STAR DARLINGS 12

Finished this a couple days ago, but I've been letting it sit here because I came down with a fever on Friday. I'll kick it out now.

So we're at the last of the twelve mission books for the SD series. The next one is the first larger adventure that comes out on October 4th, which seems to be the first in a series of larger books.

The SDs are all writing a letter of apology to Lady Stella, because they realize they were wrong about her, but it keeps getting declined. They decide to tell Lady Cordial the good news, but she's about to speak at an assembly. The girls head there only to have Leona get mad because Vivica's band was asked to perform. I agree with her this time, because such a performance could easily influence the voting at the upcoming Battle of the Bands. Leona gets them earplugs, which is both amusing and, as she admits herself, childish, but it also turns out to save the day. Lady Cordial talks about the upcoming Starshine Day and each girl is given a committee assignment. None of the SDs are together, which is suspicious. Then Vivica and the Visionaries come out and Leona passes out the "ear shields." Gemma tries to talk her out of it, but finally goes along with it. Right after. everyone but the SDs is suddenly obsessed with Starshine Day, so it's clear there was some evil subliminal message in the song that Leona's childishness saved them from. Not clear to the SDs, but clear to readers. Sigh. They try to talk to Lady Cordial and she's semi-into the idea that Lady Stella is innocent, but continues with all the Starshine nonsense anyway.

The Starshine Day obsession continues and the SDs go along with their different committee activities. Gemma is worried about her wish orb, because she should be leaving any day now. Lady Cordial basically confirms that. Piper gets them all together for a meditation session, which is interrupted by Gemma's wish orb arriving. The orb looks different than the others and Lady Cordial won't even let Gemma touch it, which should have been some red flags, but nope. Sigh #2.

Gemma gets to be on Wishworld for Halloween, and her wish seems easy enough. There are two best friends, but one of them also wants to be friends with some popular girls. As popular girls in books always seem to be, of course they're not nice. Leona arrives to help out, even though Gemma insists her mission is on track. Gemma also says she expected her sister and she almost got her, but as they were strapping Tessa to the shooting star, Leona heard a voice telling her to go, so she shoved Tessa out of the way and stole her star. Gemma tells her about the mission and Leona questions whether a wish to be popular is a good wish and they soon find out it isn't when Gemma's wisher embarrasses her best friend to look good to the popular brats. Gemma's wish pendant sucks up negative wish energy and Gemma's wisher comes over and begs for help. At least she realized right away that she was wrong. Gemma then discovers that her talent is to turn back time, so she redoes the costume contest and everything works out right this time. She collects positive wish energy and she and Leona return in time for the Battle of the Bands.

Gemma is dragged into the maze by Vega, where she's surprised to see Lady Stella and Indirra, Sage's mom. It turns out they were trapped in a cave in the Crystal Mountains, along with some glowfurs. They taught the glowfurs a new song, which ended up being passed on to Cassie's Itty and she sang of two women trapped in a cave. So the SDs went to the rescue.

The Star Darlings play in the Battle of the Bands and then Lady Cordial makes all twelve girls go onstage...and introduces them as the real Star Darlings, telling all the secrets of what they've been doing. Then she pulls out Gemma's wish orb and blows glitter off it, revealing it to be a negative wish orb. Lady Cordial reveals herself to be Rancora and says she made Gemma grant a bad wish, thus turning the wish energy balance of Starland to negative. Lady Stella confronts Rancora, while Gemma holds out her hand to the wish orb. The orb changes into a good one, turning into Gemma's wish blossom and then producing her power crystal. Rancora laughs and says that doesn't negate the bad energy she collected and she adds that they need all TWELVE power crystals to do anything as the "twelve star-charmed Star Darlings." Yeah, they're missing Leona's. Rancora says she's the one who destroyed Leona's wish pendant, she's the one who made the star keychains on their Wishworld bags and loaded them with negative energy so the missions would go wrong, she's the one behind all the bad stuff. She thrives on negative energy. Lady Stella pulls out Leona's wish orb, saying she held onto it in the hopes it would transform someday. The orb floats toward Leona who pulls out her pendant and discovers the positive energy she and Gemma collected fixed the ruined pendant. Rancora fires negative energy at Leona, but a bot-bot jumps in front of her and takes the blast. Leona's orb transforms and she finally has her power crystal. The twelve crystals swirl together as the SDs join hands and the balance of Starland energy shifts violently into the positive. Rancora vanishes and Sage runs to the heroic bot-bot, who turns out to be her Mojo. He's okay though and Gemma realizes she and the others are all glowing brightly, forming a fabulous rainbow. The crowd cheers them on, but Lady Stella suddenly apologizes. A wind rips through everything and a shooting star crosses the sky, then the crowd acts very differently. Lady Stella erased their memories.

This is the part that bugs me. WHY? Why are we still being secretive about this? It's fucking ridiculous. Everyone on Starland deserves to know something so important is happening.

Naturally, the SDs lose the band contest, too, and Vivica acts like a total bitch. Lady Stella at least sees it this time and says they'll keep an eye on her.

Later, the SDs and Lady Stella are all together on the surveillance deck. Lady Stella tells Cassie not to feel guilty because their misstep caused the real saboteur to out herself. They're not going back to Wishworld right away, but will be working with the wish energy scientists on some things. Sage is happy because her mom will be there. Lady Stella also says they have powers that haven't even been discovered yet and because of them, Starland is now safe.

So that's it. I've been suspicious of Cordial since Leona's book, so turned out that was right. I'm not happy they still have to work in secret, because that seems both counterproductive and unfair to the population of Starland. And I wish Vivica would get a good helping of comeuppance. I see a team up with Rancora in her future, so maybe then.

STAR DARLINGS Stellar Style and Wish-a-Day Diary

I was hoping for some new lovely art in Stellar Style, but overall, I was very disappointed. First, the only non-band SD you'll see in the entire thing is that rather unattractive pic of Cassie on the cover. Second, there are only a couple new art pieces. The five band girls get profile pages with some new looks, including sleepwear. The art is cute, but it the same pose repeated, just wearing different clothes each time.

Stellar Style would be a good book for the more crafty or hairstyle-focused target market, but otherwise, skip it.

Wish-a-Day Diary though is fantastic! The art is mostly just designs, but the gorgeous colors and intricate flowery details make for very lovely pages. Each of the girls has an illustration that's repeated off an on throughout the book. Libby, Scarlet, Piper, Astra, Leona and Vega all have new ones. The others I think we've seen before. Maybe not Cassie's but she's with Itty, so those pics of her kinda all look the same to me. There's a lovely pic of Piper writing in her Wishworld journal on the back cover.

The book begins with a great Piper-centric short story that was longer than I expected. Then there are 365 pages with inspirational comments, writing-provoking questions, etc., a lot of which tie in to whichever SD the page is themed by. I would have loved writing in this when I was younger, although maybe not, because I wouldn't have wanted to mar the pretty pages!

I definitely recommend this one for all fans, especially if you're writing-inclined like me.

STAR DARLINGS 11

Oh, man, I got behind on Star Darlings because I just could not enjoy this book.

There's still an energy crisis in Starland.

Lady Stella has left, with the cover being that she had a family emergency, although the SDs know the truth. She left after the girls confronted her.

Lady Cordial seems more incompetent than ever.

There's one amusing scene where Tessa's trying to taste everyone else's soup instead of ordering her own, which is pretty ridiculous, and the bot-bot delivering someone else's powers down just in time to dump it on her head.

Days go by and nothing happens. Finally, at an assembly new professor Honoria McHue brings up the energy crisis and asks what's being done. Lady Cordial begins to discuss it, only to have a convenient accident and need to be taken to the infirmary. That doesn't stop Professor McHue from sending out a mass email to encourage discussion and suggestions for what to do about the energy crisis.

The girls visit Lady Cordial in the infirmary and she sends them to another school the next day to look into how they're making an alternate fuel source. She does instruct them to bring their SD backpacks, which I find suspicious. The girls go all the way to the school only to find out that school doesn't have any alternate fuel source. Lady Cordial just got them out of the way for a day. Though no one's suspicious, because they're kind of a bunch of morons at this point.

That's three chapters in and it's just SO BORING.

They come back and Lady Cordial is no longer in the infirmary. Clover goes to look for her at her house and she's not there...or rather pretends not to be there. Honoria McHue is also conveniently gone, supposedly having taken a job in Gloom Flats. All too convenient. But again, no one suspects anything.

Clover has this ridiculous idea to have a circus to cheer everyone up, but it all falls apart. The SDs have a bit of fun anyway, but seriously, this whole book is boring time-killing blah so far.

There's a night star ball game and a power outage occurs. Starzaps won't work and a storm comes out of nowhere. Cassie and her glowfur, Itty, save the day by having her sing the "Song of Calmness," which brings wild glowfurs in to help sing and the panicking star ball audience calms down.

Clover wakes from a dream to be found by a sleepwalking Piper. Clover follows Piper to the Wish Cavern where a Wish Orb is waiting for her. The still-sleeping Piper says time is running out for Clover's Wish Mission. Clover is startled doesn't know what to do and thankfully a flutterfocus wakes Piper up. Clover has some rather snide thoughts about her, which were totally uncalled for, and Piper reiterates that Clover should go NOW. Piper gets Clover to haul her ass in gear FINALLY and together with Mojo the bot-bot's help, they wrangle her a star and get her down to Wishworld.

Clover's mission isn't especially interesting either, but at least it felt more focused and put together than the rest of the book. She's there on her own with no place to sleep, because she didn't get her backpack. Piper brought her Vega's (she couldn't find her own, because Piper's not very organized), but the tent wasn't in it. I loved her spelling the furniture store clerk to let her "test out" the bed in the store window of the mall overnight. That was my favorite part of this entire sad book. Clover's special power is stopping time briefly, except for her and possibly her Wisher, too, because that's how it worked this time, and she completes her mission in time and gets back safely.

Lady Cordial is far too concerned about the possibility that Clover didn't take her backpack, but calms when she learns Clover has Vega's. Might be because those star keychains are loaded with negative energy, which Cordial just happens to discover and then blame on Lady Stella. Clover's Wish Blossom opened early and Cordial misplaced her power crystal...or did she? They see it glowing in Cordial's pocket so Clover gets it, but who knows if it's been sabotaged or not?

The girls have a celebration picnic, but then there's another outage, so they go to Sage's room. There, Astra sees a photo of the woman who she saw plotting with Lady Stella.

Sage says they've made a big mistake and that Lady Stella can't possibly be evil. The woman...is Sage's mom.

Oh, that was painful. Even typing this brief summary was painful. This might be the worst book in the entire series. There were far worse incidents, like all my most hated Leona moments, but this felt like a rambling story told by your drunk friend. It meandered all over the place, several parts early on were just plain dull, and there were only a couple highlights.

I was going to try to read Gemma's tonight and get that review up, but I just can't. It can't be worse than this, because things finally get at least semi-resolved in the end, but I'm so drained from Clover's that I just cannot read more SD right now.

STAR DARLINGS 10

It's really hard to believe we're at #10 already! I've been looking forward to this one a lot, since Adora is an intriguing character. Her use of science to create advances in fashion is very unique and her design is one of the prettiest.

However, I had a very difficult time making it through this book, because Leona was being a horrible selfish brat again.

I'm going to zip through things here pretty quickly. They used a lot of words when not all that much really happened.

So Adora's doing an experiment with sequins and her character is quickly presented as precise, methodical and rather unemotional. Her Starzap goes off and it's a group hololetter from Cassie, which was the prologue for this book and details all the recent SD issues. Basically, it explains why she, Scarlet and Tessa are in the caves and then says if the other SDs are getting the letter, they're probably trapped and need help, because Cassie set it to send 3 hours after they went down there. So the other 9 SDs meet in Leona and Scarlet's room to figure out a plan. Everyone's all yap yap yap and they don't really get anywhere. They figure that the girls found some way down into the caves other than the one in the office that they use before missions, but not knowing where that entrance is, they have no choice but to break into the office and use the way they know. The girls vote on a leader for this mission and Adora is chosen, which is a little surprising, because she's not exactly close to any of the girls. She voted for herself, but at least one other person must have, too. I suppose it's because she made a lot of good points in the meeting so far. Anyway, they vote to all go on the rescue mission together, then decide to split up and locate Lady Stella to make sure she's not in the office. Adora, Gemma and Libby end up in the faculty housing and there's another sign that Adora is more of a loner, because she's a third year and by then, most of them have been invited to tea at a professor's house. Adora has not and she figures it's because the art teachers think she's too serious and the science teachers think she's too frivolous with her interest in fashion. Anyway, this whole section goes on for way too long, but they find Lady Stella gardening and head to the hedge maze, which was the meeting point. After everyone gets there and learns that it's safe to head to the office, they split up and all go there sort of separately. The bot-bots prove annoying and there's a moment where Leona uses her dramatic skills to get them all safely to the office without nosy guards hanging around. And I thought I kinda liked her a little more, but then she went and ruined it.

You see, the office door is locked. They try energy manipulation as a group, but that fails. Astra says that when she and Libby were on Wishworld, Libby's crystal unlocked a door so they decide to try that. Sage, Libby, Vega, Piper and Astra take out their crystals and what does Leona say? Miss Bitch says "Show offs."

Adora has a fabulous inner monologue here. "Get over it! So your Wish Pendant burned to a crisp while you were coming home after your mission. So you didn't bring back wish energy or receive your Power Crystal. Figure out what you can do now!" But unfortunately, she doesn't say it aloud. Piper says something about Leona contributing positive energy and everyone just goes with that. But the power crystals don't work and Leona says, "Well, guess those little old Power Crystals aren't as powerful as you thought."

I was already angry about the show offs line, but that last scene REALLY made me mad. Cassie is supposed to be one of Leona's FRIENDS. Obviously, she doesn't care for Scarlet and I'm not sure how she feels about Tessa exactly, but Cassie is her friend and the other two are her teammates. Yet she is so incredibly goddamn selfish that she would rather see the power crystals fail and them have to take even longer to rescue the three girls than for the crystals to work. Just because she does not have one.  

Then of course not only does she act like a selfish egotistical brat and not one other girl calls her on it, but she leans on the door and it opens. (Likely because one of the saboteurs LET it open, but still.)

So the go in the office and Leona opens the secret drawer containing the button to open the entrance to the caves. She sees something in the drawer that upsets her, but she lies about it.

The girls go into the caves and Adora says they need to keep the door open so they can get back out. Astra offers to do it, but methodical (and seemingly untrusting) Adora has to do it herself. Then she and Astra hear voices, and it's Lady Stella and someone else. More stuff to fuel the conspiracy blah blah blah. The important thing is that Lady Stella sees the door open and closes it, so they can't get out that way.

The girls wander around the caves until Scarlet's bitbat friend finds them and leads them to the secret door to where the other three are trapped. It even traces the shape of the door in the air so they get it. Libby suggests using the crystals and Leona bitches "Yes, they were such a startacular success before" At least this time Adora tells her not to be sarcastic.

I'm going to stop here a moment to finish complaining about Leona. I cannot stand her. I seriously cannot think of another character that is supposed to be good that I have ever hated so much because she was such a horrible person. There are even BAD characters that act better than Leona does. Like Vidia. Vidia who plucked Mother Dove is actually less selfish than Leona. Pizzazz who tried repeatedly to off Jem is less selfish than Leona. While I don't mind flawed characters, what bothers me is that Leona's actions are so infrequently presented as flawed. Kids are going to think the way she acts is a good thing. To put your ego in front of your friends. To deliberately ignore people trying to help you. To disregard your roommate's wishes about her possessions and disrespect the dead on top of that. I really want her to get what's coming to her. I want someone to blow up at her and tell her something like what Adora almost did. If only one of them had told her to stop putting her ego in front of her friends, maybe she'd actually stop and think about her behavior for a moment. Ophelia was a better Star Darling. And she was an unskilled fake. I'm just really tired of her ruining books for me. I like all the other characters, but I hate her I think more than any other supposedly good character ever written.

Anyway, the girls realize the door is password-protected and Adora accidentally discovers the password. The door opens and Tessa wonders if they brought any food. (Sigh.) Cassie tells the girls about a book they found with a prophecy about twelve Star-Charmed Starlings that save Starland. The girls realize it's them and there's a whole bunch of speculation. Then the door slams and they're all locked in this time. Cassie muses that in one of her uncle's books there's a trick bookcase. Adora says that's just a literary device, but sees a book on the shelf called The Great Escape and pulls it off. Nothing happens to the shelf, but there's a hole behind the book. Vega pulls more books off the shelf and sees a door. Leona makes yet another crack about the power crystals and I almost put the book down when I read that last night. But the door opens randomly and the girls go into the Wish Cavern, where Lady Stella suddenly is. They fudge their way through an explanation of how they got there so fast and Adora is chosen for the next mission. Later, the girls tell her they don't want her to go because it's too dangerous, but she decides it's worth the risk.

I was so sick of Leona at this point that I had to put the book down for over a day just to get away from her.

Adora's Wishworld mission may be the shortest and simplest. The majority of the book is spent on freeing the 3 girls and learning about the prophecy so there's not much space left for a mission. She lands at a camp and identifies her wisher who wants to have the confidence to make friends. The two friends she's usually there with aren't there this year. Adora, not really having the most experience with sensitivity and emotional responses, fails in helping her. She does discover that she has a healing power though, which is cool. She goes to the bathroom and says her mantra, only to have her wisher walk in and see her in her Starland form! Somehow the mantra turned her back into her blue sparkly self. Adora tells the wisher, Hannah, the whole story and Hannah agrees to help her. She even gets to go into Adora's pop-up star tent thingy. Adora is exhausted and falls asleep and Cassie wakes her up. Adora is put out at first that she's been sent help so quickly, but apparently her energy is rapidly draining, possibly because she's in her Starland form. The two realize that none of their wishers have been good fits for the Starland girls' strengths, so they wonder if they were mixed up on purpose. Hannah comes in and the trio work on different methods to get Adora back to Wishworld normal. It eventually does work and Cassie helps the girls realize that Adora granted Hannah's wish by being her friend and helping her and vice versa. But that wasn't enough to grant the wish, so they make it so that she makes two more camper friends, then head back to Starland.

Adora gets her crystal and then Leona summons everyone to her room, where she reveals the secret she's been hiding. Inside the drawer in the office, she found her burnt wish pendant, meaning Lady Stella never sent it off to be analyzed like she said she would. This is the proof that even the ones holding out thinking Lady Stella was innocent have to accept. She's guilty and they have to turn her in.

So we've inched a bit farther in the conspiracy plot and that was the main point of this book. I don't like Adora as much as I thought I would unfortunately. She was better on Wishworld, but she really is a little too unemotional and coldly analytical for me. And I hate Leona. I really hope she's not up to her crap in Clover's book, because I don't want her to ruin the entire series for me. She's just so hard to read.

STAR DARLINGS 9

I started out not liking this book. Tessa is embodying her stereotypical Taurian trait of stubbornness by not believing the speculation that it is Lady Stella herself who is sabotaging the SDs. The others have more split opinions. Scarlet and Cassie have teamed up and are searching for more information that will prove Ophelia was telling the truth and that it is Lady Stella. Sage is on Tessa's side, although that's only briefly mentioned. Leona actually sides with Scarlet, saying that she knew Ophelia best and didn't think she was lying.

Tessa decides to join Scarlet and Cassie's investigation, hoping to find proof that Lady Stella is innocent. However, she does this in a very underhanded and manipulative manner. She takes Cassie along with her to bake some cupcake things (I forget the Starland name) and actually holds the tray of finished cupcakes above Cassie's head and says Cassie can have as many as she wants if she tells Tessa what she and Scarlet are up to. She uses this tactic because it worked on Gemma when she was little. Yes, she not only does the asshole move of mocking someone's height, she treats Cassie like a little child. And the main reason she goes for this tactic instead of actually treating Cassie as a friend and equal? Because she got too wrapped up in fucking baking and forgot to say anything until now. So instead of doing it nicely, she decides to jump right into this behavior.

Tessa was already annoying me, because her main characteristics in the early chapters are her being easily distracted and disorganized, two things that don't exactly endear people to me. Then she pulled this crap with Cassie to make up for her own failings at investigating and I was pissed. It isn't Leona-level bad, but it's the second-worst thing I've seen any of these girls do.

However, Tessa has some cute bonding moments with Scarlet down in the caves and that made me like her a little better. She's at least not squeamish about the obviously cute bats like Cassie is. Like I've seen that glowfur thing she has as a pet. Anyone who has one of those shouldn't be scared of a bat.

There is some interesting discussion involving Lady Cordial, who I still believe to be behind all this, but the girls don't even think about her being a suspect because nobody takes her seriously. It's also her that blurts out about the energy crisis right before Tessa's mission. It's hard for me to keep track of what's been revealed, since I had the early version of Sage's book first and read it a few times, but this is new information to the girls. (It had been upfront in the earlier version.)

Tessa is chosen for the next mission and it's a good one. I like that it's summertime and she's volunteering at an animal shelter. Her special power is communicating with animals, which is cool. She was very good on Wishworld and that helped make up for how angry I was with her earlier. Adora comes down to help her and I know she's going to be one of my favorites. She's calm, cool, collected, logical and methodical, all things I respect.

The book ends with a little cliffhanger. Tessa, Scarlet and Cassie find a secret place in the caves where old books are hidden and they find the one about the prophecy. Then they get locked in, but if you read the sneak peek at Adora's book, Cassie's sent out a hololetter so you know they'll get out.

I still really dislike what Tessa did to Cassie. That's not how you treat a friend and teammate. But she managed to get my liking her by the end of the book. She just better not do anything that horrible ever again.

STAR DARLINGS 8

Ah, it's the beginning of the month and time for a new Star Darlings book! Last month's Piper book was my favorite of the series, but this one is actually a close second.

I'm just going to hit a few high points, not go chapter by chapter.

Astra and Piper seem like a mismatched pair of friends and they're extremely different, but somehow they still get each other. I love their friendship more than any other in this series so far.

Both girls removed their spelled nail polish last book, so they're trying to get the others to see that they're all acting bizarrely. They finally use Vega's habit of constantly filming everything to show the girls how they've been acting, but they still don't know what's causing it, so for awhile, they're acting funny and it's driving them nuts because they can't stop it. Then Astra figures out it's the nail polish and they try everything to remove it, but realize only Earth nail polish remover will do it. Astra brings some back from her mission and at the end of the book, everyone is finally back to normal. I'm hoping this is the last personality-altering thing we deal with.

Then we've got the Ophelia mystery. Astra overhears Lady Stella talking to a hooded woman and after that woman leaves, she confronts Lady Stella about it. Lady Stella fakes an answer and Astra goes on to ask about Ophelia. Lady Cordial appears and says that the orphanage Ophelia came from found a family willing to adopt her, so she got pulled from school to handle the details. Neither adult can come up with the proper name for Ophelia's orphanage and Astra remembers both. After dealing with another power outage of sorts, Astra makes it to SD class, only to learn the class is cancelled because the prof is stuck in their version of an elevator. The girls discuss Ophelia, but get distracted handling the personality alteration thing, but later Astra tries calling one of the orphanages and they say they can only give info out in person. Field trip for Astra and Piper! They go to that orphanage and Ophelia is not a student there...or rather, she is, but it's not their Ophelia. They also meet a nice boy named Leebeau, who's a fan of Astra and Astra quite possibly ends up with a crush on him. I think this is the first mention of boys in the book series, unlike Libby's obsessive boy talk in the webisodes. Astra and Piper have to rush back to school, because it's time for the next wish mission.

Astra is chosen, of course, and Piper says she'll keep looking for Ophelia while Astra is gone. She's going to ask Leona for help, since Leona was so close to Ophelia. Astra's mission is pretty fun, although I prefer Piper's. Astra gets a bit too distracted by sports, but her take on things is fun and her power is teleporting, which is awesome. She identifies her wisher pretty quickly and almost gets the wish right, but it takes a visit from Libby to put her in the right direction. There's an interesting bit where the girls are being kept from opening the auditorium doors. A "strange sickly gray mist" is around the door handle and Libby gets the brilliant idea to use her power crystal. It dissolves the mist, Astra successfully completes her mission, gets her power crystal, and brings back nail polish remover for everyone.

Then Piper and Leona announce that they found Ophelia. She's a student at a school, not an orphanage, and she really wanted to go to Starling Academy, but she bombed everything. Then she received a holotext saying she could attend if she pretended to be someone else. Cassie asks who the holotexts came from and Ophelia responds, "Lady Stella, of course."

So now we've solved the current personality alteration problem and the mystery of Ophelia only to have Lady Stella fall under suspicion. The first chapter of Tessa's book, in which she's already annoying me with her easily distracted, stubborn, food is more important than actual important things ways, has the SD girls discussing Lady Stella. Scarlet is convinced she's behind it and she makes good points, because it has to be someone in power to have done the Scarlet/Ophelia flip. Tessa is convinced it's not her, so it will be interesting to see which girls fall on which side. Cassie seems to be with Scarlet and Sage with Tessa. Leona also seems to be with Cassie and Scarlet, which is a switch.

Things are getting good!

STAR DARLINGS 7

This is going to be a quick one without my usual chapter-by-chapter summarizing. This is my favorite of the series so far.

Piper is awesome. She and Scarlet are both my favorites and they're very different, yet I see myself in both (and Libby, too). Piper is slow-moving and often arrives late, which I am the opposite of, but she's dreamy, a writer, sometimes takes things to a dark place, doesn't care much what others think of her, and loves sleep. She believes in the power of dreams and were religion part of SD, I think she would be the most spiritual.

Piper's favorite holiday, Star Kindness Day, is here. It's a day when Starlings pay each other compliments and other positive messages. Piper has written individual poems for each SD and she's excited to send them. However, everyone gets insulting, mean messages. All the good messages sent have turned negative. Lady Stella tells everyone to ignore them, but the tension is high and everyone is snippy and unhappy. Libby suggests an SD sleepover in her and Gemma's room and that works for awhile, but then Piper has a nightmare and Sage comforts her. They go outside and Piper tries telling Sage her nightmare, but Sage can't stop laughing. Remember the nail polish? Yeah, it's still affecting the girls.

Piper has dreamt she's going to be the next one chosen for a mission and she is. I really like Piper's mission. I think it's the best one by far. But that might be because about half of it is set in the diner owned by her wisher's family and there's a lot of restaurant stuff going on that I totally get. Piper actually gets the wish wrong twice, although her first attempt at fixing is a spectacular success. It's just not what the wisher asked for. Astra comes down to help. The true wish is finally revealed at a sleepover that Piper helped plan, incorrectly thinking that was the wish. Piper's mission is different, because the wish itself is not something intuitive. She couldn't have figured it out on her own, because it was a secret amongst the wisher and her group of friends. However, Piper sabotages herself a few times when she's trying to get her wisher to open up and talk to her and says something her wisher finds too dark and creepy. It seems to be a combination of Piper's being spelled to constantly interrupt people and her own dark side that slips out and she can't help herself. But she finally gets her wisher to talk and everything is taken care of. Successful wish mission.

What's also successful is that the girls do mani-pedis and both Piper and Astra have to scrub extra hard to get their old polish off. Once it's off, both notice they feel different and once they're back on Starland, they vow to figure out what's going on. They haven't made the polish = problems connection, but both are fixed. I'm looking forward to this, because I'm hoping they free some of the lesser-used characters first, so it can be them, plus Adora, Tessa, Gemma, etc. solving the mystery this time, and not Cassie, Vega, etc.

I'm looking forward to getting to know Astra in the next book, because this one has me liking her a lot more.

STAR DARLINGS 6

I never thought I'd say this, but this book had made me like Cassie a lot less. I'll explain why as we go through, but she's no longer after Scarlet, Piper and Libby at the top of my faves.

So we begin with some texts between Cassie, Scarlet and Vega. Cassie never got a text from Vega, saying to meet at the maze, but she says she hates it anyway, so can they just text. Scarlet joins them and they discuss the weird things happening lately. Cassie thinks they may be being sabotaged from the inside.

The first chapter starts with blah blah Bitty. It's cute, but the writers need a serious thesaurus, because they use "creature" farrrrrrr too much this whole book. And they don't tell us much we don't already know. Then Cassie thinks about the flowers and how only Astra and Clover still have theirs. She threw out hers and Sage's, Leona and Scarlet's disappeared, Vega and Piper's are in the botany lab, she threw out Gemma and Libby's while they were distracted, and she convinced Tessa that the flower scent interfered with the scent of her baking. Blah blah MO-J4 is obsessed with Sage.

At breakfast, Clover and Astra are still fighting and Cassie is determined to get rid of their flowers today. Then Cassie runs off to class, which is usually boring, but today, they're going to try to identify the wish if an animal and she's excited. She's annoyed when someone calls for her to wait up, but happy when it turns out to be Leona. Cassie thinks about how different they are and how they got to be friends, which is pretty cute. But then she thinks about how Leona cut her out and started hanging with only Ophelia and she's still got some resentment about that. Leona starts babbling about how weird Scarlet is and how she's stuck with her again and now I get annoyed, because I hate Leona so much. How are we supposed to like this judgmental bitch? And then Cassie does something I hate, too. Even though she actually likes Scarlet, she doesn't stick up for her, because she's too happy to have Leona paying attention to her again. How fucking weak-willed and two-faced is that? "But her pleasure at being back in Leona's good graces outweighed her loyalty to Scarlet." And that's when I started to really dislike Cassie. I don't like people who throw one friend under the bus for another. That's so not cool. Leona starts to talk about how she's worried about Ophelia and she tells Cassie that Ophelia is also an orphan. She gets Cassie to promise to keep an eye out for her.

During class, the girls are all gathered around and no one steps aside to let Cassie see the animal they're all looking at. She's gotten a rep as a reserved girl, so they mostly leave her alone. She doesn't like that some people confuse her quiet nature with aloofness and think that she has nothing to contribute, just because she likes to sort her thoughts out before speaking. Gemma and her constant chatter may make her popular, but Gemma exhausts Cassie and she couldn't imagine being that way. She's glad she's a Star Darling, because she feels at ease there. Professor Delphinus comes in and everyone sits down. Cassie is finally able to see the "creature" they'll be working with: a glowfur. Of course. The prof asks if anyone can tell her the type of animal and a girl gets it wrong and is then teased by another. The mean girl is bitched out by the prof, because starlings are supposed to be supportive of their classmates. But the mean girl, Aerabelle, is one of Vivica's friends, so she'll never fathom that. Everyone coos over the glowfur a bit and then the professor asks what he's wishing for. Cassie figures it out right away, but instead of contributing, she decides to text Vega and Scarlet. This irritated me, because a) Vega and Scarlet are both in class, so how are they supposed to answer? and b) I thought Cassie's whole thing was thinking things over and getting her thoughts worked out before she spoke. Well, she did that, so why not just give the answer? Lame. Anyway, Vega and Scarlet do reply, but are then cut off and Cassie's Star-Zap starts to vibrate and beep. She drops it and gets in trouble. The professor takes her out in the hall to punish her, berating her on the way out the door. Cassie starts to have panicky thoughts.

For no reason. As soon as the door closes, the prof lets on that it was all an act. She understands that introductory lessons are really boring when the SDs are so far ahead of everyone else. She says she'll tell the class that she sent Cassie to talk to Lady Stella, but actually she's got free time until her next class. The prof says she needs to get back in the room to help the glowfur, but Cassie's probably already figured out his wish. Cassie says what she thinks and she's right. Cassie decides to spend her free time reading her uncle's latest thriller. She's annoyed when she's interrupted, but it's Ophelia. Cassie remembers her promise to Leona and talks to the girl for awhile. At one point, Ophelia speaks as if her mother is still alive, which is odd, but Cassie thinks it's because it's hard to talk about someone you love in the past tense. Ophelia heads off and as she goes, it occurs to Cassie that she knows why she wasn't in class, but why wasn't Ophelia?

After classes, Vega tells Cassie that she never got her last few texts, but she and Scarlet both have band practice and can't help Cassie get rid of the last flowers. Clover will be with them, so Cassie just has to face Astra on her own. She tries being honest about the flowers, but it doesn't work. Then she tries convincing her that athletes have said fresh flowers weaken their performance, but that doesn't work either. Finally, she asks for help in Physical Energy class, and that Astra loves. She helps Cassie learn some Star-Away moves, which involve a stick with a net on it. Cassie sees her chance and starts moving closer to the flowers. Clover comes in at just the right moment and Cassie scoops up the flowers and tosses them into the trash, where they vanish. Astra tries to catch them and is annoyed for a split second, but then starts being nice to Clover and everything is good.

Cassie tells Vega and Scarlet that she got rid of the flowers, but they don't respond to her texts. She decides to stroll through the ozziefruit orchard before dinner and runs into Lady Stella, who says Cassie has been on her mind recently. She asks Cassie why she thinks she was chosen as a SD and Cassie knows the answer, but doesn't say it. Lady Stella says Cassie isn't as confident as she should be and that she was chosen because she's one of the most intuitive students Lady Stella has ever seen. Cassie is pleased, because she knew that, but disappointed in herself for not speaking up. At dinner, everyone is getting along. Even Leona and Scarlet. Sort of. At least they're not fighting. After dinner, the girls' Star-Zaps all chime with an invitation to a mani-pedi party. All the SDs go there and after a bit, Cassie texts Ophelia, who she'd seen sitting by herself in the cafe, with an invite. Ophelia says she'll be right there. Cassie gets into one of the "starbeautychambers" and Libby shows her how to use it. After beauty time, the girls watch a starlight show and listen to music. Leona starts to dance and Cassie joins her, which she normally would not have. The girls start to behave a bit oddly. Cassie heads off to bed and wonders why Ophelia never showed up.

The next day, it's apparent (to the readers) that once again, someone has set the girls up. Each one is now acting oddly. Cassie is overconfident and thinks she's the best at everything. Sage can't stop laughing. Scarlet skips. Piper finishes everyone sentences (which amuses me, because it reminds me of Rani the Disney Fairy, who Piper kind of reminds me of anyway). Leona either says the opposite of what she wants or can't do what she says. (And mentions that Ophelia got a care package. If she's an orphan, who sent it?) Vega is rhyming everything. Adora is speaking so quietly no one can hear her. I'm not quite sure on the others yet. Tessa orders one thing and gets another, then gets it again, so I'm not sure what's going on with her. Or maybe she can't taste what she actually has? The others aren't mentioned clearly yet. In SD class, there's a young guest speaker, who selects Mirror Mantras. Each girl gets a mirror, because the researcher believes there's a lot of power in the mantras and the more they use them, the stronger they'll be. Cassie suddenly doesn't like her mantra and wants one with more pizzazz. I think Gemma's oddness is that she takes everything literally and Astra's might be to make a joke out of everything. The researcher is frustrated with Cassie wanting a new mantra and then with Adora being so quiet that she thinks she hasn't said anything. Then the Star-Zaps go off and it's Wish Orb time.

One good thing about Cassie's overconfidence is that she's no longer afraid to be chosen to go to Wishworld. In fact, she thinks there's no better choice than her. The Wish Orb apparently thinks so, too, because instead of travelling by each girl, it goes right to her. Cassie continues to be confident the next day, as she selects her outfits and prepares for her mission. When all the girls gather bid her farewell, it's clear what Libby's weirdness is. She's still asleep, so she's sleepy all the time. Clover is throwing a lot of hugs around, so maybe she's overly affectionate. She gets her backpack from Lady Cordial and then realizes that someone tied her shoelaces together. Yeah, Astra's got the jokes. Lady Stella notices that Cassie isn't herself and says that she seems different, to which Cassie responds, "I am."

On Earth, Cassie's caught in the rain. She changes her outfit to something rain appropriate, then enters the school, where she tries her mind-manipulation skills on the principal. On the way to her classroom, the principal pauses before a student's photo and explains that it's the Student of the Month. And Cassie has a run-in with said student in her new classroom, when the girl snippily tells her cell phones aren't allowed. Cassie's confident she'll spot her wisher soon, even though she doesn't seem to be in that class...until the door opens and there she is.

Annabel notices Cassie's glasses flashing and complains that they have to be against the rules. The girl who was late is Lila, who quickly shows that she's the class clown. The teacher asks Annabel to show Cassie to the cafeteria, but outside the classroom, Annabel's immediately bitchy. Lila befriends Cassie and invites her to have lunch with her and her friends. She says Annabel has all the teachers fooled. Cassie asks if Lila wishes to get even with her and Lila says she wouldn't waste a wish on that. It quickly becomes apparent that Lila rarely says anything serious, so Cassie tries to hang out with her after school. Lila's in the ice-skating club, so Cassie follows her there. Cassie, who thinks she's a natural at everything, is certainly not gifted on the ice. But Lila is a patient and excellent teacher and soon, Cassie's improved a lot. After skating, Cassie wrangles an invitation to Lila's where the girls eat and do homework. Lila's great at math, but something's not right with her reading. Lila flounces off and Cassie follows after giving her some time. It turns out that her reading isn't great, but she wants the teacher to like her, so she tries to be funny all the time. Unfortunately, that doesn't work, while Annabel has the teacher fooled into thinking she's a good person. Cassie suggests Lila just be her kind self in school and offers to help her with reading, which she says Lila will improve at with practice and patience.

Sadly, Lila's attempts at being good are thwarted by Annabel being a nasty bitch. When Lila's homework goes missing, she starts to make a joke and Cassie wills her voice quiet. She realizes her special power is to change the volume of people's voices. Cassie thinks Annabel stole Lila's homework and she leaves Lila to go to lunch by herself. Then she spots Scarlet and knows her mission's in trouble. There are only a few hours left. Lila brings Cassie some pretzels and Cassie shares her mantra with her. They say it together and feel better. Then Annabel comes by and throws out the pretzels and pretty much says she took Lila's homework.

Scarlet joins the class and the principal asks to see the teacher in the hall for a minute. Cassie uses her volume powers to increase Annabel as she turns her bitchiness on Scarlet. First, she teases her about skipping, which Scarlet doesn't seem to realize she's doing, then she makes fun of her clothes. Lila tells Annabel to stop and welcomes Scarlet to the class properly, also at Cassie-volume. Both adults are pleased with Lila and she gets to be Student of the Month. Cassie collects the wish energy and she and Lila hug, which erases the girl's memory.

Back in Starland, Cassie's still overconfident and Scarlet doesn't know she skips. They do the ceremony and Cassie's odd actions attract Lady Stella's attention. Cassie goes back to her room, where the SDs are gathered. She tells them that something weird is going on and all the clues point to Ophelia. Cassie doesn't think she's an orphan at all or anywhere near as clueless as she seems. Leona doesn't like this theory, but everyone (except sleeping Libby) goes to Ophelia's room to investigate. There's no answer at the door and they get a BotBot to let them in...and find no one. All that's left is "I'M SORRY" scribbled on the wall in yellow letters. Then all the lights go out.

Welp, that's it for this one. I have mixed feelings on it. I do like Cassie, but her treatment of Scarlet pissed me off and her wavering ability to stand up for herself or speak up in general is annoying. But we've finally solved the bitchy flowers problem and now we've got a new issue. I didn't mind the flowers too much, but another thing causing problems so quickly after is a bit much for me. I would like to see the girls interact NORMALLY with each other. For more than just one meal. And Cassie's weird twist makes her actually obnoxious a lot of the time, so it's not helping me get to know her actual character. She needs backbone, but not THAT much.

STAR DARLINGS 5

Okay, I'll say it right off the bat: Scarlet is not the most pleasant character. That's part of her appeal for me. She's different than the others and things that come naturally to the other Starlings don't come naturally to her. I'm not the most touchy-feely person ever, so I can relate to her having difficulty with the constant touching that is part of Starling culture. That's why I related to Vidia in Disney Fairies. Like Scarlet, she's more realistic and not all happy-sappy, touchy-feely all the time. They're actually quite realistic characters in fantasy settings that are designed to be naturally happy environments. Being that Earth isn't a naturally happy place, those places seem very foreign to me and as Scarlet would say, forced. So yes, Scarlet and Vidia are my girls for a good reason.

Scarlet overhears Cassie and Sage talking about her from her new dorm room in the third/fourth year dorm. (Quick Cassie aside: She has both hair colors in this book. Silvery-white here at the beginning and pinkish-white later on. Ophelia is still orange.) One of the more interesting things they mention is that Leona's Wish Pendant burned out because she didn't use her special power. I'm not sure if this is a theory or a fact. Cassie mentions the flowers and Sage treats her like a little kid. I can see why Cassie gets so annoyed with this.

Then we meet Mira, Scarlet's new roommate, whose color is indigo. She's an actress and she first appears dressed as an old woman, trying to trick Scarlet into thinking she's Mira's grandmother. We learn a bit more about Scarlet here. Her parents are famous classical musicians who travel a lot and Scarlet initially got into the color black (later on referred to as the Starlings' least favorite color) to be rebellious. Her hair is naturally hot pink. She chose to apply to the school so she could live on her own.

Vega texts her and Scarlet meets up with her in the maze, which she doesn't like because she doesn't have the patience for it. (I'd probably feel the same.) Vega immediately starts blabbing about her wish mission and then the band, and Scarlet gets justifiably annoyed with her. After all, SHE was the one who texted Vega to talk about something, not hear about things she can't do and reminders that she's no longer a SD. Vega tells Scarlet about Cassie's flower theory. Then she makes a deal that she'll try to help Scarlet if Scarlet goes back to class.

Scarlet does the next day. As she sits alone at lunch, she flashes back to when she was told she was no longer a SD. It's Lady Cordial who showed Lady Stella the school records, but Scarlet doesn't believe she can possibly be lower than the others, because she's actually extremely powerful. Scarlet skips her next class and goes to her room to play her drums and clear her head. Then she uses her roommate's costume stash to disguise herself as a man and attempt to sneak into the records room. She succeeds...almost. She isn't caught, not even in the teachers' lounge, but the records room is closed.

That night, Scarlet can't sleep, so she goes to the Star Caves. She'd actually discovered one of the secret entrances a week before she learned she was a SD. This time, she happens to find a passage into the records room and confirms her theory. She tries to see Lady Stella in the morning, but runs into Cordial instead. She tells her there's been a mix-up, that her scores were switched with Ophelia's. Cordial is clearly shocked and offers to tell Lady Stella herself, which I firmly believe she didn't do, because something's totally up with her.

Scarlet meets up with Vega, who brings Cassie along, and tells them the news. Vega once again brings up the band, because there's a battle of the bands happening soon.

Now honestly, Vega is supposed to be the smart, driven one. How would she feel if she'd been the one kicked out? You cannot tell me she wouldn't have put her brilliant mind to fixing the mess and would have been equally irritated with anyone who tried to bring up trivial things. She's being written kind of out of character here, if you ask me. Like I'd have an easier time believing ANY other character would make this mistake, but not Vega.

Anyway, the botany lab contacts Cassie and the three girls go check it out. And Cassie was right. (Eat that, Vega. I love Vega, but her not believing Cassie annoyed me and I'm glad to see her intelligent, logical theory is correct.) The lab people say it's as if the flowers were grown in negative-energy-infused soil. While the girls are there, a Wish Orb is identified. Scarlet tries to go with them, but they convince (sort of) her to stay away from the meeting. But she's waiting when they come out and she's not happy to learn that Ophelia was chosen. Or that Lady Cordial said nothing about Scarlet. Scarlet is even less happy when both Vega and Cassie seem now convinced that she doesn't belong in SD.

Scarlet grumps her way through the rest of the day and a professor catches her off-guard. He wants her to continue reading from where Leona left off and Scarlet has no clue where that is. Leona unexpectedly helps her, then after class, she tells Scarlet she owes her. Naturally, she only did it because she wants Scarlet back in the band for the competition. Scarlet refuses and Leona tries to talk her into it, but Scarlet is smart. She throws Leona's nasty dismissal of her at the end of her book right back in her face just like she deserves. Why in the world should Scarlet help her when she kicked Scarlet out of the room and ignored her when she needed help? Damn right, Scarlet. You show her what an ass she is. Leona is speechless and Scarlet would have actually been happy with just an apology, but they're interrupted by a text and Leona races to the office. Scarlet follows. She sneaks into the office and hears the announcement that Ophelia's wish Orb has gone black, which means her mission is close to failure and there's "potential loss of a Starling." Leona offers to go help, which makes me like her a teeny tiny smidge, even though I'm sure her motivations are at least 25% selfish, but Lady Stella says the Wish Orb will choose. And it chooses the hidden Scarlet.

I'll keep the Wishworld mission brief. It's a fun read, but not necessary to the summary much. Although Scarlet and Ophelia's interactions are fun and it's cute to see Scarlet warm up to the girl. Scarlet's Wishworld eyes are described as brown in the text, but are clearly green in both the art and doll. And her hair is black. It's actually black and not purple in both her forms. No idea why Jakks is acting afraid of black hair. I'm sure Vega's WW doll will have it. Sigh. Scarlet finds Ophelia hiding in her tent in a field. She can't get her StarZap to work. She hasn't changed appearance. She hasn't found her wisher. She's massively incompetent and it wouldn't surprise me if she was the worst student in the school. Like she's sweet, but she's clearly not cut out for this and I'm kind of amazed she even got into the school, which is definitely not easy to make it into. Scarlet helps her change appearance and they go find her wisher, only it's Scarlet's wish pendant boots that glow, not Ophelia's bracelet. They fairly quickly learn that the wisher is afraid of butterflies, which is keeping her from being a successful project partner to two girls she wants to be friends with. So they take her to the local butterfly sanctuary to get her over her fear. Unfortunately, it's closed, but a tiny butterfly lands on the girl's shoulder and she's actually okay. The wish energy is collected...by SCARLET.

The girls return to Starland and Lady Stella offers thanks and apologies because Scarlet is clearly the SD and not Ophelia (who is blissfully relieved). Scarlet heads off by herself because she needs to process things alone, but she gets texts from Vega and Cassie, revealing that the flowers were grown on the Isle of Misera. Or something having to do with the Isle. We'll find out next book!

Definitely enjoyed this one a lot. Scarlet is one of my two favorite characters, along with Piper. Libby and Cassie are right behind them, followed very closely by Vega. I am looking forward to getting to know the other girls though. They're doing a decent job with this group of them, slowly expanding the band group to include Cassie and a little bit of Piper, Clover and Gemma, but I want more.

STAR DARLINGS 4

This book is a breath of fresh air after Leona's.

The first chapter sums up what's been going on recently and introduces both Vega and Piper. Their roommate conflict is covered a bit.

Then we've got band practice, during which Leona's incessant bitching pisses off Clover and she leaves. Libby uses her Libran diplomatic skills to help and they decide to meet again when Leona's more up to it. The girls go their separate ways and Vega heads to the hedge maze, which is her favorite place. She decides to text Cassie, who's struck up an "unlikely" friendship with Leona. I'm glad that gets a comment, because I sure commented on it during Leona's book. Vega thinks about her mother while she's waiting for Cassie. Cassie, by the way, has returned to wearing silver and white, like she originally did. It's noted in both Leona and Vega's books, contradicting her switch to pinkish-white in Sage's book. Cassie has also gone through a slight change in personality. She's far more mouthy than she was originally. She's not too thrilled with having to go through the maze and then she snaps at Vega when Vega's looking at her "like some precious little doll." Good girl, Cassie. You stick up for yourself.  After a brief discussion about Scarlet and then Leona, Cassie decides to talk to Leona after dinner and asks Vega to accompany her.

At dinner, Leona's quiet and only speaking to her new roommate Ophelia, whose color is now orange. It was yellow in Leona's book. Astra asks why she's so quiet, but this just causes problems. After dinner, Vega and Cassie finagle their way to Leona's room, but when Cassie asks questions about Ophelia, Leona becomes angrily defensive and basically throws the pair out. She also can't resist throwing in another nasty comment or two about Scarlet. Seriously, Leona's just a fucking bitch. Yeah, you bombed your mission, but don't take your failure out on your teammates when they've done nothing wrong. Only being nice to the one girl that's a weaker SD than you isn't the answer. I understand her attitude a little more here, except the comment about Scarlet's "weird" stuff which is her old brand of bitch, but there had better be a goddamn apology scene in a future book. If the writers let her get away with acting like this, this will be one of the few times in all the modern kids' books I read that I've seen such behavior go unpunished.

Whatever. I'm sick of Leona and her piss poor personality. Moving on.

The one good thing is that Leona let it slip that she's seen Scarlet recently. Not that she'd actually consider being fucking helpful for one "starmin," but info is info. Vega comments that at least Leona gets along with Ophelia, then adds that she and Piper still have problems. She asks how Cassie and Sage are doing and Cassie suddenly realizes they've been getting along fine ever since she threw out the flowers every SD room got. Cassie got a weird feeling about them and threw them out and ever since, she and Sage have been fine. But Vega, showing one of her rarer moments of obnoxiousness, pooh-poohs Cassie's theory, just because she's been wrong about a couple other things before. Cassie continues to stick up for her idea, especially after reviewing the holo-video Vega took of Leona's room, which reveals no flowers in sight. Vega thinks to herself that Cassie has a temper, and yeah, most people would after you've consistently shut down her perfectly logical theory and evidence. The girls make a bet (Vega loves games of any kind) about the flowers and plan to take them to the botany lab.

The next morning, the girls drop off the flowers with one of the botany lab assistants, Gladiolus Rose, who says they're not like anything she's seen before. She comments that they smell like her favorite flower, reiterating the fact from Libby's book that they smell different to each person. Cassie and Vega stop for breakfast, then chase down Scarlet, but it turns out not to be her. Then Vega daydreams in Professor Delphinus's class and gets embarrassed, only to continue to feel so when that prof turns up in their SD class at the end of the day. But Vega is forgiven and shines in class. Ophelia continues to not get simple SD things and Cassie's convinced she shouldn't be one of them.

The next day, the girls go to check on the flowers, but the assistant hasn't shown them to the person she planned on, because that professor's been in a bad mood. Cassie's convinced that's more evidence that she's right, but Vega, of course, is not sold. The girls go to breakfast and then are summoned to a Wish Orb presentation. Vega is chosen and the next day, she's off on her Wishworld mission.

I'm not going to go into huge detail about Vega's mission. She's in a bigger city and spends the night with a very wealthy classmate after identifying her wisher, who's a different girl. I love her wisher, because she's clearly a bit of a goth girl (without using the word) and yet she's very popular and all her classmates copy certain elements of her style. Vega experiments with her special talent and discovers that it's mind control. This moment reminded me that Leona didn't use a talent at all. And I honestly have totally forgotten what Libby and Sage's were. Anyway, Vega stumbles across Ella, her wisher, in the library and Ella gets mad at her for "spying" on her. But Vega overhears Ella wishing that her lie would go away. Vega ends up paired with Ella for an interview project, thanks to her mind control talent. The two girls get to know each other during this and Vega guesses her wish incorrectly, which makes Ella angry again. Clover appears and it's clear Vega's on the wrong track, which is pretty obvious. During Bring Your Parent to School Day, which Ella is absent from, Vega finally realizes that Ella is not the rich girl with a fashion designer mother that everyone thinks she is. She uses her talent to find out Ella's address and rushes over there with Clover. Ella tells them that her mother is a housekeeper for a famous fashion designer, which Katie misheard and that started the lie. Ella actually makes her clothes herself from thrift store finds and castaways from her mom's employer. Vega convinces Ella to admit it to the school, and she does over the PA system, saying she's starting a club called Designing with Ella. Naturally, the club is packed with girls and Ella's problems are solved. Vega collects her wish energy and she and Clover return to Starland.

Vega has her Wish Blossom ceremony and then tries to call her mother, something she's been avoiding. When she gets back to her room, she finds her mom waiting. Piper called her and told her Vega could use a visit from her, so it seems the flowers' powers have worn off. As she's falling asleep, her StarZap goes off with a text from Scarlet, saying to meet her in the hedge maze the next day.

And that's it! The mystery of the flowers is not solved, but it's on the way there. I really like Vega's character, because she's kind of a perfectionist, but she also seems capable of learning her lessons. Like I'm hoping she won't pick on Cassie for incorrect hunches anymore, because she sure had some of those on Wishworld. I loved the bits with her and her mother, because they rounded out her character a lot. That's one issue I had with Leona's book, now that I've read Vega's. Sage, Libby and Vega all came out more well-rounded during their books and we learned more about their families and such. We learned a little about Leona's, but only very shallow details. Cassie is shaping up to be an excellent character. Clover's appearances made me both like and dislike her a tad. I liked that she didn't suffer through Leona's shit, but for someone who hasn't been on a Wishworld mission, she was way too smirky and smug about Vega having problems. None of the missions have gone perfectly so far, so why act all smug? It's not helping anything. And I still adore Piper and can't wait for her book.

I skimmed my Libby summary, checking for a reference while writing this, and I'd written that Leona laughed at Lady Cordial in Libby's book. Lady Cordial also said something at the end of Leona's book about inexperienced Starlings that was quite unlike how she usually speaks. I wonder if she's behind some of these odd occurrences. Maybe her bumbling, stuttering, awkward self is just a facade and she's hiding something. Hmm!

STAR DARLINGS 3

So let's recap quick: In Libby's book, several pairs of SD roommates are having problems and it's clear to the readers, but not to the characters, that it's caused by these flower bouquets they've been sent. Libby has a successful mission, but does not get her Wish Blossom ceremony, because the bad news that Scarlet is actually not a Star Darling is sprung on the group.

Leona's book begins with her writing a letter home. A letter in which she's a total uncaring bitch. She's clearly thrilled that Scarlet moved out of their room. "It looks soooooo much better without all that black." She also wishes for a new roommate whose color goes better with gold. Uh, on what planet do black and gold not go together? They go very well together. Dumbass.

Lady Stella sends out a Star Zap summons, so Leona, clad in her PJs, heads for the office. Being Leona, her thoughts on what the meeting could be about turn quickly to selfish invented accomplishments of her own. UGH. The summons, however, is specifically for the band members: Leona, Sage, Vega, Libby and Scarlet, but Scarlet isn't there. The other girls are concerned about her, but not bitchface Leona. Lady Stella is upset that the girls named their band the Star Darlings, but it's quickly revealed that the band name was given by the Ranker, who chose the band members after auditions.

The next day, Tessa and Adora are fighting. Then Cassie calls Leona, which strikes me as odd. Cassie's a bit shy and timid, so how is she already on calling terms with Leona, who is at best described as brash? Cassie expresses worry about Scarlet. Leona blows it off again. Cassie and Leona join Piper and Gemma at lunch. Once again, the discussion turns to Scarlet and it's clear Leona is happy she's gone. She says, "It's like she was never there," and Piper, being an actual decent person, replies, "Ah, but she was. Don't forget that." Conversation continues and Leona puts down Scarlet AGAIN. Then Gemma mentions she's still fighting with Libby and roommates Astra and Clover join the group, also in the middle of a fight. The girls discuss what they were fighting about, but the effects of the argument seem to be wearing off. (My theory is that the power of the flowers wears off when you're away from them for awhile. Which makes Leona not spelled by the flowers at all. She's just a bitch when it comes to Scarlet.) Piper brings up her worries about the tensions between the group. Piper and Vega are having problems, too. But then Leona's food comes and naturally, she can't be bothered to have a serious discussion, so she uses food as an excuse not to. The other girls arrive and discussion turns back to Scarlet and Leona insults her AGAIN. I find it horrible that Leona thinks Scarlet can't be trusted when SHE is the one who took Scarlet's deceased grandfather's hat several times despite being told not to. That's what untrustworthy behavior actually is, you selfish bitch. Oh, but then Libby mentions Scarlet's drums and NOW Leona suddenly cares about her...or rather cares about who's going to play drums in her precious band.

I had to put the book down at this point, because I do not think I have EVER had to read a book from the point of view of such a terrible, self-centered, just plain nasty character. I despise Leona in terms of anything having to do with Scarlet.

The girls meet for band practice and Scarlet doesn't show, but Vivica does and drops the bombshell that she asked the Ranker to create a second band from the rankings. Naturally, she's lead singer and the band is called Vivica and the Visionaries. This is interesting because Vivica got to choose her band's name, but Leona couldn't. The girls try to practice, but without Scarlet's beat, they suck. They call Clover, who has more musical talent than all of them put together, but refuses to be onstage. She agrees to sit in for practices, but won't perform ever.

Cassie sends Sage a text and we see the Leona Attitude turn on Sage when she doesn't immediately tell the others what's going on. When she finally does, it's big. Cassie thinks she's seen Scarlet's replacement. The girls rush to Lady Stella's office and eventually she comes out, having known they were there the entire time and called the others to join them. She introduces Ophelia, the "true" twelfth SD, a teeny tiny girl with yellow pigtails and a lot of freckles. Then Libby has her Wish Blossom ceremony.

Ophelia becomes Leona's roommate and finally we see an actually likeable side of Leona. She has two little sisters so I'm wondering if she somehow is a good person around younger, more delicate girls because of them. Cassie apparently reminds her of Duchess, one of said little sisters, and now Ophelia is like that, too. The two of them bond a bit, until Leona smells the stupid flowers and then she's a bit bitchy. The SDs continue to have squabbles and Leona accuses Ophelia of moving their flowers, but she says she didn't. The two make up quickly. During the special SD class at the end of school, Ophelia begins to worry that she's too far behind the others to really be a SD.

A new Wish Orb is ready and Leona is chosen to go. She makes an amusing landing in the middle of a lake, then acclimates herself to boarding school, after bitching about the ugly uniforms. (Vega says something about them, too, later. What do these girls have against plaid?) She finds her wisher pretty quickly and convinces her to try out for the talent show. They make it back into the auditorium just in time, with her wisher performing in her pajamas. She makes the cut, but has to endure taunting from the class bitches and an unsupportive older sister. Vega arrives to tell Leona her wish is a bit off-track, but Leona can't figure out how until she's onstage. She had been going to perform a duet with her wisher, but makes her do a solo instead. Her wisher doesn't think she can do it, but a little coaching from Leona and she's ready. Leona collects her wish energy, then the mean girls pick on her again, only to be shot down by some support from the wisher's older sister, which earns Leona even more wish energy. What she'd been a bit off-track about was her wisher's wanting her older sis's support. Vega wants to leave right after the show, but Leona's wisher wants to do a duet with her, which Leona agrees to.

Then everything goes wrong. On the trip back to Starland, Leona's star malfunctions and Vega has to rescue her, but the worst thing is that Leona's wish pendant is destroyed. However, no one is sure how it happened. It was fine when they arrived on Starland, but when they go to the Wish Blossom ceremony, it's all burnt up. Wish Pendants are designed to hold an unlimited amount of energy, so she didn't overload it.

Leona is crushed about her failure, which she sees as her own fault and not some odd occurrence. She feels worse when she returns to her room and Scarlet is there. Scarlet wants to talk to her about something that is clearly important, but Leona is so utterly rude to her that I can hardly believe this is a children's book. Scarlet leaves, telling her she's making a big mistake.

So that's the book and I am so glad I've read it and it's over. Leona is actually a decent character when she's with Ophelia and on Earth. When she's capable of thinking of others, she's fine. But those moments are completely overshadowed by her poor attitude toward Scarlet and her inability to see that this thing is bigger than herself and treat the situation with the importance it deserves.

STAR DARLINGS 2

Libby's book has an introduction that explains some of the details on how the SD's world works. I imagine this will be in every subsequent book.

Libby rooms with Gemma. They're the other two First year Starlings, the first two (Sage and Cassie) being featured in the first book. They've been sent some pretty flowers, but can't agree what they smell like and get into an argument over it.

Let me just say that Libby has the patience of a saint. Gemma would drive me fucking nuts. I hate people that talk just to hear themselves speak and don't let others get a word in edgewise.

Libby gets a call from her parents, wanting to plan their upcoming vacation. They want to go somewhere luxurious, as they're very wealthy, while Libby wants to work with her Aunt Kit, travelling around Starland and helping in animal shelters and orphanages. (Color me surprised that this planet even has animal shelters. These books are preachy about animal rights, so why does this planet full of more advanced people need something lowly Earth has?) Her parents are a bit rude about it. "That's our Libby. Always thinking about others and never about us." Except that these two are so busy they don't exactly lavish attention on Libby, so shut the fuck up, business parents.

Scarlet pays them a visit and I love that she and Libby are friends. Unfortunately, no one else in the SD's has been willing to give her a chance apparently. Gemma doesn't believe she's as nice as Libby says and that's bitchy in so many ways. Scarlet also clashes with her roommate, Leona, who's a real handful. I'm not really thrilled that 2 of the 3 main POC girls are kind of...jerks. Scarlet notices they got the flowers, too. She and Leona did and so did Tessa and Adora. She comments that they smell like her fave flowers, so it's obvious there's something up with them. Scarlet tells the girls she found Leona wearing her grandfather's top hat AGAIN. Scarlet's grandfather is deceased and she keeps his hat in a special case. This is what made me really dislike Leona, because to disrespect the dead AND your roommate's wishes is just too fucking much. You can't write it off as being the effects of the flowers either, because Scarlet makes it clear this is not the first time. Leona's a selfish bitch. I'm quite hoping she learns a lesson in the next book, because she sorely needs one. I mean, how awful is that? Majorly awful.

The girls go to breakfast and it's clear something is up between Adora and Tessa, too. Tessa and Gemma cannot fucking shut up about the farm they're from, which wouldn't annoy me so much if it didn't strike me as preachy. The worst thing about these books is that the authors clearly have some pro-vegetarian agenda and this society is supposed to be perfect because absolutely everything is a vegetarian. It's so creepily unnatural. Without natural predation, the animals should be ruling the goddamn planet. So weird. But anyway, yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to like Tessa either. I hate those people that yammer on about fresh food and organic yadda yadda, like everyone can afford it.

At the end of the day, the girls are in their special class and they're discussing Sage's mission and where she went wrong. Lady Cordial accidentally interrupts and this poor lady. I feel so bad for her any time she's in a scene. The guide didn't make her sound so incredibly awkward. She knocks over a plant and asshole Leona laughs at her. She's the only one who does, by the way. Why are we supposed to like her? They've made her into an even more unlikable character than the original version of Sage. The professor isn't very nice either. She's so into her subject that she's being completely insensitive to Sage and she spills the beans that Sage didn't collect as much wish energy as she should have, which upsets her. Thankfully, Libby provides the bright side to her situation and that helps Sage feel better.

Leona announces she's holding Star Darlings-only tryouts for a band. She's going to be the singer, of course. Libby heads back to her room and pulls her keytar out from under her bed. Gemma gives her attitude because she's played sooooooooooooo many instruments and never seen a keytar before. Libby decides to go for it, partly because she wants to show Gemma up. And I don't blame her one bit. The brat's a know-it-all. I'll be curious to see if I like her when she's not under the effects of these flowers, but right now, she's a jerk. Not nearly as bad as Leona, but close. Unfortunately, these tryouts that were supposed to be SD-only have now become an all-school thing, complete with adult supervision and a "ranker" that makes sure the band is selected fairly. Which is completely unfair, because it was Leona's idea and she might not even make her own band. What the hell is the point? Why would a band even stay together without the person whose idea it was? Leona is suspicious that Scarlet sent out the holo-flyer advertising the tryouts, but Scarlet says it wasn't her. I find it amusing that Leona is not nearly as talented as she thinks. She's got a good voice but not a lot of range. She makes up for it in stage presence, but I always love it when cocky people don't have quite the skills they think they do.

Libby gets the notice that there's about to be a new wish mission. When she's the one selected, she's pleased but nervous. She talks to her parents before she goes to bed and says maybe they can compromise and she and Aunt Kit could do some volunteer work at the same place her parents go.

I'm not going to write a ton about her Wishworld mission. She locates the right person, but doesn't get the right wish until the last moment with a little help from Sage. It concerns a class election, which is where the title comes from. For some reason, I thought there would be an election involving Libby herself, too. I think she said in the guide something about wanting to be class president. Eh. Whatevs. My favorite moments from these chapters were her reactions to everything. She, way more than Sage, makes it clear that she's never seen a lot of Earth things before. There is a preachy section on how there's no waterlife in Starland, but instead of being really interested, she's sad the animals are contained. Everything roams free on Starland. Yeah, there's no predation either, so they're safe to roam free. Humans do plenty of dumb things concerning animals, but this whole preachy bit really needs to lay off. You're not better than anyone else if you don't eat animals. You still eat living things, after all. There's one glitchy moment, because Libby sees Sage in her Wishworld disguise. In the previous book, Sage saw Tessa as her Starland self, not the disguise.

Back at school, the band results have been posted and we know who made it. Later, Libby and Gemma have a scene where they admit they find each other really annoying. But that goes unresolved. Then Libby doesn't get her flower or power crystal, because something has happened and it seems like one of them is not a Star Darling after all. And finally, Scarlet is the one told to stay behind, most likely the one not a SD.

So that's where the book ends, with three cliffhangers, as I mentioned yesterday.

Overall, I enjoyed this one more than Sage's. Sage's was bogged down with the world-building info that was necessary, but doesn't make for the best story. I find Libby a more likable character than Sage, likely because I can relate to a lot of things she does. I would want to help so many people if I could grant wishes. I let more self-centered people like Gemma talk over me all the time, just like Libby did. And I like to mediate between people and bring up "bright side" things that make others feel better. I'm also really pleased she's friends with Scarlet, because I see a lot of me in Scarlet, too. (Others as well, but these two are sticking out the most so far.) I am greatly disappointed in Leona, because she seems way too selfish and disrespectful. The incidents with Scarlet's heirloom and Lady Cordial are pretty bad. Gemma is more annoying and rude than anything else, but she's not presented very well either. I think the rudeness is the effect of the flowers, but her yabbering would make me crazy, so she's probably going to be pretty low on my list of faves.

Definitely looking forward to the next 3 releases in January. I'm really hoping Leona's improves her character A LOT. I don't want to dislike her, but how can I not right now?

(Also pretty disappointed that Wishworld Libby is another brunette. She looks a lot like Sage's disguise. I really thought she'd be blonde and I'm sad she isn't.)

STAR DARLINGS 1

(ETA: I don't have a single review for SD #1, because I did this comparison.)

So I have both the original version of Sage's Story and now the new Sage and the Journey to Wishworld. I'm going to do a chapter-by-chapter comparison of the two, because I skimmed the first chapter and we've already got one enormous difference!

I'm only going to hit the major points. The writing has been amped up a lot. Definitely polished and given more detail in a lot of places.

PROLOGUE:

-The family characters didn't have names before.

-Swiftcar is now Starcar.

-The biggest change: Sage's mom is alive! In the original story, her mother was dead.

-The differences are mostly world-building. Lots more descriptions of the environment and interactions between characters. Sage's mom seems cool, which obviously she didn't before, because she didn't exist. And Sage's grandmother is fleshed out more.

CHAPTER 1:

-This is hugely different. The Bot-Bot wasn't in the first version and this whole tour thing is new.

-Leona makes a quickie unnamed appearance. I bet we'll see more of the other SDs than we did in the first version.

-In the new book, Sage is told not to bring anything but the "clothes on her back." In the original, she had to unpack. They describe the different sides of the room for Sage and Cassie and it's clear they were designed for the girls based on information they provided in their applications. Cassie now has lots of books instead of knick-knacks.

-Cassie has changed slightly. Her hair was silvery-white and now it's pinkish-white, which I guess might happen from the illustrations of her. It's a shame they didn't have the guts to keep her the way she was. I love white hair and there are other characters with pink hair. We didn't need another.

-Sage not having read the Student Manual is downplayed a bit, because in the new book, she only just got it when she arrived. So Cassie's saying the Star-Zaps are discussed in the manual and Sage's grandmother's tsking don't quite make sense anymore.

-There's an addition of the Welcome Procession and the girls receiving their new outfits.

CHAPTER 2:

-Most of this chapter is very different. All the procession stuff and the glimpses of Libby and Scarlet are new.

-Vivica makes an unnamed appearance in a new scene.

-All the info on Wish Orbs is new. Good world-building again.

-In the original, Scarlet is the one who sticks out her tongue at Sage. In the new version, it's a girl with orange hair. I wonder if it's Gemma.

-Vivica takes the place of the girl with "acid yellow" hair who made fun of Sage's SD message in the first version.

CHAPTER 3:

-The descriptions of the other girls have been amped some. Scarlet is once again mentioned.

-Yes, it was Gemma that stuck out her tongue. And there's an amusing scene with her and Tessa.

-The energy crisis is not mentioned. The Star Darlings project is treated more like an experiment, although I still disagree with the cover of it being that they need extra help. Vega protests that and it does seem flimsy, especially if she's one of the best students.

-There's a funny moment when Sage answers Lady Stella first and Astra is annoyed because she wanted to.

-The girls receive their Wish Pendants.

-Lady Cordial, head of admissions, is introduced. She and a few select profs will know about this.

CHAPTER 4:

-This chapter is mostly quite different. The Star Darlings meet at the beginning for breakfast, which doesn't happen in the first version. Then we've got a very expanded section on the differences between Earth and Starland, which is a general class and not just the dozen SDs. I was irritated at the description of Wishling holidays because Ursa only mentioned primarily American holidays. I was hoping the missions would be a bit more varied than going to the US over and over again. There's still a sense of superiority from the Starlings, because Earth is technologically less advanced. Someone on Tumblr complained about that, but it's a frequently used aspect of aliens vs. Earthlings. Then we move on to Professor Delphinus's class, which covers the same info on wish identification from the first book and adds a lot more. Vivica is in Professor Raye's class, which Sage has next. Then we flash-forward to the final class. Sage catches up with Cassie in the hallway and they discuss their days, although they had one shared class and it seems a bit odd they wouldn't have done this then or at lunch. Then we have the scene from the beginning of the chapter in the first version of the book, where Vivica confronts them about their SD classes. In their special SD class at the end of the day, Professor Dumarre gives a lecture on Wishling schools. Overall, this has a lot of the same info as the original Chapter 4, but the teachers are given bigger personalities and there's a lot more info presented.

CHAPTER 5:

-The major difference here is that a lot of time passes and there are no SD missions, whereas in the original, they rush right off on the first day.

-Sage has joined a couple clubs AND read the student manual. Very different.

-In a new scene, Vivica insinuates that Sage only got into the school because her mother is a well-known scientist. See, this is why the remedial cover story falls apart. No one in this school should be remedial anything. It is that competitive.

-In another new scene, Sage runs into Cassie's father. Only he's not her father, he's her uncle. Cassie made it sound like her parents were still alive, but they're not. She's lived with her uncle since she was 6. Sage manages to slip away before Cassie sees her and stays away until later that night to give her some space. (This is a nice bit of characterization for her, because the original Sage was a more negative, impulsive character and I like this new Sage a lot more.) When she returns to their room, Cassie talks about her uncle and starts to say something about her parents when Sage interrupts and says Cassie's uncle told her the truth. Things are a bit awkward and they both go to bed, but Sage wakes to a text from Cassie, who communicates her feelings better via writing. After apologizing and explaining herself, she asks never to speak of this again and Sage agrees. She does learn more about Cassie's life though. Her uncle is a best-selling author and Cassie is an occasional star in his mysteries.

-The scene in the Wish-Cavern is similar yet of course different. There are no flowers, no clue about the wish.

CHAPTER 6:

-The biggest difference here is that the Travel Star, a vehicle in the first book, is now an actual shooting star.

CHAPTER 7:

-No major differences except the elimination of a scene at the end of the chapter with the "mean girl."

CHAPTER 8:

-Mostly the same with some expansions. The missing scene from the end of 7 turned up here.

CHAPTER 9:

-Also mostly the same, minus the scene about Sage and her mother.

CHAPTER 10:

-No major changes.

CHAPTER 11:

-Tessa is the only one who comes to Earth, not Arly and Piper, too, as in the first version. Sage sees Tessa as a Starling, not in her Earth disguise.

-Sage figures out that her Wisher is Genevieve without the aid of Cassie sending her the gift clue, as in the first book.

CHAPTER 12:

-They added Tessa kinda getting drunk on lemonade.

CHAPTER 13:

-The biggest change is that in the first version, Sage's randomly appears as her Starling self to the Earth girls, but now it's a conscious decision.

EPILOGUE:

-Sage receives her wish blossom and power crystal. Only the crystal was in the first book. The flower appeared earlier.

-Sage learns that she was admitted on her own strengths. There's nothing true in Vivica's nasty rumor.

And that's that. The changes are predominantly in the first part of the book, which is where they really needed to be. Some serious world-building was needed and we got that. And we got glimpses of the other girls' personalities, which were lacking in the original. Both Sage and Cassie are much stronger characters now, though I liked Cassie from the beginning. She's more well-rounded whereas Sage has become more likeable.

No mention of the band! I wonder if that won't be until Leona's book, since she starts it.