#okay i'll stop reblogging stuff about hilo now.

[luckydicekirby]

erin hasn’t read jade legacy yet and i have 700 pages worth of Opinions about it and you can’t put stuff under a cut in tweets so i am finally returning to “posting on tumblr”

this book did not fully work for me! and i am really chewing on why. I enjoyed reading it, and it made me cry several times, but it felt structurally disconnected and didn’t really come together for me like, Thematically. the ending was just kind of eh. points for ending on bero and the twice lucky, because i’m a simple woman i love a good bookend, but it feels really weird that the end was basically like “well, we won bc our family likes each other and the mountain all hates each other” guys your family is a nightmare!!!!!!!! 

on some level I think I had expectations the book ultimately wasn’t interested in fulfilling so I’m not a super fair judge--my called shot for this book was that niko was going to kill hilo for murdering his mom, or that at least that was going to be a major point of contention between them. at a certain point it became obvious this was not the direction we were going in, which is fine, but eyni’s murder was SUCH a great momentous “oh shit” moment in jade war and I feel like we never fully followed up on it--it makes perfect sense that hilo would see it as necessary and like it was the right thing to do, because he’s a freak and he sucks (affectionate), but we barely get to see niko react to it as an adult. like I really thought we were going to get a moment in jade legacy that was like, hey hilo, turns out you cannot just kill your nephew’s mom and kidnap him as a toddler without consequences, but I guess......you can? i feel like we missed out on sooo much meaty crunchy stuff in this vein.

also this should have been at least two or three books. I was excited about the time skips, because I wanted to see the kids as adults, but a lot of specific moments had to get skimmed over to fit everything in, and the kids kind of got the shaft as far as characterization--we get the most interesting character stuff with niko, and he barely has any POV! I liked what we got of Ru (and his death made me cry like a baby), but jaya was cool but completely flat. my mind palace ideal structure is like. one book still centered on the adults while the kids are growing up, and then one book centered on the adult kids where we actually get to dig deep into their character stuff/their relationships with each other. 

anyway, stray thoughts:

making anden and lott narrative foils but then not having them get together honestly kind of a power move. i kind of respect it. my read is that lott is gay but decided he would never be able to be out and be the horn, and stuck to that. which WOULD sure make him feel real weird about anden!

shae/ayt mada real and no one can convince me otherwise. they both tried to kill each other they both saved each other’s lives that is romance baybee

i did really enjoy the continuing bero throughline/his ultimate insignificance, and inability to even MAKE himself significant by confessing to lan’s murder to niko. that scene was so good. 

it feels like all the interesting thematic stuff in this book was coming together in the wake of Ru’s death, and then it all had to get dropped bc we were once again at like, “uh oh mountain’s gonna take over”. like no go back i want to talk more about senseless death and about how vital it is to die for a cause as a green bone but ultimately lan’s death was also a senseless accident and hilo HAS ALWAYS KNOWN THAT AND ALWAYS LIED ABOUT IT AND THAT’S THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE WAR!!! CAN WE TALK ABOUT THAT!!

2 black 2 green made me lose it. 

anyway i AM staring at my hands like is it just that i’m a slut for tragedy and wanted a worse ending to this book where like five major characters died....am EYE the problem for wanting this family to be irrevocably broken...am i too successionpilled.....