Little Mermaid: The Same Old Song

This one's got a basic plot. The sisters are getting ready to perform a musical gala that's important because Triton invited the Mer-Rajah of the Indian Ocean to come. Sebastian gets called away to conduct a jazz band and Triton orders he go, leaving the sisters on their own to prepare and perform.

Some of them want to try something new: performing a play Attina wrote. Others want to do what's expected of them.

As expected, both projects fail on their own. It's only when Ariel (of course) gets the idea to do a musical that things work out and the performance is a success.

Sister Facts:

Andrina is the most athletic.

Attina confirmed the "bookworm of the family."

Aquata is a skilled ballerina.

In Attina's play, there are six sisters with talents. These seem to correspond to the girls' talents: dance (Aquata), singing (Ariel), athletics (Andrina), beauty (Adella), and juggling (this is mentioned later to be Alana). There's also mention of an artist. By process of elimination, this has to be Attina or Arista, but I think it might be Arista, as Attina ends up playing the singing sister in the play.

Ariel isn't a good dancer.

Attina's the only sister who can hit the high notes.

There's an error on page 52, where Aquata is drawn instead of Adella.

Poor Adella thinks she doesn't have as much talent as the others, which is why she focuses so much on her looks. She feels they're all she really has. This might be when she became one of my two favorites. (The other, of course, is Attina.)

Little Mermaid: Reflections of Arsulu

This one's got a pretty basic plot, but it also has the most appearances of the sisters other than Ariel. Ariel's pretty much been the focus of the first two books, but while she takes the lead in solving the problem, she shares the spotlight far more equally with her sisters.

Adella befriends a new mermaid named Arsulu, who is searching for her lost betrothed. Arsulu seems very sweet and everyone likes her, but not long after her arrival, the sisters are all at each other's throats. Only Ariel is suspicious and it's she who discovers that Arsulu is Ursula in disguise and of course, it's Ariel who saves the day.

The best part of this book is learning some more sister facts!

Alana is really good with sea creatures.

Aquata takes ballet class. 

Arista took a cooking course.

Andrina's a bit wild and also rides sea horses like Arista.

Attina loves reading.

Adella is very quick to think the source of every issue is envy.

Little Mermaid: Nefazia Visits the Palace

Ah, this one. The sisters do not act well in this book. The best character is Nefazia, who is just fabulous. She's the strong, adult female figure the girls really need as a role model.

The book opens with the sisters awed by the procession arriving at the palace from the Indian Ocean. The visitor is Nefazia, an old friend of Triton's from his youth. He lived with her family for two years while studying. Nefazia is gracious, charming, adventurous, and tells amusing stories about young Triton. The mersisters are all smitten...except Aquata.

Aquata does not show her best colors in this book. She feels her position as intended ruler of the kingdom is threatened by Nefazia, because she thinks Nefazia and Triton will marry. She manipulates the other sisters into going along with a series of stupid pranks designed to drive Nefazia away. Ariel agrees because she's afraid a stepmother will restrict her freedom. And she overhears Nefazia and Triton discussing how "all this will change" which backs up her fears.

After a couple failed pranks, Ariel happens to follow Nefazia to the surface, where she lures a ship toward her, then sends it away, telling it that mermaids are only a dream. Nefazia shares Ariel's interest with the human world and Ariel boldly shows her the grotto where she keeps her human treasures. Ariel and Nefazia form a strong bond and she sticks up for Nefazia when her sisters want to keep plotting. Attina and Alana lean toward siding with Ariel, while Arista and Adella are still on Aquata's side.

The newest plot is fake letters. Andrina slides to Ariel's side, but even though they agree, the sisters on her side still won't tell Ariel what the plot is. Aquata has written a letter to Nefazia, notifying her that her sister is sick, so Nefazia rushes to leave on her own, leaving a note for Triton to tell her staff to follow. Aquata destroys Nefazia's real note to Triton, leaving a nasty one in its place. This time Andrina seems more on Aquata's side, while it's Adella who's wavering. Aquata and Arista continue to be complete bitches. Like they really do not look good here at all. Very selfish and cruel. And it only gets worse, because Sebastian appears, saying that Triton just sent word that a pod of killer whales is nearby and everyone must stay in the palace, as killer whales eat merpeople.

The seven sisters race after Nefazia with Sebastian poking along behind. Aquata confesses to writing the letter and the whales pass above them, so Nefazia directs them to lie still and be silent. They almost make it until idiot Arista says something loudly. Then one whale comes down to check them out and they flee. Nefazia distracts the whale from Arista and Adella, who are lagging, and Ariel goes to help her. Nefazia makes a conch shell into a horn, as she did in an old story she told the girls at dinner her first night, but she's hurt before she can use it. Ariel saves the day by blowing into the shell and making the whale think its pod is calling it.

The plan comes out and Nefazia says she and Triton think of each other as siblings, not romantically at all. Triton arrives then, angry everyone is out of the palace and in danger. Nefazia covers for the girls. Triton says her packages from the Indian Ocean have arrived and the girls head home to see the real reason Nefazia is visiting. Triton asked for her help in redecorating the sisters' rooms to reflect their increasing maturity. (Ha. Not so mature at all.) Nefazia has Ariel's room redone with an abstract mural of the sunset over the ocean's surface and a small wishing star in the corner. Ariel ends the book by saying she wants to grow up to be like Nefazia.

I do like this book because of the character of Nefazia. She's fantastic. But it took a while for me to like Arista and Aquata after this. Aquata's childish, stubborn insecurity and Arista's cruelty and stupidity are hard to forgive.

Sister Facts:

Aquata once again named eldest.

Arista loves sea horses.

Adella's interest in fashion mentioned again.

Little Mermaid: Green-Eyed Pearl

I love my new doll set of Ariel and her sisters, so I decided to do a quick reread of the chapter books that made me really adore the girls.

These are short, simple chapter books written between 1992 and 1994.

The books have lovely colors and cute black-and-white illustrations inside.

The first book is about an unwanted guest at the palace. Spoiled Pearl is the type that convinces adults she's sweet as pie, but she's actually quite the snotty, selfish, manipulative mermaid.

Being the same age, poor Ariel is saddled with her. Pearl sees Ariel and Flounder carrying loads of glasses to Ariel's secret grotto and uses the knowledge that one of King Triton's daughters likes human objects to manipulate Ariel. Ariel's forced to basically be Pearl's servant and the bitchy mermaid gets them into a couple really dangerous situations. Thankfully, it finally comes out that Pearl did not see Ariel's grotto, just the glasses, so Ariel dumps the glasses and she's no longer under Pearl's control.

I love these books for their details about Ariel's older sisters. There's a lot of debate about the girls' birth order, but I've always stuck with what the books (and the early comic series) say. I'll be summarizing the plot of each book and then listing off what new tidbits we learned about the sisters.

Aquata is named the eldest.

Adella is shown to be vain and into beauty stuff.

Sadly, that's all for this book. It's mostly centered on Ariel and Pearl.

James Howe's Also Known as Elvis

I totally forgot to do this review!

The fourth book in the Misfits series focuses on Skeezie, who I always liked, but with this book, firmly places himself as my favorite character.

This one is set during the summer after the events of the first three books. Addie, Bobby and Joe are all going on vacations, some of them to multiple places. So Skeezie faces a bunch of time alone.

His mother is struggling with working two jobs and wants him to get one, so he finds work at the Candy Kitchen, the gang's favorite hangout. He quickly becomes a valuable employee, despite his young age, and his friendship with Steffi, the waitress that first appeared in the first book, deepens.

However, of course we've got to have some conflict, so enter Skeezie's dad, who left them I forget how many years before. The book follows Skeezie's ever-changing feelings about his dad, who has a new life in Rochester, NY (ha, I used to go there a lot) alongside his new girlfriend. He wants to marry her, which is why he's come back to town, to divorce Skeezie's mom.

Skeezie also struggles with an odd relationship with Becca, Addie's childhood friend who was terrible to her in Addie's book, then they ended up being friends. Becca acts like she likes Skeezie and talks him into helping her pick out a dog at the shelter, but when she's with her popular friends, she treats him like shit. While they're at the shelter, Skeezie falls in love with a dog, despite his tragic past with his childhood dog, and starts to realize Becca's not actually that into him.

Skeezie's dad invites him to come live with him and he eventually agrees and is surprised on the day they leave when he sees that his dad has adopted the dog he wanted from the shelter. But on the way to Rochester, Skeezie has a change of heart and realizes he belongs back at home with his mom, sisters and friends. Skeezie's dad is disappointed, but he takes him home and his mom even lets him keep the dog.

The entire story is framed by adult Skeezie talking to his unborn son and it's revealed at the end that he ended up marrying Steffi and they own and run the Candy Kitchen. Which we knew from the last part of Bobby's book, but it was still cool.

I think this was the best-written of the four books. I can't say exactly why. I just really like Skeezie.

DIARY

You know, I just realized I never reviewed Crush here. I'm pretty shocked.

Svetlana Chmakova's Berrybrook Middle School series is one of my favorite things ever. Each one of these graphic novels is a precious work. I honestly cannot praise them enough. Just go read them.

Diary, unfortunately, is more of a companion book than another addition to the graphic novel series. It has a calendar, a giant chunk of pages to use as a sketchbook, and another giant chunk of lined pages to write in.

However, it also contains two very important stories and another that's more for fun.

The fun story is a space tale written and illustrated by Jensen. You can imagine how that goes. It falls in between the two actual comic format new stories.

SPOILER WARNING

The first new story focuses on Jaime and Peppi, the characters from Awkward. This time, the point of view is Jaime's, as the pair works on a time capsule and he worries about Peppi's crush on someone named Jesse. The kids in his Science Club turn his minor bafflement over this into full-blown worry that she's going to ditch him and he's going to lose his only friend or that he's going to become some horrible third wheel.

SERIOUSLY.


SPOILERS.





So it comes out that Jesse is actually just a celebrity crush. I loved the discussion with the theatre group, because Jesse has come out as nonbinary and one of the characters says they use those pronouns, too.

And then here comes this adorable girl named Mei who hands Jaime what appears to be a love note and then Peppi comes over. This has SO GOT TO BE CONTINUED.

The third new story is a comic about Maribella, another character we last saw in Awkward before she moved away. She's having a hard time adjusting to her new, too tiny small town, where the kids are just flat out rude twats. Almost all of them are terrible bullies. She gets invited to a slumber party, which she's excited about, until the blonde bitch hosting it informs her that she's a charity invite, along with another girl, who looks angry and ends up leaving early. The bitchy clique watches scary movies and tell stories, which end up bothering Maribella so much that she vomits.

Naturally, this leads to a new nickname and further bullying once they're all back in class. Maribella stands up to them, saying this isn't right and that everyone has embarrassing moments. She calls out everyone on their bullying, but it falls on deaf ears until the coolest Chmakova character I've seen aside from Felipe steps in. He calmly sits in his seat and points out embarrassing things three other classmates have done, which shames them into shutting up. Maribella steps in and stops him from embarrassing anyone else. It is kind of frustrating, because the bullies weren't made into better people. They were basically shut up because someone else bullied them into doing so. So none of these new people is really a good character...yet. But this new boy (I think it's a boy anyway) and his spiky-haired friend named Hedgehog (Hedge) seem like they have real potential. I'd love to see another story set in this new town. But the most frustrating thing is that the new guy doesn't even get a name! He reminds me of Felipe a bit. Headphones around the neck. Cool hair with a floop in the face, although his actually covers half his face and Felipe's is less so. I want to know who this is! I even asked Svetlana on Facebook. Heh.

If you're a Berrybrook fan like me, Diary is a must have.

James Howe's Addie on the Inside

I had planned to have both books 3 and 4 done today, but I got sidetracked watching a bunch of spooky TV and only read a few chapters of the fourth book. Another day!

Addie on the Inside is the third book in Howe's The Misfits series. I did not go into this book thinking I would like it for three reasons.

1) Addie was my least favorite Misfit by a long shot.

2) She's even worse in the second book, because she lets her boyfriend be verbally abusive to Joe without nearly enough repercussions.

3) This whole goddamn thing is written in verse.

I'm not sure I've ever made it known, but I do not care for poetry. I was never into it as a kid and by the time I got through undergrad English classes where they forced you to dissect every fucking syllable, I despised it.

On the plus side, I figured a book with loads of pages less than half-filled would be a fast read.

Well, I was right about the fast read. But I was wrong about thinking I wouldn't like it. I actually stayed up until almost 5:30am finishing it.

Addie on the Inside is what her character needed to make her likeable. You get to be in her head and barely have anything to do with anyone else for the entire book, and it makes her so much better a character.

There's a new character in this little world. She's Addie's childhood friend, Becca, and she's turned into a popular mean girl. So a lot of the book involves drama with mean girls, moreso than the male bullying Joe receives in the last book.

There's also a lot of boyfriend drama. The outcome of that is very favorable, in my opinion. No spoilers here though.

Addie's grandmother is my favorite adult character aside from Joe's Aunt Pam. Though Mr. Daly continues to be pretty awesome, too.

The verse constantly changes type, so it's not boring. And a lot of it is basically prose written in verse form.

I recommend this one along with the first two. And I'm going to go ahead and recommend the fourth as well. I've loved what I've read so far. Skeezie might just be my favorite.