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lady-hammerlock · 5 years ago

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Through the Looking Glass - Chapter Nine (Telltale Batjokes & DC Comics Crossover)

AN: This chapter is dedicated to my friend Marlee who is being an angel and helping me move this weekend. Thank you Marlee, and I promise I'll stop hurting John soon.

CHAPTER NINE

“Why isn’t it working!?” John screamed, after a couple of seconds of the Looking Glass doing nothing. “Come on. Damn it! Work!”

He tugged at the handle of the Looking Glass again, and when that still didn’t do anything he pushed it back into the device and pulled it back out again. His frown slowly grew as he worked, until he was openly scowling at the object in his hands as he clawed at it, his fingers poking and pushing at points on the object seemingly at random.

The Looking Glass remained completely unresponsive however, and eventually John gave up with a scream of frustration and threw the Looking Glass to the ground, before his legs seemingly collapsed out from under him, and he ended up folded on the ground right beside the object.

Bruce waited a couple of seconds, just to be sure that the Looking Glass wasn’t going to do anything after being treated in such a careless manner, and then slowly and carefully approached John.

He leaned down and picked up the Looking Glass. He brushed off a leaf and some mud that had gotten stuck to the device after John had thrown it down, and scanned it for radiation. His equipment was still showing the device as having a full charge, and as far as he could tell there was nothing wrong with it, but when it came down to it he didn’t really know all that much about the strange artefact at all. Not really.

John had moved so that his legs were folded up in front of him, his arms wrapped around them and his face pressed against his knees. His back was hunched and he looked absolutely furious.

Bruce wasn’t surprised. John had been so excited just to go back home and see his friend again. John seemed to sense Bruce’s eyes on him, and looked up.

“Why didn’t it work!?” he asked Bruce. “I did the same thing as last time! I know that I did. Why didn’t it work!?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce replied. It didn’t seem like enough, but he didn’t know what else he could possibly offer. “I wish that I did.”

He gave the Looking Glass one last brush off before he passed it back to John.

“You said it was fully charged, right?” John said as he started to poke at the object once more.

Bruce nodded.

“There might be something else that we’re missing,” he said.

“Maybe it only works at a certain time of day,” John suggested. “Or maybe… maybe I need to be close to where the other me is when I activate it?”

He sniffled as he spoke. Bruce didn’t know how likely any of those suggestions were, but he didn’t want John to give up hope. He would have to get in contact with the League again; see if J’onn could offer any more advice than what he already had.

“Or maybe… Maybe it can’t be the same person two times in a row?” John suggested. “I mean, Tetch wasn’t able to get back home, even though the Looking Glass was fully charged when we took it off him.”

That suggestion made Bruce frown, not because it seemed like a particularly unusual idea, but because it brought another, worse idea to mind; one that he didn’t want to suggest to John at all, just in case it was true.

What if it wouldn’t ever work on the same person twice? What if John was going to be stuck in this world forever?

John turned to smile at Bruce then, looking as though he was only seconds away from either bursting into tears or punching the nearest person.

“Don’t give up hope,” Bruce said, not sure whether he was saying it more for John’s benefit or for his own.

“I haven’t,” John said, despite the fact that he still looked absolutely miserable. “In fact, I have a plan!”

That was a surprise.

“What is it?” Bruce asked.

“Well, we gotta test it!” John said. “See whether the problem is that it can only work on a person once. And we can do that while still making things better!”

“I’m listening,” Bruce said, folding his arms in front of his chest.

John got back to his feet and started to gesture almost manically along with the explanation of his plan.

“Well, we get the Looking Glass back to the version of Tetch that’s stuck in this world,” John began. “That’s easy enough, right? You can get in and out of Arkham?”

“If I tell the staff at Arkham that I need to talk to Tetch for a case then they should be willing to release him into my custody,” Batman replied. ��At least temporarily.”

“Wow,” John replied. “They’d just give him to you? What the hell is proper procedure, am I right? Gosh, your Arkham really is a mess.”

“So, we give Tetch the Looking Glass…” Batman prompted, trying to get John back on track.

“It’s fully charged, so he can use it to go back to our world straight away,” John continued. “And we tell him to bring it to you at Wayne Manor, or, well, to the other Bruce; to my Bruce.”

“Are you sure we could trust Tetch with the Looking Glass?”

John thought about that one for a moment, before shrugging.

“Honestly, I don’t know him very well,” he replied. “But he doesn’t seem like a bad guy to me, and he seems pretty switched on. He should be able to do a simple task like that, right? Only… only… oh no.”

“What is it?”

“We left the other Tetch back in Arkham,” John said. “How is the good Tetch going to get the Looking Glass back to Bruce?”

“Arkham’s staff will notice when their patient changes.”

“I guess so,” John replied. “I suppose we can leave a note or something as well; one that tells the staff at Arkham to bring the Looking Glass back to Bruce and your Joker.”

Bruce’s stomach did something uncomfortable in response to the words ‘your Joker’, but he did his best to ignore it.

“It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” he replied.

“Mm hm,” John said, nodding enthusiastically. “And if it works then all we need to do is get the other me to activate the Looking Glass from his end and then I’ll be back home and everything will be better again!”

Bruce wasn’t confident that they could rely on the Joker to activate the Looking Glass, but he didn’t want to dampen John’s spirits; not when the other man’s plan was the only one that they currently had.

Besides, there was always the chance that the gentler version of Tetch wouldn’t be able to activate the Looking Glass either. Bruce would worry about what the Joker might do with the Looking Glass when that became an issue.

The staff at Arkham Asylum were used to dealing with some rather strange occurrences. Half of them could remember the events of several years earlier; when Batman and a woman calling herself ‘Lady Arkham’ had torn through the asylum, disturbing most of the inmates and destroying a large section of the catacombs that ran beneath Arkham.

Apart from that they were kept on their toes by the strange predilections of many of their inmates; the previous mayor who insisted on letting a coin flip dictate his every decision; a patient who refused to talk to anyone at all unless it was through a puppet of some description, and of course, the murderous Victor Zsasz, whose body was covered in scars of his own making; one for each person he had killed.

Compared to all of this, Jervis Tetch had been relatively easy to deal with. Even the switch from the calm, relatively peaceful (if horribly deluded) young man to the serial killer that they now housed was something that most of Arkham’s staff took in stride.

What they were not prepared for, however, was the strange noise that started to emanate from Jervis Tetch’s room at approximately 4.30 in the afternoon. It was accompanied by a bright light that spilled into the hallway through the crack beneath the door and around its hinges.

Security was summoned and the door was unlocked, but by that stage the light and the noise had both faded, and when the door was opened all of the assembled staff were surprised to find that their patient had changed; the murderous Jervis Tetch that had made headlines over the previous week being replaced once more with the quiet, relatively harmless young man that they had been taking care of previously.

He stood in the middle of the room, looking more than a little tired and confused, and held a strange looking object between both of his hands. He was wearing what looked to be a standard issue jumpsuit from a different facility and looked as though he was badly in need of sleep and a hot shower.

He held the object in his hands out towards the security staff that entered his room.

“I have a message for Batman,” he said.

The members of Arkham’s staff looked towards one another, none of them entirely sure what they were supposed to do next.

Tetch fumbled in one of his pockets for a moment, before his hand emerged holding a piece of paper, which he held out along with the strange object in his possession.

“It’s very, very important,” he said.

The Bat-signal had been lit. Bruce knew that he needed to respond, no matter how much else he had on, or how much he just wanted to curl up into a ball and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.

He was low on sleep and hoping that a stupidly high amount of caffeine in his blood stream would get him through the night. Whatever it was that Gordon needed him to do, Bruce hoped that it wasn’t too complicated, and that he would be able to return home soon.

He had left the Joker handcuffed inside the Batmobile; not trusting him to be left alone, and certainly not trusting that he would behave himself around Gordon. Hell, even if he did behave himself the last thing Bruce wanted was to be forced to explain again why he was allowing ‘The Joker’ to accompany him. He and John were already going to be in enough trouble if… no, when… John came home as it was.

Bruce was glad for the cowl when he arrived on the rooftop of the GCPD. He knew that he undoubtedly looked like death warmed up.

When Gordon turned around and Bruce saw what the Commissioner was holding however, he suddenly felt much, much more awake and alert.

There, in Gordon’s hands, was the Looking Glass.

“I’ve been told I need to get this to you,” Gordon said. “Came with a letter too; for your eyes only, apparently.”

“Where did you get this?” Bruce asked, as he very carefully took the Looking Glass from Gordon.

“Tetch showed up in Arkham,” Gordon said. “Not the asshole who was going around murdering girls, but the original one, apparently. No sign of the guy you and I locked up last week either. Guy’s disappeared without a trace.”

Bruce could feel his hands shaking as he took the Looking Glass from Gordon, and hoped that the other man didn’t notice it.

“I had a feeling that thing would come back to bite me in the ass,” Gordon said. “Whatever the hell it is, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Bruce said, hooking the Looking Glass onto his belt by one of its more twisted ridges, careful to place it in such a way that nothing would be bumped or activated.

There was a piece of paper tucked into one of the knots of the Looking Glass, and Bruce pulled it out gently. The paper was a heavy grade, with a pearlescent patina to it that probably meant it was relatively expensive. The letter had Bruce’s name written on the outside in handwriting that was so wonderfully familiar that Bruce felt himself choking up at the mere sight of it.

For just a moment he considered reading the note while he was away from Gordon, and could digest the contents in peace without worrying about growing overemotional, but there was every chance that there was important information in the letter that he might need to relay to the police officer, and if Bruce was being honest with himself, he really couldn’t wait to open the letter and find out whether or not John was all right.

“What does it say?” Gordon asked.

Bruce unfolded the paper with his back still turned to Gordon.

John had worked hard to improve his handwriting over the last couple of years. The large, wobbly lines that had been on the card that John had given him at Lucius’s funeral had turned into relatively neat, if still somewhat childish block letters.

‘Hi Bruce,’ the letter read.

‘So I’m stuck over here in another universe. Weird right? I’ve met this universe’s version of you, and he’s okay I guess, but he’s not you Bruce. I miss you. I mean it. I really, really miss you. This world is kind of awful and I just want to go home.

‘Ignore what I just wrote. There’s important stuff I have to tell you. :D

‘Batman and I (Well, this other Batman. Not you obviously.) have worked out that Tetch’s Looking Glass can’t transport the same person more than once. At least we think that’s how it works. Hopefully the other Tetch is back with you and so you know now that it works how we think it works.

‘Does that make sense? I don’t know any more, but you’re a super smart guy. You know what I mean, right buddy?

‘So now all you need to do is give the Looking Glass to the other me and get him to activate it and everything should be all right. He IS there with you right? Be careful Bruce. From what Other Bruce and some other people here say about him he sounds kind of dangerous and super awful.

‘I really do miss you Bruce. Like, super, super miss you, but hopefully I’ll be able to come back home soon!’

‘Love from your best buddy in the whole world,

‘John Doe’.

John had drawn a series of love hearts all over the bottom of the letter.

“You going to share?” Gordon asked.

Bruce had been so busy reading the letter that he had almost forgotten Gordon was still standing nearby. He was glad that he had turned his back to Gordon, otherwise the other man would have been able to see the undoubtedly soft and ridiculously fond smile that had settled on his face as he read the letter.

He quickly folded up the piece of paper and tucked it into one of the pockets on his belt.

“This should all be over soon,” Bruce replied. “With any luck neither you nor I will have to deal with this thing again after tonight.”

“I hope so,” Gordon said. “I’ve trusted you so far on this one, mostly because that thing looked like something out of a damned horror movie. I don’t want anything to do with it, but I’m going to want an explanation once this is all over and done with, you hear me?”

“Yes,” Batman replied, although he had a feeling that Gordon was going to have difficulty believing any of it. “Of course.”

“So what happens now?” Gordon asked.

“Oh yes,” a voice came from the shadows. “Do tell us what happens next Batsy.”

It sent shivers down Bruce’s back as soon as he heard it. The Joker emerged from the shadows on the other side of the GCPD roof, strutting towards Batman and Gordon as though he was a model strolling down a catwalk.

“What in the hell…?” Gordon cursed beneath his breath.

“How did you get up here Joker?” Batman asked. He didn’t know what the Joker even thought he was doing up on the rooftop, but he had a feeling that whatever the Joker was planning, he wasn’t going to like it.

The Joker let out a sudden, barking laugh in response to the question.

“I followed you,” he replied. “Did you really think a little old pair of handcuffs was going to keep me somewhere I don’t want to be? Me!?”

“Joker!” Batman snapped. His question had been answered, but there were many more pressing ones that he needed answers to.

“What the hell are you doing working with him again!?” Gordon asked. “I thought we threw him away in Arkham? You’re telling me he’s out?”

“John Doe is out of Arkham,” Batman told Gordon. “He’s living with his friend Bruce Wayne.”

“But what…?”

“I know what it looks like Jim, but this isn’t John Doe. This is a different Joker.”

“What in the hell?” Jim said again. “A copycat?”

“Something like that,” Batman replied. “But trust me, this Joker is a hell of a lot worse than the last one.”

The Joker hadn’t said anything at all while Batman and Gordon had been talking. He’d just been walking slowly towards them, smiling widely as he did. Somehow the silent menace he exuded seemed far, far more threatening than anything he might have said. Hell, Batman would have even taken that terrible laughter of his over this.

The Joker waltzed towards Batman, who watched him very, very closely. The man was holding his hands behind his back, which probably wasn’t a good sign. Batman tried to get a look at whatever he might be hiding, but before he could the Joker darted forward and snatched the piece of paper out from the pocket Batman had stashed it in.

“Now what’s all this?” he asked. “You’re planning on sending me back, aren’t you?”

Batman could hear Gordon muttering and swearing under his breath. The Commissioner’s hand had landed on his gun, and Bruce really couldn’t blame him.

Bruce watched the Joker carefully, wary of any sudden moves that the other man might make.

“What if I don’t want to go home?” the Joker asked.

Bruce frowned. This was the first time that the Joker had expressed anything even approaching the desire to stay in Bruce’s world.

“I thought you hated it here,” he said.

“What the hell is going on?” Gordon asked, glancing between the two of them as he drew the gun from his belt.

Bruce’s eyes darted to Gordon for only a second, but it was all that the Joker needed.

The hand that he had hidden behind his back suddenly moved forward, and Bruce realized too late what it was that the Joker had been holding.

The Joker erupted in a burst of loud laughter as the smoke bomb hit the ground. Bruce cursed beneath his breath. He should have known not to leave the Joker alone in the car. Not only had he managed to slip his cuffs, but he’d raided the Batmobile’s trunk as well. Bruce only hoped that the smoke bomb was the only thing that the Joker had taken.

Bruce switched the cowl’s vision to infrared. He was half expecting the Joker to charge at him, to make a grab for the Looking Glass, but instead he saw the Joker charging straight at Gordon; Gordon, who was busy coughing through the smoke and had no infrared vision to warn him of the Joker’s approach.

“Gordon!” Bruce called. He heard a gunshot go off, but they were both too late.

The Joker was on Gordon before either of them could react. There was a very brief tussle, and by the time the smoke had started to clear, the Joker was standing there, holding Gordon’s gun and pressing it against the Commissioner’s head.

He stood there and grinned at Batman as the smoke slowly cleared.

“You son of a bitch,” Gordon cursed. He had his hands in the air, but was clearly looking for the first opportunity to attack the Joker and break free.

“Now this guy here I know,” the Joker said, his face pressed against the side of Gordon’s head, so that he could whisper the words right into the Commissioner’s ear. “Oh yes. Good old Jimmy here and I have had a lot of fun together in the past. Good to know that some things never change, hmm? Now Bats, you’re going to hand over that Looking Glass or I’m going to put a bullet right into the dear Commissioner’s skull.”

Bruce raised his hands in the air. Whatever happened, he couldn’t let the Joker kill Gordon, but neither could he give up his only chance to get John back. In the Joker’s current maniacal mood, Bruce couldn’t be entirely sure that the Joker wouldn’t just break the Looking Glass as soon as Bruce handed it over.

“Why are you doing this Joker?” Bruce asked. “You want to go home, don’t you?”

“Do I?” the Joker asked, smiling and raising his eyebrows as though he himself wasn’t even sure of the answer. “I don’t know about that Bats, but what I do know is that I have a gun pressed to your dear pal Jimmy’s head and have every intention of firing it unless you do what I want.”

Bruce scowled, but reached down to grab the Looking Glass.

“You’ll let Gordon go once I hand this over?” Bruce asked.

The Joker pretended to think about the idea for a moment, his lips pursing almost cartoonishly before shrugging.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” he offered. “Honestly Bats, the more pressing issue here seems to me to be the fact that I’ve threatened to shoot him if you don’t hand it over, and frankly I am beginning to lose my patience here. You have ten seconds.”

“All right. All right!” Bruce said, unhooking the Looking Glass from his belt and approaching the Joker and Jim Gordon slowly.

“Don’t do it,” Gordon said, glaring at Batman as he approached. “You can’t give in to this sort of lunatic.”

“Don’t worry Jim,” Bruce said. “I’m going to find a way to fix this.”

He had to. He didn’t have any other choice.

He held the Looking Glass out, expecting the Joker to either let go of Jim Gordon or the gun in order to take it, but instead the Joker pressed the barrel of the gun harder against Gordon’s temple.

“Don’t be shy Jimmy,” the Joker hissed. “Be a dear and grab that for me, will you?”

“Go to hell,” Gordon cursed.

The Joker rolled his eyes, as though Gordon was the one being unrealistic.

“Fine then,” he said. “Well, if someone doesn’t want to play nice then we’ll have to do all of this ourselves, won’t we Bats?”

The Joker grinned at him then; a wide, toothy grin that sent shivers down Bruce’s spine.

“Put the damned thing in my pocket,” the Joker said.

Batman moved to place the Looking Glass in one of the Joker’s front pockets, but the Joker just rolled his eyes again in response to that.

“No, no, no,” the Joker said, before grinning at Bruce again. His voice was low and deep, almost a purr, when he next spoke. “The back pocket.”

Bruce scowled at him, but did as the Joker asked, reaching around to place the Looking Glass in a pocket right over the Joker’s backside, and trying to ignore the pleased shudder that the Joker let out as he did so.

“There,” the Joker said as Bruce took a step back. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

Bruce waited for the Joker to let Gordon go, but he didn’t move the gun away from Gordon’s forehead, or do anything at all to make Bruce think that he had made the situation any better by handing the Looking Glass over.

“Joker!” Bruce demanded. “I did what you wanted. Now let Gordon go!”

“Did I say that was part of the deal?” the Joker said, acting completely innocent. “I really don’t think I did.”

“You…” Gordon started to curse, but neither Bruce nor the Joker got to hear what the Commissioner was going to call him, as the Joker pulled back, only to pistol whip the Commissioner, slamming the butt of the gun into the other man’s head hard enough that Gordon let out a low groan before going limp in the other man’s arms.

The Joker looked scrawny, but Bruce knew from experience with John that he was far stronger than he looked, and he was able to take all of Jim Gordon’s weight with ease.

“This doesn’t make any sense Joker!” Bruce yelled, almost at his wit’s end. “You’ve done nothing but complain about this place since you got here! All you need to do is activate the Looking Glass and everything will go back to normal. You’ll be back in your own world! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

The Joker grinned at him again, another predatory grin that didn’t seem to hold any happiness in it at all.

“But why would I want to leave when I’m having so much fun?” he asked.

Gordon let out another low groan, and his eyelids fluttered half-open before closing once more.

Bruce tried to calculate whether or not it would be safe to charge the Joker and try to get both Gordon and the Looking Glass back, but no matter how he looked at it, the fact that the Joker was still pressing the barrel of the gun to Gordon’s head still presented far too much of a risk.

“I’ve finally gotten you to come out and play Batsy,” the Joker said, as he started to back up, towards the edge of the building, taking Gordon along with him. “Why on earth would I want to stop now?”

Bruce watched the Joker backing up, hoping as he did that the criminal wasn’t planning what he thought he was planning.

“Joker!” Bruce warned, just as the back of the Joker’s leg hit the edge of the building’s roof.

He jumped up on the ledge with seemingly no effort at all, dragging the Commissioner with him.

“If you want to save the Commissioner and get your darling John back then you’ll have to come and find me Bats,” the Joker said, as he pulled the half-conscious Commissioner to his side. “I’ll expect a proper performance mind you. None of this wishy-washy, ‘let’s all be friends’ bull. I want to see the real you. That darker side of you. Goodbye Batsy.”

“Joker no!” Batman screamed, but it was too late.

The Joker fell over the side of the building, holding Gordon close to him as he did.

Bruce had no idea how the Joker expected either himself or Gordon to survive.

He ran over to the side of the building and looked over, half-expecting to find the both of them lying broken and bloodied on the street below, but when he looked he could see no trace of the Joker or Gordon, or of the Looking Glass.

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#my fic #batjokes #batman telltale #bruce wayne #john doe #jim gordon

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mermaidsirennikita · 6 years ago

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March 2019 Book Roundup

Did I read a lot of duds in March? Yes. (YA Fantasy is not off to the greatest start this year.) However, I also read the first book of 2019 that I actually loved, Daisy Jones and The Six, and just finished the super fun thriller My Lovely Wife. Are things looking up? We shall see.

Four Dead Queens by Astride Scholte 2/5. In Quadara, a queen rules each nation, huddled away in a palace that keeps all four safe. Which is why it’s so shocking when Queen Iris is murdered within the very palace itself. Meanwhile, thief Keralie intercepts a comm disk that gives her a vision of not only Iris’s death, but those of the other three queens--all brutally murdered. Teaming up with the very messenger she stole from, Keralie sets out to discover the intended recipient of the disk, believing that this will uncover the killer and give her a valuable bartering tool. I really liked the concept of the four queens in theory--but first off, it really doesn’t work for a sci fi novel. And I didn’t read the summary closely enough, so I figured that this was a fantasy book. Second, the world is poorly built. Scholte also has way too many perspectives. Keralie is our ultimate lead, but we get a POV from each queen, and they are all more interesting and less annoying than Keralie, who just doesn’t think or act like a real person. Wouldn’t recommend.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. 2/5. Alicia Berenson is a popular and acclaimed painter--until she murders her husband with no warning. After Alicia becomes the main point of obsession for criminal psychotherapist Theo--to the point that he begins working at the institution in which she is housed for the explicit purpose of studying her--the question is raised: can she prompted out of her catatonic state? And if she is, what will she reveal? Basically, I hated reading from Theo’s perspective. What a typical boring mediocre male narrator. And the twist wasn’t anything special. I feel like the hype around these twisty thrillers is killing them early for me.

Intercepted by Alexa Martin. 2/5. Marlee is a football player’s long-time girlfriend, barely tolerated by the catty wives on the team. When her boyfriend is revealed as a cheater, the surprise comes in time with the arrival of Gavin Pope, the new quarterback--who happened to share a steamy night with Marlee years ago. So. I wanted to love this. But Martin uses a ton of hashtags in Marlee’s inner narration, and Gavin is less of a character than he is a random good guy. Everyone bad was cartoonishly bad. Everyone good was bland. The sexual tension was nice though.

Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. 4/5. In the format of interview transcripts recorded for the sake of a book, we explore the rise and fall of Daisy Jones and The Six, one of the most popular rock bands of the 70s. Daisy is a tornado, beautiful, talented, and hopelessly addicted to several different drugs when she runs into The Six, an established band that catapults into another level of fame when she joins. The band is full of dueling personalities--but no one clashes with Daisy more than lead singer Billy. Fresh off of beating his addictions and devoting himself to his wife, Camila, and their young family, Billy finds an artistic partner in Daisy like no other. But the tension between them can go nowhere good. This is the first great book I’ve read of the year--and it’s funny because I’d nearly given up on the author. This is either close to or at the quality of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Reid just needs to write books about the lives of fake old school celebrities for all eternity. Is the band clearly based off of Fleetwood Mac? Oh, yes. But it’s fucking addictive. Many of the characters are fleshed out--I loved Karen, the independent keyboardist who was really Daisy’s opposite but never acted like a Superior Feminist--but this is Daisy and Billy’s book. This is the kind of relationship I fucking love: the longing is there, and they kind of hate each other because they want to cross that line so badly but can’t. It’s not just a matter of a love triangle, either, which I love--the story may have been much simpler if Daisy and Billy weren’t addicts, and if he wasn’t sure that she would ruin his sobriety. Shout out to Camila, Billy’s wife; she could have been typical and long-suffering, but there was just enough of an extra something to make her whole. The ending was a bit sudden. That was my main issue. But it didn’t take away from how much I loved the book. Can’t wait for the TV adaptation.

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. 3/5. Jessica is a starving makeup artist, barely making it by. So she can’t resist the opportunity that falls into her lap when a client drops out of a paid research study. Taking the client’s place, Jessica becomes Subject 52 in Dr. Shields’s study on morality. As the questions in the study become increasingly intense, Jessica becomes wrapped up in Dr. Shields’s true motives--which are much more personal than professional. This is a very standard thriller. As with their previous novels, the writers create a well-paced and engaging story, even if the characters are more fun devices than fleshed-out people. The issue with this one is that there is not only really no twist, but zero surprises. You’ll see every single beat coming. It was just a bit paint by numbers. But I liked it well enough otherwise.

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas. 2/5. The last book in the Throne of Glass series, because you have to finish things sometimes, right? (Even though I didn’t read the preceding book because it was about Chaol and I don’t hate myself.) The thing about Maas is that I think she can write perfectly respectable trashy fun wish fulfillment stuff, but it just starts to take itself so fucking seriously. And she added so many characters over time, and everyone had to have a (heterosexual) romance. I mean, even her lone bisexual character ultimately ends up in a hetero relationship. Not sure what that means. Also: every time she calls a dude a “male” because he’s a fairy, a part of me dies inside.

Bloodleaf by Crystal Smith. 2/5. Aurelia is a princess, loathed by her own people due to her supernatural abilities, and betrothed to the prince of a neighboring kingdom. After an assassination attempt exposes her to the people’s wrath, Aurelia is forced to flee her nation in disguise. She finds a surprising amount of freedom in her new home--but plots surrounding the crown follow her everywhere, and threaten the new life she’s forged. Basically, this one is just like.. I don’t know. The second star is an effort star, for sure. This is technically a Goose Girl retelling, though there is very little that bonds it with the original tale. Which is fine. What isn’t fine is Aurelia. Within 60 pages, I was very tired of her nonsensical actions and total petulance. I had no idea why she was making the choices she made. The story is also rather vague--though we’re presumably flitting between two different countries, the basic differences are “one is okay with magic, the other isn’t”. I also really didn’t understand the structure of Aurelia’s homeland, wherein people could basically like.... threaten the princess’s life on the regular while also not wanting to overthrow the entire royal family in general? And this is like, the rabble we’re talking about, not nobles. It didn’t super make sense as it was explained. I wish this was a better one.

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing. 4/5. A married couple in an upper middle class neighborhood keep their marriage alive through a particular fetish--that happens to revolve around getting away with murder. It’s hard to discuss this one without giving much away. It’s actually told from the (nameless) husband’s perspective, which would annoy me more if it turned out the way I thought it would. Because the wife, Millicent, is so vibrant and so very good at what they do compared to the narrator, I thought that this was heading into Gone Girl territory. And indeed, I did predict a few twists that made it look that way even more. I can’t say much more than to finish with the fact that just when you think the novel is going towards one ending, the final sentence happens. A fun, compulsive read with very horrible human beings as the leads. My brand!

#reading roundup #book recs #books

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