BE PREPARED

Vera Brosgol did another graphic novel back in 2014 called Anya's Ghost. If you click the Vera Brosgol tag under this entry, you'll find my review for it. Be Prepared is far better though!

Instead of being straight up fiction like Anya's Ghost, Be Prepared is semi-autobiographical. Vera wrote it based on her two experiences at camp, plus memories from her siblings and a former counselor.

It starts with 9-year-old Vera at a friend's slumber party. There's a great scene where they're playing with American Girl dolls. All except Vera, who's too poor to have one. She begs her mother for a birthday slumber party and knows all the right elements to it, but everything goes wrong because her single mom can't afford the right brands of cake, pizza, pop, etc. The girls manage to exclude her at her own party, not staying up and talking like they did at the other girl's. Then when Vera wakes up, they're all gone already.

She perks up a bit when she learns about a Russian summer camp and begs her mom to let her attend for two weeks. She thinks that she'll meet other Russian girls there who feel like outsiders, the same way she does. However, her little brother tags along. Not that she sees much of him and he seems to be having a great time when she does.

Camp, as it turns out, is nothing like Vera expected. Even though she's only nine, she's placed with the older campers because she's a month shy of ten. But what kind of dumbass camp would put a ten-year-old with two fourteen-year-olds? Yeesh. That goes exactly how you'd expect.

The camp itself is disgusting. There's no running water. They wash their hair and bathe in a lake. They brush their teeth in a stream. The outhouse has multiple seats and no partitions like something out of the 1800s. Vera's stuck with her only real happiness being when they'd go to the lake where there was a normal bathroom.

Everyone is forced to speak Russian as much as possible, sing songs that Vera doesn't know the words to because she threw out the songbook, and once a week protect the girls' side flag from the boys while other girls go try to get the boys' flag. The side that loses the flag has to perform a menial chore for the other side.

The older girls are mean to Vera, teasing her because she doesn't wear a bra (she's NINE) and she doesn't know what a period is.

She tries in a few ways to fit in, but all she wants to do is go home. So when her mother arrives and says she and her brother have to stay for the full month because she has a job interview, Vera is distraught.

Vera eventually turns things around for herself by making friends with a younger camper and actually being the one to win the flag from the boys' side and give them the most disgusting task. She leaves camp having made a new friend, but when asked if she wants to go back, the answer from both her and her brother is a resounding no. But that's a moot point, because that job interview? Was in London. They're moving.

This graphic novel is both funny and adorable. I've never done camp, so there's nothing relatable for me here, but there doesn't need to be. It's a solid story no matter what.

AMERICAN GIRL: Kit Mystery

Kit looks really weird on this cover.

Second AG BeForever mystery of the day, second by Mary Casanova.

Once again, she provides multiple suspects that are meant to throw you off the trail, but the culprit isn't quite as obvious as in Rebecca's book.

And once again, Kit's in Kentucky and the locals don't cotton to outsiders. A bit of this is part of the plot, because they're having their land eminent domained out from under them to create the national park, but there's also at least one incident of it being said about a thing that was trivial.

This was decent, but not one of Kit's best. She seems too easily frightened and that's not the Kit I know.

Points though for them not dumbing down or sugarcoating any of the bad business going on here.

AMERICAN GIRL: Rebecca Mystery

I strayed from the AG historicals for far too long! I finally read Rebecca's mystery from this past February's mystery releases.

It's not a bad story. Very Rebecca. Her cousin Michael is working as a painter for a theater that has a rooftop farm, which was based on a real thing, so that's pretty cool. Ana and Rebecca take Michael his lunch and stumble into a job opportunity, which they sorely need, because this is set right after Rebecca's sixth book, where her uncle and other male cousin lose their factory jobs.

Being Rebecca, she thinks they're going to be performers, but no, they're farm chore girls. While she's disappointed, Ana gets along swimmingly with their supervisor, a woman named Flora. Rebecca is thrilled, however, when an up and coming Ziegfeld Girl named Olivia ("Ollie") visits the farm for her daily milk. Ollie manages to get the girls to deliver her glass of milk to the theater across the street every day.

Their employer forces Rebecca and Ana to use this opportunity to spy on the rival theater. Neither girl is happy about it, but the asshole theater owner holds Michael's job above their heads.

Rebecca is taken in by Ollie and the theater world, while Ana remains more loyal to Flora and doing what they're told.

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear someone is trying to sabotage Ollie and it's up to Rebecca to figure out who.

It's a fun story, even though the culprit was pretty obvious. There are enough red herrings that I'm not sure the target age group would figure it out as fast as I did though. I always love Beckie, so I'm pleased she got another decent book.

AGHM 21 & 22

Ah, finally, the two last American Girl History Mysteries!

Ghost Light I quite liked. It's set during the late 19th Century on an island. The main character's father is part of a rescue team and the plot is mostly her trying to figure out what the mysterious light she keeps seeing is, while doing what she can to help her best friend, who's very ill. (I can't remember offhand which type of sickness she had.)

It was a good mystery, but also interesting to learn about something I didn't know much about.

It took me a while to get through Cross Creek, because it's honestly pretty boring.

Patriots vs. Loyalists trying to get the Scots on their side. Elspeth deals with a lot: family strife, a grandmother with PTSD, headstrong cousins, wanting to be friends with a new Scottish girl but not understanding why her grandmother won't let her, and balancing her life at home with her apprenticeship as a weaver.

The end is more interesting, but it doesn't save the book or redeem the characters that completely fucked up.

AMERICAN GIRL: GotY Luciana Book 3

Luciana is back and messing things up again!

Don't get me wrong, I love Luci (har har) and she's actually my favorite GotY ever (sorry, Jess), but she messes up a lot.

So this time, Luciana's all excited because her family is going to Chile to see the rest of their family over winter break. She wants to reconnect with her four cousins who are all also twelve. She mentions that they used to message each other a lot, but she's been busy lately, so that's fallen off a bit, which is the first clue that this isn't going to go well.

Then the next morning after she arrives in the middle of the night, Luci receives a message from Claire Jacobs, AKA: the girl who left her to drown in Book 2. They've been chatting since the school year started and things seem better between them. Luci believes in giving people second chances, because she's awesome like that. Like really awesome. Who gives the person who basically left you for dead a second chance? Claire's going to be right there in Chile, too, going to a NASA Mars-based habitat in the Atacama Desert with her dad. She invites Luci along, but Luci's got family on the brain and she doesn't completely trust Claire, so she declines.

So once again, Luciana's got several problems. The first one is the cousins. Now the book makes this seem one-sided, like it's all Luci's fault. It isn't. The cousins are flat-out being assholes. She tells them when she's landing at the airport. Every one of them ignores her. Who does that? Assholes. And you know what, sure, maybe Luci does go on a bit about her experiences, but if that was my family member, I'd want to hear about it! How many kids get to do what she did? Not many! She's got a right to be proud of it and want to share it, not have Dick Boy Cousin #1 yawn at her and the others all laugh. Then they proceed to exclude her and she ends up accepting Claire's invitation. Who can blame her?

During the big party where the cousins are brushing up on their douchebaggery, a small earthquake hits and Luci's worried. Then she sees a crack in the foundation of her grandmother's house and everyone is worried. It turns out to be too dangerous for them to stay there, so it's off to one of the relatives' houses and that's when Luci learns her asshole cousins are leaving her out.

Have I mentioned she hasn't seen these people in SIX YEARS, she's only there for a few DAYS, and they're treating her like this?

I don't even care if the book's message is be a better listener. That's still not how you treat family.

So off Luci goes on a helicopter ride with Claire and Claire's famous dad. They meet the scientists working in the habitat and spend the night. Then the trouble begins when Claire gets mad at her dad, because he has to rush off to an unexpected meeting and not take the girls to see some geysers. Claire goes off in a rage, but Luci's happy because she cares more about the scientific work. She manages to get the three scientists to let her and grumpface Claire tag along and even gets to take a soil sample from deep within the earth.

And then she fucks it up when they get back and she ruins all the samples, so off the scientists go into the desert again, leaving the girls alone at the habitat.

That's when the bigger earthquake hits.

The bunk beds collapse, leaving claustrophobic Luci trapped between them. Claire talks her out of a panic attack and helps her get out, only to pass out from her own head injury. Luci works to fix that only to have Claire disappear on her, because she goes out into the desert with a head injury to look for her dad's helicopter. They have a fight out there with Luci finally saying she hasn't forgiven her for the almost drowning thing and she doesn't trust her. Claire doesn't blame her. But then the chemicals from the lab tent get a fire going and it's back to the action with Luci armed with a fire extinguisher and Claire a fire blanket. They save the habitat and go to sleep, then Claire's dad gets there in the morning.

So while talking with Claire, Luci learns that she should have listened more to her and realized that was also her problem with the cousins. She didn't express enough interest in what they were doing. Claire even says something like "You never asked."

Now here's my issue with that: communicating is a two-way street. You can't just sit back and wait to be asked to participate. Why should anyone coddle you? If you have a problem, do not wait for someone to ask you what's wrong. If you need to talk it out, YOU can initiate things. And don't think less of people for not asking, because why should they have to initiate a conversation about YOUR problem? Same goes for the thing with the cousins. Luciana took her turn talking, so instead of laughing at her and excluding her, how about you speak up and tell her about your own stuff instead of expecting her to ask you? Don't be so fucking passive.

Anyway, everyone's safe and sound. Luciana gets back to her family and then bonds with the one cousin when she asks about her photography. (Which she should not have had to do.) Then they all work together to have a New Year's party in the nearby park and surprise poor Grandma, who's lost her house because the foundation can't be fixed. So it all works out in the end.

Once again, Luciana is an excellent character stuck in a not so excellent storyline. The bones are there, but it's just not handled right. It would have been an easy fix, too. Have the cousins admit they were dicks and apologize. Have someone initiate a conversation without having to be asked about a topic. Have Claire say she could have told Luci she needed to talk about her dad.

LORE 2: Wicked Mortals

I was very excited to dig into this second Lore book and pleased I received it from Amazon the day after its release date.

Wicked Mortals is a bit of a misleading title though, because not every chapter is about mortals who are wicked.

Don't expect your modern serial killers either. The ones in these pages aren't very recent.

The book opens with H. H. Holmes, the American serial killer from the late 1800s. Other serial killers include a few different ax men, Elizabeth Bathory and Belle Gunness.

Then there are stories from broader topics such as changelings, witches, witch hunters, spontaneous human combustion, body snatchers, possessions, and doppelgängers. There was at least one flat out ghost story.

There were also chapters on the inspiration behind Jekyll and Hyde, John Dee, different Christmas season creatures, the rabbit baby hoax, and the truth behind the Pied Piper.

I quite enjoyed this, as I did the first one. Perhaps this one a bit moreso, because there were more stories that were new to me.