the glamour like this didn’t actually do anything, she’d feel like it was worth it, if only because it forced her to keep looking for the little successes and good points.

this is a nice way to look at it. I am still worried. Maybe consult with Lucy and Verona?

A bit of glamour.  She drew a bullseye on her hand, as a reward for making the shot.  I get down on myself for having bad aim, but I have my moments.

Another glamour use! That's... a lot.

I am hoping for some good clues from this interview. Or technically, since I already got to read Louise's perspective, I hope the Kennet Trio spot something I didn't. Current things that stand out: Edith's whole thing, she didn't say she was uninvolved, just that she didn't do it, her movements were unusual and unwitnessed; the body was hidden in the Ruins? but Alpeana didn't see it; John and the Hungry Choir, though that might be unconnected; Guilherme met someone, though he won't say who; Maricica had an ongoing feud.

Notes:

Others didn't hear howling, only Louise

Bleeding full moon, out of normal cycle

Wolf-like creature absorbing the blood (presuming this is the Carmine Beast?)

CB was limping in town but not before (an injury getting worse, or picking up a new one after Louise started following?)

Why didn't she fight back, or call for help/who was she calling to? Was she trying to contact someone in specific, or trying not to be heard at all?

If the attack that made her limp happened in the Ruins after Louise started following, why was the CB howling to begin with? Multiple blows?

“You think it was more than one that was involved?” Lucy asked. “Would make sense, wouldn’t it? She seemed resigned to her fate, if she wasn’t fighting. So… she didn’t trust the locals or something. So maybe she reaches out, in hopes that a person will hear and challenge the local Others?”

hmmm. If it was a group, we know that the one thing they all agree on is keeping Kennet isolated. Did the CB want to bring in practitioners? Why?

“I just had a weird thought,” Avery said.  “Maybe an important one.  Something from the Forest Ribbon Trail.  And the day we awakened.”

no idea what this is! went back through the awakening notes and still have no idea

The coin, tin, was old, stamped with HBC 100.  They’d covered some of this in their homework, a week ago.  Hudson’s Bay Compay.  Fur trading.

again with the relevant classwork!

“Good to know,” Avery said.  She turned over the coin, then held it down for Snowdrop to see.  “Recognize it?”

“No.”

Avery nodded.  “I do.”

[neon-nocte]

Arielle re-reads The Dream Thieves (via audiobook)

I literally don’t care if anyone reads this, it’s fun. Also to set the scene 90% of the time I have been listening to this audiobook I have been playing animal crossing

Declan’s Aglionby dorm door reads “effervescent.” Yes ma’am

Declan pointing a gun at the grey man!! God I am excited for more badass Declan in mister impossible

“Ronan, a sinner himself, wasn’t as struck by the transgression as he was by Gansey’s insistence that they continue to pretend Adam was a saint.” (Ch 3) — and earlier in the chapter, the narration reflected that Ronan’s leather bracelets smelled like gasoline, which Ronan found sexy. I love me some “Ronan Lynch is in love with Adam Parrish” foreshadowing!!!!

Also, just the way Ronan Knows Adam. Adam’s “unknowable” arc, and the above quote, and when Blue says she doesn’t know Adam during their breakup scene, and in TRK when Adam talks to Gansey about his first kiss with Ronan, Gansey says that Adam knows Ronan better but Gansey has known Ronan longer.

“Blue was a fanciful but sensible thing, like a platypus, or one of those sandwiches that had been cut into circles for a fancy tea party.” (Ch 10) — omfg I cannot believe this quote isn’t more famous in this fandom. I’m obsessed[[more]]

The way that Maura & The Grey Man have instant chemistry... could’ve been Blue & Gansey’s dynamic if she wasn’t so stubbornly “choosing” Adam

The way the Adam-mask-dream scene parallels & foreshadows the Adam-choking-Ronan scene from TRK....

The entirety of 1) Ronan writing on the rock in Cabeswater 2) Ronan dreaming of Adam in the mask and 3) the gang visiting the barns for the first time scenes are soooo good

Gansey in a t-shirt and jeans and both Ronan and Blue are a little ☺️😮 at seeing his collarbones

Ah yes the Classic “Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps”

How Gansey holding the sleeping mouse reminded Ronan of being at the barns with Matthew as a kid.... Ronan Lynch has 3 brothers and that’s canon 😭

Adam finding the mask in the house at the barns and Ronan knocking it put of his hands, then hating everything about the house and his father and himself. 😭Cant really tell Adam “don’t mess with this particular dream object because it fucked you over in my dream and I can’t stand that because I’m in love with you, which is the whole reason why you were in my dream to begin with.”

Do you ever get that strange sense of deja vu when rereading a book and getting to a scene you don’t remember well until you read it again?

Blue going back & forth on whether Gansey was “oblivious” or “enlightened” during the argument about tarot & religion. I forgot how fun it is to watch Blue’s opinion of Gansey evolve in real time. She wants to hate him, to find him annoying, but he just keeps surprising her

Ronan cracking up at the obvious show of “men being attracted to women” when Adam & Gansey are all awed over Orla during the lake scene always sends me

Some things want to be found. !!!!!!!

I had forgotten that Ronan had dreamed about Adam tracing his tattoo on his bare back with his fingers! Foreshadowing to TRK!!!!

Seeing Adam incredibly nervous for the event with Gansey’s family one moment and then cracking the fuck up at the conversation about the pigeon show with Malory the next moment made me happy!

Mmm Blue admitting to herself that she is crushing on Gansey and NOT on Adam, finally we can get this show on the road. And by show I mean both Bluesey and Pynch

It’s the Blue picturing the dreaming tree vision of kissing Gansey to get in the mood for her kissing practice with Noah for me

The Adam/Blue breakup scene is so fucking iconic... for some reason “it’s not gonna be you” has always been hilarious to me

Adam, honey.... we should all be raging feminists. regardless of whether we are dating blue sargent.

I loveeeeeeeeee the Adam & Persephone dynamic and I’m so excited to see more of it in BLLB even tho :/ happens

I cannot stop myself from grinning like a fool during chapter 50 as Fully Psychic Adam refuses the narrative that his 3-card spread tells and pulls a 4th card. The magician!!! Yes boo!

When Adam asks Persephone if he’s different and she tells him that he already was but not the others won’t be able to stop noticing. Makes me think about Ronan, and how this is really when his & Ronan’s friendship changes, so it’s interesting that this occurs literally the very next scene after Adam’s breakup with blue

Scholar Gansey is my favorite Gansey too Blue

Blue & Gansey’s “let’s just pretend” scene 😭😭😭😭

Blue just trying to remain sensible the one time it actually fucking matters, he’s gonna be dead within the year! But she can’t resist! Because Gansey is canonically her soulmate 😭😭😭

Sometimes I get so into pynch that I forget how fucking tragically beautiful the Bluesey story is. They’re so good I love them so much

If I’m ever in a situation where I’m like “I’m not sure if I’m meant to be with This person or That person” I just need to reread all of the Bluesey scenes in this book for clarity

disregard all of the above my favorite ship in the series is blue Sargent/pink switchblade

“Gansey, who had looked aghast at the idea of the Grey Man having to abandon his books...” (ch 54) — god I love Gansey

Thinking about the TDT Ronan who is just learning how to control what he takes from his dreams vs CDTH Ronan who is like Hennessy’s Dreaming Professor

In other words, Ronan is to Hennessey in CDTH what Persephone is to Adam in TDT/BLLB. Or what Kavinsky is to Ronan minus literally everything about him besides his knowledge of how to dream

I remember when I first read this series I was lowkey shook at the “Ronan’s second secret was Adam” part even though it was obvious by then that Ronan was 1) gay and 2) gay for Adam. But as a lesbian who has been burned by queerbaiting so many times I was like yay! The bar is so low I stg

BLLB is the Book of Pining within the series so that will be extremely fun to listen to

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

The Hate Project by Kris Ripper

The Love Study #2

 Adored this Carina Adores romance! It had me smiling, caring, chuckling, and hoping for the best for two rather prickly characters. I will say that the story grew on me and I was not enamored at all by the end of the first chapter BUT by the end of the second chapter I was invested and wanted to know what would happen.

 What I liked:

* The slow build of the relationship

* That the two men were not “easy” to love from the first moment you met them

* The group of friends that go by a name that would be censored if I typed it in her…they are there for one another no matter what.

* Being able to read and understand this book without having read book one in the series first

* Stepping into a world that is not my own

* Oscar: anxiety plagued, quirky, caring, organized, interesting, a person that as explained helped me understand better someone I know.

* Jack: bright, cautious, caring, loves his grandmother, a person with potential that is tapped in this story.

* That both characters became more and more real as I read, I was invested in them and their HEA was something I truly wanted them to achieve.

* Evelyn: Jack’s grandmother is a character and oh so lovable!

* The way the hoarding aspect of the story was handled

* Finding out what “The Secret” was

* All of it really except…

 What I didn’t like:

* Having to say goodbye to the characters when the book ended…

 Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin-Carina Adores for the ARC – This is my honest review.

 5 Stars

The Hate Project by Kris Ripper is available in eBook, trade paperback and audiobook formats on April 27th!

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

This arrangement is either exactly what they need--or a total disaster

 Oscar is a grouch.

 That’s a well-established fact among his tight-knit friend group, and they love him anyway.

 Jack is an ass.

 Jack, who’s always ready with a sly insult, who can’t have a conversation without arguing, and who Oscar may or may not have hooked up with on a strict no-commitment, one-time-only basis. Even if it was extremely hot.

 Together, they’re a bickering, combative mess.

 When Oscar is fired (answering phones is not for the anxiety-ridden), he somehow ends up working for Jack. Maybe while cleaning out Jack’s grandmother’s house they can stop fighting long enough to turn a one-night stand into a frenemies-with-benefits situation.

 The house is an archaeological dig of love and dysfunction, and while Oscar thought he was prepared, he wasn’t. It’s impossible to delve so deeply into someone’s past without coming to understand them at least a little, but Oscar has boundaries for a reason—even if sometimes Jack makes him want to break them all down.

 After all, hating Jack is less of a risk than loving him…

 The Love Study

Book 1: The Love Study (available now!)

Book 2: The Hate Project (available April 27)

Book 3: The Life Revamp (coming November 30)

  Add The Hate Project to your Goodreads!

   EXCERPT

I’d never had friends until college. And even then, I wouldn’t have had friends except that Ronnie and I were freshman year roommates (before she transitioned, obviously), and she was friends with Dec and Mase and Mia, and they came around a lot and just sort of looped me in. It happened slowly over that first year and suddenly I had…friends.

What’s that thing with snake poison, where you take it in small doses every day to grow your immunity to it? That’s what happened with the Motherfuckers. Eventually I built up a tolerance to their, like, happiness and friendliness and optimism. Now my brain just recognizes them as a part of me. The same thing probably happened to them: eventually they built up a tolerance to my moods and freak-outs.

The most important thing you need to know about my friends is that they’re all way better people than I am. You can tell because they threw me a pity party. There’s the aforementioned Declan and Sidney, who got together during the commission of a video series called The Love Study on Sidney’s YouTube channel. Then there’s Mia and Ronnie, disgustingly married to each other. And the last of the official Motherfuckers is Mason, who once tried to get married (to Dec) and was left at the altar (by Dec). Which was awkward for a while, but now it’s fine. Though of all of us Mase is the one who wants a white picket fence and 2.5 kids.

Sounds fucking awful to me, but to each his own, I don’t judge, whatever floats your life raft, et cetera.

Since I didn’t want to get my impotent rage-slash-panic germs on anyone, I took up a seat in the corner and didn’t leave it except to use the bathroom and acquire victuals. By which I mean vegan, gluten-free, cauliflower-based pizza that turned out to be delicious. It used to be that my friends had an informal rotation for who’d sit with me, trading off for the duration of the social event, but that was before Jack. Jack was new to the group. Dec had collected him from work, and for reasons I didn’t understand (I would have suspected sexual favors if I didn’t know better), he kept mostly showing up to drinks with the Motherfuckers. And was now also on the invite list for ad hoc gatherings to celebrate catastrophic job loss.

Jack and I had no other setting with each other than arguing. Since neither of us was all that nice (and everyone else in the Motherfuckers was very nice), it worked out. He thinks he knows everything, I definitely know everything, and even though for the most part we would arrive at the same point from different angles, we spent most of our fights poking at each other’s angles to prove they were incorrect.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when it turned out bickering was actually foreplay.

Since the party was in my honor I was obligated to stay through dinner, and I did. In my corner. Weathering the well-intended reassurances of my friends was hard enough, but when Dec brought out one of those quirky adult card games where kittens exploded I had to get the hell out of there. Too much goodness on a bad day.

Jack apparently had a similar thought. It wasn’t the first time we’d made our escape at the same moment. This time, instead of parting ways on the sidewalk with a lukewarm we know each other through friends wave, both of us stopped.

He stopped a second before I did, which I immediately decided made him more desperate. It wasn’t charitable, but I believe in keeping track of who has the advantage in any encounter. Even a one-off.

“I live ten minutes away,” he said.

“Good for you.”

His lips twisted a little, from not-smile to not-impressed. “This is a pity fuck, Oscar. Take it or leave it.” With that he turned and made for a black two-door something-something on the other side of the street.

I hesitated. For about five seconds. But following up a pity party with a pity fuck sounded about right. “Just to clarify,” I called as I caught up with him, “I don’t do relationships.”

He hit a button that unlocked his car. “Just to clarify, I’m not offering one.”

Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories featuring beloved romance tropes, where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.

 A new Carina Adores title is available each month in trade paperback, ebook and audiobook formats.

●      The Hideaway Inn by Philip William Stover (available now!)

●      The Girl Next Door by Chelsea M. Cameron (available now!)

●      Just Like That by Cole McCade (available now!)

●      Hairpin Curves by Elia Winters (available now!)

●      The Love Study by Kris Ripper (available now!)

●      The Secret Ingredient by KD Fisher (available now!)

●      Just Like This by Cole McCade (available now!)

●      Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love by Kim Fielding (available now!)

●      Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish (available now!)

●      Hard Sell by Hudson Lin (coming May 25)

●      For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes (coming August 31)

●      Sailor Proof by Annabeth Albert (coming September 28)

●      Meet Me in Madrid by Verity Lowell (coming October 26)

●      The Life Revamp by Kris Ripper (coming November 30)

  Buy The Hate Project by Kris Ripper Links

Harlequin.com: https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781335509178_the-hate-project.html

IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335509178

Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Love-Study-The-Hate-Project-2-Reissue-Edition-Paperback-9781335509178/964923621

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Project-Love-Study-Book-ebook/dp/B08FBCCK63

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Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-hate-project

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kris Ripper lives in the great state of California and zir pronouns are ze/zir. Kris shares a converted garage with a kid, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.

 Connect with the Author

Website: https://krisripper.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/405062456366636/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kris_Ripper

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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8053438.Kris_Ripper

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kris-Ripper

[toast-the-unknowing]

What are the #thots on CDTH?

This is begging for one of those “edgy/depressed/dumbass bitch/thot/bastard” memes, but sadly you sent it to someone with no patience for slapping together graphics, so you get a lot of words instead. Behind a cut, for length and SPOILERS.

I really enjoyed this book, my reactions to most of the additions to canon were positive, it felt a wide range of emotions while reading it and upon finishing I found that it had knocked me sort of off center in that way where I don’t want to write anything ever again, or read anything, or really do much but stare out of windows. I know that feeling will pass, but I’m soaking in it for now. I haven’t yet discerned if there are going to be any substantial changes to the ways that I write these characters, when I write these characters again.

I loved Ronan in this book, which was a relief. I had been a bit worried that Maggie intended for him to end up as Lonely God Ronan, isolated and just too damn special for the rest of humanity, but it now appears that is very much not the plan. It hurt watching him be trapped at the Barns, wanting something different from life and not knowing how to get it, and it was amazing to watch him forge a connection with someone new and find the capability that he has to help other people, instead of just kind of thinking of himself as the fuck-up.

Holy Shit I felt emotions about Matthew, that was unexpected and unprecedented. Fuck did that boy make me sad. I am greatly looking forward to seeing where his story goes, now that he actually has one. I want some quality Matthew & Jordan dream duo bonding time.

I want, just, quality Jordan content in general, I love Jordan, I need more of her, she was wonderful.

Hennessy leaves me cold, but I had a very similar reaction to Ronan until most of the way through The Dream Thieves, so I am giving her the benefit of the doubt and waiting to see what happens in the future.

HOLY SHIT I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT DECLAN.

It did crack me up that it literally took one page for the book to start talking shit about him, but I also found the whole “Declan is deliberately, crushingly boring” idea interesting. It surprised me but still makes sense in retrospect, which is the best kind of surprise. I hadn’t pictured him as the kind of guy who would go to work and let people snap at him and call him by the wrong name, but I think my understanding might have been a little closer to the version of Declan that still thought he could have Senator or Congressman in front of his name. I think Declan might be the character I most have to reconsider, but I’m happy with how he was portrayed here and I’m looking forward to doing that reconsideration, and to seeing what happens to him next in canon.

God but he just continues to be the hardest working brother, and he still fucks it up, but he doesn’t want to fuck up, but he just shouldn’t have to deal with all of this shit, and ow, ow, my heart.

I adored Declan/Jordan and every moment where she delights in surprising an honest reaction out of him. “I see the real you when no one else does” is EXACTLY my kind of ship.

I had really wanted this trilogy to force Ronan to reexamine his understanding of his father, but getting to see Declan do some actual work on processing his pain is fantastic too. I love all of the moments where he admits that he hates Niall. It fucked me up so bad, because it’s like he doesn’t want to be thinking or saying it but he just cannot keep it in. It’s like his emotional nightwash, but he doesn’t get to dream it away.

@comicsohwhyohwhy​ and I once discussed the problem of Ashley, and we JOKINGLY suggested that maybe the Ashley from TRB and the Ashley mentioned in TRK are two different Ashleys, that maybe Declan has just dated a string of women named Ashley, and then we had a good laugh about how absurd that would be, and I cannot fucking believe that that has turned out to be canon. I am oddly delighted with this development.

I am happy with the Adam content that we got and with the size of his role. I felt like the book did a good job of honoring his importance in Ronan’s life, letting him be present and matter and affect Ronan (and disagree with him in productive ways where they didn’t just argue and where he wasn’t just Declan 2.0), while still keeping him in a support role, since that was apparently the goal. I’m unclear on what kind of role he’s going to have going forward, but it looks like he’s being set up to have some kind of character arc, with the “Adam is lying to everyone who knows him” situation, so I really do want that to pay out and go somewhere, even if he does continue to be a supporting rather than featured character.

That whole Harvard situation breaks my heart: Adam’s friends think that his family is wonderful and that his boyfriend is a violent drunk. I can’t imagine any interactions around that that aren’t fucked up. Adam having to defend Ronan to his friends any time he comes up, but not being able to tell the truth, so he just sounds like he’s making empty excuses for someone that’s bad for him…which is something that he has in fact had to do, but not about Ronan, about the parents that all of his friends are “jealous” of him for having. Fuck. FUCK.

I loved every mention of Gansey and Blue. I can understand why Maggie doesn’t want to include them as characters, but that could have easily ended in a situation where they’re just…noticeably absent, and instead we got this, confirmation that they still talk to their friends and love them and are involved in their lives, plus we got A+ Gansey-texts-like-an-old-man content.

I enjoyed Farooq-Lane a lot just from a standpoint of being an ordinary normal person who gets put into a weird as shit situation and then…continues to be an ordinary normal person who has ordinary normal reactions to things. I find that kind of shit fascinating – it’s the kind of thing that makes for great comedy and improv, but it can also be very effective in drama, and we really got to see a wide range here.

What. the actual. fuck. is up with the New Fenian and Mor O Corra. Like I mean okay the Lynches have to live through all their parent trauma again, yeah I get that, okay Niall apparently made a dream double of an actual woman he’d slept with which like, wow I didn’t think Aurora could be retroactively creepier but damn if Niall didn’t find a way, blah blah I get all that. But like. What is – what is that relationship, exactly? Between them? Niall’s ex made a dream copy of him, too, but like…as a kid? Or one that doesn’t age? Has Mor O Corra out-creepered Niall Lynch? What the actual fuck is up with those two. I almost don’t want to know. I kind of love being this weirded out.

Bryde is really goddamn tiresome. I am expecting he’s going to turn out to be a villain and honestly that can’t happen fast enough for me. Although I  anticipate that we’ll see Ronan buying into his crap more before that happens, so, it looks like we get to look forward to a lot more overblown insufferable monologues about how “special” we are and how we’re better than those gross boring mundane people. Blah.

I’m kind of disappointed that this is apparently a series where the stakes are THE END OF THE WORLD and where the protagonists have to fight a SHADOWY INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION that can send ARMIES of WELL-ARMED HIGHLY TRAINED OPERATIVES to HUNT DOWN THE PEOPLE WITH SUPERPOWERS – this is 90% of all fantasy stories, and it’s boring, and I’m tired of it. I like that the stakes in The Raven Cycle are small but still immensely meaningful. What happens in The Raven Cycle if the characters don’t succeed? Gansey dies. Ronan dies and Matthew falls asleep. Adam doesn’t go to college. Blue doesn’t get to travel the world. The world doesn’t explode, but we still care so so much about seeing them succeed, because we care so much about those characters living and getting to build the future they want. That’s a thousand times more interesting to me than “we have to…[dramatic music, put on sunglasses] SAVE THE WORLD.” Spare me.

I’m still going to read the other two, obviously, and I’m not even really mad about this, mostly just rolling my eyes. But I expect that Maggie is going to use this plot device I don’t care about to do things emotionally and character-wise that I do care about, and that’s the important part.

There is one actual thing that pisses me off with this book, that I actively hate and wish was not a part of canon, that I will probably just ignore and pretend isn’t canon, at least once I have wrapped my head around the fact that it even happened in the first place: why the fuck does Ronan go to confession.

I was willing to accept in The Raven Cycle that Maggie had no interest in doing anything with the fact that she had made the Catholic character and the gay character the same character, because Ronan is actively figuring himself out in the course of that series, because there’s so much else going on in his head and his life that I can buy that religion isn’t his top priority, because hey, I kind of liked that the series wasn’t one more Sad Story About A Sad Gay Who Is Sad Because Homophobia. I can accept a Ronan who goes to mass every week because that’s family time, because that’s tradition, because that’s what Lynches do.

But going to confession – with some degree of regularity! – is not going through the motions. When I was a Catholic school girl and an ALTAR SERVER who went to mass twice a week, confession was still a “maybe once during Lent, if we get around to it” kind of deal. What the hell does Ronan say in confession, exactly? He’s not confessing to the shit that he actually feels guilty about, playing god and creating life, because that’s a secret. He’s not confessing to the thing that he’s getting told every week is going to send him to hell. So what is he doing there?

This ceases to be “skipping past homophobia so we can just have a nice happy gay story for once (or at least a story that’s unhappy for other reasons)”. This is firmly into “deliberately and cruelly ignoring the real pain and suffering that the Catholic Church inflicts on oppressed people every single day” and I think it was a grave, grave misstep.

So my super general #thots: loved it, largely positive, some things I’m iffy on but excited to see where they go, a couple of plot elements/characters I don’t care for but can put up with for the sake of all of the good, one big negative that will probably feature only very very sparingly in canon.

[jellybeanbeing]

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

Synopsis:

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die. And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all. Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality. Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it. Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .

Review (Spoilers Included):

I’ve read a fair amount of spin off series from other authors and they never lived up to the original or felt like a good book by itself but let me tell you, Call Down the Hawk is a magnificent piece of art. It was such a good book and I had so much fun reading it. 

Now, I’m not gonna lie and say I wasn’t nervous about this book and the series. I was pretty nervous. I didn’t know how Maggie Stiefvater would present the characters, Ronan and Adam, in this book because we know who they are from TRC but they’ve grown and changed so how would they look like and feel like? Also, knowing the fact that you can read CDTH without reading TRC terrified me because how would Maggie Stiefvater present these characters to people who’ve never read about them and their character development/arc before. It was all so scary because I want people who don’t know Ronan and Adam, to love them as well. 

Anyways, for Ronan (because we got more of him), I had nothing to worry about because in his roots, he is still the same character we know, but he’s grown since TRC even more, and I loved that. He doesn’t stay as a stagnant character. He has new fears, goals, and a life really. I just love the continuing character development. It resonates with me so much in the way he sees things and how his thought process is shifting just a bit. Again, he’s still the same character in his roots, but we’re seeing more and more layers of him now that this is his book series.

One thing that surprised me was that Adam did not have a perspective in this book. I had read the first eight chapters in the summer and I thought he would have a bigger role in this book. He did not. I’m not mad at the fact that he barely appears, I’m just surprised. I would’ve liked to get more of him, especially because in the chapter where he first arrives and The Crying Club and Ronan are playing cards, Ronan finds out that Adam has created this lie of what his past was. I was wanting and waiting to delve more into that. Also, I was getting ready to love The Crying Club and we barely got anything from them.

I love Jordan and Hennessy so much. They are the bad ass girls I’ve been waiting for. That scene where the guys break into their homes and the girls beat the shit out them, made me fall in love with them. I will say though, this chapter had me whiplashed because there’s 10 Hennessys?????? I was confused to the max. It took me a while to grasp what they were and when I understood, boy, did I have the breath knocked out of me. It’s hard for me to choose which character I like more: Jordan or Hennessy? Because they aren’t the same character. I think they both stand equally with each other as compelling characters (also to Ronan). They have their own flaws and personalities, and I just really love them both so much. 

I’m just gonna say this first before we get to other things: Carmen Farooq-Lane’s chapters were my least favorite. I enjoyed them, but I didn’t really care for them. We don’t get to know her on the more complex levels as we do with Ronan and Hennessy, and it made me not love her as much. There are tiny tidbits of her that we do get which added to her character but I still didn’t care. Hopefully in the future two books, her character gets more intriguing.

DECLAN LYNCH, my friends. Declan motherfreaking Lynch. Tell me why I have such an enormous crush on this boy now. Please tell me. I just.. He’s one of my favorite characters now and I love him and I would protect him with my everything. I initially was excited to read about him more before CDTH came out but it still surprised me how much I liked him. He is portrayed soooo differently in TRB, but in TRK, we start to see the Declan that we see in this book. God, I love him. It’s so hard to explain why. I think it’s because we see what he’s sacrificed for his family and why he was the way he was in TRC. I don’t know, dude. He’s just a gem now.

JORDAN AND DECLAN ARE ONE OF MY NEW FAVORITE OTP. I lived for every fucking moment they had together. From the second they met, I was digging it. I don’t know how Maggie Stiefvater manages to make insta-love soooo good. She did a great job with Maura and the Grey Man, and she did a fantastic job here with Jordan and Declan. I would die for them. I love how slowly they’re uncovering each other’s secrets and getting to know one another and making such smart remarks at each other and it’s so cute and so good.

Ronan and Adam though? Broke my goddamn heart. The two scenes they have together made me cry and feel all the emotions. Their little Latin saying to each other makes me cry every time they say it. OH MY GOD, IT HURTS. THEY HURT MY HEART. But that scene where Ronan sees Adam for the first time and says to God, “please.” THAT SCENE KILLED ME. THAT WORD KILLED ME. Holy nuggets, they make me emotional. Their scenes were just so good and heartbreaking.

The entirety of this book had me shook to the core. The copies of Niall Lynch and Aurora? Literally, what the fuck? It creeped me out but it was so bizarre and sad and it was wild. Also, Aurora isn’t Declan’s mom??? I need to know more about this and more about the Lynch family. It’s bugging me that I don’t know. AND MATTHEW FOUND OUT HE WAS A DREAM? Broke my fucking heart. There was so much that happened that it’s fucking hard to recap everything.

The small mentions of the Gangsey and the events of TRC was something I loved a lot. I miss those characters and that story so much, and getting a taste of them in this book was so relieving and made me so happy yet sad. The mention of an old forest that Ronan had made before Lindenmere broke my heart because if you read TRK, you would know. Even lines from CDTH that sounded the slightest bit like a line from TRC got me tearing up. 

That ending though, had me at the edge of my seat! I loved that scene where Dreamer-hunters find Hennessy and Ronan and Bryde comes out and Ronan and Hennessy whip out their fucking majestical swords. It was AMAZING. I need to see some fanart of that because it would please my eyes so much. But they literally just hop on a goddamn hoverboard and fly away. How dare that be the end? I NEED MORE.  

The “villains” of this story are hard to pinpoint and it’s hard to know how dangerous they are and what they’re capable of. I don’t even know what the heck The Lace is, but I feel like it alludes a lot to something less magical and something more realistic. The dream-hunters (it’s been a day since reading it and I already forgot what they were called) don’t seem that serious or powerful, in my opinion because we didn’t see what they were capable of besides beating the shit out of people. Also, the whole copies of Niall Lynch and Aurora, I don’t know if they’re bad. There’s just so much that is confusing me.

Overall, I loved this book. It was fun, thrilling, mysterious, heartbreaking, funny, romantic, and so so magical. I would highly recommend reading The Raven Cycle before CDTH, but it’s your choice. Call Down the Hawk was amazing and I can’t wait for next book to come out. I know The Dreamer Trilogy is gonna be a favorite right after The Raven Cycle. 4.5/5 stars!

[joonietonin]

Open Heart Book 1 Finale Rant:

Let me start by saying that this will probably be one of my last analytical posts for a while. That makes me a little sad but I'm also very grateful to all of you who read my posts and motivated me to keep on writing. Truly, I had the time of my life writing the analyses. Now, this post was getting too long so I chopped it off I two parts- this one which is a general recap and my comment on the chapter and another one which I will be posting later today which will be purely about Ethan and MC's relationship. So y'all are looking at a LOT of content to read, I'm apologizing before hand! Okay no more sad talk except the evident fact that today was Open Heart Book 1 finale. Which means we'll have to live without Ethan Ramsey and the squad for quite some time. But focusing on the better things today:

The finale was everything! I felt a wave of emotions as I played it. I felt joy, triumph, anger, passion and hope all at the same time. Let's talk about what happened. (My MC is female, pronouns: she/her) So, Declan (or should I say Dick-lan) Nash had quite a few tricks up his sleeve huh, getting Dr. Cyrus and Dr. Wen to wager for him, lol, he really underestimated MC and the team of people backing her up.

I think it was a group effort when it comes to saving MC's career where MC of course deserves maximum of the credit because of all the patients who testified (Willow, Remy, Jake and Annie for me) on her behalf- if she hadn't gone above and beyond for her patients they wouldn't have given such honest and positive statements on her behalf. So props to MC, first! Then, props to the amazing friends MC has.. Sienna, Elijah, Rafael, Jackie, Bryce.. I mean those guys are basically her support system. Without them hyping her up and motivating her, her case would've fallen flat. Also, we can't forget Ines and Zaid, they're polar opposites and have weird ways of showing their love for MC but they've always been there for her. (even Zaid lmao ikr he's a total softie at heart) And most importantly, her friends always stood up for her. So here's to MC's friends!

Next up, to Ethan Ramsey (the light of MC's/my life) who really did not disappoint when he said he wasn't out of tricks. This man really went above and beyond to get hold of Mrs. Martinez's son and show him how happy his mother was before she passed away. Even if Ethan wasn't your LI and was just your mentor, he kind of singlehandedly saved MC from the potential lawsuit. It shows how much he cares about her, romantically or otherwise. He thinks MC is one of the best doctors he has ever seen and he did everything in his power to make sure, MC could be the doctor she has always wanted to be. That man cares for MC and even though he won't say it explicitly, his actions do much more than his words ever could. Therefore, Ethan Jonah Ramsey, the light of my life, here's to you. The man who cares for MC beyond all words. Even when MC herself has accepted that Ethan won't be able to help her out, Ethan kept pushing himself to find some loophole so that he could help her. And he did exactly that. That's why, I stan one (1) man.😌🥂

Next up, of course, is my moody baby yet smol bean Aurora Emery. She had her own way of standing up for MC. Like she said, "That wasn't for you, MC. That was for me." Maybe her intentions were to stand up for herself but doing so, in the process, she stood up for MC and finally knocked some sense into Harper Emery. I think her whole rant to Harper is one of the major reasons why Harper voted for MC to stay. So thanks, Aurora. Here's looking forward to actually being friends with her... or more. *wink*

Last but not the least, we have *drumrolls please* Dr. Naveen Banerji, who is now miraculously cured by MC's brilliant epiphany and Ethan's genius mind. I kinda expected Naveen to enter at the last moment but when he actually did, I swear I squealed like a five year old as if I hadn't been reading all the theories all week round about him walking in at the last moment. Anyways, I love that old man with my whole damn heart. He's literally like a father to MC like he's to Ethan. A grandmentor, if you will. And just like MC saved his life, he in turn saved MC's life=career. We've reached a full circle, my friends. So here's to you Naveen, nay the force be with you. (Y'all see what I did there? No? Okay, why do I try to be funny...)

So, basically Landry is gone. FOR GOOD. I'm glad PB didn't force a redemption arc on us. While I'm happy that Landry brought Naveen down, I don't think that one action forgives all the terrible things he has done. So bye bye dirty Laundry, here's hoping I never see you again. Also YAY! AURORA IS OUR NEW ROOMMATE. Not confirmed yet, but y'all know she'll say yes. Sienna has a crush on Danny- YAS OTP. But I do realise that we'll probably have to pay diamonds to set them up next book. Elijah and Phoebe going strong- YAS ANOTHER OTP. Jackie finally admitting defeat that MC would probably win the competition - HELL YAS, now that was a good redemption arc. Overall, I'm very happy how the things turned out for MC's friends.

Now, like I said at the starting of the post, I'll talk about Ethan and MC in detail in my next post but to sum it up, Ethan and MC had mind-blowing sex one last time before they had to face the reality of their situation. Now, I don't necessarily think they're back to square one because let's be real, you clearly care about the other person, you've had sex with them and you kiss them like there's no tomorrow, you can't really expect for nothing to happen even in a professional setting. Like, I do respect MC and Ethan's commitment to their job but then I think they can find some time for themselves.. you know.. for talking.. and dating.. and doing other things. Also, MC's friends finding out about her and Ethan- THAT SCENE WAS EVERYTHING I EVER HOPED FOR. Also, Naveen choosing MC for the position in the diagnostics team was already foreshadowed but I swear that man is the biggest Ethan×MC shipper. He's here for the angst, the mutual pining and he's sure as hell gonna enjoy how long these two struggle before finally giving in. Anyways, I won't lie but even though I'm a little sad that MC and Ethan aren't (officially) a couple, (we all know they've been married for over a year now) I think it will be nice to see the angst and this new phase of their relationship where MC directly works under Ethan and he gets to mentor her even more closely. It will be fun to see their mutual pining now that they've finally pulled the plug and had sex and kind of fallen in love with each other. The angst will be great and like I said earlier, along with Naveen it will be fun for us to see how long these two struggle before they finally give in and say,"Fuck work ethics. Adrian Raines knew better."

So, that's the end of this rant. The Ethan×MC post will be up soon. I want it to be special, like Ethan once said. And here's hoping they release book two soon although rationally speaking I don't see the book coming this summer. It'll probably release in fall. Guess we gotta wait, but some things are simply worth the wait. And I guess, we're all fighting the inevitable. *wink*

[flying-elliska]

I finally finished Call Down the Hawk ! Here’s my first reaction (very spoilery!!!!) 

- On the whole I loved it. Loved most of the new characters, the themes, the more grown up vibe and the expanding worldbuilding. Is very clearly a set up, opening novel so a bit frustrating in the pacing but nothing major, just a lot more questions than answers. I just felt like it was still the start of the novel, rising tension and then boom ! the end. Had the same feeling with the Raven Boys tbh. But mostly I didn’t want it to end so soon. 

- this book is so sad ? but sad in a nuanced, gotta cope with it, adult sort of way. Like TRC was about a cool adventure quest, of course there were threats but it was full of magic and friendship and the thrill of becoming yourself and wanting *something more.*This is about stopping the end of the world and people having no good options and I can’t think of one main character in this book that isn’t like...subtly devastating. But it’s sad in a way that centers the agency of the protagonists and how much they care and how hard they’re trying, so it doesn’t feel fatalistic or gloomy. It’s just *arrrrrgh my heart*. They’re all trying so hard to cope but if they don’t find a better way to cope with their problems soon it’s going to kill them. Lol the young adult mood nowadays or what. 

- Ronan broke my heart, really. I loved that on one hand there are clear signs that he’s grown so much - he is able to show tenderness, to be open about his sexuality, he’s taken control of his dreaming to a point where he’s capable to help Hennessy - but at the same time he’s clearly depressed and he doesn’t know his place in the world and feels like everyone is moving on without him. Because the implications of his powers make it impossible for him to live a ‘normal’ life. Surviving your teenage years and self-acceptance is only the beginning ; then you have to deal with a world that isn’t made for you. He needs to find his people. This is just so, so relatable for a neuroatypical twenty-something...feels like a punch in the face. I am sooooo happy he found Hennessy and I can’t wait to see where their relationship goes. Worried about Bryde and how easily he could manipulate Ronan, though. Also, I am interested in the new sun symbolism attached to him - the kid permanently dressed in black with his ‘night horrors’ previously - now he’s making little lights/little suns everywhere in the guise of fireflies or floating flowers or little lights ; he has sundogs and a sun blade. Obviously there could be a link to the fire that is slated to destroy the world (and Kavinsky’s fire dragon !!!!) but it can also very much go in the direction of ‘stepping into the light’ and full life giving potential and sun-drenched tomatoes and happiness. MAN his arc in this trilogy is going to rock so hard i just cannot wait. 

- I just love Hennessy and her girls so, so much. The idea of living with clones of yourself is so fascinating to me...the fact that Hennessy struggles with the similarities with her mother, the artist who killed herself, and how caring for the girls seems to be a substitute for caring for herself, which she can’t manage. That scene in the bathroom...heartbreaking. Like can you imagine not being able to sleep for longer than 20 min ? That’s torture. Nod her relationship with Jordan, so complex. This idea of ‘my parallel universe self can live a better life than me if I keep all the self-hate’ ; of dreaming a better version of yourself. They care for each other so much but there is so much resentment being trapped in that state of being too. I wonder why Hennessy dreamed copies instead of something else : out of a need to be less alone with her plight ? To find others like her ? Or is it a darker ‘take her not me’ way to hide ? The fact that she gets a moon sword in the end (the moon being a reflection of the sun duh) makes this symbolism all the more present. Maybe she had this struggle of feeling like a copy of her mother, beautiful and wild and doomed and codependent on the man she loved. I can’t wait to see where this goes. I was just heartbroken that most of the girls had to die. Plus some bi rep yayyyyy (and more characters that are not white dudes ftw). It’s interesting that the Lace picked her specifically to torment ; I can’t help but feel it’s tied to that unsteady sense of self. Anyway, I really hope Hennessy gets to a place of love and self knowledge and self care and being surrounded by people who love her. I feel like her POV really underlines how tiring it can be to doubt yourself so constantly. 

- Declan Lynch ! Wow, I just love love love a POV switch that shows unsuspected depths about a previously disliked character. His arc is really *eldest sibling plight* taken to the extreme. Being boring for survival because you can’t afford to be a problem. Yup, extremely relatable too. It’s very refreshing because a lot of the MC of TRC have this ‘edgy cool we don’t like rules vibes’ which can come over as very immature (i meah duh they’re teens) and Declan had to grow up too fast and his sticking to the rules and trying to impose structure on Ronan’s life and completely draining his own life of any sense of joy or individuality, feels half like a survival technique half trauma response stemming from the terror of being given responsibilities at way too young an age and coping with the chaotic environment he grew up in and the constant threat of discovery. It’s like, textbook ‘child parentalization’ and it really sucks and Niall Lynch is an incredible asshole. And Ronan is pretty much stuck in father worship mode and turning all his anger towards Declan. The growth there...is going to be super therapeutic. And I love his thing with Jordan. Survival makes it impossible for them to be their true selves but they find something true together ? Aww. I can’t wait for them to be together at the Barns, which is really Romance Central in this universe. (I foresee angst too but ehhhh). And more art flirting and museum dates. 

- I also love how dream beings are getting more autonomy in this book. I think Declan distancing himself from Jordan in the end is this old complex about being non-magical and therefore inferior, but also because he doesn’t consider dreams to be real people capable of consent or interiority. I found the idea of Aurora Lynch always extraordinarily fucked up and in this book we learn it’s even worse - that she was basically a copy of Declan’s real mom ? Imagine growing up with that...no wonder he hates Niall. Though the idea of Mor O Corra doing the same thing is really intriguing, makes you wonder what the fuck happened there (was it a mutual decision ? was it a revenge thing ? Man their whole family is just so messed up lmao. But I just love the idea of Boudicca and the magical lady mob though.) And Matthew learning he is a dream and starting to deviating from his ‘happy but kind of dumb’ behavior in the previous books. He’s always been this previsible creature but now he isn’t and I feel like a big difference between him and Jordan was this knowledge. She has this knowledge of what she is and she immediately has more sense of self and agency and I feel that that’s a key theme of the book - knowledge, self knowledge. It’s basically what the ‘Call Down the Hawk’ title links to - Bryde talking about the man who turned into a falcon and then a hawk and learning so much about the world ; calling down the hawk would mean the man coming down and sharing this knowledge ; for Ronan it’s as well meeting and helping Hennessy ; so it’s about knowing your own nature through meeting people who are like you, as well. I love !!!!!

- Adam ! Not enough Adam in this book. I spent the book missing him, but that makes sense, because that’s the mindset Ronan is in. He represents what Ronan can’t have, and the Longing tm just permeates the whole book. Everytime he appears he’s just the epitome of cool, whether as dark academia vibes Harvard Student with his queer clique the Crying Club or Hot Motorcycle Boyfriend. He knows exactly what Ronan needs - understands his distrust when Ronan wonders if this is the Real Adam, tells him ‘go slow’ instead of just don’t, wants to take a look at Bryde to check the dude out, drives eight fucking hours on a motorcycle he can’t even drive properly to spend three hours with Ronan...he’s just like a dreamboat in this one lmao and after all the shit he went through in TRC...Therapeutic. But he is also increasingly distant and it’s so painful in a delicious way - the longing between characters who are already together but who are being kept apart by life is one of my fave angst tropes ever. Ronan wants to grow old with him and has romantic horny farmer dreams about him and the whole ‘tamquam alter idem’ thing...Boi i die that shit is just so...Romance tm. And I love how true to them it is, they’re achingly tender and yet there is still that strong chaotic shithead vibe between the two of them. Honestly the fight with the murder crabs was fucked up but made me laugh so much too. But then Ronan not being able to stay ? HEARTBREAKING. Ronan having Adam under ‘MANAGEMENT’ in his phone...really fucking funny but also feels like Ronan puts a sense of stability and direction in Adam and now that Adam is so distant...he feels extra vulnerable so he compensates with jokes. Ouch. Anyway I really want more about Adam and the Crying Club. Adam’s mix of cold, calculating pragmatism and compassion and understanding ? I love him so much, damn. I hope he’s a POV character in next book. I can see Ronan disappearing with Bryde and Adam looking for him, tbh. He’s too important to Ronan to stay on the periphery forever I hope. 

- the Carmen Farooq-Lane chapters were my least favorite, especially when she’s with Parsifal - it felt kind of repetitive. I feel like Maggie’s villain chapters are often sort of a weak point - the bad guys tend to be either ‘Vague Ominous Cosmic Horror Entity that wants to Destroy Everything’ (also often a terrifying reflection of mental health issues/existential terror) or ‘Evil Prep’ lmao, and I had the same feeling w the Whelk or Greenmantle chapters in TRC. That said, I feel like Farooq-Lane has potential. Her persistent self delusion about how she’s the good guy is fascinating. Her ‘evil sibling, obvious trauma hidden by politeness and cleanliness, probably is going to have a redemption arc’ thing feels very Gray Man. Her punching Ramsay moment was very ‘hell yeah’ and tbh I already ship her with Liliana - who feels a bit underdrawn at the moment too, but interesting potential. The Moderators, still, feel a bit too ‘generic lawful evil agency’ yet, but the concept is interesting. I really really love Bryde as an idea though. His speeches to Ronan are fascinating ; from one aspect they really illustrate a fascinating concept of the Earth coming back to real magic but from another, he sounds like a cult leader. Selling this idea to vulnerable people that their difference makes them special - and well Ronan and Hennessy definitely are, but does that make them better than other people ? Seen as how Ronan reacts to Declan, it feels like he would be vulnerable to that idea. Hennessy not so much ; I can see her accept Bryde’s help out of pure necessity maybe, but not be swayed by his lies. I really feel like they’re going to need each other. 

- So much cool worldbuilding...The Fairy Market concept is amazing (but also scary as shit right...like they’re selling people ? Probably dreams but that is still fucked up as hell ? Then again we’ve seen dreams die in pretty casual circumstances so the question is very much ‘so...what is personhood here?’). The idea of Visionaries is absolutely horrifying. Some people saying Adam could become one ? My god I’m not sure if I could stand those levels of angst. His ‘seeing the future of the world instead of people’ thing though...feels very compatible. Or at least like Adam could contrebalance the Visionaries’s visions somehow at the very least. Anyway, this is going to hurt. But it’s cool to have more answers ; the ending of TRC left a lot unexplained in my mind about the Lynch fam or why all those people wanted the Greywaren so bad etc. So this is very satisfying. 

- So Miss Maggie really went wanting to be normal at the expense of your true self is no way to live and also if you don’t create what you need to, you're going to die ? haha thanks for the callout i feel attacked. But honestly her saying that this was about the necessity and price of creation man I am soooo interested in where this is going to go next. All in all a stellar book, 10/10 would read again to overanalyze (yeah more than this even), most frustrating thing is waiting for the next one