#it takes so long to find the second half of the kent note lol

[allthebooksbefore]

the ex talk / rachel lynn solomon

book #24 of 2021 started: august 11th finished: august 14th

what it's about: “shay goldstein has been a producer at her seattle public radio station for nearly a decade, and she can't imagine working anywhere else. but lately it's been a constant clash between her and her newest colleague, dominic yun, who's fresh off a journalism master's program and convinced he knows everything about public radio. when the struggling station needs a new concept, shay proposes a show that her boss green-lights with excitement. on the ex talk, two exes will deliver relationship advice live, on air. their boss decides shay and dominic are the perfect co-hosts, given how much they already despise each other. neither loves the idea of lying to listeners, but it's this or unemployment. their audience gets invested fast, and it's not long before the ex talk becomes a must-listen in seattle and climbs podcast charts. as the show gets bigger, so does their deception, especially when shay and dominic start to fall for each other. in an industry that values truth, getting caught could mean the end of more than just their careers.”

what i liked: i was pretty excited to read this one since (1) i loved today, tonight, tomorrow and (2) this one was new adult. overall, it was a fun read and i did like it, but not as much as i thought i would. the things i liked about it - first, the "oppositeness" of dominic and shay. usually in romance novels, if the couple isn't close in age, it's the guy who is older and more experienced. in this case, shay was older (by about five years) and more experienced, so that was refreshing. second, there were some perfect romcom set ups, like the on-air flub that led to the airbnb weekend rental so dominic and shay could get to know each other more. dominic also had some great lines. third, i liked how there were moments when shay didn't pick up on her boss's misogyny (when he made her take notes at a meeting or when she realized that she always got stuck cleaning the kitchen as an intern). it was so natural... as women, i feel like we all sometimes second guess ourselves about misogyny or sexism just because we hold someone in high regard or they're nice to us. fourth, i like how the author tried to make it a point for dominic and shay to try and create friendships outside of each other after they both admitted (and you could definitely tell) how lonely they were. though kind of thrown in there, it was nice to see. would have been an unhealthy message otherwise. i didn't like how they moved in with each other after three months of dating, but... with dominic being a relationship guy and shay being an all-in kind of girl, i guess it could make sense. fifth, although i hated the way dominic couldn't stand up for his relationship with shay at podcon (and his weak apology as he was calmly packing his bags... like he wasn't even looking for shay after that whole ordeal? ok?), i love how the whole thing caused shay to take him off this pedestal she had him on and how she was commenting that he was shrinking right in front of her; that he wasn't this totally perfect romcom hero. sixth, his public declaration of love for and apology to shay was predictable, but the whole cursing-out-kent thing was pretty great. lastly, i loved the moment when she said she had to make her house a home and grow into it, i thought that was sweet, because throughout the novel, you can see her trying to make that happen. i also love how it ended with her and dominic starting their own podcast.

what i didn't like: the author included a lot of diverse characters, which was great, but it didn't feel natural. a lot of things, including the diversity aspect, felt a little forced, especially in the first half of the novel. i think overall the novel just struggled to find it's footing in that first half. dominic and shay were actually kind of annoying, and i found i had to push myself to keep going because the premise of the book was really interesting and i wanted to know what happened. glad i stuck it out, because the second half of the novel was definitely better. more specific things i didn't like... first, the fact that dominic went back to the station after the whole podcon debacle. absolutely mind-blowing... (1) because you could tell he wasn't kent's biggest fan throughout the novel, and (2) because kent just completely threw them BOTH under the bus at podcon. he wants to continue working for a guy like that? what about his (albeit weak) journalistic integrity? shay was rightly pissed by that. it still makes me angry just typing this. if shay had missed dominic's on-air apology or had not forgiven him... he definitely would have still have been working for kent at the station. i wish dominic had gone on an on-air tirade, laying down the whole truth, calling out kent and apologizing to shay, quitting live before she took him back. also... the fact that dominic and shay hashed everything out on-air during the pledge drive... yeah, they cursed up a storm to give the station fines, but really? you just pulled in tons of money for the very station that left you in the dust. the second thing that got me going was the fight with ameena. i thought she was pretty out of line, and that's big coming from me, considering i can usually attest to both sides. i don't think shay was still hung up on her dad in a self-destructive way - she's allowed to still feel pain and she's allowed to still want to make him proud. you could tell she loves her job... was she scared to leave the station? sure, but that's totally normal and valid. and she doesn't have trouble with change - the whole book you see her fighting that (accepting her mom and phil and the changes that come with that, getting a dog). ameena didn't have to turn down that NY job offer. shay was right - she would have survived without her around. maybe ameena was projecting onto shay a little bit, using her as an excuse for why she wasn't chasing her own dreams. but at the end of the day, ameena didn't even really apologize? there was such a weak resolution there and it was immature how long the fight lasted. i almost thought that they would end up growing apart and there would be some kind of message there about how friendships change into adulthood. a few one off things to wrap this up... there were moments (not many, just a few) where it got a little too fifty shades for me lol. also, there were some grammatical errors. i also think kent got off way too easy.

[tatiletotesamaze]

How I would do Justice League

This is going to rambly as fuck but the actual film is barely coherent so bare with me (spoilers):

The underlying message of the film ought to be hope, and thus we open with the first part of our closing monologue: On the Purpose of Ethics in a World of Gods and Men, by Lois Lane.

This is read over the montage of a world at odds with itself. It’s what we see every day: the brief moments of goodness where a bystander acts a bystander no more, when a drowning child is saved and the bad, when a family is attacked for the prejudices of another, when a city floods. Specifically we see Barry, unsure, as he saves a young woman, Iris West, from a car crash. Lois Lane queries us on the purpose of hope in the face of indifferent power. 

She trails off and we fade to rose bush heavy with dead heads, as Martha Kent packs her things and drives from a foreclosed Kent Farm. She has only a few small boxes, the dogs and her head held high.

[obligatory Diana saving Old Bailey scene]

We see Victor Stone, a young man half cybernetic and half flesh, reading his emails as his father bustles in the background, collecting notes, dropping papers, harried and exhausted. Victor notices, or doesn’t. He is engrossed. His life, old life, before the accident that killed him and the one that remade is, is laid out before him in old Facebook posts, Snapchats and Vines. Quick, six second clips of his friends that loop eternally. The screens turn off but the repeated audio clips continue, implying he is playing them over and over again in his head, to drown out the whispers of another. Through a brief conversation with his father this despondancy is cemented, they are family turned almost strangers after the death of his mother. Her picture hangs by the door as his father leaves for work. One his dad’s assistants has taken ill and missed days of work. Victor turns back, to read about the waves of ennui that now dominate the news.

On Themyscira it is not Steppenwolfe who arrives, but rather the Mother herself. She has always been there, one third of her, a part of herself apart from herself. Not awakened by the death of the Kryptonian, but aroused by the presence of his life force, alien to this world, and now moved into action by the yearning for something new, the box on Themyscira whispers to the Amazons gaurding her. Hippolyta is called but the box cannot be reasoned with. This is the Mother’s Destruction - the power to unmake what must be remade, before creation can take root. It is discordant, unstable. The Amazons atempt to best the box, but are themselves defeated. The box, aware she is only partially awakened, leaves. Themyscira is devastated in the battle. The beacon at the Shrine of the Amazons is lit. Diana sees this, as does Bruce. He can only guess at its meaning, while she can only assume the invasion comes from without, not within.

The second box, the Mother’s Reshaping, is in Star Labs, where Doctor Silas Stone still works. His assistant is there, but she is still ill, pale and shakey her muttering is barely audible but reminiscent of what Victor has been hearing. There are rumours about a join project with Wayne Enterprises - funding, clean energy. Silas ignores them.

Batman is investigating Star Lab’s “energy core” as well as the burning ancient building in Greece. Diana arrives with the “expensive security / lol wut” exchange and Alfred brings in biscuits and tea. She asks after Barry Allen, the teenager-no-more Bruce met with a few months ago, and the idea for a team he once had. Bruce replies that Barry’s too young and dwells on this a bit too long. He’s obviously thinking of Robin, of Dick and later, tragically, Jason. Diana changes the subject to the invasion warning and Bruce searches for energy spikes from around that time. The Mother. Diana mentions an old war story from before the time of the death of the Gods and the Exile of Man, when humans, the Amazons and the Atlanteans fought together against an extra-terristrial threat.

In Atlantis, Mera is communing with her students over the third Mother box, Mother’s Creation. She is teaching them magic in the shadow of a powerful arcane artefact that predates her peoples’ underwater life. Arthur is there in the shadows, listening to her and watching the class. Suddenly the box springs to life, blazing with light. The nearby plants grow tenfold in size, the water rushes with air and heats throwing everything into turmoil. As Arthur rushes to pull the students away, Mera fights the box with magic, but it escapses, soaring out of the ocean, called by another. Looking over the students and wondering on the fate of the box, something like the following exchange happens:

“Aren’t you following?” (implication being Arthur doesn’t hang out in Atlantis often or for long)

“I am supposed to protect this, then?” (gesturing to the classroom, but also Atlantis at large.)

“You can save more than just a few.” Arthur looks unconvinced. “Your mother would have-”

Arthur swims off a ways, but turns back after a moment.

“Fine, Mera. But I’ll need to borrow something.”

(and this is where he gets ythe trident and goes to the surface. again, I don’t believe there’s a need for the extended meeting twixt Bats and Aquaman. Also, the rapid-fire exposition of Arthur’s past as in the film proper just felt awkward and out of place, this could be saved for an Aquaman stand alone or just left alone. We don’t always need the minutiae of a character’s life in everything.)

It can be a this point that Bats and Diana are tracking for energy signatures and find the trail of Mother’s Creation and find not Her, but Arthur, and that’s when we have their meeting. Arthur wishes to go it alone, Diana makes an appeal based on the history between Atlantis and the Amazons, Bats makes a remakr about everything, everywhere, being dead.