The Ending You Deserve

 

Ava Quirk is a junior at Faraday, a prestigious, arts-themed private school near her hometown. She applied for two years before finally getting in. 

However, Ava isn't entirely likeable. She describes herself as a bitch. Except she's not really. She doesn't come off as a stereotypical mean girl, but more as someone who's too afraid to get close to people and who speaks her mind, even if her timing isn't great. Like she laughs during a fellow student's pompous introduction of their famous teacher at Parent's Day. Was there reason to laugh? Yes, but she could have kept it internal. 

After a brutal writing critique in which she upsets two students, Ava is pulled into the office of her advisor, the famous teacher who won poetry awards and who she admires. He basically tells her she's not going to keep her scholarship unless she improves her grades in all her classes and makes some friends. She mentions the son of the school president, who she just had a positive interaction with, and his friend, a talented girl that used to be in the writing and acting programs but switched to only acting. The teacher latches onto this and wants her to get closer to them, to actually have a social life, as well as to work on her classes. 

Ava quickly falls in with Graham, the president's son, and Love, his bestie. Ava hints at troubles at her old school with an ex-girlfriend, so it's never really clear if she's interested in Graham or not, but there are moments. She never clarifies her sexuality. Everyone comes off as bi or pan, really. She has a crush on Love, but frequently wonders to herself if they're a couple, until it's Graham who says they're not. They should have just been a throuple. 

Anyway, as Ava grows closer to the group and joins their private writing critique sessions, her teacher's real motive comes out. He wants a copy of Love's novel. Why? Because he's so worried about her mental health. Yeah, sure. Ava doesn't want to betray her friends, especially after reading said novel, but the teacher is essentially blackmailing her now, threatening her with not only expulsion but a lie about her cheating that could affect her future. 

So Ava has to find a way to make everything right and the book gets surprisingly violent as it goes on. I'm being vague so as not to spoil anything and it's frustrating. 

Ava isn't instantly likeable, but she does get there. Graham and especially Love (who's kinda like goth-lite) are awesome. All of them have complicated family stuff, though Graham's is pushed to the side a bit. That could have been worked with more. I liked Ava's roommate a lot and wanted more from her. I'm a fan of how few straight characters there are in this. 

Probably my least favorite thing is that it falls into the trope of undescribed POV. Frost was like that in my previous review. The POV characters just don't describe themselves. I don't remember Ava mentioning the color of her hair. You only know that it's long and curly. You know her aunt is white and blonde and German, so Ava is at least half-white, but I think that's it. I dunno. Maybe I just glossed over some details, but I never had a clear picture of her in my mind and that tends to drive me nuts, especially if so much time is spent describing Graham and Love. 

Anyway, I mostly liked this. The ending is pretty satisfying.

POSTED

 

Set in a middle school where phones are banned, the student body starts leaving post its on lockers. Naturally, this spirals into bullying. 

The cast of characters kept this book going for me. 

Frost: POV guy. A poet who won an award once. 

DeeDee: The most nerdy one. Into LotR and D&D. Has a dad who's described as an "Indian Santa Claus," which made me sad he was never "on-screen" in the book. 

Bench: The athlete who rarely gets off the bench. He's one of two black characters mentioned, the other being the girl who got phones banned in the first place. (She never plays another role in the story.) The one closest to being middle school cool.

Wolf: Not because he's a badass, but because he's like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A piano prodigy. 

Rose: The new girl trying to find a place to fit in. She's such a big girl that the guys' initial opinions of her were that she had to play some sort of sport. So think athletic girl bigger than a lot of the guys her age. Except she's not into sports. Rose is awesome. She was my favorite pretty early on. 

The drama begins when Rose joins the four guys at their lunch table and no one but her is comfortable. Wolf and she quickly become besties, while Bench gets teased by his teammates and abandons the group, especially after making a game-winning catch. Frost, who was closest to Bench, is upset by this, but it's never properly addressed until nearer the end. 

Meanwhile, there's homophobic harassment aimed at Wolf, who I don't think clearly comes out, but I got the feeling he wasn't straight. And Rose stops the bullies from bothering DeeDee by taking on a possibly dangerous bet. 

I liked this, but it was frustrating to not really like the POV character. Frost isn't terrible, but he's too wishy-washy for me. I can't remember if he ever even shared his poems with the others by the end of the book. I would have talked to Bench much earlier. I wouldn't keep my friends at arm's length, which is kind of what he does. Wolf and Rose are the two best characters, so I kept reading for them. Not something I'd reread, but I don't regret reading it. 

MALL GOTH

 

I cannot remember the exact year this is set in, but definitely early 2000s. I remember a reference to Evanescence's "Going Under," which was 2003. 

It wasn't that far off from me being a mall goth in the late 90s. Like malls are still very relevant places in this time, too. 

This was a very nostalgic read, even though it's nothing like my life. I wasn't goth in high school. I would have been a rivethead, if I'd known that word at the time. I got into goth more in early 1997. (I'm still a music-based subculture hybrid. I call myself a metalrivetgoth, because I enjoy all the music.) 

So Liv is a 15-year-old goth who just moved to a new place. She's an out bisexual, which was unheard of in my day. I imagine things weren't really that different only a few years later, especially in high school. She's navigating making new friends and hoping they'll be more comfortable with her than people in her old school. She does fairly well pretty quickly, but also catches the attention of her English teacher. 

This is filled with drama on many levels. Liv's friends with a couple guys, one has a girlfriend that doesn't like her right away, the other has a crush on a girl who works in the video game store and Liv also thinks she's cute. She's struggling with her father never being home and then with her parents getting divorced. The friend with the girlfriend is sending all kinds of mixed signals. She's found a job at the mall, but she's the mascot for an AU version of Build-a-Bear and she hates it. And the thing with the teacher is...well, you can see where that's going. 

I love all the little nostalgic Easter eggs the most. The story is mostly well-written, though it felt like it could have gone on much longer and been more detailed. Like one couple got interested in each other completely off-screen and I wanted more details there. The drama problems were on their way to being wrapped up, but some of that would occur off-screen. Overall, I liked it enough to want it to be much longer. If you were growing up goth back in those days, this is a fun read. 

ACHILLES

 

I am really behind on my reviews. 

I had intended to go crazy with this series, but I'm currently stuck on Anansi, the one after Achilles, because the nonfic essay is kinda rambling and boring, so I keep putting it down. But I have the two newest volumes on the way and I will definitely get Anansi done soon. 

Because it's been awhile since I read this, I don't remember a lot of details, but I do remember that the essay was actually good. I'm not a huge Achilles fan. He's kinda overpresent in modern retellings and such when other characters in The Iliad get looked over. But that essay made him interesting, so that's saying something.

The short stories were enjoyable. I remember that much, but again, no details. 

So apologies for the crappy review, but I liked this one. I think overall I liked it better than Circe. That opening nonfic essay is really what's going to make or break these books for me.  

CIRCE

 

I was excited to find this book in one of the local antique malls, though I didn't buy it there. They tend to be a bit pricey, so I plug the info into Amazon and yep, almost $6 cheaper. 

I love the format of this series. Each volume opens with an introduction and then a non-fiction essay about the title character. Then there are several fiction short stories for the latter part of the book. Sounds pretty great, right?

I started with Circe's book, because she's the one who found me that day. At first, I enjoyed the essay, but ended up annoyed by it. It was a rambling, unorganized mess, divided into nonsensical sections that sometimes were just the literal continuation of what came before with no needed break for a new heading. It was extremely repetitive. I felt like I read the same sections and topics multiple times. My biggest issue though was the author's constant reference to Madeline Miller's Circe novel. It's fine to devote a section of your essay to Miller's novel, but there were so many repeated references to the novel that it felt like the author was treating it on the same level as ancient sources. You couldn't tell where she was talking about the book and where she was talking about ancient myths. 

Thankfully, the short stories were mostly fun. I liked a lot of them, though there were some that took a darker turn on things. There are always going to be those authors that want every interaction in ancient myth to become a rape story. Sometimes that's definitely the take from the ancient sources, but not always, and it does get as repetitive as the opening essay. Sometimes it's handled well and I'm sure there are audiences that enjoy this sort of viewpoint. I'm not here for mopey, weak Circe though. My favorites were the ones with a different take on her relationship with Scylla, the one where she was a badass in modern times, and the one where she's younger and sculpting animals out of clay. 

I'm looking forward to the other nine volumes in this series, which I'll be tackling in alphabetical order. In late October, we're getting Helen of Troy (Can we move away from Troy then, please? Achilles and Odysseus already have books in the series and now Helen.) and...drumroll...GILGAMESH. I hope to see Egyptian, Hindu, East Asian, more West Asian, and American mythology take the spotlight in future volumes, but I'm sure we've got plenty of Greeks left to go, as they've mostly done mortals so far. 

The History of Everything

There will be spoilers here.

This popped up on Amazon and I ordered it immediately. A YA graphic novel with goths on the cover? TWO goths? Unheard of. 

You see, goth characters tend to be either side characters or part of a bigger ensemble cast. One of the few exceptions is Esther from Giant Days. You could make an argument for Wednesday, but I feel she's less representative of goth and more just an Addams. They're their own animal.

Anyway, I was thrilled to see two goth characters on the cover and the summary made it clear they were both main characters. 

Agnes is the red-themed one with shorter hair. 

Daisy has a purple and then blue color scheme. 

The plot is that these two are basically each other's only friend. Not unusual for goths in high school. We tend to find each other. Not that I had that experience, but I would have liked it. On the last day of school, Agnes is devastated to learn she's moving at the end of the summer, so the two locate a scrapbook (The History of Everything) they made when they were eight. They make a whole plan for a bucket list of sorts that they want to do during their last summer together. 

The problems begin when Daisy meets Noah, a new guy in their school, on the first day the list begins. He gets woven into their plans because Daisy is smitten, Agnes doesn't get it and feels rejected, they fight, then there's your typical makeup scene at the end, and they part smiling tearfully. 

The characters are flawed but likeable. 

Daisy is a sweet girl, but I didn't like how she folded Noah into their plans, then didn't understand when he was disrupting their last summer together. I feel like there could have been a note about how you don't have to change yourself for a guy. At the fair, Daisy, who is terrified of heights, chooses to go on the roller coasters with Noah and his friend Ian, leaving Agnes all alone. While she does end up having fun, I think there could have been a nod to "I'm glad I tried something new, but I shouldn't have done it to impress a guy." 

Noah doesn't care for a band the girls love or their favorite show. He's kind of an ass about the latter. But overall, he's a good guy, and he got major points for offering to finish the bucket list with Daisy, and for doing things he wouldn't have done otherwise, like visiting the cemetery to "meet" Daisy's grandma. I like him. 

Agnes is obviously going through it. She's mad at her mom for springing this all on her. I would be, too. Don't blame her a bit. I don't think an age is mentioned anywhere, but neither girl drives, so I'm thinking 15ish. No matter her age, she's definitely old enough to have her mom treat her like more of an adult and include her in this life-changing decision. I also don't blame her for being upset about Daisy pushing her aside for Noah, especially when she lied the day of their big fight. 

I do still like Daisy. It's impossible not to like her. She's a kid with her first boyfriend. But they could very easily have just split time. It's a whole summer with only a few events on the list. So spend a day doing something with Agnes and the next with Noah. But then again, I guess you wouldn't have a plot if you used that sort of logic. 

So yeah, I liked both girls, but they're both flawed characters. Daisy's the easier to like one, but she behaves worse, in my opinion. But there's something about Agnes where I felt like she was holding me at arm's length. I understood her better than Daisy, but that didn't endear her to me for some reason. She's more closed off with her emotions and that somehow translated to feeling that way with the reader, too. 

I did love all the pop culture nods. They rename everything, but there are nods to Keanu Reeves, the Matrix, Constantine, Saw, and Buffy. My favorite was them going to the mall to visit...TOMB. The goth store. 

One thing to note, no one ever uses the word "goth" in this, but there are definitely signs. Tomb. Dyeing their hair. The clothes. Horror. Mean girls laughing at them. Both of them have Puppie band shirts, which has to be Skinny Puppy. They like an 80s new wave band called Fast Fashion, which is definitely Depeche Mode. 80s new wave is very much interwoven into the goth scene. 

I really liked the scene with Daisy and Noah in the cemetery, visiting her grandma. While I think a lot of people do this, it's a nice depiction of a goth in a cemetery that is actually there for a good reason. I think it's a lot of why I ended up liking Daisy best, despite her poor priorities. 

I definitely recommend this. It's imperfect but it's still fantastic. Put on some Depeche Mode while you're reading. 

24 HOURS IN THE VIKING WORLD

 

I realize I skipped over the volume before this, which was Ancient China. I think that one was the most dry so far, but still a good read. 

So I finally got around to reading the Viking book,  because one set in "Shogun's Japan" just came out. 

I have mixed feelings on this. 

It's a great read. I learned a lot. I like how she ends several chapters with what happened to the person after the chapter ended. The balance of characters was good. 

My biggest problem is that this author completely ignored the theme of this series. All the others took place over the course of ONE 24-hour time period. These chapters are all over the place, so this is not "a day in the life of the people who lived there," as the cover says. Some of these chapters are years apart! There is no real connect to any of them. A few have linked characters, which I like, but the Rome book especially showed how that should be done. This wasn't like that. I get that the author wanted to be in different locations, as the Viking World is far larger than Rome or Athens, but why ignore the hour theme? The other authors made the hour part of the story. She doesn't. 

All in all, this is an excellent book on Vikings and I loved aspects of it, but I would really like to know both why the author felt she was too good to keep to the point of the series and why the makers of this series even let her do that in the first place. It's the worst book in the series for that reason.