#sometimes I wish I hadn’t written wicked games so I could read it myself for the first time bc WTF

[evansbby]

peak cinema was when wg!wanda exposed wg!reader at the gala in front of everyone and then reader ran out and wg!ari chased after her and wg!steve crashed the party and died (rip)

[jade-masquerade]

Simply Stricken

Written for @tlkfanficfest 2020 Round 2 for the prompt “Stiorra/Sigtryggr and their first kiss”

Stiorra sighed, the book in front of her no longer holding her attention. There were only so many dusty old tomes full of endless burh descriptions and donations made to the church and counts of barley yields she could read, and she glanced away from the words that had long since begun to blur together.

 Instead, her eyes wandered to the most interesting part of this dull, drab room: Sigtryggr himself.

 After Eardwulf had barged through those doors and she’d spent days listening to Brida demanding her head and all sorts of her body parts in turn, Stiorra had admitted in a moment of weakness that she felt safer with him here, and he’d spent as much time in here with her and the books and table games as outside training with swords and shields ever since.  

 She knew she should have hated him. She knew that she should have been angry and afraid. She knew he was dangerous, that he had killed. But so have Father and his men, whispered that conspiratorial voice she fought often these days. Maybe it was her mother’s strength or her father’s impetuousness, but Stiorra found she couldn’t muster a semblance of fear or ire anymore, at least not when they were here alone like this.

Once she’d been certain he hadn’t intended to harm her, she had asked if she was free to go. He insisted she was if she wished, her chambers evidently not well guarded if Eardwulf deep in his cups had managed to stagger served as proof enough of that. In that moment, though, she’d realized the entire city was full of men like that waiting beyond these walls, with nothing better to occupy their time than drinking and whoring and fighting in the streets. Besides, it was far better here than out there where she imagined Brida sat contemplating a thousand ways for her to die, and if she waited here, Stiorra knew somewhere deep down that her father would come for her. And until then, the stories Sigtryggr told were far more fascinating than listening to children whining or watching Finan and Sihtric playing dice for the thousandth time.

 Sigtryggr was an odd sort of Dane, Stiorra had to admit. He strangely seemed to have taken as much of an interest in scrolls and her stories as the sprawling palace and the chests of silver they had gathered from Winchester’s stores. Sometimes he would bring an object—a relic from the chapel, a platter with a verse inscribed upon it, a painting of a saint—from somewhere in the castle, or something to occupy himself, polishing his boots or scabbard, weaving together a hempen rope, the kind of work she’d expect a handmaiden to do, not a warlord, and he would sit and listen to what she had to say, whether it was telling him about the beliefs of the Christian faith, talking about her childhood, or teasing him about if Winchester had turned out to be all he dreamed. He entertained all sorts of her questions in turn, about his homeland and Irland and the sea and all he’d seen along the way, and she couldn’t help but be drawn into his tales of the world beyond the walls of Saltwic and Coccham.

 And she wasn’t blind either, regardless of what Brida threatened. It hadn’t escaped her attention that Sigtryggr was rather handsome, with his long hair and his armbands, clad in functional leather rather than a cape embroidered with gold or jewelry that served to do little other than belie exorbitant wealth. He looked so different from the shorn haired Saxons she’d been raised alongside, and perhaps most importantly, also unlike them he clearly washed.

 “Are you overcome with admiration?”

 She shook her head when she realized she must have been staring. “No. I’m bored.”

He smirked. Then there was that, too, those smiles that would have surely bewitched her in an instant had she been a weaker woman. “So I’ve heard.”

 She rolled her eyes. “My father’s stories made all of this seem exciting. And all that’s here is a list of dead men and their vassals and their lands and who cares.”

 “Lady Aelswith has assured me that her husband was a great man,” Sigtryggr said.

 “Oh, have you been spending a great deal of time with Lady Aelswith now?” She took her turn to smirk now, and then offered mercy at the look of bewilderment he wore. “He was, I suppose. He ruled with fairness and strength and love for his people.”

 “But?”

 She could not deny he was coming to know her well. “But it wasn’t as if he did these things all himself. He didn’t fight the battles, he didn’t bring in the harvests, he didn’t build the burhs. There’s scarcely even a mention of Lady Aelswith, either.”

 “Would there be? She tells me Wessex has no such thing as a queen. Aelflaed tells me different, of course.”  

 “Does it matter? Being a queen seems utterly boring, too.”

 The corners of his mouth quirked up. “Don’t all girls wish to grow up and become queen?”

 “No,” she shuddered. “I certainly didn’t. It seems awful, to do nothing but spend your days bowing and curtsying locked up in some palace. And I don’t want children, much less a kingdom.”

 “Oh? Have you discussed this with your intended?”

 She wrinkled her nose. “My intended?”

 “The man to whom you are betrothed. That’s what Saxons like to do, is it not? Find someone who can make them richer, give them power, or grant them lands, and marry their daughters off to them in exchange for their favor.”

 “Yes,” she admitted. It all sounded rather crude when he put it that way, and she supposed it was. Her mother had told her once of the man she’d nearly been forced to marry, her father’s cruel uncle who had stolen Bebbanberg, and how her brother, Guthred, arranged the match to solidify an alliance and receive reinforcements of men with no regard for his sister’s well-being or her wishes, and how her father had returned in time to disrupt the completion of the ceremony. Knowing her father, Stiorra suspected she left out some of the gorier details to make it fit for the ears of a child, but the passion of the act had always stuck with her, the reminder of the fierce devotion and the love they shared, and how so few were ever permitted to follow their hearts as they had. “Sometimes.”

 “So your betrothed…?” Sigtryggr prompted.

 They had spoken at length about family, hers and his alike, but this was the first time their conversation has strayed into this territory. “I don’t have one,” she said. “There’s no husband waiting for me. I’m not sure I even wish to marry, either.”

 “Ah, so you have preferred to take lovers instead, Stiorra Uhtredsdottir,” he said, winking.

 She felt her face flame. “No, I never even so much as… I’ve never taken a lover.”

Stiorra expected him to laugh, for him to look at her as a child just like everyone else, maybe to tease about her evident prudishness as she’d seen her father’s men rib each other often enough. But he only nodded, though he must have read her embarrassment, for he asked, “Are all Saxons so shy about these matters, too?”

 “I’m not a Saxon,” she said for what must have been the thousandth time, but this time she said it with a smile.

 “Then your Danish mother did not tell you of the joys that can be found with another?”

 “My mother died when I was still too young to talk of such things,” she said. “And the nuns and priests in Saltwic only droned on about purity and maintaining virtue… which makes Lady Aethelflaed herself quite the deviant if half of what they say about her and my father is true.”

 She grinned, though such a secret was scarcely one anymore, not for anyone who had seem them together with their own two eyes, and she flushed at the memory of how she had stumbled upon them kissing one time when she had come to bid him a farewell on his visit to Saltwic. Stiorra turned and ran before they noticed her interruption, and while it had been a bit awkward, she owed much to Lady Aethelflaed’s kindness and wished only happiness for her.

 “Lord Uhtred and Lady Aethelflaed? The daughter of King Alfred and Lady Aelswith?” Sigtryggr seemed amused at the prospect.  

 Stiorra nodded. “My father loved her, and she him. But they say before, she loved a Dane once. That he truly fathered her daughter, not Lord Aethelred.”

 She had never been bold enough to ask Lady Aethelflaed of it, but hearing of the tale had always excited her, and retelling it now was no different. She couldn’t help but think it romantic, despite its beginning and end and the loss of what could have been.

 “A smart woman, then,” Sigtryggr said. “Except if she loved your father, then why do they whisper he waits outside these walls when he could be the ruling Lord of Mercia?”

 “Lady Aethelflaed promised to remain chaste to placate the ealdormen and their god too, I suppose.”  

 He furrowed his brow in confusion. “Their god truly wants piety and obedience rather than free will and happiness?”

 “I don’t know what their god wants,” she shook her head. “For me to devote my life to a nunnery? Or am I instead to save myself for some repulsive old man and his bags of gold? Or some cruel lord with the right name and advantageous lands?”

 “You do not believe in their god?”

 She’d long ago lost faith in the god the Christians worshipped, the one King Alfred had tried to impress upon her to punish her father, but she’d also lost count of how many times she’d asked him, pleaded with the gods of her ancestors, begged anyone who was listening to free her from the boredom of first Coccham and then Saltwic, for someone to come along, anyone, and take her somewhere else, anywhere else, back to Winchester or Northumbria, and bring her adventure. Sometimes the gods had a funny way of showing their will.

 “I don’t want to believe in the existence of a god who takes that much interest in my cunt,” she said bluntly.

  He laughed, and soon she found herself laughing along with him.

 “It’s true,” she insisted. “I don’t care what they say about pagans, if we’re barbaric and wicked. At least our gods are not petty and selfish.”  

 “Our gods don’t care so much what we do so long as we entertain them,” he said.

 “Then they also must be rather bored with this siege,” she said, though she felt anything but now with the way she felt the air shift between them.

 Sigtryggr stood up and walked towards her slowly, nearing where she sat upon the table, books discarded at her side that couldn’t hold a candle compared to the way he seemed to study her now. “Then perhaps we should take it upon ourselves to amuse them?”

 She was struck by how he was even more handsome this way, stunning, strikingly. He was utterly compelling this close, tall, imposing with his scar streaking past his eye, and strong, her gaze following the muscles from his shoulders down to his forearms. At this distance, he was only himself, not a warlord, not more god than man as some of the others seemed to tell it.

 He hadn’t touched her since he’d taken the broken glass from her hand and talked her down from using it to mar her face, but she still remembered the way his skin felt against hers, warm and rough. He was even more hesitant this time as he reached first for her hand, and when she let her fingers thread through his, he brought the other up to stroke her cheek.

 It was nothing, really, no more than what perhaps a hundred other men had done to her, claiming they wished to admire her beauty or looking for a shadow of her father in her face or attempting to evoke a memory of her mother, yet the simple touch sent heat flooding through her.

 Stiorra wondered what he would do if she was bold enough to do the same to him, and gathering her courage, she decided to find out. She began with tracing over his scar, her fingertip lightly following the curved line, skirting around the edge of his mouth, skimming along his jaw, and then continuing over the hair that brushed his shoulders until her fingers slid against the leather covering his chest and curled around the hammer of Thor he wore.

 She found herself drawn to funny things this close: his eyelashes, the bob of his throat, the wisps of a beard gracing his chin, and when she had looked her fill, she brought her eyes up to meet his. She felt as though he saw her—not Lord Uhtred’s daughter, whether that was for good or for bad, not a captive or an enemy, and certainly not a child.

 “May I…”

“Yes.” She didn’t entirely know what she was agreeing to, nor did she care; she only knew that she wanted, anticipation thrumming beneath her skin.  

 The touch of his lips to hers was softer even than the feel of his hand on her cheek. It was strange at first, all of this, the way it felt, how he moved firm but gentle, slow and deliberate, even the fact that they stood in a room where King Alfred’s scribes had written of her father’s victories and the conquests of the Saxons.  

 It was nice, though, even as she wondered how she’d know, given she had nothing with which to compare it. She felt as though she was fumbling through the motions at first, merely attempting to mirror what he did, but then it smoothed into something even more pleasant, something synchronous as they found a sort of rhythm, and she paused only when she was certain she needed to breathe.

 This time she initiated as they resumed, one of her hands winding around his wrist, the other still entwined with his coming up to rest on his chest between them. Their kisses grew quicker, deeper, more desperate until he slowed the pace again.

 He lingered there against her, and seconds or minutes or hours could have passed, but Stiorra still was not expecting it when he pulled away, and it was so sudden she didn’t even have a chance to mask her disappointment.  

 Perhaps he’d stopped for an entirely different reason, though, and before she could stifle them, the words escaped. “Was I awful?”

 He grinned at her, his eyes darkened, and when he spoke again, his voice was deep, a low rumble in his chest, and it made her want more. “No. I simply find myself stricken.”

Stiorra nodded in understanding, her breath catching as his free hand slipped from her cheek to her hip. It had been just a kiss, but it didn’t feel like just anything as Stiorra reached up and swiped her finger over where his lips had touched hers. It felt like it could be something, could be everything.

 All her life Stiorra had been told of how she resembled her mother—in her looks, her strength, her wit—and she’d been told, too, of the gift of prophecy she’d possessed, of how Gisela could cast her rune sticks and see fate in the way they fell. That had always seemed like a strange business to Stiorra, but in that moment she wondered if she had inherited something else from her mother after all because as she looked back up at Sigtryggr again and returned his soft smile, she suspected she could see a glimpse of hers.

[aresaphrodites]

Wicked Games Chapter Seventeen - Epilogue.

Thank you to everyone who read this story and who commented and left kudos on it. Your kind words are what made me want to update and finish this story. To those of you who have been here since the beginning; thank you for sticking with me throughout all my crazy cliffhangers. I love ya'll so much.

To @itstenafterfour, this story never would have made it here without you cheering me on and gassing me up 24/7. Hope you're ready to be my beta forever.

We've come to the end of this journey.

Thank you and enjoy. <3

It’s that time of the year again, for the news to broadcast her struggles and pretend they understand the pain she’s been through. For some reason, Betty can’t tear herself from the screen, so she watches the anchor read a speech that sounds plastic and pre-written.

“Today marks the five year anniversary of the death of Veronica Lodge. Veronica Lodge was one of Hollywood’s most beloved actresses; starring in countless films and box office hits, such as End of Tonight, Hollow’s Creek, and The Darkness In Us. Her life was cut short at a tragic twenty-two years old when she was brutally murdered in her Los Angeles home by Marisol Hemmings. Hemmings was one half of what would later be known as the duo in the Betty Cooper Scandal, along with Christopher Cooper, otherwise known as Chris Matthews.

Veronica Lodge is remembered through her movies as well as through Archie Andrews’ who was her longtime boyfriend before the incident.”

Betty can’t help but scowl. It wasn’t an incident, she was fucking murdered. Say it, you coward.

“His new album, titled Veronica, is a complete tribute to the late actress and I have to say, it’s one of his better albums. The lyrics are both painful and beautiful, you can see how much his work has grown since her passing, and how much he truly loved her. Andrews’ is currently taking a break from singing and is traveling the world, something the young singer said Veronica had always wanted to do with him when they both had breaks.

As for the other person targeted in this scandal: Betty Cooper, former supermodel, found herself front and center of a stalking situation that quickly turned deadly.”

The TV turns off and Betty turns around to see Jughead standing behind her, remote in his hand and a frown on his face.

“Do you think they’ll ever stop talking about it?” Betty asks him. They always talk about it, every year; acting like they knew Veronica. They post pictures of her face everywhere and have marathons of her best movies. They always show End of Tonight, a movie that Betty and Veronica had once dubbed her worst work yet.

Betty never missed a marathon.

At first when she’d see a picture of Veronica, she’d go into a frenzy; yelling and screaming and then nothing. She’d sit and stare at nothing for hours, not moving and not talking. And that pain would bring back other things. For a while, she couldn’t even cope with loud sounds, especially anything closely resembling a gunshot. During a particularly bad incident, Betty was curled up on the kitchen floor, whispering Veronica’s name catatonically.

That’s when Jughead told her that it was time for her to sit and talk to someone.

He knew this wasn’t like his gunshot wound, not like the surgical scar on his lower back. This was something invisible, internal, something he couldn’t see and fix, so he had to make sure she did was was right for her to heal from the entire disaster.

She started seeing a therapist in Riverdale. It took her a long time to open up about everything, but she finally did. One day, a year after everything, her therapist told her to try to sit through a movie of Veronica’s, a funny one, one that would take Betty to a time when everything was okay.

So she did.

She watched one of the earlier movies that Veronica had starred in. It was a teen comedy about a highschool girl whose life was a complete mess and how she ended up becoming the most popular girl in school. It was cliche and trashy and perfect. Betty didn’t cry while watching it like she thought she would. Instead she smiled and laughed. Sometimes it felt like Veronica was right there with her, a hand on her arm, laughing along with Betty. Veronica always believed it was important to laugh at yourself sometimes.

“Probably not,” Jughead answers her. “But you don’t need to watch that right now. Jellybean’s expecting us over at the high school.”

Betty nods, remembering.

Jellybean is Jughead’s little (well, not so little anymore) sister, and a permanent fixture in their new life in Riverdale. Betty often freaked out over how alike the two siblings were, but she welcomed it. Jellybean was a godsend to her. She had been through things, just like Betty and Jughead, and she was living proof that your past didn’t have to define who you were now. Betty adored her.

Jellybean had done something good with all of the terrible things that had happened to her. She had written a book, a self-help kind, that talked about her experience that night with Chris back in high school, her mother’s death, her father’s alcoholism, and how she was able to overcome everything even though times seemed tough. She was strong; she was part of the reason why Betty hadn’t crumbled and fallen apart a long time ago.

She was giving a talk at Riverdale High today and had asked Betty and Jughead to attend.

“I only got the hour off,” Jughead says as he hands Betty her coat. “We don’t want to be late.”

Jughead works as a cop. It’s really the only job he could see himself doing, he had told her once upon a time. He said he wanted to protect people in a way that no one had protected Betty when she needed it most. He also jokingly mentioned that if the officers of the law weren’t going to do their job, someone had to and it may as well be him.

Betty was somewhat the same. She couldn’t let go of her modeling, as much as she wished she could. For all the bad memories she had tied to it from the last year she’d been in Los Angeles, she still loved it. Modeling was something she had always loved, it was her. She only did small events in Riverdale now; charity appearances in New York and sometimes, if she felt like she could, she would fly to Los Angeles and do a few shoots. It wasn’t like before, it didn’t take up her entire life, but it was still there.

“Cheryl and Reggie are coming with the baby,” Betty tells him as they walk out of their house and to the Range Rover parked outside. “They really wanted to hear Jellybean speak and they miss us.”

Cheryl had stayed a constant in her life, to which she was very thankful. Her therapist had told her that people tended to either grow closer or drift apart during traumatic experiences. Betty was blessed to say that her and Cheryl, and her and Jughead, all grew closer. Even Reggie had snuck his way into Jughead’s good side; Betty and Jughead had even been named the Godparents of their baby boy; Jason Mantle, named after Cheryl’s late brother.

They had all lost someone. Sometimes she wonders if maybe that’s why they were all able to stay so close; they understood the pain and suffering each was going through.

The ride is full of a comfortable silence. Jughead holds her hand the entire way just like he always does. He toys with the ring on her wedding finger and Betty smiles. The diamond sparkles as the sunlight catches it and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen something so beautiful.

They arrive to the school soon enough and Betty’s not surprised to see that there seem to be a lot of people already there.

They’re late; of course they are, and they walk into the gym and stand off toward the side. Jellybean is in the middle of talking already, and Jughead takes a hold of Betty’s hand as they listen to her speak.

“For a long time I blamed my actions for what happened that night with Veronica. I blamed myself for what happened with my sister-in-law and brother. I thought to myself, what if I had just pushed the issue with Chris harder? What if I had demanded that he be locked up? It was irrational, but all I could feel was shame. Shame at myself for not having stood up for myself all those years ago. Shame for letting him walk back into the world, just so he could do something far worse to others. Shame at the cops for letting it be swept under the rug.”

“But as time went on, I realized that no one was to blame for what happened that year except for one person. And that person was Chris Matthews; Chris Cooper.” Jughead squeezes Betty’s hand tightly, but it doesn’t really hurt anymore. She knows who Chris was. He was her brother; her brother that she had shot and killed.

Sometimes she still has nightmare about that night. She can’t really look at guns the same way anymore. Even now, as Jughead wears his work belt around his waist, he keeps the gun on the opposite side of her. She’s not completely healed from that night, she doesn’t think she ever will be, but she’s working on it. Understanding that Chris was her brother and accepting that is part of working on it. Instead of crying when she turns at night to face Jughead, looking at the scar from his surgery still lining one side, she traces patterns on it until she falls asleep. She’s not 100% over it, but she’s getting there and Jughead is proud of her. His hand tightens around hers and they continue to listen to Jellybean speak.

“The main point that I want to get across here is: Don’t let yourself be silenced. If someone puts you in an uncomfortable situation, then you make sure that you speak out and you let yourself be heard. The same thing that happened to you, could happen to another person. Speaking out could ultimately save a life. Do not let people look at you and tell you that you are making things up or that your problem isn’t big enough to deal with. You make sure that you get justice in the end; however you need to. Sometimes justice is demanding proper action from officers of the law, but other times it’s just -- it’s just taking time to talk to someone about how you’re feeling. Asking for help from people who love you. That’s justice too, if you want it to be.”

It feels like she says the last part directly towards Betty.

For a while after Betty had killed Chris, people deemed her a murderer. This stopped her from getting jobs for a period of time, but she’s thankful the tabloids hadn’t followed her to Riverdale. She always felt like this small town was a world in itself, and most people never leave.

Her leaving to be a model was the exception. But to the press, it didn’t matter that he had tried to kill her and Jughead. They just looked at her and saw a woman who killed a man “without a fair trial”. Betty knows better, though. There’s no such thing as a fair trial. She did what she had to do and she’d do it all over again if she needed to.

Jellybean continues her speech, talking more about her parents and this time it’s Betty’s turn to squeeze Jughead’s hand.

Jughead had been shocked when he found out that his father had gone to rehab. He had went to go see him over in South Carolina and when he came back, he told Betty all about it. His father was in a good place now. He’d been sober for about four years. Betty didn’t meet him until Jughead had deemed his father stable enough, but when she did, it was amazing.

FP Jones was a kind man, he was a good man. He was smart and funny. He was a little bit broken, but he had a heart full of good. He was just like Jughead. He was there at their wedding, standing alongside Jellybean. It was one of the happiest days of her life.

Jellybean finishes up by answering a few questions and then the speech is over.

The herd of kids flows out of the gym doors, a couple of them wiping at stray tears with a brash hand, but Betty and Jughead stay behind.

Jellybean is standing in the center of the gym still, but she’s holding a redhaired child in her arms as she talks to two people.

“JB!” Jughead shouts as he jogs over to her. Jellybean turns around and grins as she sees the both of them.

Betty didn’t know her growing up, but she looks at the beautiful young woman standing in front of her and she feels a sense of pride.

“You guys made it!” She squeals out.

“Yeah, like thirty minutes late,” Cheryl snips from behind her but there’s a smile on her face. Betty runs and engulfs her in a hug. She hasn’t seen Cheryl in a few months and she’s missed her like crazy.

“Jughead was late getting home!”

“All work and no play,” Reggie sighs as he brings in Jughead for a hug. “When you gonna let up, man?”

“Well, I’m sorry not all of us can throw a football for a living.”

Reggie gasps and holds his chest in mock hurt. “Keep talking like that and guess who’s not going to the Superbowl for free.”

“If you even make it to the Superbowl.”

“Oh, that’s it.”

Reggie takes off after him, Jughead laughing the entire time and it feels like they’re a bunch of kids in high school again.

“Think they’ll ever grow up?” Jellybean asks with a smirk.

“God, I hope so,” Cheryl sighs. “It’s easier to take care of a newborn baby than it is to take care of Reggie.”

Betty disagrees. She hopes that Jughead stays this young and this happy forever. She hopes that he’s always as happy as he is right now in this moment.

“You know, Betty,” Cheryl says in that tone of voice that means she’s up to no good, “Louis Vuitton’s looking for someone to be the new face of its brand. If you’re interested.” Cheryl is still her manager. That’s completely true, but somewhere along the way she stopped holding so much authority and became more of a friend. But it’s still her job to inform Betty of the requests brands put up to her.

Once upon a time, Betty might have leaped for joy at the offer. She would have dropped everything and anything for just the chance to get the job. Louis Vuitton could wait, right now she had to go untangle Jellybean from the disaster that was Reggie and Jughead as they begin to chase her around the gym. She places a hand onto the growing bump on her stomach, Cheryl smiling at her, and she realizes that there are so many more important things in the world.

She’s staring at a few of them right now.

Tag List: @pearlywise @novelistjugheadjones @thedenisecarla @oldfashionedvanilla @eliza-hamilton-helpless

[comprosedreviews-blog]

Wednesday with THE FIFTH WAVE

The Fifth Wave

My Rating: ***/5

Sometimes I think I might be the last human on Earth… you know. To read The Fifth Wave.

If you didn’t get that joke (and yes smart asses in the back that does technically, probably, count as a joke) then you probably didn’t read the book, so beware the spoilery section to follow.

Anyway, that’s me. The girl who claims to be an avid reader of YA fantasy/ dystopian/ sci-fi that missed out on this really big book that everyone loved. Monica Uzpen. Not Monica like Lewinsky, or like from friends, Monica like the Monica from a really old TV show called Touched by an Angel. (You guys got that one right? I’m funny, right???).

Okay, this is all beside the point. The point being the review. SO let’s review.

Since I am so late to the party with the fifth wave I did a little research about it. Like, was it really worthy of all the YAYS and WOWS it got, or after the many waves (hehehehe) of praise it received, did it fail to meet others expectations. The answer was a mixture of yesses and nos, but what I found really interesting was that people who didn’t like the book, didn’t just not like the book, they hated it.

I’m here to tell you that I actually liked it. A lot. But it very clearly had its issues, and most of those revolved around the romance.

If you’ve read any of my reviews where I’ve ranted about relationships, then you know I HATE an unhealthy relationship with a quick insta-love feel. While I think insta-love might not be the exact wording for what went on between the love interest and MC, I can say it did feel pretty damn close, and that what resulted from that… relationship… felt TOTALLY unhealthy, at least for a good chunk of it. Please, especially if you are a young reader reading this book, understand that the relationship depicted within these pages is not one you’d want to put yourself in. I’ll explain why in the spoiler section, but know that there are some really unacceptable things that happen that are passed off as acceptable, and for that reason I docked this rating two stars.

BUT-BUT-BUT MONICA, if you really didn’t like the romance, how could you like the book????

Well you see, people who might be figuratively or literally asking this question either in reality or in my head because I’m that person who talks to herself and the voices in her head, the book itself was written beautifully. Hilariously. And there are SO MANY QUOTES that I just want to fling at you guys.

Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I hear the stars scraping against the sky.

Before I found you, I thought the only way to hold on was to find something to live for. It isn’t. To hold on you have to find something you’re willing to die for.

We are the clay, and you are Michelangelo. And we will be your masterpieces.

These are just SOME of the beautiful things I read, and to get a really real feeling of appreciation for them, you just gotta read the book. Because things loop. They loop and they complete themselves and they tie together and it’s just so damn satisfying every time it happens.

And you’re in for lots of contemplation and laughs if you do choose to pick it up.

Lol, I say this like you haven’t already.

Like I’m not the last human to read this book.

How ignorant of me ;)

~~~~~Anywho, that’s it for the non-spoilery section.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~If you choose to keep reading you are going to spoil yourself, and I advise against it if you haven’t read the book.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~Cool? Get it? Spoilers ahead!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Close your eyes. Are they closed? Really? Because that was dumb. How are you supposed to read this with your eyes closed. Figuratively, close your eyes. Picture a room. You are waking up in said room. You have been shot, undressed, and dressed and bathed by a complete stranger. After only a little bit of warming up to this person of the opposite sex, they kiss you. You tell them not to. They do it again. You threaten them if they do it again. Guess what? They do it again—

I’m sorry, how is this not sexual assault? We all know that no means no right? Like, I get that Rick Yancey was trying to do the whole, Cassie is a hard ass thing, but like… GUYS. That was assault. If he wanted us to like the dude he should have stopped and been like, YIKES SORRY IM A DICK, and then she could have explained what she meant. But as it was… IT WAS PRETTY MUCH RAPE.

So why did I give this four stars. Because, yeah, it was clear that the character afterwards hadn’t meant what she said and that the author didn’t understand the HORRIBLE implication this could have on teenagers. Like, I’m sorry this is YA. Young people are going to read this with their little malleable minds and think this is okay. It’s not okay. Ever. End of story.

I seriously wish that scene wasn’t in the book. Without it I would have a clear conscious in liking it, with it I am torn between recommending it and hiding it away in a garbage bin. I cannot stress this enough, what happened in that scene was not romantic. It was not acceptable. It basically ruined the romance for me in the novel. Another thing was the amount of times Cassie abuse Evan. I mean this might be a kill or be killed world, but if you want to make me believe that these two characters are falling in love, please don’t have one of them punch the other several times in the chest. Okay? I don’t care that she’s a girl, being pounded repeatedly out of anger is going to hurt anyone. If you flip the roles and had Evan do the same to Cassie, would that be okay? No. People would gape in horror. Well it’s the same. She’s strong. She’s hurting him. Why can people so easily dismiss this as a case of ‘hysterics’? Sure she was contemplating killing him, but beating him up with her fists wasn’t going to get that done. She only did that when she was pretty sure she wouldn’t kill him. Just, these issues made it so hard to get behind them. So. Hard. Which sucks, because the author did some really great things to connect his characters together.

And those things were his ideas that linked into each other. The human clay quote that we see in Parish’s POV and then is echoed in Cassie’s, the cockroach metaphor that linked all three characters together, the idea of running or putting something off that linked Parish and Cassie. We saw similar themes in all of the character’s experiences and scenes, and each time I saw some form of repetition I couldn’t help but feel that tug the author was going for, the one that ended with all four of our principle characters ending in the same room just when they all needed to be there together.

My personal favorite motif that linked his characters together was the chess motif. Over and over again we have Ringer saying that Parish should play chess, or that this and that is like chess, or check, or check and mate. She’s obsessed with strategy, and she’s wicked smart. Strangely enough, when she say’s to Parish, this is not chess, I didn’t feel like it was as much a growth on her part as a growth on his. Because before he had always said he didn’t care about chess, that he didn’t play. But right as she said that it was so easy to see how those words meant something different to him than they would have earlier, because he had given into the game a little bit. He had played the board, had moved like a pawn when expected too, tried to make the safe and sure moves, and when she recommends that they don’t for the first time, we can see the transformation that had slowly taken over Parish, and we could see Parish snapping back to himself.

Oh yeah, this book has a LOT of repetition. Motifs, like the cold stars and the cockroaches and the last human and humanity as a concept, and chess popped up a dizzying amount of times. Sentences were repeated back to back—same words and ideas, just inverted for special affect. And sentence patterns were established—whole paragraphs began with the same word or ended with the same phrase. And yeah, this can be annoying AF to some readers, but I loved this. Why? It was interesting.

It read like a real person’s thoughts to me. It read like what I would be thinking if I came face to face with something trying to kill me. With the idea of inevitable death. The repetition read as nervous energy, nervous thought. It wasn’t unintelligent thought, just nervous. Anxious, and sure a little sarcastic, but also real.

I mean I’m sorry, but if I was all alone in a world that was being programmed to murder me in twelve thousand different painful ways I think I would also be hung up on myself being a cockroach or about the little stuffed bear that keeps me company. I’d certainly have a lot of time to think about each of these thoughts.

But let’s back up and talk about some of the stuff these characters faced.

So what I really liked about this book was the way that the scary stuff felt both present and separate from us reader folk. MONICA, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? Take the plague, my impatient theoretical questioners. The plague was a looming threat, but it didn’t threaten our main characters. Anymore. As far as we knew. And yet Rick Yancey continued to bring it into play. Held it over our heads throughout the book. THOSE DUMB BIRDS kept appearing, and every time we saw one there was an unwritten (okay, occasionally written) threat that it was carrying a horrible killing disease. Sure, sure, Cassie and Sammy and everyone already survived the plague. They have nothing to worry about. Right? Haha… right? WRONG. I couldn’t quite trust the idea that the third wave was over just yet. And that’s because more victims kept popping up. Time wise, they were contained, but rate of revelation wise, not so much. We learn Cassie’s mom dies of the plague. Okay, cool, but they survived. We’re safe. NOT—because now there’s this other character, Parish, dying of the plague right in front of us readers… oh wait no he survives too, okay so we’re really actually safe this time—BUT WAIT NO this kid named Evan lost like all of his siblings to this damn plague WTF this is too real and its being carried by birds and omg there are fricken buzzards EVERYWHERE WE ARE ALL DOOMED.

But you could also forget about that looming threat because it isn’t really a threat anymore, right, right? Even though the plague functioned as a weapon pre present day book, there was still a kill count that we as readers had to uncover, and the more we learned about it, the more real it became. And even though I knew they were safe from it not too far in, the author made it easy for us to remember this horrific disease wasn’t too far into the past. That the repercussions of it still exist. That there are more horrific things to come. Hence it being present and separate. I think that was skillfully done on Yancey’s part. It made the threat that the characters felt, easily transferable to the reader.

And omg. What was also transferable to the reader? The paranoia. So much. Paranoia.

Specifically involving Evan. I felt like a fricken lunatic right alongside Cassie. Right off the bat I was like, Oh, Evan is clearly the silencer. Okay. But then we get the pictures, we get the house and the bread and the burgers and the chocolate and I’m starting to think, no. No way. This guy who’s trying to talk alien conspiracies with Cassie can’t be an alien. This is all in Cassie’s head. And mine. And what???

And of course, he’s the silencer. I knew 100% he was when she held that gun up to him, and probably 88% when we smelled the gunpowder on his hands, but still the fact that the author could make me go from being absolutely certain of the truth to doubting myself when it was SO OBVIOUS, astounds me. And makes me love the book more. Not enough to forgive the romance and make it four or five stars, but enough to be impressed.

I didn’t really feel the same back and forth about whether or not Wright Patterson was run by aliens. I figured it was because things were too convenient for them. They had electricity. They didn’t care about the noise they made. They killed lots of people… blah blah blah. I did wonder about how many people were aliens. I briefly thought that the drill sergeant was human, because no. He was not just a caricature of torturous evil. If he is then he has to be human. And the whole part where he’s pounding Parish’s chest, telling him that they have to kill the aliens felt so genuine. That they have to find the fight. I was like. Yeah. Yeah! You have to find the fight! Fight!!!!!!!!!

I did start to sway a little on who was an alien and who wasn’t. I thought, maybe they don’t know they’re being played. Maybe most of them think they’re all human. And for a time I wholeheartedly believed that the only evil guy in the camp was Vosch.

And let’s be real, we all knew he was evil, right? There was never any doubt. A character doesn’t get to kill a bunch of people, and in the same page as explaining away his mass murder of a bunch of people because… yaknow… fear, be described as convincing enough to get one of our main characters to commit suicide if he asked and NOT be an alien trying to wipe out humanity. I’m sorry, if a character ever says something like, I’d shoot myself in the head without question if so-and-so asked, you know that so-and-so is one of the baddiest of baddies.

It’s just common sense.

And this seems to be the common sense place to end this review.

See you in two weeks,

And happy love of reading day,

Monica

[givencontext]

2019 Annual Review, Decade Review, Turning Point

It’s the end of another year and the end of a decade. Last year I wrote my first Annual Review on the blog, and I am sticking to the same format this year with a little expansion for looking back at the decade as it draws to a close. As they say, this year has been a real humdinger. Right this moment I find myself in a sort of “grey space,” and in-between state. I’ve mentioned it before, and for now, it persists. This exercise will help me see that there is balance between the highs and the lows – and that the road ahead is paved and made smooth by everything I learned through the rough spots.

What went well this year?

Reading and Writing

Last year I pledged to read less and write more and kicked off my blog. I decided to stick with my reading goal of one book per year of my age, and I met this goal with ease but without blowing it totally out of the water. My goal was 43 books, and I read 49. I was thinking I should make a goal next year to get to gender parity in my reading and make sure half the books I read are by women authors, this prompted me to check my stats for this year and… 25 of my 49 books were written by women! That makes me feel like I am walking my talk. And I didn’t even know it. Also, I am very grateful that my tap dancing class changed nights, which has allowed me to show my face at Sci Fi Book Club again. A few of my suggestions were picked for next year’s reading list, which always feels like an accomplishment. I read a ton of non-fiction and self help this year. I thrive when I feel like I am learning and growing. I did a lot of that this year. It feels good.

This blog entry will be my 22nd post since I published last year’s review. This is only a couple more than last year, but I have kept it up, so I am giving myself credit and calling it a success. I also was officially accepted as an Amazon Affiliate and made some money from my blog. I didn’t make as much as I spent on it, but that’s okay. (Okay, I made like $1.10.) Everyone has to start somewhere.

Adventure

As I entered 2019, I was being called to the word Adventure. I knew we would be taking an Epic Cross-Country Road Trip, so it seemed appropriate to spread that sense of excitement to other areas of my life. Facebook memories reminded me that I’ve been sharing this same image with a quote from The Hobbit for the past several years on New Year’s Eve. I guess seeing the new year as an adventure is kind of a thing for me. 2019 lived up to it. I took my kids on a few trips, we even stayed in a yurt. We did some hiking. We saw the Grand Canyon and Meow Wolf. And my #1 kid drove all the way to California and back! I love road trips, but they are even more fun when I don’t have to do all the driving.

Self Care

I was hesitant to include this. I feel like there is a lot of pressure, especially on women, to make everything look effortless. To always have it together. And as much as I do feel like I have my act together most of the time, there are also the times when I just DON’T. In my life, I have already lived through stuff that no one should have to go through. I started this year on top of the world, doing BLE‘s Reboot Rezoom program. I had my longest streak of Bright Line Days and got to a new lowest weight. I was getting my nails done regularly, because after 3 years of not biting them, I still don’t know how to deal with them. Yes, I always got *SPARKLES.* I performed on stage for dance recital with my #1 kid, who (have I mentioned?) is a freaking tap dancing WIZARD. I went to several events to give Free Mom Hugs, which might seem like an act of service for others, but it’s really an act of care for myself. Then, on my #2 kid’s birthday of all days, I found out something that not only devastated my current life but also triggered my brain to relive trauma that was almost 20 years old. My heart swells with gratitude for my cousin and BFF who told me to take time off. I had to stop everything and take care of me. If I hadn’t done it then, I don’t know where I would be now. I have tons and tons of support from family and friends, but it’s still up to me to put myself first. This means something different every day right now, but I’m doing it.

What went well this decade?

Wow. Where has the decade gone? Ten years ago I was a single mother who had just lost a lot of weight and was running 5K’s and, let’s be honest, was still getting a lot of financial help from my parents despite having a “good job” and owning my own home, etc. It was Christmas of 2009 that I decided that the kids had enough (too many) toys and we should start having experiences around the holidays. We went to see Wicked in Kansas City… then of course, we went shopping! The next year we saw a hockey game in Dallas. Last year we saw a hockey game again but in Minnesota. Both of my kids have Quality Time as their primary love language, and I have to say, I feel like I have done a good job with this. It was early 2010 that we took our first trip to Savannah, GA. I think it’s still our favorite destination. We traveled a lot and took lots of road trips and especially toured lots of colleges. And during this decade I got both of my kids through high school and one through college. Oh, let’s not forget that I completed college myself. I also changed jobs. Some people do that all the time, but it was a pretty big deal for me. I guess at the end of the decade, I feel like I have grown up a lot. Oh, and I went to a LOT of cool concerts. Too many to name, but trust me, it was awesome.

What didn’t go well this year?

Time for the elephant in the room… The main thing that didn’t go well this year was my marriage. Unfortunately, I had no idea how “not well” it was going. Yes, we had the same ol’ perpetual problems, but I really never suspected to discover that depth and protraction of betrayal. My sister gave me some advice once: “Never tell a man how badly other men have treated you, because they will try to top it.” I didn’t heed that advice in my second marriage, but I had done it in my third, so my soon-to-be-third-ex-husband did not even know how much PTSD he would be heaping on top of his own hideous actions. Honestly, I had no idea that anything could ever trigger me that way. I know “triggered” has become a buzzword, but this wasn’t just feeling uncomfortable or unhappy. Just thinking about it to try and type this has my fingers shaking uncontrollably. That is the worst part for me, when my body has these visceral reactions that are beyond my control. It sort of feels like an out of body experience. It led me to take extra precautions to feel safe in my own home, not because X3 ever made a threat, but because I am never taking a chance with my family’s safety or my own. So, the marriage is over, but the divorce will not be final by the end of the year. Oh, also, have I mentioned that I have court-related trauma and anything dealing with lawyers and judges and court is… yeah… triggering. I was already struggling just hearing about some stuff coworkers were going through, and then this. I’m still struggling a lot. It’s hard to admit that. Just knowing that a court date of any kind looms in my future… even if it’s for my own good, it just takes me back to those feelings of someone trying to take my kid and accusing me of being a bad parent. Yeah, time to wrap this part up before my shaking hands turn into a full blown panic attack. Let’s just say, I’ve had better years.

What didn’t go well this decade?

Maybe it’s ironic that the relationship that is ending at the end of the decade started soon after the decade began. You might think that would lead me to say the whole decade was a waste, but that’s not how I feel. That was the longest relationship of my life and that marriage was longer than my first two put together. It’s hard to put my finger on anything that didn’t go well, because if I could live this decade over again, I think I would do things the same. I would like to point to a few things and say “change that” but I imagine the repercussions and I think this is how the decade is supposed to end. I think this was all to point me in the direction that I’m to go next. I guess I just wish I had gone to more concerts.

What did I learn?

Last year I said the key lessons were about support and authenticity. Those have continued to serve me well this year. I think a big lesson for 2019 was that I have “permission to be human.” In any given moment, I am doing my best. Some days my best is better than other days. That’s natural, and that’s okay. Some days my best is staying in bed, and that’s still okay. I also learned that having tons of support doesn’t mean that stuff doesn’t suck, and that even when you are surrounded by wonderful people, sometimes you just need to be alone and feel your feelings – and maybe burn some stuff – then burn some stuff with your friends – then spend some more time alone, you know, burning stuff. I guess the biggest lesson of the year was to always find out the REAL reason someone lost their job and never help them pay of their credit cards. Some things have to be learned the hard way.

Looking back at the decade, I would say it was a good choice to focus on experiences, and I’ve had a lot of good ones. Also, happiness is a state of mind, not a set of circumstances. That sums it up.

Conclusion

When major parts of your life are in upheaval, you have to go into survival mode and just try to get to the other side. It would be really easy to focus on the negative stuff and say 2019 was a terrible year. It hasn’t been the best year, but I trust that it is leading me to better things. Somehow all of these experiences, good and bad, are for my higher good in the long run. I know that to be true now, because it has always been true in the past. I don’t know where the next year of the next decade will find me. I know I will grow and learn and change. What more could I ask for?

Leave a comment to let me know how you wrapped up the year or the decade. What did you learn?

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