Monster High G3 Book 1

I finished this a few days ago when I was recovering from the worst of my allergies, so now it's been longer and I don't remember all the details, but I should be able to wing this well enough. 

If you like the G3 show, you'll enjoy this book. It stars Frankie, though other characters have pretty big roles. I actually found Laura and Clawdeen to be written a little annoyingly. They're better on the show. However, the author makes up for it by absolutely nailing Twyla and Manny, who played a pretty big part in this. 

I am happy to note that the cover scene does not take place. Clawdee0n and Draculaura do not spontaneously play instruments. I really hate when shows have their characters who have been completely not musical before suddenly start a band and it's like everyone has been playing for years. 

Frankie does play keytar, but they do in G3 canon already, so that's fine. 

My biggest nitpick is that the author needs to familiarize with the characters. She completely botched hair color not once but multiple times. Spectra is described as having white hair. Uh, not even close. Clawdeen has purple and...pink? That's light brown! Why would you even write about characters without LOOKING at them?!! I think she said Laura had black hair, but later on mentioned pink, so I'll give leeway there, but seriously, if you've been hired to write about characters that aren't yours, take a few fucking minutes to learn about them. Seriously. 

Mermaids Never Drown

 

Back in March, I reviewed the Vampires Never Get Old anthology, and this mermaid version is the follow up.

I'm going to make this a fairly weak review, as I'm too lazy to get the book down from my shelf and do blurbs on each story. 

I did enjoy every one of them though, so if you like mermaids and modern day diversity, give this one a try. 

The Star That Always Stays

Oh, Norvia. 

I really got sucked into this book and finished the whole thing in one day, constantly going back to it instead of picking up one of my other genres, which is unusual for me. 

This is a semi-fiction historical story set in 1914 with flashbacks to a few years earlier. The characters are the author's ancestors, though I'm not sure how much of what happened is real and how much is fiction. I had no idea this was partially based on real people until the end of the book and then I was incensed because she doesn't tell you what happened to anyone! WTF. Rude. I wanna know. 

So Norvia's mother's side of the family is all French and Native American mixed. Some were even Acadian. Norvia's dad is this Swedish dick who used to be rich and constantly does shit like gamble and take risky jobs on boats to make money, always trying to regain his former wealth but he never will. He's pretty racist, so I have no idea how he ever hooked up with Norvia's mom. He seemed to really love her once, but then his attitude towards his children of "Why do you need school? You're Indian. You'll never get a good job." makes zero sense. He and the mom end up divorcing for good reason. 

Now this is 1914. Divorce was really looked down upon by all these asshole women in town who apparently think it's better to be unhappy and abused than to be divorced. So Norvia's mom not only carries the divorce stigma, but then she gets remarried and it spreads to everyone in the family. 

Norvia is still dealing with the death of her beloved grandfather and her family moving from her home on Beaver Island to a city that I can't remember the damn name of but I'm too lazy to go get the book. So now her mother springs this marriage on the family. They've never met the guy and they haven't been seeing each other long at all, but they're getting married in a couple weeks. The kids are predictably not thrilled. 

Everyone ends up moving into the guy's big house, where he lives with his 13-year-old son, who is too sickly to attend school but very intelligent. The guy also has two older daughters. One lives elsewhere and is never in the book. The other is awesome. 

Mr. Ward and Vernon, Norvia's new stepfather and stepbrother, are actually excellent. Mr. Ward is right off the bat, though it takes Norvia a while to warm to him. Vernon takes longer, just like Norvia does, but he's a pretty cool character. 

So Norvia's family doesn't have to worry about money anymore and she can have books! Mr. Ward gives her all these books to read, like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, etc. They play a fairly prominent role in the story, as Norvia is determined to be a heroine like her favorite characters. 

The descriptions of this book make it seem like hiding her heritage and pretending to be white is the primary focus of the plot. It isn't. Norvia isn't happy she has to hide who she is, but it's the divorce she actually hopes to hide from the two boys in her life, because that is what's causing her to be a pariah at school. The real focus of the book is simply that Norvia has to navigate what comes with changes in life and figure out how to be her true self. Changes with family, friends, meeting boys, dealing with her estranged father, an unwelcome surprise from her oldest brother, her new stepsister is pregnant, etc. 

Norvia feels like a classic character. Like Anne or one of the other girls she reads about. She isn't perfect. There were times when I was pretty annoyed by her. But she's loveable. Her characterization is excellent and I loved pretty much everyone else in the book, too. 

What I didn't love is how the divorce played such a huge role in Norvia's life, yet her mother never once sits down with her and goes over all the issues that came about because of the divorce and remarriage. Her stepdad loses a position at church and it's just zoomed right over. Norvia's abandoned by her once best friend and that's never dealt with. All these problems arise but aren't often fully addressed and resolved. 

I wasn't a fan of the flashback chapters. They were interesting but also tended to pop up in the middle of the action and I'd be annoyed by their presence because I wanted to know what was going to happen in the present time. 

Norvia ends up being an excellent character and I loved her and her family. She managed to get a lot of character development, but really could have used some actual focus on the resolution or at least recognition of issues. It's a good book despite that, but it would have been an amazing book if the author had gone that one step further.

Anne

What if Anne Shirley lived in modern times and liked Diana instead of Gilbert?

I loved how this was done. Every bit of it is sheer gold. 

Matthew was my favorite. I loved updated Matthew. Marilla was pretty cool, too. 

Anne has been in fifteen foster homes and is picked up by Matthew, despite he and Marilla actually wanting a younger child. Anne has already charmed Matthew and she's quickly working her magic on Marilla, too. 

The Cuthberts live in the Avon-Lea apartment building, also home to Rachel Lynde, the Barrys, Ruby Gillis, and Josie Pye. 

I just love this to pieces. I can't even find words to praise it properly, as you know frequently happens when I really love something. I'm going to have to check out the same author's adaptation of Little Women. (Called Jo, of course. It's always Jo. But this time, she's gay.) 

Twelfth Grade Night

Twelfth Grade Night is a graphic novel that basically takes the plot of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and adds in elements of other plays, too. 

I've never read Twelfth Night but from the summary I skimmed, it seems like a love triangle and a twin thing, which is exactly what this is. 

Vi(ola) is new at school and prefers to be called Vi, thus making me annoyed with anyone who calls her Viola. She's toured around by an upper class fairy...yes, fairy. There are fairies and satyrs and maybe ghosts in this school. (Not sure what else the entirely light blue people are.) With zero context aside from there's a fairy woods behind the school. Puck is in this. (Obe)Ron is one of the two popular fairies, as is Tanya (Titania). You just have to roll with it. 

So Vi is a twin, as she is in Twelfth Night. Her brother Sebastian decided to stay at the boarding school Vi used to also attend. She got tired of the uniforms and didn't want to be forced to wear a skirt anymore. She prefers more full-coverage, comfortable clothes. She does feel abandoned because Sebastian split off from her and she's never been on her own before. But she still lives at home, so at least she's got Mom. Their dad passed away a couple years before. 

Vi meets Orsino, the cute emo boy on the cover there, and they bond over both being writers. Vi is also a musician, so they're collaborating on a song. 

Vi naturally falls for Orsino, but he's got his eye on Olivia, the cute blonde up there. She's the most wanted girl in the school. Olivia seems 100% into girls though and she ends up crushing on Vi. 

Orsino asks Vi for help in wooing Olivia. Vi painfully goes along with it, but Olivia says she likes Vi. There's a whole mistaken identity thing when Olivia asks Vi to the dance, but actually DMs Sebastian, as he and Vi have Instagram names that are a single letter off. Feeling bad for neglecting Vi, Sebastian goes to the dance with Olivia, who doesn't realize he's not Vi. Orsino also thinks Sebastian is Vi and is furious. 

But all's well that ends well. Vi confesses she likes Orsino. Orsino realizes that he also likes Vi. What was holding him back was that he assumed she liked girls. (He admits he was wrong to assume that.) 

There's a whole subplot with secondary characters. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Some snob in the Amazon reviews bitched about it being a Shakespeare mashup that ended up confusing. Well, I've never read Twelfth Night OR Midsummer Night's Dream and it didn't affect the story for me at all. I enjoyed it without giving a single fuck what it was based on. I swear, anyone who refers to Shakespeare as "the bard" is automatically pretentious and their opinions aren't worth anything. 

The characters are in your face with their queerness. Everyone seems pretty comfortable. I'm sure I've said this before, but it's so nice to read things like this and have queerness just be treated like it's an everyday thing. We've come a long way. And this cute story with lovely art is another example of that. 

Next up in this series: King Cheer. Yep, it's King Lear with cheerleaders. 

Hex Life

Hex Life is an anthology of witch stories. I bought it because Amber Benson has a story in here and I'm currently reading her works. 

I'll do my usual anthology treatment, which is making a list of the stories and my brief impressions. 

A Invitation to a Burning: I feel like I can't summarize this without giving away the entire plot. It was good, but not great. 

Widows' Walk: Four widow witches live together in a house. Their ages range from 59-82. They work together to help a young girl in a bad home situation. I liked this one. 

Black Magic Momma: This one is set in Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld series and it interested me enough that I may read all 13 of those books. Otherworld, predictably, is about a bunch of different supernatural types. 

The Night Nurse: A mother of two who doesn't want her third ends up hiring a night nurse to help her manage the baby. The husband is useless aside from working to pay the bills. As the night nurse slowly worms her way farther and farther into the mother's life, her agenda becomes known. I didn't hate this, but it went on way too long. 

The Memories of Trees: Post-apocalyptic new religion hates witches. A witch and her foster daughter fight back. I liked this. 

Home: This one is set in Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires world. It wasn't bad, but I think I would have liked it better had I some knowledge of the characters. Unlike Otherworld, this one did not make me want to read the series. 

The Deer Wife: Woman has an affair with a deer shapeshifter woman or whatever she is. I liked this. 

The Dancer: Telekinetic/pyrokinetic teen girl is upset her family moved her way from her ballet classes in New York. A man with similar powers comes to help and ends up having to save her. 

Bless Your Heart: Ah, love that title. A Texan woman with a young gay son resorts to cooking witchcraft to get her message across to the mother of his bully. This was fun. 

The Debt: A girl visits Poland with her widowed father and...let's just say Baba Yaga is in it. This one is bleak. 

Toil & Trouble: A girl working for the three Macbeth witches (I guess? They also have aspects of both the Greek fates and the gray sisters.) wants to be free of them but runs afoul of one of the...I'm assuming...Dark-Hunters. Another one where it would have helped to have some knowledge of the series before I'd read this, though this one worked better than the vampire story. The Dark-Hunter world seems quite huge, so I don't think I'll ever be reading it, but I didn't hate this at all. 

Last Stop on Route Nine: A young black girl and her younger teen cousin go through some sort of portal and get run off by a racist witch. I feel like this is part of the larger world the author has created and I've never read anything of. 

Where Relics Go to Dream and Die: A dying man and a witch trapped in a candle. Interesting. 

This Skin: This one is Amber Benson's. A teen girl is under investigation for a mass murder at her school. Loved this. I love Amber. 

Haint Me Too: Set during the sharecropping days at the famous Myrtles plantation in Louisiana. If you do read this book, stop before you start this story and read about the hauntings at the plantation. This was good, but it helps to have some of the backstory if you don't know about it. 

The Nekrolog: A somewhat confusing story told from three different perspectives. I don't really get witch here. More like superpowers. I didn't really understand the story. 

Gold Among the Black: A young orphan girl in medieval-ish times works in the castle but spends her nights in the forest because they won't allow her big black dog inside. She's warned by a kind man that she's becoming old enough that it's not safe to be alone, and then she's told by a fellow servant that she's thought of as a witch because of her dog and her solitude. The girl is rightly afraid and her dog ends up turning into a human. After an incident with a would-be rapist, the girl and dog/man flee together. 

How to Become a Witch-Queen: A very interesting take on Snow White in her middle-aged years. Loved this. 

Definitely recommend this book if you like witchy fun stories. Not that all of them are fun. A couple don't end well. I didn't actively dislike any stories. The biggest failing is that I didn't connect with a couple set in their own worlds from outside this anthology, and the one I feel like there was something I wasn't grasping. 

The Seven Whistlers

So I am currently reading the Buffy prequel that just came out, because it stars TARA. My forever favorite. Buffy is such an expansive lore that I've gotten so behind in everything that I won't ever catch up, but I could not resist something about Tara. Even though it makes me mad all over again that she got the ending she did. GRRR. 

Anyway, Tara led me to Amber Benson, the actress that played her, and I wanted to get back to reading Amber's works. She's quite the author, screenwriter, director, etc. 

I have one full series of hers written for adults, and a stand-alone middle grade book that I'm now in the middle of rereading. (The Tara book got set aside.) So I ordered her witch trilogy, a witch anthology that she has a story in, and this book here, which was co-written by her and Christopher Golden. I like his work. I like her work. I should like this. 

And I did. 

While I was initially surprised at the book's short length (only 126 pages), it really didn't need to be any longer than it was. I think this falls into the novella category? I always forget the sizes. 

The story is about the bad things that start happening to the small Vermont town Rose lives in when large black dogs begin showing up. First, there are two. Then four. Then five. The climax takes place when there are sixth and the whistling of the seventh can be heard. 

The Seven Whistlers are hellhounds whose job it is to track down souls that did a very specific crime. They let someone else die in their place, so basically, they lived on someone else's time. These aren't cases of someone heroically sacrificing themselves to let someone else live, but times when people let others unwillingly take the blame for them, etc. 

The longer it takes the Whistlers to find the soul, the more of them appear to help, and the more bad things happen. 

So can Rose figure all this out in time to get the soul to the Whistlers? Because if that seventh gets there...it's the end of the world. 

Goddesses & Heroines

This book was suggested to me by Amazon. It's the newest one following three featuring Greek, Egyptian and Norse myths. I have the Egyptian one to be read tomorrow and I plan on ordering the other two pretty soon, too.

It's written for a younger age group. Amazon's listing says ages 7-9. But I actually learned a lot from it. Even with as much mythology as I've read since I was even younger than that age group, there were several deities in here that I had never heard of. 

The book is divided into three sections: Goddesses, Magical Beings, and Mortals. Then it's further divided into even more sections after that (Creator Goddesses, Shapeshifters, Unique Goddesses, First Women, Warriors, etc.). Each section begins with a page showing multiple beings that fall under that heading, and then it goes on to tell 1-3 stories that involve the beings shown. 

It's so good, you guys. Who even cares that it's written for kids? 

I should note that even though it IS written for kids, there is no shying away from the Hawaiian goddess Hi'iaka being mentioned as having a PARTNER, Hopoe. Also female. Way to go, author and publishers. Keep on with that important inclusion. 

The art is phenomenal. I absolutely adore it. It's the main reason I want all the books in this series. 

This was just such a good read. It made me very happy and I can't wait to read the others. HIGHLY recommend! 

Picture Day

Picture Day is the first in what I hope is a new series of middle grade graphic novels. The book is listed with (The Brinkley Yearbooks) behind its title, so I'd love for there to be more.

Viv is a seventh grader who wants to make more of an impression on her classmates. On Picture Day, she chops off her braid in the girls' bathroom while her friend Al(exandra) films it. After that, other students start coming to her for help to make big impressions. One gets a haircut, a pair of mathletes show off their trophy, and one is a dance proposal between two adorable girls. 

Unfortunately, Viv is so caught up helping others that she doesn't realize she's neglecting her best friends. Al is a sports nut who has several brothers. Milo is a fashion genius who's learning how to do electrical stuff, like add lights to a helmet, from his college-age older brother. The trio is planning on dressing up as their favorite characters from Roller Team Space Force (I think I got that name right. I don't have the book next to me.), so they're elbows deep in cosplay creation, trying to get it done before the upcoming con. 

I quite liked this book. It gets its lesson across without being as serious as other middle grade series. Not that I don't like the serious ones, but I like a variety. I'm looking forward to seeing more from this author. 

A Guide to the Dark

 
Two Arab-American girls (one Egyptian, one Tunisian) on a road trip to check out colleges end up in a small town after a car accident. They check into Room 9, not knowing that the room has taken eight lives. 

As the book progresses, the mystery unfolds, the cast grows, and the feelings between the two best friends turn into something more. 

So basically, you've got a YA horror thriller with sapphic romance and the struggles of being the daughters of Arab immigrants. And it's run through with lovely black and white photographs. 

Can't recommend this enough!

Girls Who Changed the World 1

Ming and her twin brother Tuan have grown up reading a lot of history, but Ming wants to know more about the importance of girls and what they contributed. Tuan's predictably a dick about it, and their history teacher is useless, so help comes in the form of...Herstory. 

Yep, female history is given human form in the rather cantankerous character called Herstory. She offers Ming the chance to go back in time and witness 6 weeks of history, during which a girl will change the world. Ming wants to do more than just watch, but Herstory basically says she can't handle it. 

So what does Ming do? She steals more of the "Time drops" Herstory created and vanishes back in time to find her own way to the time Herstory intended for her to see. Seriously, when you get the chance to go back in time, don't be a greedy brat about it. This was really stupid and I didn't like Ming for a while because of it. 

Ming ends up on a ratty farm a few days' journey outside Sydney back in 1898. She's in the body of Florence Watson, a girl with some Chinese ancestry, just like Ming has some. Ming isn't just body-hopping. She and Florence are sort of melded, where she not only has Florence's body but also her knowledge of the surroundings. 

So Ming has to watch Flo's mother die of a snakebite, then survive on the farm by herself with only a dingo mixed breed puppy and a lone cow as companions. She despairs that she's blowing through her 6 weeks' time and has no chance of changing the world from the farm. She manages to contact her wealthy aunt with the help of a travelling salesman and sad aunt comes to fetch her. 

From the farm, it's off to the posh life in Sydney. Her aunt is quite loaded and unmarried, so her home just has servants in it. Plenty of room for Florence and Bob the half-dingo. 

Ming is still determined to change something, and when she learns that her aunt is working on petitions for a referendum to unify Australia, she thinks this might be her shot. The work of the suffragists helps women eventually get the vote in Australia, though it won't be until 1902. 

Ming also saves Emily, a homeless orphan who ends up being appointed Florence's companion. Both girls will get the opportunity to study what they like and have proper lives thanks to Flo's aunt. 

Thinking she has ten days left, Ming is shocked when she fades away and sees that Herstory is yanking her out of time. Herstory says her method of being more involved uses up time faster, which is why she didn't get the full six weeks. Angered by Ming's defiance and Tuan's interference, she sends both her and her twin into World War I Belgium.

I liked this book. I'm not always a fan of X is trapped in Y's body, but it worked in this case. I don't know much about Australian history, so that was interesting as well. 

AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR: Kavi

 
Ah, Kavi, the American Girl who shares my birthday. The book opens on Kavi's 12th birthday and her Didima (father's mother) has given her four tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. (They live in NJ, so it's a train ride away.) Kavi is already interested in music and dance, so when she sees the show, she's even more enamored with the theater. 

Kavi only has this one book, but it's essentially split into two stories. The first has Kavi struggling with school. She gets distracted easily and with her mother starting a new full-time job, Kavi is more on her own when it comes to organizing her life. After a couple bad incidents come up at a parent-teacher conference, Kavi realizes she needs to ask for help more often. With that improving, she's able to focus more on the student revue, which she's dancing in alongside her best friends, Pari and Sophie. After she falls during the first rehearsal and wants to quit, they have the inevitable friend fight, which is very, very mellow in terms of AG friend fights. Kavi realizes she still wants to do the show and things end up just fine. 

In the second story, it's spring semester and there's a musical to get excited for. Kavi has a good audition, but can't beat talented Alaina, an eighth grader who's very good at singing, emoting, projecting her voice, etc. After initial disappointment, Kavi and Alaina get to be friends. Kavi and her friends also help Didima with her brand new cookie business. The drama of the story comes when a tree branch falls on the roof of their auditorium after a blizzard. The theater kids work together to raise money to rent the local community college's theater. They don't make enough, but after Kavi and some of the others go to the people at the college, they're given more time to raise the rest of the money and they're able to perform Annie in the theater. 

I liked Kavi and her family a lot. It was great to see Kavi going with her dad to yoga because it helps her focus. I always like it when the dad is more of a character. So frequently, he's the less there one. This time, both parents and Didima are quite present. Rishi, the younger brother who wants to be a doctor, is both appropriately annoying and amusing. 

Friend-wise though, the books failed. I enjoyed the nods to Indian culture from Kavi's family and Pari's, but Sophie is only mentioned as "not Indian," we never see her family, and she feels like a shadow of a character because she's the least developed. Even personality-wise, Pari is far more developed. Sophie's just kind of there. We know she likes hip hop dance, painting sets, and she can't sing. That's basically it. For as much as the friends were there, Sophie needed to be developed more. 

For the musical drama, my first thought was to hold it at the local high school. I read pretty fast so I may have missed it, but I feel like that idea should at least have been thrown out there before jumping right to "Hey, let's have it at the community college where it'll cost us five grand." 

And finally, my biggest issue with the book. Kavi's learning disability is never clarified. She's never diagnosed with anything. Her father had something similar, as does another boy in her class. But no one does any sort of official anything for Kavi. Kavi's parents would be younger than I am. I grew up when ADHD was just starting to be noticed more often, so her parents definitely know it's a thing. The fact that they do nothing for her beyond make her more organized schedules and have her get help from the guidance counselor kinda blows my mind. I thought this was going to be the ADHD rep GotY, but they don't even say ADHD in the text once. There's nothing in the back of the book about what you can do if you're struggling at school like Kavi. That deserved a few pages. Come on. This was very disappointing because AG needs to commit to saying she has ADHD. Give the kids some clear rep, not just dancing around the subject. 

Overall, I enjoyed Kavi as a character and the book was fun, but the ADHD failure was a pretty large one, in my opinion. 

GIRLS SURVIVE Series Part 9

Fumiko's book is set during the 1923 earthquake that levelled Tokyo. I had never heard of this incident, which is why I love this series. It's not afraid to be realistic in that not everyone always makes it, but it's also very good at finding things I'd either never heard of or don't know much about. 

Fumiko and her older brother both want different lives than what they're likely going to get, but their entire world changes when the earthquake hits Tokyo. The earthquake itself doesn't do the most damage. It's the fact that it hits during lunch, so all these hibachis fall over and start fires. As the giant fire rages out of control, Fumiko, her brother and their mother struggle to get across the bridge to the fish market where Father is, only to find out that he's likely back on the original side, as he had to do deliveries. 

Eventually, they do find him in a makeshift hospital and though they've lost everything, they're at least all alive. I enjoyed this one a lot. It's full of action and all the characters are likeable. 

Now we jump to New York City in 1969. 

Flor is a half-Black, half-Puerto Rican trans girl living in Manhattan. Her grandmother catches her looking at her deceased mother's jewelry and scarf, and yells at her for being disrespectful. Flor flees in the night, bringing basically only her sketchbook. Girl, you packed a bag. Why would you not stuff it with a few changes of clothes, some toiletries, and snacks? I found that part really unbelievable. The grandmother was sound asleep. Flor could have packed a little better.

Flor soon meets Tami, a fellow trans girl who teaches her the ways of being a trans female runaway in New York City. 

Soon, they find themselves at the Stonewall Inn with the plan to use Flor's art skills to make a little money. Their drag queen friend Jackie is there to help and has invited the girls to stay at her place that night. 

The initial riot happens that night and the three barely escape. Tami is even in police custody when the confusion allows Flor to get her away from the cops. That night, Flor draws what she saw and, in the morning, Jackie has an idea to turn Flor's art into a flyer that they use to recruit people to come to the follow-up protests. 

This series is short, simple books, but I almost always learn something. I had no idea that even in 1969, it was illegal to serve alcohol to gay and lesbian people. That trans girls could be arrested for wearing feminine clothing in public. We've come a way since then, but is it really a long way? There's sadly still so much farther to go. 

I enjoyed this one a lot, thanks to the excellent characters. Reading also took me back to my city. I used to walk down Christopher Street all the time. 

Disney's Twisted Tales: Part of Your World Graphic Novel

A Twisted Tale turns to the world of graphic novels and they picked one of the best to begin with. This is the story of Queen Ariel of Atlantica, set five years after the events of the movie, only in this version, Ursula won. 

This is one of my favorite books in the series and this adaptation did it epic justice. Mostly. The art is splendid. The gist of the story is there. My main disappointment is that Jona the seagull barely had a role, and they eliminated Argent and Vareet entirely. 

I hope to see them tackle more from A Twisted Tale in this style. I know they're doing Valentino's Villain series as graphic novels, but I got enough of that in the books, so I haven't bought any. Especially because one is Cruella and I HATE that book. 

If you're a Little Mermaid fan, I recommend picking this up. Ariel and the Curse of the Sea Witches is another good one. I never reviewed it, but it's set after the movie. All of these prove that I really only dislike Ariel as a character within the confines of her own movie. Every other thing I've read that takes place before or after or in a twisted version, I've really liked her. 

Maizy Chen's Last Chance

Maizy Chen and her mother are off to Last Chance, Minnesota to visit Maizy's maternal grandparents. Her grandfather isn't doing well. 

This book covers a lot of issues. 

Oma and Maizy's mom have a lot of fights and drama. 

Opa tells great stories, so about a third of the book is him telling Maizy stories about her ancestor who travelled from China to the US during the gold rush. 

Maizy learns that her words for grandpa and grandma are actually German, not Chinese. And there's an interesting story why. 

Maizy tries to repair the relationship between Opa and his old friend Werner. 

Maizy experiences small white town racism. She and her family are the only Asians. They might be the only non-white people. I don't remember anyone else standing out as not white. 

There's a mystery afoot, too. 

Oh, and Maizy's mom was artificially inseminated. She doesn't know her dad and can't learn anything more about him til she's eighteen. Very unique family structure there. 

This book was really fun. I think it could have been fleshed out in places, particularly with characters like Riley and Logan, but it still worked as it was. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Claudie Book 2

My review for this book is essentially the same as the first one. I love the characters and the author does a great job with characterization and plot considering the length, but again, the book is WAY TOO SHORT. 

In this one, Claudie is one her way to Georgia to visit her maternal grandmother for the first time. 

She faces the biggest difference between the north and the south during this time period: the blatant racism and danger of the south. 

Most of her time in Georgia is spent dealing with racism, climbing trees a couple times, and learning a bit more about her mother and why she's a reporter. 

Back in Harlem, Claudie has finally found the inspiration for her skit, and she begins work on the variety show immediately. She works hard as the director to bring everything together and do a lot of advertising to boot. And it works! Her skit comes last and Gwen the painter comes up to her backstage right before it to tell her that she saved the boardinghouse. Claudie is so happy that she's almost not nervous onstage. 

Claudie spends a lot of both books thinking about her talent and what it could be. She finally realizes some people are just good at multiple things and not everyone needs a singular skill to make them talented. But she also learns she wants to be a writer and continue to tell her stories. 

I would love to see a third book about Claudie. I wish they were still doing the longer mysteries that BeForever got so we could spend more time in her world. They really screwed her over when it comes to writing. And her collection is pretty small, too. Ugh. Stupid Mattel. I applaud the author for doing such a great job with the short length she worked within. She made me want the doll, which I plan to order sometime this year, along with Dizzy Dot and two outfit sets. 

AMERICAN GIRL: Julie

JULIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm a big Julie fan. I cannot reiterate enough how wild it is that I let these reviews go unfinished for so long. But I am glad that my last brand new AG historical mystery reading experience is going to be with Julie, because her newest mystery is one I never read. I really wish they kept up with the mysteries. I miss the historical cast. 

Julie was the ninth historical character released. I remember very fondly seeing her in AGPNY for the first time. I picked out Ivy as my first doll in 2007 and it took me until 2009 to finally get Julie. I bought a lot in between. I'm not sure why it took me so long to finally cave on her, but she remains one of my big faves. 

Just for fun, this is the picture I took in AGPNY in 2007 when I first saw her and it was this look that made me want the doll. 

Julie's first three books are mostly about her dealing with changes in her life. Her parents are divorced and she, her older sister Tracy and their mother move to a new apartment above the store their mother has opened. Julie is upset to be moving away from her father, her pet rabbit (the new apartment is no pets) and her best friend Ivy, who lives across the street. She's also changing schools, so she has to try to make new friends. She meets a boy, TJ, who plays basketball with her, and she figures she can try out for the team, but the coach says no girls on the boys' team. Yet there is no girls' team, so by the new Title IX, she should be allowed to play. The coach remains difficult, so Julie gets 150 signatures on a petition. He throws it out in front of her and later, she and TJ dig it out of the trash. She takes it to the principal, and he brings it to the school board. Julie is then allowed to play on the team. (I thought that a bit odd, because she should have at least had to try out. What if she sucked?) 

In her second book, Julie has an autobiographical class project that she struggles with, because she doesn't want to talk about the divorce as the worst thing that ever happened to her. She breaks her finger in a big basketball game and initially talks about that in her tape-recorded project, but in the end, she tells the class about the divorce. 

The holiday third book is about the new differences Julie and Tracy deal with as Divorced Kids (as Kristy Thomas would call them). Julie handles herself much better than teenage Tracy, though Tracy finally reconciles with their father. Julie spends a lot of time with Ivy and we learn about 1970s Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown. 

The fourth book finds us in spring and Julie and Ivy discover a baby owl in the park. They bring it to a wildlife rescue where it's sent on to a vet. While there, Julie sees a pair of bald eagles who lost their home due to housing development. They have two babies but they're not doing well in captivity, and one ends up dying. Julie fights to get money for the eagles to be rehabbed outside and slowly integrated back into nature. She celebrates her birthday on the same day the eagles are released. 

Julie finds herself celebrating the Bicentennial in her fifth book. Her dad flies her and Tracy out to Pittsburgh, where they join this huge wagon train that's travelled west to east, aiming for Valley Forge. They ride in the wagon with their aunt, uncle and cousin April. Julie loves the Little House books, which she even brought with her, and she wants to try riding a horse, but her first experience doesn't go well. She's riding bareback and April lets go of the rope so the horse bolts and Julie is thrown into a river. She could have been seriously hurt but none of the adults take this seriously. Then she's mad at her cousin (rightfully) and scared of the horse (less rightfully, as it was her cousin's fault, not the horse's) for a bit. She finally just gets over it, but this was the stupidest thing in her books. So unrealistic. Then the wagon gets stuck and they have to leave some of their stuff behind. Also unrealistic that it's made it the entire way across the country only to have weight issues now. Then Julie and her cousin ride the horse ten miles away and ten miles back to collect the signature of the oldest man in Pennsylvania. They've made up and Julie is over her horse fear. The scroll with his signature is stolen and of course Julie is the one to get it back, so she gets to shake hands with President Ford at the end. Definitely by far the weakest of Julie's books. She goes too heroic and the adult reaction to her falling off the horse was highly unrealistic. 

In her sixth book, Julie is back in school and now in the fifth grade. She's made a new friend, a deaf girl named Joy that's the new girl this year. Sadly, a lot of the other students are too afraid of her to befriend her. When Julie and Joy are unfairly sent to detention and have to write sentences, Julie realizes detention is useless. She and Joy decide to run for president and vice president, even though it's always been a sixth grader who's won. The only other candidate is sixth grade's most popular boy, who's as useless as writing sentences in detention. Though the girls struggle with sexism and ableism, Julie and Joy come out on top, even winning over the Water Fountain Girls, who like the sign language Julie taught them and finally see Joy as a person. I enjoyed this one. There's regular human drama, but it's not the family drama of the first three books. My only real criticism is that the teacher never sees that she was wrong for giving the two girls detention when Joy was just asking Julie to explain something she couldn't lip read. You try lip reading "Sacajawea," Mrs. Duncan. 

Julie is best when she's at home dealing with her family and friends. That's when she shines the most. The eagles were an okay departure, but the wagon train book was pretty horrible. She's still a very loveable addition to the historical cast and it was nice to see the 70s included in the line. Ivy is also one of my faves of the best friend cast and Joy is great, too. As is TJ really. He's no Stirling, but he's a good guy. 

Ivy's book is great. She's having minor issues with her family. Her mom is in law school and her dad works two jobs, so they get food from the grandparents' restaurant a lot and Ivy is tired of Chinese food. She misses when her mom cooked and had time to talk to her. Same with her dad. She's got a family project for Chinese school and neither of her parents makes time to talk to her. She's also envious of her brother and how well he does in everything. 

Then she's got a gymnastics tournament coming up and she's weak on the beam, because she fell last time and has lost her confidence. 

A new conflict comes up when she realizes her family reunion is the same day as her tournament. Her dad basically demands she go to the reunion because he apparently pays zero attention to her and knows nothing about her life. Her mom sticks up for her and says how hard Ivy worked, how she's part of a team and that this is the all-city tournament so it's kind of a big deal. Yeah, law school Mom still pays attention. Ivy's dad kinda sucks and doesn't really redeem himself. He says he realizes how important it is and stops pressuring her to pick the reunion but still. 

Ivy chooses her tournament and then skips the pizza party after so she can come to the reunion. Duh. How come nobody figured that out before? She kicks butt in the tournament, wins medals, and the team gets second place overall, so she finally gets some confidence. And at the reunion, she sees what a great family she has and appreciates them. 

I liked everyone in Ivy's book except for her dad. I wish he'd had a scene to redeem himself a bit and show that he is involved in his daughter's life, but it didn't happen. 

Julie's first mystery is a good book, but a fairly simple mystery. There's a new girl in class named Carla and it's quickly obvious that she's been telling lies. She talks about having a big family, living in one of the famous Painted Lady houses, having a really smart dog, and working with her doctor/detective father on a case. 

Julie takes a little too long to fully confront Carla and get the truth out of her. I would have done it much faster. Turns out Carla's dad abandoned his family, they're poor because her mother is trying to go to school and work, and she has one older brother who is a wounded Vietnam vet. 

Julie doesn't forgive Carla immediately, but she does invite her and her mother to the Thanksgiving gathering Hank and Julie's mom are planning, which includes more of the wounded vets. Julie gets Todd, Carla's brother there, and even thinks of a plan to help the family, though it isn't realized in the book itself. 

It's a good book but only an okay mystery. Like I said, it's super obvious that Carla is lying. The mystery is the why.

I'll be including the Beforever covers for these because they're pretty. 

The original cover has a confused Julie leaving Carla in her Painted Lady house, which isn't actually hers. 

The Beforever cover features Julie looking at her "pet" spider. She really wants a dog but can't have one and she misses Nutmeg, so she adopts a spider living outside her window. I love the row of Painted Ladies at the bottom. 

This one is so great. Julie finds an old note written in Chinese in some clothes donated from Chinatown by Ivy's grandmother. When she brings the note with her to dinner at the Happy Panda, Ivy's grandmother is overjoyed and tells her story. She came over from China in 1919 and was held at Angel Island, where a lot of Chinese immigrants were detained. They were questioned incredibly thoroughly, even very young children, to prove they had relatives in the US, as the immigration policies were becoming stricter and only relatives were allowed in. The note was a coaching note written by Ivy's grandmother's mother, who never made it to the US and died while Ivy's grandmother was still being detained. She's thrilled to have some piece of her mother returned to her. She'd thought she lost the note and never saw it, not realizing it slipped into the lining of the jacket Julie found it in. 

Then the mystery comes in. There are lines in the note about a doll precious to Ivy's grandmother, saying she sleeps with it every night and she should give it to her father when she gets to the US. Ivy's grandma says there wasn't a precious doll, as she was too old for dolls, but a simple rag doll made by one of the village women to accompany her. 

That night, Ivy's grandparents' place is robbed and the only things taken are Julie and Ivy's dolls. They find Ivy's with her head popped off in the trash behind the restaurant. Julie's is found later in the trash by Ivy's Chinese school.

Smart Julie realizes the thief thinks something special is inside a doll. She remembers Ivy's grandmother was supposed to bring a valuable jade necklace that was her father's so he could sell it and get money they needed in the US. But without the coaching note, Ivy's grandmother never saw those lines about the doll and she left it with her orphan friend from the journey over. Julie realizes the jade necklace was inside the doll.

So the search for Mei Meng, Ivy's grandmother's friend, is on. Julie and Ivy eventually find her, but the thief gets to her house before they do. He isn't able to steal anything though, because Mei has brought the doll with her to the hospital, where she's recovering from a fall. They open the doll and find the necklace. 

Julie finally figures out who the thief is and confronts him. There were a couple decent red herrings and it isn't super obvious right away who it is. 

A good mystery with some great history on Angel Island and the struggles of being a Chinese immigrant in the early 20th century. 

This cover isn't nearly as good as the orignal. Julie's making a weird face and there isn't even anything doll-related on it. 

This one is not my favorite. During a benefit auction, TJ gets a job working for the rich people who are holding the auction. That's the big WTF of the book right there. Mrs. Vernon may be Julie's mother's friend, but why would rich people who have a huge, expensive collection of rare objects pick a random kid to have access to their house just to feed their cat? 

TJ's interested in the silver guitar owned by his favorite, now-deceased guitar player, so he takes it down to hold it, the cat jumps on him, and it breaks. When he and Julie go to get it fixed, the music store owner is pissed because it's clearly not a real guitar. So now Julie and TJ are on the hunt for the thieves. 

They have their usual suspects: the lazy nephew who lives with the Vernons, the housekeeper who lied about why she had to go out of town, the busybody neighbor, the kid from the music store who wants his own guitar and has been following them, and even the Vernons themselves. But no, those are all wrong. It was Julie's former upstairs neighbors, photographers who were in the house taking photos for the next auction catalog. They get hired to take photos of rare items, figure out what they can most profit from, make fake replicas, swap them out, and then sell the real things and move on to their next victims. 

It's just not as good as the other mysteries. It was mostly on the boring side.

Lost in the City has Julie parrot-sitting over spring break. Ivy's uncle has given the Lings his African Gray parrot, Lucy. He's not happy about it, but it's what his soon-to-be wife wants. After seeing how Lucy bonded with Julie, the uncle asks her to pet sit, while the rest of the family is off to get him married. Julie happily agrees. 

On the second day, Julie finds the window and cage open and Lucy is nowhere to be found. She starts searching and soon has a decent list of suspects. 

First, there's the older couple who are staying on the lower floor of the Lings house while the wife recovers from...surgery, I think? The husband is kinda rude and says something to make him a suspect. 

Then there's Julie's vegetarian, vaguely hippie aunt, who's staying with Julie's dad while she looks for an apartment near her new job. 

Finally, there's Gordon, a former classmate of Ivy's who's moved nearby. He's unhappy because his parents are getting divorced. His biggest red flag is that he needed a new jacket and commented that it would take a long time to save for one, then suddenly he turns up in a super expensive leather jacket. Julie thinks he sold Lucy for the jacket money. 

It's not a bad mystery, but it's no Paper Daughter. 

I'm finally going to read the last Julie mystery! As mentioned, I have never read this. It's my final unread AG historical book featuring the older characters. Sigh. 

Paper Daughter is still my favorite Julie mystery, but this one is an easy second. 

Julie and her mom are off to a commune near Sonoma that was started by Julie's aunt Nadine and her husband David. They learn David lives in town now, thanks to an injury from Vietnam. Nadine wasn't happy he went to war, so they're hovering around a divorce, leaving their son Raymond, who's around Julie's age, very unhappy. 

The commune is struggling with money. The only other kid around Julie and Raymond's age is Dolores. She's older, but I can't remember by how much. But she's working at a cafe in town. David has a job in town and an apartment. Raymond sadly doesn't see his dad as much as he wants to. 

There are two mysteries. The first is all the random weird happenings around the commune. The chickens get out. The clean laundry hits the ground. The calf goes missing. 

The second is the mystery of the nearby mine. Raymond and Julie hear tapping in there, and Julie finds a red bottle with a message inside that looks quite old. 

There are several suspects, but I had it figured out pretty early on. Doesn't mean it's not a good story though! 

And that wraps up Julie Albright, I'm sorry to say. I really love Julie. I've got Claudie's second book that I'm going to read next and then I'm done with AG historicals until Isabel and Nicki's book comes out in a few months. Wah. I want more historical stuff. 

The Meg

I never expect action movies to be books. Like some of them you know about. I always knew Jaws was a book. Jurassic Park. Duh. Bourne Identity. Everyone knows that, right? Die Hard is based on a book and I didn't know that for ages. The Relic is based on a book that's actually only the beginning of an interesting (and lengthy) series I need to get back to. But The Meg? Would anyone have guessed that was a book unless they knew about it? (It was originally written in 1997, after all.) 

So when one of my favorite people mentioned it was a book series, I had to check it out. Unlike other books that got turned into movies, this one feels like it was meant to always be a movie. The edition I read is the revised one. I'm not sure what was changed from the original, though I did read reviews that said the revised is better. 

It's a fast read that could still use a better editor, but like action movies, it's fun and I'm not exactly expecting great literature here. I kept turning the pages, wanting to see what would happen next. 

If you have seen the movie and want something similar, however, this is a completely different story. 

My biggest criticism is that it lacks a lot of character development. The female characters in particular suffer. Alten doesn't write as horribly about women as some do, but both his female leads are on the ballbusting side and not in good ways. The romance between Jonas and Terry comes literally out of nowhere and doesn't feel natural at all. Although honestly, that makes it even more like an actual action movie, so in that way, it works. There's one sentence where Jonas's soon to be ex-wife Maggie and his new love interest Terry are described as "the blonde reporter and the Asian beauty." For literally zero reason. That entire chunk of the sentence could have been left out and the sentence would have had the same meaning. I would have also ditched some of the descriptive stuff for the Japanese cast in the revision, just like the BSC did with constant mentions of Claudia's almond-shaped eyes. What people didn't bat an eye at in the 80s and 90s doesn't work now. 

Overall, it's a fun read, but some things are dated and others just show that this is the author's first work. I'm hoping his character development, especially for the women, improves as I read more of the series. In a weird way, the flaws do work for the book though, because they lend to the action movie feel. 

The revised edition includes a prequel at the end, which was written in 2011. It tells Jonas's backstory, though you already know most of it from the book itself. The most important takeaway is that there are more prehistoric things still alive than just megs. 

Grim Horizons

After finishing Head Like a Hole, I wanted to try the author's other books. First, I ordered this short story collection. 

I'm gonna give it an "it was okay." 

Most of the stories were just okay, nothing special. There was only one I actively disliked. The novella that's the second story in the book was one of the best pieces. It dragged a bit in places, but I liked the format and the idea behind it. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep the book or put it on Paperback Swap, but it was the final story that convinced me to keep it. I liked that one quite a lot. 

I wouldn't necessarily say this one was worth reading, but if you liked Head Like a Hole, then maybe. I feel like he's developed as an author and these stories kinda show that. None of them are even close to Head Like a Hole, so I'm glad that he's improved over time. 

Head Like a Hole

I can't remember how this one appeared in my Amazon suggestions, but they were dead on. 

The cover is striking and the Nine Inch Nails title was obviously appealing. 

Then I read the blurb and a horror novel set partially in the 90s with pop culture references? Yeah, I'll give it a shot. 

I'm not sure I can give it a higher recommendation than it was delivered yesterday evening and I stayed up until 3:15am finishing it. 

So once you open the cover, the first thing you see is an illustration that was definitely inspired by Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Another point in this book's favor. 

Then it's divided up into sections and each is named after a 90s song. More points. 

The book begins with a true crime podcast guy doing a sneak interview attack on a 46-year-old woman who lives in a tract housing development. She begrudgingly begins to tell her story and thus come the flashbacks to 1996. She and her friends graduated in 1994, so this is set two years after. 

Main character Megan is an artist who failed out of a Philly art school. She works in a bar with her booty call dude, who wants to have an actual relationship but she's hesitant. Megan is a rich girl or at least semi-rich. Her parents send her off to a boarding high school that's mostly for the wealthy. That's where she meets our flashback cast. There's her boyfriend Adam, who basically ghosted her after graduation. There are Tom and Desi, the stoner journalist and the semi-gothy New Agey girl. And there's Chunhee, the Chinese girl who was bullied by the rich white kids, because of course she was. There's also Oksana, Megan's Ukrainian dancer roommate, who none of them can seem to remember. 

The flashbacks aren't exactly Megan telling the podcast guy her story, because they're written from the PoVs of multiple characters. They begin with a fisherman making a very grisly discovery. When he pulls up one of his crab traps, along comes the head of a woman with a little tiny set of lungs and a heart dangling beneath her. When she opens her eye and begins trying to speak, he freaks out, but she soon is able to control him. 

There is body horror in this, mostly having to do with Oksana there trying to regrow herself. She needs blood and flesh to begin the process, but eventually is able to reconstruct herself using parts from people the fisherman has killed for her. 

So the fisherman is being controlled by her. She's able to get into people's heads. His taking the neighbor's dog leads to the introduction of Detective Nolan, the uncle of the podcast guy in the present. He mailed his investigation notebook to a family member before the big finale and podcast guy eventually finds it. 

Then we begin to follow the fisherman and Oksana on their little killing spree, while Megan is alerted to problems by the reappearance of Adam. She's still mad at him, but she is having the weird dreams he mentioned, so she begins by going to her old high school. She eventually realizes someone is after the five of them. She calls Chunhee and heads there but arrives too late. She and Nolan are always a couple steps behind Oksana. 

I'm going to stop there because I want people to read this book. There's the mystery of what happened to Megan in the past. Her parents died in a fire and she drove off a cliff and was in a coma for two weeks. It's clear something also happened to Oksana in the past, which feels delightfully like some Point Horror stuff. It's also fun to discover the extent of Oksana's abilities and learn the story of how they developed. The ending is just a series of big reveals while the final battle versus Oksana is happening. 

Then we get back to the present and the podcast guy...well, you need to read to find out what happens to him. I had a suspicion thanks to one character's name. 

If you're not squeamish about what I'd call minor body horror, then definitely give this one a read. The 90s references are really fun if you lived during that time. The characters are two years older than me, so I knew every song and trend mentioned. 

My only criticism is that the author needs to be careful if he's going to do a book mostly set in flashbacks. He used versions of the phrase "catch feelings" not once but twice and we most definitely did not say that in the mid-90s. It's a more modern (and somehow childish-sounding) phrase that doesn't belong in the past chapters. According to Urban Dictionary, it originated in 90s hip hop, but I never heard it until much, much later. There's no way a bunch of mostly white boarding school kids would use that phrase in the 90s. Urban Dictionary says it became popular in the 2010s. So yeah, reading that early on took me right out of the book and made me cringe momentarily. But a very minor criticism. The majority of the book was excellent. 

Witchlings 1

I finally got around to reading the first Witchlings book, now that I have the sequel in hand. 

Witchlings was definitely enjoyable, though not without minor flaws. I see some clear Harry Potter influence here. Mainly in that the concept seems to be "What would happen if witches weren't sorted?" The Twelve Towns sort their witches into houses (the houses even have personality traits like in HP), which each get one new coven of five per year. Any extra kids are called Spares. This seems pretty silly honestly. Just make some covens a little bigger. Instead, this entire lower class of witch is created and they're treated horribly. The treatment of Spares is so antiquated compared to the otherwise modern setting. It's kind of a bizarre setup. The other main HP thing is that the witch world is separate from the non-magical, though it isn't explained how. Non-magical humans are called humdrums. Heh. While the name is funny, I think the worldbuilding would have been just fine as a magical world. It didn't have to also connect to the human world like HP does. 

Anyway, Seven in the middle there is our main character. She wants to be sorted into a particular house alongside her BFF, Poppy. Poppy makes it, but Seven doesn't. She becomes a Spare. The one with the bob is named Thorn. She's new to town and seems on the fearful side. The pink-haired girl is a rich kid named Valley, who bullied Seven for years. When their mini-coven of three fails to seal, Seven invokes the Impossible Task. If they can perform the task, they'll be a coven. If they can't...they'll be turned into toads. (Not a normal punishment. This is noted.) The girls' task is to kill a Nightbeast, a huge, wolf-like monster that likes to eat witch kids. 

The story twists and turns with the girls getting to know one another and getting over old grievances (Valley and Seven). They try many different things to find the Nightbeast, and they end up uncovering a huge evil plot along the way. Each girl has somewhat decent character development, though honestly, I felt Thorn's was a bit weak. We know her a little, but not as well as Seven and Valley. I felt that way about a lot of the side characters. There could have been more development on most of the parents for sure. The book is definitely very plot and action heavy and lighter on developing the large cast of characters. I'm hoping future volumes work on that. 

I enjoyed most of the world the author built. I love the Spanish-influenced terms for things. Luz is a light spell and Veneno is a poison spell. Monsters are monstruo. I know very little Spanish, so I think this would be even more enjoyable for someone that knew more and could more easily see the origins behind the words. 

Overall, this is a fun book and a quick read. I cared about the characters and wanted to know how the story would end. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes some good witchy fantasy.

W.I.T.C.H. Part 8: Teach 2B W.I.T.C.H.

Ah, it's been a while, but I was finally called back to the world of W.I.T.C.H.

Last time was the new powers and some changes and new characterizations for the girls. 

This time, they're discovering their new mission and that there's a new big bad out there. 

FIRST ISSUE: We meet Takeda, who's the new bad guy. The company he works for (owns?) does stuff with technology involving the cold. Somehow in the recent past, he used the cold to open a portal into another world. A being from that world fell in love with his daughter, who is now in some sort of "endless sleep." Takeda keeps her in stasis there in the company until he can figure out how to help her. He's angry with everything magical, which of course includes W.I.T.C.H. The frozen being who loves the girl is also there and is given a human form thanks to some sort of formula Takeda created. They seem to be assessing the girls and looking for a weakness. 

Meanwhile, Hay has taken up babysitting, only the second client she meets turns out to be a magical kid. The girls think helping magical children might be their new mission and they consult Yan about this. She gives them a guy named Kandor who will help them with their new magical school. 

Takeda sends a naiad after the girls and she finds Will. The naiad looks like a snake but it's a parasite that takes over the body of her host and drains all their magic and other energies. At home, Takeda ignores his other daughter. 

SECOND ISSUE: Will is feeling ill thanks to the naiad, while Hay finds a boy in her closet. How did he get in her closet? Who knows? But it's the human form of the frozen guy and he calls himself Liam. Hay brings Liam to meet the other girls and he helps them with the naiad. She's drawn out of Will's body by the presence of the strong magic of the other girls. They try to fight, but Liam says only Will's best friend can do it. Thanks to a little flashback at the beginning of the issue, we know this is Taranee. She defeats the naiad and Will is saved, then there's an amusing scene where the girls all bring her gifts to prove they're her friends, too. After this, Hay visits Yan, who gives her the key to the magic school, but doesn't tell her where it is. 

THIRD ISSUE: The girls are on vacation with Taranee's family. They've got their own bungalow, as do Peter and his friends, while Taranee's parents are in a third. So they're in a beachy resort place. I'd forgotten the girls were given new magical weapons to go with their new powers. Cornelia practices with her ribbon, while Taranee's magical volleyball is found by a beach dude. She and Hay are forced to play volleyball with it. Then Hay accidentally uses her fan weapon as a fan and instead it creates a huge wind, which causes a wave that knocks Cornelia and Peter underwater, interrupting their surf lesson. Underwater, they kiss. Will keeps trying to fit the magic school key into everything, gets into some trouble, and then tries out her magic clackers, which have some weird magical effect on the world nearby. At lunch, the girls decide they need to practice with their objects. Irma's is a tambourine. They sound silly, but there's a training sequence that shows what they can actually do as weapons and it's pretty cool. Later, the girls are hiding behind a van and Will tries the key out...and it works. Kandor is inside and he shows them their new magic school, which is a huge pink tour bus that's got all sorts of cool shit inside. 

FOURTH ISSUE: The one has Matt meeting both Liam (he doesn't trust him) and Kandor (apparently Matt was his captain back on Kandrakar). Matt still won't say much about who he really is. A lot of the issue is taken up by Kandor showing the girls their individual classrooms, then Matt fights Liam in the gym, wanting to prove to the girls that he can't be trusted. Instead, Will gets annoyed with Matt. We the magical creature also makes an appearance and he's going to live on the bus with Kandor, much to Kandor's displeasure. He's allergic. 

At Cornelia's house, there's an old man that she keeps seeing. He gives her a note that she takes to her dad and he rips it up. Bitch Grandma is staying in Cornelia's room because this has upset her so much. Talking with her dad, Corny learns that the man is her grandfather, who left the family a very long time ago. He's not sure he wants to see him. 

In the school, Kandor shows the girls the magical power source that creates the school itself. It's called the lumien and it's basically a bunch of elemental energy ribbons. They send out several end pieces of the ribbons and follow them to find more magical kids. Heatherfield is apparently so magical that a lot of younger children and babies are being born with magic. 

Cornelia makes a quick trip home to tape up the note from her grandfather and leave it for her dad, who goes to see him after all. 

This one was interesting, but nothing too special. After so many issues of them hiding magic, the idea of a bunch of magical kids just out there practically in the open is unusual. And all the parents are going to end up knowing about W.I.T.C.H. The villain is a bit lackluster, but I'm also intrigued to learn more about this frozen hidden world and what exactly happened between Liam and Mariko. 

Order of Favorite Guardians: Cornelia, Hay/Taranee, Irma, Will.

The same. Cornelia is still way out in front and now she's done yet another cool thing by helping her dad. Taranee's helping Will was awesome, but I also just really loved Hay in this volume. 

FIRST ISSUE: At Takeshita, Mrs. Takeda visits her husband and eventually forces him to take her to Mariko, their eldest daughter. he explains about her being trapped in whatever state she's in thanks to her contact with the parallel world that he calls "fast world." 

Cornelia follows a lumien strand to a girl that looks a little bit older than W.I.T.C.H. Leah is a model who can shapeshift into whatever the person she's around needs most, but she's upset because she's forgotten her original face. There's this whole modelling storyline that's not very interesting. It's not Cornelia's best work after her awesome family story last time. I mean, she doesn't do anything wrong. It's just a boring storyline. The other girls take Leah to meet Yan, who helps her rediscover her true self. 

SECOND ISSUE: Taranee's mom senses that she feels lonely without Peter in the house, so they go pick out a dog. Mrs. Cook is thinking a nice, cute, little puppy, but Taranee picks out this huge black dog named Flea. While at the shelter, Taranee meets twins Luna and Sun and realizes Sun is magical. Liam sends monsters to the shelter to kidnap Sun, but she's rescued and recruited by W.I.T.C.H. She has a hand in her own rescue though, as her ability to talk to animals includes ones not of this world. Sun is a bit grumpy, but I like her. At the end, Taranee and her family go back and pick up the little puppy Taranee also liked, so Flea has a friend. 

In a brief side story, Irma attempts to befriend the younger Takeda daughter, Shinobu, but nothing comes of it. 

THIRD ISSUE: Hay notices her parents are having some marital issues, and her mom finally tells her the story of how they got together. Her mom was quite wealthy and her dad was a waiter in their household. Her mom, confronted with a marriage proposal she didn't want, realized she loved Hay's dad and they left to be together. Her father disowned her, but every year he sends a man with divorce papers, because if she signs them, he'll give her his entire fortune. So when he comes this year, Hay's dad says they're all going back with him. They basically go to China just so Hay's dad can have Hay's mom see everything she's given up and she once again declares her love for him and they leave happy. 

Meanwhile, Liam came to stay at Will's house in a ruse to get closer to baby William, who apparently is super magical. Matt follows him back to Takeshita, where he's caught and Takeda freezes him. 

FOURTH ISSUE: Shinobu is wandering around Takeshita. Takeda forces Liam to go kidnap baby William. W.I.T.C.H. has some comic relief teaching scenes. Liam visits Hay to semi-apologize for what he's about to do, then goes to Will's, where he knocks out Susan and kidnaps baby William. Takeda forces him to take William through the portal back into Liam's "fast world." William handles the entire trip just fine because he's just that magical. W.I.T.C.H., led by a furious Will, attack Takeshita. Will knows William is through the portal, so she doesn't listen to the others and goes right in. They follow and then Takeda freezes the entrance shut so they're trapped. His mission was to get the girls and William into the portal so they'd be out of our world and he'd have an easier time ridding Heatherfield of magic. Shinobu confronts her father and injects herself with his formula. He tells her the only way to save herself is to go to fast world. Takeda's robots freeze him while he's trying to protect Shinobu and she creeps into the frozen passage. 

Pretty exciting! The first issue was a bit of a dud, but the other three made up for it. I like the family backstories we're getting for the girls, though it does seem odd that first Cornelia's and now Hay's family have some old secret family drama that's revealed. And it hasn't been that long since the same happened to Taranee. 

Order of Favorite Guardians: Cornelia, Hay/Taranee, Irma, Will.

Taranee's issue had her creeping a little ahead of Hay, but then it was followed by Hay's issue, so they're right back to being tied. I hope Irma gets something to do soon. 

FIRST ISSUE: The girls find themselves in fast world, where they meet the White Queen, who tells them of her war with the Shadow Queen. She tricks them into fighting for her, but the girls realize the White Queen is actually the bad guy in fast world. The Shadow Queen turns out to be Mariko, though she's not always corporeal, her body being back on Earth. Shinobu had found William and both were then found by Mariko, so all three were imprisoned after the battle. W.I.T.C.H. and Liam free them, though Liam sacrifices himself to save Mariko. Everyone escapes and heads back to the portal. 

SECOND ISSUE: They make it through the portal and Mariko's spirit is reunited with her body. But everyone has to flee because the White Queen is on her way, somehow using a scrap of Irma's lamia (how could that even tear?) to track them. The fast worlders are using their speed to suck parts of Heatherfield back into fast world. Hay uses an old lullaby to magically transport all the citizens into an airport bunker. I have no idea how. Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay all sing together to fight the White Queen, who's attacked the bunker. Will isn't with them because she got the people out just in time. Matt breaks free of his icy prison and his voice joins them. Somehow it's his additional voice that conquers the White Queen and breaks the connection between Earth and fast world. Takeda is also freed from ice and reunited with his daughters. W.I.T.C.H. kindly lets him go. Too kindly. 

So these two issues wrap up this storyline. While I didn't hate it, I found the ending very unsatisfying. Liam sacrifices himself to save Mariko and she just briefly cries. Nothing more. Takeda is forgiven way too easily without even thanking W.I.T.C.H. or realizing there's nothing wrong with magic after all. And I have no idea how any of that singing stuff worked. But anyway, it's over. 

THIRD ISSUE: Now it's time for the filler issues. Irma becomes suspicious of Kandor and what he does in his free time, so the girls stow away on the bus and spend all of their Sunday travelling all over the world. It's a fun issue with a lot of comedy. Turns out Kandor likes knitting, so he buys yarn from all over, but he tells the girls he's collecting rare books to hide his secret. 

FOURTH ISSUE: It feels like they just started back up again, but it's apparently the end of the school year. A pianist named Francis is worried about his grades. Taranee knows him and even gives him a kiss on the cheek. I honestly can't remember if we've ever met this guy before. Cornelia and a girl named Sandra were never friends, though they're quite similar, and they decide to walk home together. This is Sandra's last day because she's moving so it's bittersweet for the pair to realize they had so much in common too late for them to be more active friends. Hay isn't in school, as she has chicken pox. The others visit her later. Irma and Stephen attend a party with his friends and Irma feels out of place. Then they have their goodbye moment, as Stephen is going off to college. Will's mom goes to a high school reunion and is reunited with her old boyfriend. Then Dean turns up in time to dance with her. It's cute. Will takes William to a day care for the first time and he totally does not even try to control his magic. He's a hit with the other kids, but I have no idea how that's going to work when Will isn't there to make everything disappear. The girls end the day hanging with Yan in Kandrakar. This was a fun issue with all sorts of storylines going on. 

FIFTH ISSUE: Will is practicing for a swimming competition and then all sorts of weird shit starts happening. It turns out because Will loves swimming so much, she gives the water all her emotions and memories and such, and it's kind of giving them back to her. W.I.T.C.H. steps in and sorts things out. 

Order of Favorite Guardians: Cornelia, Hay/Taranee, Irma, Will.

Still the same! And that wraps up this story arc.