ASK THE BONES

Like the previous book, these were on the list recommended for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Ask the Bones and its sequel, More Bones, both are short anthologies of "scary stories from around the world."

Sound familiar?

Yeah, it's the same as Robert D. San Souci's Short and Shivery series and I believe several of the tales repeat from there. I don't have them in front of me to verify, but I've definitely read some of these before.

I zipped through Ask the Bones when I got it and honestly wasn't very impressed. The only story I really liked was "Ask the Bones" itself. The opening tale "The Haunted Forest" doesn't even finish. It's one of those "you decide" stories, which I hate, because a story's literal job is to tell me what happened. The other stories either just didn't stand out to me or had endings on the down side, which gets tiresome after a while.

More Bones arrived yesterday and once again, I read it quickly. These stories were far better than those in the first book and held my attention a lot more. "The Prince's Fate" from Egypt was the best, being something Egyptian I've actually never read. (Minor points off for the use of "hieroglyphics" though.) A lot of them are also repeats from other books, but they're told enjoyably, so I didn't mind. 

Neither of these books are the best of their type. I recommend the Short and Shivery series far more than these, but if you have read all the Short and Shiverys and want something more, try these out.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

I read a list online of suggested books for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and this was on it. I remember almost buying it in Booksamillion months ago, but I put it back in favor of a plush Niffler. But seeing it on that list made me order it and a few others that were suggested.

I'm not going to go too into detail, but this is a YA anthology of horror thrillers. Each was inspired by movies, TV shows, even songs and those inspirations are printed upsidedown at the end of each tale. There wasn't a single story I fully disliked, although don't expect a lot of happy endings. I do love a good revenge tale, so those were mostly my favorites, but my #1 was "Hide-and-Seek," which used "The Crow" as one of its inspirations.

If you loved 90s YA horror thrillers, you'll like these stories. They take things up a notch, I think. Even if you prefer straight-up adult horror, I think you'll enjoy these.

PEN PALS 3

Annnnnnnd Palmer's up to her old tricks again.

Shocking.

This time though, she's a bit provoked, although she's still a total Jessica Wakefield.

Simmie sends her rather sappy letters, which Lisa dismisses as possibly just leading her on and not being letters as genuine as what she gets from Rob. Palmer is understandably angry.

Shanon's Mars mentions secret societies at the boys' school and Lisa's Rob says he won't be able to write to her because he'll be busy for a couple weeks.

Then right after that, Lisa gets another letter from Rob, this one typed and with a lot of misspellings. That should have been a red flag right there, but nope, Lisa still thinks it's him. She finds herself stood up twice and the recipient of an ugly sweater instead of Rob's class pin.

Shanon and Amy figure out that Palmer is behind some of this and they confront her and force her to tell Lisa. However, they figure this out too late to stop Lisa from sending Rob a nasty letter. You see, Rob's not even at the school and Palmer admits it's been Simmie who's been writing Lisa, as his secret society initiation is to embarrass a roommate. She had nothing to do with the first prank, but she was in on the second, as a bit of revenge for Lisa badmouthing Simmie. Although how she thought this was going to make Simmie look better is beyond me. They're really two of a kind, although I think Palmer's got more conscience than Simmie.

So naturally, Lisa's both furious and upset, because she can't unsend her nasty letter to Rob. Then she learns not only is he off campus, but he's in the hospital. She freaks out to the point of trying to sneak out in the middle of the night to ride her bike to the bus station and go to Boston to visit him in the hospital. Thankfully, two of her teachers are returning from a date and catch her.

Lisa ends up writing a nice letter to Rob in the hospital and then calling him at home. They work out their problems and eventually, she does get his pin and they're closer than ever.

For once, there's only one drama and that was it. Amy and Shanon are quite the background characters in this one. It's dominantly Lisa's story. And once again, we get Palmer maybe learning a lesson? We'll see. The next book is about her and problems with Simmie. Gee, no one could see that coming.

PEN PALS 2

How cute does Amy look on this cover? She's adorable. Lisa, too.

Remember last book when Palmer was a bitch? The main plot of this book is her continuing along that line.

Amy gets a giant poster of her pen pal, Simmie, and Palmer is dying of envy, because she seems much more suited to him than Amy does. (Which is true.)

Palmer is staying away from Suite 3D more than usual because she's made friends with a girl a year older. Germaine is a conniving spoiled rich girl, just like Palmer. So the two put their heads together and Palmer starts secretly writing to Simmie, designing herself as his perfect girl. She takes a look at this questionnaire of favorites all the boys filled out and matches her answers with his.

The main drama of the book is Palmer enticing Simmie away from Amy under the guise of a secret admirer. When Amy and the others find out, they're furious and Palmer realizes she messed up. Amy's a good ice skater and Palmer goes after her on the ice, only to sprain her ankle and have to miss out on the winter festival, which is where she'd arranged to meet Simmie, saying she'd be wearing a yellow skit suit.

Funny how her so-called friend Germaine ALSO ordered a yellow ski suit. And how she turns up, knowing Palmer is hurt, and tries to steal Simmie for herself.

Thankfully, Amy's on hand to save the day and the girls reconcile and switch pen pals.

Amy's main drama for the book isn't even the Simmie thing. It's that she's playing guitar for a girl in the talent show, helping her rehearse and they get the idea to play an original song, which Amy has to write. She struggles with lyrics until she reads a poem by Palmer's original pen pal, John Adams. She and John end up getting along very well and they're perfectly happy to be new pen pals.

Lisa's drama is that she took an idea from her pen pal Rob and got in academic trouble for it, because she used it the wrong way. She stupidly blames him, he rightly gets pissed. And then they make up while building an "abominable snowperson" in the snow sculpture contest. There's also possibly a hint at problems in the future, because she's not happy her older brother is seeing Shanon's friend Kate, who Lisa doesn't like.

Shanon, who had the big drama in the first book, is thankfully drama-free this time. She and pen pal Mars have a great time at the festival and she's writing more articles for the paper.

Palmer seems to be better at the end of the book, but will she get back up to her old bitchy tricks? We'll see!

PEN PALS 1

So when I last did a review, it was mere hours before Hurricane Michael hit. Michael would change my entire life. We lived without power, running water and cell service for 8 days. Our entire apartment complex was condemned. We were forced to call my dad, who lives in North Carolina, and have him help relocate us.

Here it is, about 5 weeks after we arrived. We lived in a motel for almost a month before being able to move into our new apartment.

The majority of what I lost in the hurricane was books. My entire off-site storage unit was inaccessible, so we abandoned it. The last time we checked, they still weren't answering phones. My favorite books were in the apartment, but I lost almost all my childhood collections, academic books, manga, Archies I've collected since 4th grade, graphic novels, Stephen King books, all these series that I loved and spent thousands on, just gone. The only 80s/90s girl series I still have are Sleepover Friends, Bad News Ballet, Junior High, and Canby Hall. And I only have Canby Hall because I never got very far rereading them! My entire Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins and Fabulous Five collections are gone.

Now that we've got an address again and I've got income, I looked into some of these series on ebay. Obviously, BSC and SVT are out of reach. There are just plain too many of them. But smaller series are quite doable. Pen Pals is one I was going to reread at some point, so I decided to start there. With only 18 books in the regular series and 2 super editions, it was pretty affordable. I got all but three of the books for less than $20! I'm not sure what other series I'm going to recollect, though I do know Fabulous Five is one of them. Their prices looked pretty decent, too.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to 80s time travel with some Pen Pals reviews. The series is a combination of the allure of all-girl boarding school, a la Canby Hall, and the dynamics of a group of girls with different personalities, a la Babysitters Club.

Let's look at them on the cover. You can tell blonde Palmer is the snobby, spoiled one by her outfit and her stance. Amy is the rocker girl, although I don't think she'd be wearing white socks and sneakers. Some black boots would have been better. Amy's one of the original girls who wear mostly black. Shanon is the shy, low self-esteem one who's there on a scholarship, also obvious from her pose. And Lisa is the tall, artsy one. She looks like she should be sporty, but she's more Claudia than Kristy. Or actually now that I think about it, she's a pretty good blend of the two, since her "great idea" was to have the girls advertise for pen pals from the nearby boys' school. Lisa's the most leadery of the foursome.

So yeah, the girls are bemoaning the lack of boys and Lisa decides they should advertise for pen pals. There's a kerfluffle about them doing this, because due to misunderstanding, an awkward older girl thinks they're starting a sorority. With the headmistress's blessing, the girls finally get their letters and choose their pen pals, who turn out to be a group of four roommates, just like the girls are.

This book has a lot of interesting storylines going on at the same time. It's definitely more complex than BSC and SVT. Let's count them off.

1) The girls advertise for pen pals and then the entire rest of book, you get to read letters back and forth between the two groups.

2) Shanon wants to write for the paper, but becomes a gofer. This one ends well with her getting to work on some of her ideas, even though the older girl in charge was initially against younger students writing.

2a) Linked to Shanon's writing are mentions of the school being a bit old-fashioned, because the career choices they discuss are limited and they don't offer a wide variety of classes. Like they have knitting and not woodshop or auto mechanics. I can't remember if this goes anywhere in future books, but it's a little bit of social commentary either way.

3) The Kate problem. I can't remember their term for Kate. She's not an RA, but she's kind of in charge of the area of the dorm the girls live in. She also works for the paper and is the one who got Shanon the job. There's this whole subplot with her having a crush on some guy, who ended up dating Shanon's popular older sister, and it causes drama. She ends up being friends with Shanon and possibly Lisa's older brother is interested in her based on her Halloween party costume.

4) When the girls go to send pictures to their pen pals, Shanon chickens out and sends a photo of her older sister instead. Then there's big drama with her pen pal finding out.

5) Palmer is a bitch. Like seriously, she's one of the bitchiest main characters in any of these series. Possibly the bitchiest actually. I don't think I can come up with another girl who's like her. The ones that are typically are the antagonist (the Bunheads in Bad News Ballet, Cokie Mason, Jenny Carlin) or occasional antagonist/frenemy (Lila Fowler). She's constantly snobby, disagreeable, selfish and can be downright mean. She's also a plotter and you can see the wheels turning in her head, because she does not like her pen pal.

Yep, all of that is going on in 100-some pages.

The characters are mostly likeable, except Palmer. Shanon's the quiet, studious underdog you want to root for. Amy's the wild, creative musician. I always liked those two best. I do like Lisa for her artsy side, but not as much as the other two.

I'm looking forward to digging back into this series!

MY STORY: WWI

Oh, boy, it's war books. There's a reason I took a long break from my My Story reread. My last review for this series was December 31st of last year. I know I got distracted with the American Girl History Mysteries, too, amongst other things, but now I'm finally looking to get these done. I've ordered the last two I was missing and added a third I hadn't even known existed until I searched for cover images for one of these books.

There is an enormous disparity between the books for WWI and those for WWII. I have three books here for WWI. Three. How many are there for WWII, you ask?

THIRTEEN. The three I have coming are all WWII.

Now you guys know I don't care for war books. Guy usually gets it into his head that he and his buddy are gonna run off to the front and win the war. Buddy dies. Guy comes home sad. Sometimes there's a girl.

Trenches is just like that. Except Billy doesn't get to stay with his childhood buddy, because Billy knows how to run a telegraph. So he becomes one of the telegraph guys and occasionally sees his pal. Then one day he learns his friend was court martialed and shot because he wouldn't follow his officer's idiot orders. You see, a lot of the officers weren't trained military men that earned their rank. Nope. They were rich assholes who knew nothing and only got rank because of their money/social status. Trenches was a decent book, though it suffered from the usual formulaic boringness of these war books. It held my attention in some places, but not all.

Flying Ace I liked better, because Jack Fairfax is actually from such a wealthy family that his dad is a lord. He bucks tradition and becomes a pilot instead of a cavalryman, upsetting his father. But his older bro's already over at the front, so why not do something different? Jack's a likeable character. He's the funny, reckless daredevil sort of rich kid, not the uppity type.

Jack and his friend get more characterization than the boys in Trenches so you care about them more. And I enjoyed their rivalry with German flying ace Von Klempter. You can guess what goes on there. Von Klempter ends up killing Jack's friend and Jack gets revenge. Formulaic, yes, but I think better written than several of the others.

Oh, hooray, a girl! This one's pretty decent. Daphne "Daffy" Rowntree is another wealthy character. Her father is killed in the war. Then her brother goes over and disappears. Her mother, who earns a living with her paintings, goes a bit off and starts putting fairies in all her work, acting like they're real creatures. Daffy is frustrating at first, because she's so utterly spoiled and naive, but she slowly grows as a character when she becomes an ambulance driver for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.

Once over in France, Daffy has a load of new experiences like cleaning an engine and doing dishes. She meets a guy and there's a bit of drama there. She gets shot protecting a dog that reminds her of her dog at home, not realizing it's a very important messenger dog. So she's sent home, her guy finds her, they fix their problem, and it seems like everyone's going to be okay. Her mom's improving, even though it's become clear they're never going to learn what happened to the brother.

Definitely not a bad one. I liked learning about all the FANY ladies had to do and what they went through.

So next up is WWII. I'm not sure when I'll tackle them, because I'll likely read a lot while this hurricane is going on and we're probably going to be without power. They'll also be out of order, because I've got the 3 that aren't here yet. But soon enough, this reread will be done!

KARITO KIDS: Piper

Ah, our final Karito Kid! Piper is the only one of the group that was not in the original set. She came later on. Her book isn't written by the same author as the first set, but by the same author as Gia's second book.

Thankfully, unlike Lulu and Pita's books, there are no terrible parents in this one! Piper's mom's only fault is that she might want her daughter to be more girly than sporty.

Piper is a junior lifesaver, which is apparently a big thing in her part of Australia. She's into rescuing people or trying to, surfing, and saving the world environmentally.

I run into any character like this and she's automatically compared to Dawn from Babysitters Club. Is she early series Dawn or later Dawn?

A good thing for Piper and for me is that she's really not all that obnoxious about her Earth-saving side. Her best friend seems to be like turbo Dawn though. I didn't care for her or her obsessive need to tell Piper what happened to her first and never let Piper share her story first.

This book is a nice blend of mystery and stuff about Australia. I loved that they traveled to the Great Barrier Reef for a couple days to show off even more of the country, even though that's not where Piper lives.

Piper is a likeable character, even though I have absolutely nothing in common with her whatsoever.

Although I do subtract points for her wearing stupid uggs all the time! I hate those hideous lumpy things.

Granted, they were more in style when this was written, so it made sense for her, but still. Hideous.

Like Lulu, my doll is not wearing her stock outfit, which is the outfit on the book cover. I don't care for sporty stuff much, so she kept her swimsuit, but took the other pieces from a different Karito fashion pack.

Piper's doll looks older than the other girls in the line, although not too much older than Gia and Lulu, which suits her because I think she's a bit more mature than most of them. Maybe all of them. She's impulsive, reckless and single-minded, but that seems to go with the territory in this series, and her book isn't super unrealistic like others were.

KARITO KIDS: Lulu

I just finished Lulu's book after taking a little break from these.

Lulu's is a lot like Pita's. You learn the most about Kenya from the section in the back, not from the story, and what you do learn in the story is mostly bad, because, again like with Pita's book, it's the giant divide between the wealthy and the poor and between different groups.

Lulu's book also has troublesome parents. Her mother runs a kids' TV show and sucks up to the rich station owner to the point of compromising her daughter's integrity. Her father doesn't stick up for Lulu, even though he knows she's right. Neither parent seriously corrects their younger son when he's being blatantly prejudiced. Apparently, Kenya's got a lot of different groups in it and each one has a certain stereotype. Yeah, maybe that's something you should address properly in a children's book by having the characters who act prejudiced be clearly in the wrong? But no.

Same thing as with Pita's book. Her mother never gets over herself. Lulu's asshole little brother never gets any sort of comeuppance for being a prejudiced douche. He had a bet with Lulu over the guilt or innocence of the man she spends the entire book defending and they didn't take even one sentence to have her gleefully tell him she won the bet or have him admit that he was wrong. Perfect opportunity for him to learn a lesson about stereotyping, but nope. The author just let it slide.

Lulu's book also had a Ling-like level of danger going on that made it feel less believable.

Not her stock outfit!

Lulu is still a very likeable character despite all the nonsense going on in her book. I liked the basic plotline. They just took the danger element a bit too far. And I really wish, like with Pita's, that they'd spent more time in positive cultural things and showing that people with prejudices are severely in the wrong. If they could take the time to spend several pages revealing that the jerky rich son of the jerky rich station owner was actually not that bad a kid, then they could have slipped another lesson in there, too.

KARITO KIDS: Pita

I tend to forget how much I love Pita until I read her book. I remember this happening when I first read them, too. I didn't expect her to be a favorite, but she might be my fave character after Gia.

Pita comes from a very wealthy Mexican family. I read this last night, but I think her father was a senator and her mom a former model.

So they've got money and status.

Pita, however, is not your stereotypical spoiled girl at all.

Pita just wants to get out of her "cage" and be allowed to actually do more things. She's not being ridiculous about this either. Her mother is easily the most terrible parent in all these books so far. She's obsessed with status and appearances and doesn't care anything about substance. Pita gets bitched at for wearing a cowboy hat, wearing jeans, going riding with the daughter of someone who works for her grandfather. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

Her dad seems a bit better, especially when he opens up to her and tells her their family history.

Pita's mystery is that her beloved horse disappeared when they arrived at her grandfather's ranch. There's a search for her with some red herrings and family secrets mixed in. She's found, of course, and so is someone else.

Very vague, I know, but I don't want to give it away.

Pita's book is odd to me, because I really enjoyed it, even though it's even worse than Ling's when it comes to teaching us about the location. You learn next to nothing about Mexico from this book. Except for the section at the end. Pita talks about food a couple times and Quinceañera, but the most you learn about Mexico is actually bad, because it's about the old families that think they're better than others and the great differences in wealth between the classes.

The odd part is that I didn't care that I wasn't learning or that we weren't going to see any other locations in Mexico. I got caught up in Pita and her story and I cared about that.

So yes, the book is pretty much a complete failure if you're looking at it from a teaching about a different culture standpoint, but Pita makes it work because she's such a loveable character. Her grandfather is a good character, too, and the family history makes it worth reading. I just wish someone had told her mom to shut the fuck up and get over herself. She's such a snobby bitch.

KARITO KIDS: Zoe

Zoe! Okay, so I've honestly only read this series of books once before and that was in summer 2008. I thought I'd reread them since, but I really don't think I ever did.

In summer 2008, I lived in New York City, as I mentioned in my post about Gia.

Zoe lives in New York City.

However, it's only now, upon rereading this book ten years later, that I've realized Zoe lived in the part of New York City that I would be moving to shortly after reading her book.

If I put the two together back then, I've since forgotten, but I honestly don't think I ever realized until now.

Not too long after I got into Karitos, I had to rush-move from Brooklyn to the West Village. I was caught up in a new job and a new internship and then in the fall, my classes started up again. So yeah, I was insanely busy and I honestly don't think I thought back to this book and went, "Hey, I live here now."

But rereading it now was an amazing experience, because Zoe went to so many places that I know. Every street she listed off is one I've walked down loads of times.

One flaw of Ling's book that I forgot to mention is that the mystery becomes bigger than the location. Gia's books did a good job of balancing mystery and learning about Italy. Ling's did not teach that much about China.

Zoe's book is definitely centered on the mystery, but it's still filled with a strong essence of New York. The details seem less important than Gia's Italy or Ling's China, because they seem less different than what a typical American is used to, but there is a difference. New York is like nowhere else I've ever lived and this book captures a lot of it, though people who have never lived there might miss out on that.

Zoe herself is a fun character, but not that unique. Her problem is that the writer (or Karito character designer) tried too hard to make her the quirky girl. She's a singer/songwriter/guitarist who's known for making up her own words and collecting hats. In trying so hard to be quirky, she becomes not unique but instead like every other quirky female character that's been written.

She's still really likeable and fun though. I enjoyed the book a lot and part of it was definitely her character. I shouldn't fault her for not being able to compete with the actual main character of the book: New York City.

No one can compete with New York.

KARITO KIDS: Ling

The second Karito Kids doll I bought was Ling! She's one of the loveliest Asian dolls in my collection.

Ling lives in Shanghai, China, which she hates. She's from Sichuan. So when her family has to move to Shanghai because her dad took a job with the zoo, she's not happy. The kids at her school all make fun of her because of her accent and her clothes. She relates it to being from Georgia or North Carolina and moving to New York City. Although people in NYC are a lot nicer than any of her classmates. NYC people are used to diversity. They're not gonna mock an accent. So not the best comparison, but you get the drift. Country mouse moves to the city.

Ling's mystery is some pretty hardcore adult stuff. Her father is a panda expert and the Shanghai zoo hired him from the panda reserve he used to work at, because they're setting up a new panda exhibit. A developer bought a couple pandas from the reserve and so Ling, who is already obsessed with pandas, has known these two as they grew up.

There's a problem though. Something is making the pandas sick. Ling gets herself in huge trouble at the beginning of the book and struggles throughout to help her panda friends despite basically constantly risking being in huge trouble.

She befriends a homeless boy, who helps her a couple times, including saving her life. Twice. There's also a mean girl and some red herrings before the villain is revealed.

The book is pretty solid, but also a bit over the top, so the believability is less than Gia's was. Although I think the writing is better in Ling's. Gia's second book had a point where the characters acted out of character and weren't believable in order to get the story where it needed to be. Ling's book doesn't have that problem, but to have an 11-year-old be almost killed twice in her mystery book is a little too much for me.

Ling is a really likeable character. She's got her own funky style and doesn't try to change herself to fit in at school. The bullying is ridiculous, considering even the teacher participates in it, but I do give the author points for not making the mean girl change her ways. She and Ling still hate each other at the end of the book.

Like Gia, Ling's book got a new cover design when the dolls got new outfits. I actually prefer the new cover because her hair matches the doll's, whereas the first cover did not. The doll did come with white stockings, too, like in the art, but I removed them when I got her.

KARITO KIDS: Gia

I knew about Karito Kids in 2007, but didn't fall for them until summer of 2008. I was living in New York City then, attending NYU, and had just moved into a teeny tiny single room ("apartment") in their newly-acquired Brooklyn dorm. I'd been living in that building for the entire 2007-2008 school year, but I'd used a combo of luck and connections to keep my super spacious double apartment all to myself, but that came to an end when summer semester began. I wasn't taking classes, but I was working for the school at the time, with plans to relocate to a different dorm in the West Village for fall semester.

So you know, it was the perfect time to start collecting a 22" doll line!

I decided to start by getting the set of five books, one mystery for each character, and using them to choose which doll to buy first.

I ended up with Gia from Italy, the fashionista of the bunch, which seems a bit of an unusual choice for me, but her doll is still one of my favorite larger-scale dolls of all time.

You might be able to see why from the picture below. She's just stunningly gorgeous.

Each book is a mystery set in each character's country. Gia is from Florence (Firenze), Italy.

Florence Fiasco is about how Gia's family runs a small pensione (hotel). She hates her job and the drab uniform she has to wear, because she has dreams of becoming big in the fashion world.

When an older designer decides to stay in their hotel while preparing for his big comeback at Fashion Week, a pair of expensive diamond-decorated shoes go missing. The blame falls on Gia, so she takes it upon herself to solve the mystery. The designer ends up believing her and even prepares a dress for her to wear to his show. Gia gets help from a brash American rich girl and the two try to solve the mystery.

However, Gia's hypotheses are way off until she realizes, while at the fashion show, who the culprit is and races back to the hotel to get the shoes and save the day.

These books were originally released as hardcovers with names based on the locations. When the dolls got a revamp with new clothing, the books became softcovers with new titles that included the girls' names. These are the same books though! They are not new ones.

Each Karito Kid got a single book...except Gia.

Gia's second book takes place after the first, when she wins a design contest in a kids' fashion magazine. She gets to see her designs made real and even gets to model in the photo shoot. Gia insists that the skinny models from a certain agency that the magazine wants to use don't represent her vision. She manages to get the lady in charge to agree with her and replaces the scrawny models with two friends that she met at the hotel and one of her Italian friends.

However, someone's got it out for Gia and her friends. They keep receiving threats, having near-misses with a crazy lady on a motorbike, and one girl's hair even gets temporarily dyed green.

Gia struggles with asking adults for help, because she doesn't want anything to stop the photo shoot, but also whenever she tries to tell someone, no one believes her. So of course things escalate and come to a head with no one seeing the truth until Gia outs the culprit at the end.

My only real complaint about the book is that some of the minor characters seem off. Her mother was the one who supported her dream in the first book, only to be the stubborn one in this second book. Her older sister has a sudden interest in cooking that I don't think was mentioned in the first book at all. And the entire sequence where they go out of town wasn't very well-written or believable.

Still, I liked both of Gia's books a lot. They're a fun ride and while she's obsessed with fashion, Gia also sees a lot of beauty everywhere around her. She gets inspiration from art and anyone who loves museums is excellent in my book.

I just wish they'd made the outfit on the cover of her second book! Her updated doll outfit was nowhere near that pretty and not as good as her original outfit either.

S.A.S.S. 10 & 11

I got the urge to finally finish the S.A.S.S. series!

I left off with book #10, which is about a skier in Finland. I got a few chapters in and was so bored, I didn't finish it...for several months.

Seriously, my review for book #9 was in April.

This one was just plain disappointing. The main character isn't that interesting. She's from a family of competitive skiers and suffers from the need to not be compared to them all the time. When she struggles with her jumps in Finland, she gets help from a guy and that blossoms into romance, but is then complicated by the bitchy daughter of her host family.

This is another of those books that pretty much focuses on one thing, the skiing, and forgets the most important things to S.A.S.S.: the scholarship and the culture.

The daughter's actions also go mostly unresolved. She was a bitch because she wanted to get her family's attention, but this isn't dealt with at all. She makes things right with the main character, but nothing happens with her family.

There's also a dull side plot with the main's friend liking a male friend and that just wasn't handled well either.

Definitely one of the worst of the series.

Thankfully, it's followed by one of the best of the series.

Delk is a Tennessee society girl off to Ireland to escape her father and his child bride pregnant new wife and her "presentation" into Nashville society. Delk's big issue is that her mom died two years ago and she doesn't want to talk about it or how she's still not over it or how her stepmother changing everything in their house is hurting her.

So she heads to Ireland for a semester to escape.

This one ticks all the right boxes. Delk has family drama and it pervades the book, but it's done well and indicates how she heals and comes to terms with her problems over the course of the semester.

The supporting cast is good: a sporty girl, a sophisticated wannabe model who's obsessed with Paris, a scholarly girl and her wild brothers who have ADHD.

The romance is also good, because they actually delve into it pretty quickly and the pair are quite suited to each other. They're cute.

And we actually get to learn a lot about Ireland, visit several places and watch Delk do hard work for her classes.

The next one heads back to France to check in with Nicole again, then the final regular book is the first one I reviewed about China. The last book in the series is a super special. So only two more reviews to go and this series is done!

BSC Graphic Novels: Kristy's Big Day

I don't think I've done reviews of any of the BSC graphic novels, but trust me, they're great. I recently got the first four in color (I had bought the original black and whites) not long after the fifth one came out. Well, now the sixth one is here!

I grew up on the BSC. I'm a huge fan. Big-time nostalgia. I loved the first four graphic novels and I was thrilled when they decided to continue the series.

Now the comics have hopped around a bit. The first one matched the first BSC book, but then they skipped book #2 and book #3 became the second graphic novel. Book #4 was the third and then it jumped all the way to book #7 for the fourth. They wanted one with Claudia as the lead and they decided not to make it book #2. When it came time for graphic novel #5, they went back to book #5, while also adding Mallory to the cast, borrowing events from book #14, which is set after Stacey moves back to New York City. So now we've come to graphic novel #6 and it matches up with book #6, except they added Mallory into the cast, which is fine with me. Book #6 happens to be one of my favorites of the early BSC books, so I was really excited for this.

I was surprised at how many times I burst out laughing while reading this. They really went all out with the funny situations and expressions on the characters. So instead of me doing a normal review, I'm going to share the funniest parts of the book!

Forgive my photos. I was too lazy to scan these, so I just used my camera. And then was too lazy to crop them better.

Here's Kristy's mom freaking out when she realizes they have to plan a wedding and plan a move in very minimal time.

In this scene, Kristy has just told the BSC about her idea: the six of them watching the 14 kids that will be around during the wedding planning. It sounds like a load of work, but the bonus is that they're being paid double their usual rate from 9-5 for multiple days.

This is Claudia's reaction to that amount of money.

And here she is trying the tactic on Mary Anne.

Mallory is stinkin' adorable. I love her. And their faces in the last panel while they're trying to get Mary Anne on board with this plan.

EVERY BIT OF THIS IS GOLD.

And it continues.

Kristy's pep talk to herself had me dying.

And this. OMG. Her face. That is kind of a duh, Watson.

Exhausted after Day One. I love how Stacey's got her likely sweaty bare feet all over Claudia. Kristy's just faceplanted.

Dawn is 100% over Karen.

Kristy threatening the boys to behave during the barbershop scene.

And the not often seen rage of Mary Anne on the previous page.

I just love all this. I laughed so many times! Get these. Read them all. Join me in laughing. And then cross your fingers that we get to go to Sea City soon!

EMMA CARROLL 2

Yeah, it's just one book. I haven't bought any others yet. But I will.

I wanted to say a quick few words about this before I forgot. It's already been a few days since I finished this.

In Darkling Wood is an interesting yet highly frustrating book. It's one of those where it has to be illogical to make sense. The main plot is even illogical. Alice has been helping take care of her sick younger brother for ages, after her father abandoned the family, yet she's shipped off to live with her bizarro paternal grandmother while her brother gets a heart transplant. Sending her away during the school year just makes no sense to me. There's really no reason that something else could not have been worked out. The adults also spend far too much time hiding things from Alice and treating her like she hasn't been instrumental in helping her little brother.

Then the grandmother is a useless trip who neither wants to nor properly knows how to care for a child. There's not even enough food in the house and she continually shuts Alice out when poor Alice needs a stable environment the most. I really disliked the grandmother. I still do, even after the book's ending, because her actions were explained, but that doesn't make her behavior any less shitty.

The people in town are all pissy because Alice's grandmother is trying to tear down the old woods around her house and they take it out on Alice.

I honestly think Alice acts like more of an adult than every single actual adult in this book and I haaaaaaaaaaaaate that. I consider it pretty bad writing really.

I did like the character of Flo though and her twist is a good one. Max, the one friend Alice makes, is also a good character.

I just wish Carroll could have figured out how to tell this story without making every adult in it act poorly.

EMMA CARROLL 1

I discovered author Emma Carroll through an ad for her newest book in a post by one of the many Egyptian things I follow on either Twitter or Facebook. Annoyingly, a lot of her books cannot just be purchased via Amazon. I had to hit ebay for the newest one. But I did get The Snow Sister and Strange Star from Amazon. I received those before the newest book, the one I was actually most interested in, so I read them first.

The Snow Sister is a very short book for younger readers than Carroll's other works. She doesn't shy away from darker elements in her stories, so the young girl protagonist has a dead older sister that she recreates in snow before Christmas. She comes from a poor family with a newly-deceased rich uncle who left something to his brother, the girl's father. As her father goes to find out what, the family assumes they'll be rich. The girl sets out to get pudding ingredients at the store and through a series of misadventures, ends up spending the night in the home of the wealthiest family in town, where she learns that family and love are more important than money. She also learns that it's this dude who inherited her uncle's fortune. When she gets home, she learns her family got...the uncle's daughter. They're happy to have a new person in their family, a semi-replacement for the dead older sister, and he left some jewelry behind to be sold to help pay for her upkeep, but I don't like any of this. Why leave your fortune to some dickbag rich dude you mentored when you could leave it for YOUR CHILD? Just make it where she can't access it until she's older. I hope there's enough jewelry there to take care of her for years, because they're gonna need it.

So not the best thoughts about this author going into the second book. This one's a pretty wild ride. The framing and concluding chapters take place at the Villa Diodati, during the famous gathering of Lord Byron and the Shelleys. The central and main part of the story is from the POV of a young girl who, along with her mother, was struck by lightning. There are mysterious animal disappearances and deaths, a comet in the sky, an elusive creepy scientist...who turns out not to be the scientist in the story after all. It's an interesting tale and much better than the Snow Sister. I don't want to give too much away, but all these events lead Mary Shelley to write her famous work.

Ah, finally we get to the one I wanted to read most. This is set in Egypt as Howard Carter is finding the tomb of the now-legendary King Tut. This one's an excellent journey with solid characters, a twisting backstory that resolves in a pretty unbelievable way, curses, and portions of the story set in ancient Egypt. The whole thing is extremely unbelievable. You've just got to set that aside.

As an Egyptologist, two things did bother me.

First, the author uses "hieroglyphics." This is not a word. Hieroglyphic is the writing system. One glyph is a hieroglyph. Multiple glyphs are hieroglyphs. Likely some would argue that "hieroglyphics" has become so commonly used that it has become a word, but that's a load. If you're writing about Egypt and you want to sound like you did a lick of research, never ever use "hieroglyphics." I mean, unless you're writing for a character that is meant to sound uneducated and it's a conscious decision to use the incorrect word. I wouldn't mind the young girl that's the POV using it if it was ever made clear in the text that it's not the correct term. Regardless, whenever I see it, it ruins the story by taking me right out of it, and I just sit and wonder how much research was done if this bad an error was made.

Second, the canopic jar that's the focus of the protagonist's problem is described as having the head of Anubis. I kept waiting for this to be dealt with. It never was. You see, the four canopic jar heads are a human, a falcon, a baboon and yes, a jackal. But this jackal is NOT Anubis. It's Duamutef. It's a mistake someone who didn't know much would make, because yeah, he looks just like Anubis. So when it first happened, I was okay with her not knowing the proper deity on the jar, but as the story went on, it was revealed that the jar held the heart. The heart is not typically removed during mummification, so there is no jar for it. It was never said if the character who put the heart in the jar just used a random Duamutef one or maybe had a special jar he had made for this purpose and did put Anubis's head on it.

Not things that would bother the average reader, but both took me out of the story a bit, because I know how things should be. (And I get annoyed when people don't research properly.)

The story itself is an excellent ride and I do recommend giving this a read. You likely won't be as bothered by the errors as I was, but hey, at least you know the right information now.

AMERICAN GIRL: Nanea

I have not done an American Girl historical character review in a long time! My last one was Molly and that was way back in February 2017. I did have a ranking of them all, but I'm not going to continue all that. It's honestly impossible to rank some of these, considering the BeForever books don't have the nostalgic effect or the illustrations.

Nanea is a 9-year-old girl living in Oahu in 1941. Her mother is Hawaiian and her father is white. He's from Oregon, where his parents still live. Nanea is the youngest in the family. Her brother David is 17 and sister Mary Lou is 15.

Nanea's first book starts out in a typical way. She wants to be thought of as more grown up, but then does some good and some bumbling. It's the bumbling I didn't really care for. She accidentally muddies a floor and goes running off instead of just cleaning it up. Like she's 9, not 5. That felt out of character for her. I know the point of the book is to show how war makes kids grow up faster, but they didn't need to make her that childish in that particular moment. It didn't fit the rest of the story.

So then comes Pearl Harbor and everything changes. Nanea doesn't see her father for I think almost two weeks, while he works in the Pearl Harbor shipyard (he's a welder). He was at home during the bombing so he was safe. David runs off to go help and he stays away for a few days. Mele, Nanea's dog, disappears the morning of the bombing. Her friend Lily's father is taken away because he's Japanese. Her other friend Donna and Donna's mother are sent back to the mainland US because they're "non-essential civilians." Hawaii is under martial law and there are blackouts, air raid drills, gas masks and mandatory ID cards to carry around, and curfews to deal with. Basically, Nanea's whole way of life changes and she must adapt.

She does thankfully find her dog. I think Mele is the most important pet character ever in an AG series. The only one that might come close is Felicity's Penny, but Penny's not in every book and Mele's almost always there.

Nanea pulls herself together and helps her friend Lily deal with her father being taken (he's eventually freed, as they mixed him up with someone else), she starts the family decorating for Christmas, she comes up with the idea of doing a bottle drive for the Red Cross to collect blood donations in, and she finally gets to help in her grandparents' store, which is what she wanted at the beginning of the book.

The second book picks up almost right where the first left off. It's Nanea's first day back at school, which had been closed because part of it was on fire and damaged.

Nanea loves her teacher, so the first conflict we see is a new girl getting attention and Nanea's jealous. This is a throwback to the start of the first book, when she acts really childish and now it's even more out of character, because she matured so much in the first book. I understand that part of it comes from her being upset at the changes in her life, especially her friend Donna not being there, but still. As in the first book, this is the only part I really don't like.

Nanea spends most of the book with two worries. First, she's terrified her brother is going to enlist when he turns 18 in June. Second, she heard about a program called Dogs for Defense and is convinced David's Lieutenant friend wants Mele for the program. (Spoiler: He doesn't.) So aside from the fear of them being attacked again, Nanea's worried about losing her dog and her brother.

She manages to work things out with Dixie, the new girl, and the friend group becomes a trio again. She also teaches Mele how to hula, so she's got a dancing dog to entertain the troops during the USO shows. That's why the lieutenant paid attention to Mele, because she danced, not because he wanted her for the army. He helps Nanea start a program she calls Mele Medicine, which is basically Mele being a therapy dog. I think this is possibly quite a bit earlier than the idea of therapy dogs was actually thought of, but it's still a great idea.

Unfortunately for Nanea, the first thing David does do when he's eighteen is enlist. The book ends with him going off to boot camp.

I remember when AG fans first heard about Nanea and there was some bitching about having two girls from the same time period, but Nanea and Molly could not be more different. Nanea's way of life, even before Pearl Harbor, is very different from Molly's. Nanea's books are at the start of the war, while Molly's are at the end, so she gets to see her father come home, but we'll likely never know the fate of Nanea's brother. Molly gets to be mildly inconvenienced by the war during her daily life (with the exception of her dad being gone), but Nanea is right there worrying about way more serious things than Molly has to deal with. Nanea sees the destruction first hand. Nanea does far more for the war effort than Molly does and even with her minor incidents, she feels far more mature than Molly ever does. Nanea's books also tackle one very serious subject and they mention it multiple times and that's the Japanese internment. This is one of the most overlooked horrific things in American history and it needs more coverage than it gets.

I think Nanea's main two books are very solid and a good read. She's an important addition to the historical lineup.

I'm gonna say it right now. I do not like Choose Your Own Adventure. I never have. I'm far too anal to enjoy them, because I have to mark every page with a choice and make sure I read every possible story. It's a pain!

But I got a good price on the Nanea boxed set, so I took it instead of the two classics alone.

I didn't really enjoy reading this for my OCD reason explained above, but it did have a lot of solid moments. A character is introduced who changed her name to appear less Japanese and her dad is being held on Sand Island, which was the Hawaiian place of internment. That was the best part. You also get to see Nanea expressing some of her feelings about David being gone, because this is set after her classics.

My biggest issue with it is that the character you play is kind of a chickenshit. She's a military brat, so she's been moved all over and she's not happy in Hawaii because her father is off in Iraq right now and she's not used to being away from him. She sees a dog digging in the sand (it's supposed to be Mele) and finds a shell necklace that takes her back in time when she puts it on. So the entire time, she knows she can just yank it off and go back to her home in the future, but she's still scared of EVERYTHING. There are a couple story endings that make the girls look bad, too, but I seem to remember that from Choose Your Own Adventure. There were always some bad choices.

It's an okay book and I'm glad I read it, but I doubt I'll ever reread it and I'm not going to read the other BeForever ones like this either.

Nanea's real mystery is who the hell is on her cover and what did she do with Nanea. This book is set three weeks after the end of the second classic, yet Nanea's hair is like eight inches longer. And straightish. Granted it's longer on the Choose Your Own Adventure cover, but that still looks like her. This one just doesn't.

So it took me a while to finish this one, because right away, something annoyed me. I simply despise when adults in these books treat children badly and that sets up the entire mystery.

You see, Nanea is working in her grandparents' store. She takes pride in straightening the displays, making everything look nice and helping customers leave happy. So when a lady asks for Carnation milk and Nanea doesn't see it, even though she'd just straightened the cans moments before, and when her display of oranges is suddenly a mess, she gets suspicious of a nearby boy. A boy whose canvas bag was empty-looking and now, as he leaves the store, looks rather lumpy. Nanea expresses her concerns to her grandparents...BECAUSE WHEN YOU WORK IN A STORE, YOU WATCH FOR SHOPLIFTERS. This is like Basic Shopkeeping 101. And what do they do? They make her feel like shit for not trusting the boy. Are you fucking kidding me?!! It would be one thing to say no one saw him steal so they can't accuse him, but keep an eye on him. That would be the logical thing. But to try to make her feel bad when she's just protecting the store and their money? COME THE FUCK ON.

Right away, this throws up red flags for me. The grandparents know something about this boy, but deliberately do not tell Nanea. They know he didn't steal, but don't tell her why. WHY THE FUCK NOT?!

Because this author couldn't write a better plot. I think very little of people that have such horrible gaps in logic just to make their plot work.

You see, it's not revealed until the end of the story, but Mano (the boy) trades fish he catches for food in some of the local stores, including Nanea's grandparents'.

THEY COULD HAVE TOLD HER THAT AT THE BEGINNING.

But no, poor Nanea spends the entire book freaked out about him being a thief and stealing repeatedly. As the story unfolds, some of the missing objects turn up and one really was him, stealing her father's heirloom spade. He borrowed it without asking. Well, why didn't you fucking ask? This plot element only works if you go out of character for Mano.

There are multiple subplots, including Lily's brother having a secret job and Nanea's sister getting secret letters. Everything works out in the end, but this would have been a much more solid book if the grandparents had told Nanea the truth at the beginning, which would have been in character, and she'd made a new friend, only to have to worry about what exactly he was up to. That's a better story than one that uses glaring out of character moments and a complete lack of logic as its foundation.

Gotta wrap this up quickly, but I really do like Nanea. I think she's an important addition to the lineup of girls and I hope to see her get some more mysteries in the future that are much better written!