Girl Stuff

Lisi Harrison is back. 

I have a love/hate relationship with Lisi. Well, maybe not hate. Love/disappointment? Something like that.

Lisi is most known for The Clique, a middle grade series that lasted from 2004-2011, which was pretty long for that type of series back then. It was the heyday of Gossip Girl (though I always preferred its spinoff, The It Girl) and The Clique was basically a middle grade version of that with less adulty things but an equal amount of brand name-dropping. It was a bunch of rich kid drama with a few not so rich characters thrown into the mix. Lisi is impressive in that she's gifted at making up her own slang for her books. She does it quite realistically because it helps her characters feel real, even though it's not exactly the most intelligent-sounding slang ever. But to this day, I will still occasionally dub something "ah-mazing" and that is all Lisi. 

The Alphas series was a spinoff of The Clique, and then Lisi got her hands on Monster High, which is where my disappointment came in. MH was now infused with unrecognizable versions of Frankie, Draculaura (called Lala...fucking really?) and Clawdeen, as well as a forced-in Mary Sue character named Melody. The monsters were attending a normie high school and there was this whole hiding amongst the humans nonsense that made no sense in conjunction with the actual Monster High. I still don't understand why she crafted something so different from what MH was when the existing premise was just fine. So that was the beginning of my disappointment, followed by her Pretenders series, which was more the most adult end of young adult and never even finished. 

So honestly, I haven't even thought of her in many years. The second Pretenders book came out in 2014 and she's been out of my head since then basically. Cue my surprise when a book called Girl Stuff showed up in my suggesteds and...it's by Lisi. (As well as an even newer book called The Pack, which has middle school girls with animal powers. I just ordered it. I might even give the old MH books a rebuy and reread, since it's been so long and I'm less WTF about her changing things up. Oh, I'm still WTF, but less so.) 

I received Girl Stuff today and blasted through it and I loved it. It's the old Clique Lisi but even better because there's not a ton of rich girl brand name bull. These feel way more like real, accessible girls. There's an amusing clique called the Avas, because they're all named Ava, but they're not really mean girls. They're actually pretty nice. Just that shallow brand of popular. The premise is that there are three best friends who are going into seventh grade together. They're "nesties," neighbor besties, but they've never been in the same school before. So each one goes into the school year with her own big plan, only to of course have everything go wonky. 

Fonda is the middle girl on the cover. She's the youngest of 3 sisters and she's always been left behind, which definitely happens to kids with popular older siblings. So her goal is to make her clique the popular ones, but they're going to still be kind people, not mean. 

Drew, the blonde skatergirl, has one goal: to get her crush to like her back. She's a very individualistic type. Think Dawn Schafer but into skateboarding and nursing instead of saving the world.

And Ruthie, who was my fave, is basically a genius. I love how smart she is. Her big thing is adjusting to being put in the advanced placement group, which somehow happens with no warning. Not believable considering how absolutely intensive this program is. She doesn't even get lunch or some weekends with Fonda and Drew. 

The book follows the girls as they navigate through their friendship ups and downs. It's pretty predictable and not the most unique thing ever (like at all), but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. I've only had the one short book and I already like the characters more than the ones in The Friendship List, which I'm also reading. So I'm now looking forward to the second one, which comes out in late September, two days before my birthday.

The Final Girl Support Group

Man, this thing was a wild ride. I got it earlier today and read it almost all in one go, only taking a short break for dinner. 

The premise is pretty simple. The slasher movies in this reality are based on true stories and the final girls of those stories are real people. It's decades later for most of them, so we're not talking teenage girls anymore, but older women. Six of them meet for a support therapy group, but right away, bad things start happening and it becomes clear that someone is after the final girls. 

This worked really well because the protagonist definitely felt like a final girl. Final girls aren't infallible. They make a shitload of mistakes and our main character does just that. She's not entirely likeable, but not one of these characters is. They're not unlikeable, but if you need an endearing cast to read a book, you're not going to find that here.

I loved the fast pace and the constant changes, plus the world-building with the parodies of actual slasher franchises. Like there are their own versions of Jason and Freddy and Leatherface. My biggest problem is the ambiguity regarding the "Dream King," which is the Nightmare on Elm Street parody. It feels like there's a lot more story there and it's never explained what exactly happened to that character in the past. It's the one that has more of a supernatural element to it and it doesn't quite fit in with the reality of the rest of the book, especially one scene at the end. But that's a fairly minor nitpick. 

If you like horror at all, I highly recommend checking this out. I'd call it a thriller novel, not horror, but the plot's basis is from horror movies, so there's crossover.

Disney's Twisted Tales: Mirror, Mirror

Jen Calonita is added to the line-up of authors reworking these twisted versions of Disney movies. She's written this one, based on Snow White, and the next book in the series, which is based on Frozen. 

This is the weakest of the series so far, because it barely changes the story. It makes the queen a little more evil, because she kills Snow White's mother, who is the Evil Queen's younger sister. She banishes Snow's father and tells the people he abandoned them and his daughter. Then it goes right into the regular plot: Snow is a threat to her beauty and her crown so she has the huntsman kill her, but he can't and she finds the dwarves. The biggest difference here is what happens after because Snow is determined to take back her kingdom, instead of singing and playing house. The prince finds her and takes her to her father, who says he physically can't return to the kingdom because of the Evil Queen's curse. So it's up to the prince and the dwarves to team up with Snow and get the local villagers to help rise up against the queen. 

It is nice to see Snow and the prince spend more time together and more realistically develop feelings for each other. Then near the end comes the cover twist, which is the prince getting the poisoned apple, but he's poisoned for, like, a couple hours before Snow kisses him and breaks the spell. 

It was an enjoyable book, but not nearly as good as the others. It's only lightly twisted and even more lightly dark. Snow can't even kill the queen. She just sticks her in the dungeon after destroying the mirror after a bunch of simpering instances of her thinking about how she could never kill anyone. She's a witch who killed your mother, banished your father, neglected you and then tried to kill you repeatedly. Just fucking kill her. Sheesh. 

I'd say read this one is you're a bit of a completist like me who wants to read the whole series, but if you're just picking and choosing from this series, skip it.