#killing mr perry has a very nice ring 2 it

[backseatloversz]

do yall wanna hear about my fucken. dead poets society/riverdale brainrot. no you dont its terrible anyway here you go

-s1e13 that scene where cheryl is overcome w/ grief about the loss of her brother and goes to the now frozen over river where they were last together. The Gang shows up and are! very concerned!!! rightfully so cause then she falls in. they barely save her life. its very dramatic. do with that concept what u will

-s4e19 Killing Mr Honey. someone suggests they really actually kill mr honey cause hes kinda mean sometimes. everyone else is like what the fuck! no! however that does not stop jughead from writing a short story where The Gang do indeed murder a man. all he does is changes their names before publishing it. do with that concept what u will

-recurring motif in riverdale is betty and archie staring out + putting their hands to their bedroom windows. theres also a window motif in dps. idk i just think thats fun

-feel like i need to watch s4 again cause. bret 🤝 neil: kill your popular, prep school, secret society leader subtext gays. there must've been nods to dps in that season there MUST have

[mermaidsirennikita]

Book Roundup -- March 2017

The Gilded Cage by Vic James.  2/5.  This book really bothered me, because it started out strong.  Essentially, it’s a dystopian/urban fantasy story in which the UK is run by the Equals, who are Skilled--magically empowered.  Those without powers are required to put in ten years of slavery, though once they’re eighteen they get to choose when they do their years.  Luke is sent to what’s basically a workhouse, whereas his sister Abi and the rest of their family is sent to work relatively cushy jobs at the manor home of one of the ruling families.  This was all very interesting, except Luke’s storyline rapidly became a typical rebel against the machine dystopian story, while Abi was discovering the secrets of this fucked up family--until she fell in love with the Boring Brother.  Nope.  Nah.  There were a million viewpoints as well, and ultimately too many cliches.

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller.  1/5.  I feel bad about giving this a bad rating because its cover is adorable and the author seems nice.   But I can’t pull punches with this one.  Basically, this is about Alosa, the titular daughter of the pirate king who lets herself get kidnapped by lesser pirates in order to steal a map.  The idea sounds like fun fare, and I wasn’t looking for anything super historically accurate or intellectual.  I was expecting something POTC-esque.  But like... Elizabeth Swann at least cared about functionality.  Within the first thirty pages, Alosa had gone on and on about her clothes and her need for corsets and I was like listen girl I’ve worn corsets you’re not swashbuckling in that shit???  Like I’m all for weaponized femininity but no???  The whole thing read as parody or satire, which I’m cool with too, BUT IT WASN’T FUNNY.  Every bit of dialogue was flat and delivered in a straightforward manner.  Alosa’s inner monologue was boring and every other paragraph felt like an info dump.  Just no.

Beautiful Broken Girls by Kim Savage.  2/5.  After sisters Mira and Francesca commit suicide together, Mira’s one-time love Ben begins finding notes left in the seven places where they touched.  In doing so, he’ll discover why the girls killed themselves.  This book gets points for the writing style, which was evocative and lovely.  It also has an interesting focus on Catholic ritual, especially stigmata.  But honestly, it was just a downer throughout.  It’s not that you expect a happy, upbeat book when you’re reading something about teenage suicide (don’t do it!).  However, The Virgin Suicides tackled the same subject matter with an air of mystery and depth.  These characters all seemed shallow and boring.  The book also deals with the issue of pedophilia rather poorly, in my view.  It romanticizes the survivor as “damaged” and “broken”, and it’s just... not well done.  Good idea, poor execution.

The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale.  2/5.  Essentially, this is the story of Alys, who, after an encounter with the soul-eating twins outside her village, feels connected to them as she grows up.  The soul-eaters are feared by her village, as is the terrifying Beast.  After discovering that she has certain powers, Alys must balance her village’s fear of witchcraft with her own desire to get to the bottom of the twins’--and the Beast’s--origins.  I felt zero connection to this story, which disappointed me greatly because the first few pages were so compelling.  I just didn’t care about Alys--I wanted to know more about the twins.  The prose was lovely, but everything was far too internalized for me.  I’m sure some people would love this, though!

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer.  4/5.  Clearly, I was going through a reading slump.  Therefore, I picked up something completely different.  Krakauer is a very good writer; but I’m not going to lie, I was worried about this.  I’m always hesitant when men choose to write about the sexual assault of women--it can be botched very quickly.  Krakauer, towards the end of the book, owns up to his own privilege and ignorance, which I appreciated. He approaches the topic with sensitivity; he interviews the rapists when possible; but he doesn’t pretend that he isn’t biased, and here that is good.  Krakauer believes in these women, he supports these women--whether or not their rapists were found guilty in court.  This is extremely difficult to read and quite graphic, but worth the time.  A revealing look at rape culture in America.

Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas.  3/5.  This tells the story of Freya, twenty-third in line to the throne when most of the royal court--including everyone in line ahead of her--is poisoned at the king’s birthday celebration.  Suddenly queen, Freya must not only deal with adjusting to a role she thought she’d never have, but the issue of who assassinated so many nobles, and what they’ll do next.  This book had a great premise; it approached relationships in a different way that I suspect will appeal to readers tired of romance; and it gave us a likable protagonist.  But I think it just read too young for me.  Freya is interested in science, which means that she spends much of the book trying to solve the murders like she’s a cross between a mad scientist and a detective.  I was more interested in the courtly goings-on, and that side of things didn’t ring true for me.  But it wasn’t bad.  We just didn’t gel.

Hunted by Meagan Spooner.  4/5.  This Beauty and the Beast retelling is peppered with Russian folkore, and gives us our Beauty in Yeva, a young huntress whose father goes missing in the woods.  Upon discovering his body, she is taken captive by the Beast he was tracking, and finds herself imprisoned.  I could say more but it would spoil a lot; this story is definitely very much a fairy tale take on BatB.  Retellings have been hot for the past couple of years, and it was nice to see one that more along the lines of Robin McKinley than Sarah J. Maas, though both have their places.  Spooner’s writing is lovely and lyrical--and she tackles some of the darker aspects of the original fairy tale sensitively.  (Yes, she confronts the Stockholm Syndrome issue.)  It may not reinvent the wheel, but it’s engaging and well-written, with a smart heroine and a legitimately scary beast.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty.  4/5.  After hitting her head a the gym, Alice loses the past ten years of her memory.  She thinks that she’s twenty-nine, happily married, with her first baby on the way.  In fact, she’s thirty-nine, about to be divorced, and a mother of three.  Not only is her relationship with her husband Nick terrible; she’s also barely speaking to her sister Elisabeth and barely recognizes herself.  Moriarty has a great way of being both entertaining and kind of good at navigating the human psyche.  Her characters are all flawed, all realistic--Alice and Nick’s issues are real ones, and they aren’t easily fixed.  Not gonna lie, as someone who recently watched her parents go through a hideous divorce, this was difficult to read at times.  But I was also pulling for Alice and everyone she loved to make something good of their lives, because they were endearing, they were people you wanted to see happy.  Moriarty is good at slowly unfolding reveals as well, and I didn’t expect one issue in Alice and Nick’s marriage to be what it was--but it was much more nuanced than what I’d been assuming.  At times this got a little corny, of course, and it’s not quite as edgy as Big Little Lies.  But I really enjoyed it.

The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers.  3/5.  Seventeen-year-old Placidia marries thirty-two-year-old Confederate Major Gryffth Hockaday right after meeting him; she’s somehow compelled by him, and he needs a mother for his infant son following the death of his first wife.  The pair spend two nights together, during which they quickly fall in love--only for Hockaday to be called back to war.  After over two years’ absence, he returns to find Placidia much changed, and rumor has it that she both bore and killed an illegitimate child while he was gone.  The book is in the format of letters and Placidia’s diary entries, slowly telling the story of what actually happened while Hockaday was away.  The morality here is very gray and nuanced; in many ways, what actually ended up happening was more mature than what I expected. (Although one aspect of the story--a crucial aspect--I found so obvious that the reveal wasn’t even really a reveal, and that was... disappointing, not gonna lie.)  While it’s definitely a compelling read, I had to dock it from four to three stars because I felt like Rivers gave a pretty dated portrayal of slave-master relations in the book.  It felt very “Gone with the Wind”.  Placidia owned these people, but the realities of that were kind of glossed over, and some moments felt very “happy slave” to me.  It’s worth the read for the mystery, but other aspects could have been much better.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.  4/5.  After thirteen-year-old Cecilia Lisbon commits suicide, her four sisters become gradually more sheltered by their parents, leading to eventual disaster. The events are narrated--rather creepily--by a chorus of neighborhood boys obsessed with the Lisbon sisters.  This story is probably familiar to you; but if you haven’t seen the movie yet, read the book first.  Both are great, but the movie is actually very faithful to the plot and feeling of the book, so I feel like I lost something by seeing it first.  Like, definitely see it, it’s a great movie.  Just read this first.  Eugenides gets the weird, obsessive natures of teen boys so well--and the Lisbon girls just kind of destroyed me.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.  4/5.  In 1959, four members of the Clutter family were brutally murdered in Holcomb, a small Texas town.  Deciding to try out a new style of creative non-fiction, Truman Capote traveled to Holcomb, getting to know who the Clutters were, the investigators, and most importantly, the murderers--Perry Smith and Dick Hickock.  Capote’s following of the case and the eventual captures of Smith and Hickock would become “In Cold Blood”.  This book is honestly more disturbing than I thought it would be.  I’m into true crime, but something about the way Capote writes just hammers home exactly how chilling these murders were.  At the same time, it’s clear that he had a lot of sympathy for the devil--specifically, Perry Smith.  Part of what makes this book so fascinating Capote himself and the way he chooses to portray things. 

A Year Of Ravens by Stephanie Dray, Kate Quinn, S.J.A. Turney, Vicky Alvear Schecter, Russell Whitfield, and E. Knight.  4/5.  This collaborative novel tells seven separate stories, all surrounding Boudica and her rebellion.  From Roman soldiers to druids, a variety of different perspectives are given, shedding light on the grayness of the rebellion.  I can’t really call this an anthology, because everything is connected and works very well together.  The only one of these authors that I consistently read is Kate Quinn (her entry to the novel is one of my favorites, of course) but everyone did at the very least a decent job.  The only story I didn’t connect with is Russell Whitfield’s story of Agricola, a Roman tribune--but that’s not his fault, and it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the novel as a whole.  Kate Quinn’s The Warrior is super interesting, focusing on an aging champion of Boudica’s and a Roman woman he took as a slave during the rebellion; E. Knight’s The Daughters is just heartbreaking and excellent, telling the dual perspectives of Boudica’s daughters; and Stephanie Dray’s The Queen is also especially memorable in that it tells the story of Cartimandua, a client queen with a story very parallel to Boudica’s.  As a whole, I definitely recommend checking this out if you want some fast-paced, surprisingly intelligent historical fiction.

A Song of War by Kate Quinn, Christian Cameron, Libbie Hawker, Vicky Alvear Schecter, Russell Whitfield, Stephanie Thornton, and S.J.A. Turney.  4/5.  Another collaborative novel by the same team (give or take a few members), this tells the story of the Trojan War, from Paris and Helen’s elopement to the fall of Troy.  Again, it’s in seven parts, told from the perspectives of everyone from Odysseus to Cassandra and Philoctetes, avoiding some of the more traditional viewpoints of Hector, Paris, Helen, and Achilles.  In some ways, I found this story more engaging than that of “A Year of Ravens”.  Maybe it’s just because I’m more interested in the Greeks than the Britons, but there was something about this book that was so... tragic.  Without beating you over the head with sadness.  It was very gripping, but there was a sense of doom throughout each story.  For the most part, I found it to be pretty evenly split between the views of the Trojans and their allies and the Achaeans.  With a couple exceptions--Paris and Helen are portrayed in a really unflattering light.  I see why, and Helen had enough pathos where I... got it.  (She was Helen by the way of Cersei, in my opinion.)  But the characterization of Paris bothered me.  It seemed pretty shallow, and honestly I’m kind of tired of Paris being portrayed in a straightforward, cowardly manner. His backstory lends itself to some really interesting issues, and I feel like the traditional “ugh Paris stealing women and shooting people with arrows nOT FIGHITNG LIKE  A MAN” reeks of toxic masculinity.  On the other hand, Achilles, who usually is either glorified to hell or trashed, gets a really nuanced depiction here.  I kind of just wanted everyone to get that, and for the most part a lot of people did; so the whole “pretty snakelike girly man archer Paris” thing really stood out as weaker characterization.  He doesn’t have to be great, but like... I don’t know, isn’t there something compelling about someone who’d be smart enough to take everyone out via arrows but dumb enough to start a war over Helen?  Just my take.  With all that being said, I still really enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone who’s interested in the Trojan War and fast-paced historical fiction.

The Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George.  1/5.  This is the fictionalized beginning of Nero’s life, from his first memory to his second marriage--and it’s actually going to continue with a sequel, which needless to say I will not be reading.  Honestly, I think I’m done with Margaret George.  I love her “Memoirs of Cleopatra” and really like “Helen of Troy”.  But I couldn’t stand this book.  I won’t pretend to be an expert on Nero, and maybe he wasn’t as bad as he’s cracked up to be...  But I’m also pretty sure that he wasn’t the constant victim George presents in this book.  At like, three, this kid is critiquing the political moves and morality of Messalina.  (Who is presented in a stereotypical manner, as is Agrippina the Younger.)  He’s never the one at fault; people always do things without his permission, especially if they’re female.  (Excepting his lover, Acte, who I assume was an original character?)  The thing is that as this is a fictional autobiography, Nero not being aware of his own faults makes sense, especially if he’s mad.  But George does the same thing here that she did with her “The Autobiography of Henry VIII”--except she might take it further here, it’s been a while since I’ve read the older book.  Even when we see the perspectives of others, they’re just like “poor Nero, being led astray by X vile woman”.  And I just...  He’s the fucking emperor, let’s get real about how much responsibility he may or may not have had.  It was boring at some points and offensive at others, and honestly, I’m kind of disturbed by how eager George is to leap to the defense of powerful men who victimized and killed the less privileged.

Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch.  2/5.  Upon the death of her mother, teenage Lina is sent to Florence, Italy, to live with Howard--the father she’s never before met.  Soon after her arrival, she not only meets a boy--the charming Ren--but is given her mother’s journal, which should answer the questions of what happened prior to Lina’s conception, and why her mother never told her about Howard.  Basically, I expected a fun, beachy read from this.  The author apparently spent her high school years in Florence, which to me added a certain level of authenticity--in theory.  Maybe her Florence was different from mine; but nothing about this fault authentic.  Especially the part in which Howard took Lina to a pizzeria right outside the Duomo.  I don’t buy a guy who’s lived in Florence for nearly two decades giving a girl her first pizza at the Duomo.  I went to a pizzeria outside the Duomo once and literally had pizza in Piazza del Duomo again.  Aside from that snobby little gripe, I found Lina pretty irritating--yes, she was going through a lot, but she seemed to be super dismissive of the experience of living in Florence--and I guessed the twist like...  Thirty pages in?  Maybe others would enjoy this, but it’s not for me.

Book of the Month: A Year of Ravens.