AMERICAN GIRL: Melody

 
Well, this has certainly been a long time coming. I intended to add Melody to my AG historical reviews years ago, but I never got around to finishing her mystery. And because I never finished Melody, I also never finished Julie, so I have not one but two AG mysteries I've never read! Time to fix that. 

I just finished rereading No Ordinary Sound. It's definitely a powerful book and it made me emotional a few times. I'll do a quick cast list before moving on to the plot synopsis. 

So we've got 9-year-old Melody, whose varied interests are singing, gardening, flower arranging, and cars. It's only mentioned a couple times briefly, but Melody is really into cars. Well, she IS from Detroit. Heh. 

Melody's mother is a teacher and her father is a factory worker. I'm not sure what exactly he does. He was a really good mechanic as part of the Tuskegee Airmen, but even in 1964 Detroit, better jobs for black people aren't plentiful. 

Melody's grandmother was a singer, who now teaches piano and voice lessons. Her grandfather owns a flower shop. 

Melody has three older siblings. Yvonne is in college down in Tuskegee, where both her parents went. Dwayne is supposed to go to college but wants to pursue a Motown career. Lila is the family scholar. She's good at math, science, reading and basically anything academic. 

Then there are Melody's cousins, two parents and their daughter. The mother Tish owns a salon and her husband Charles is a pharmacist. Thier daughter Val is Melody's best friend.

Her other best friend is named Sharon. Then we've got her rival Diane, who also sings.

We've basically got most of the book featuring the daily life of this extended family. Melody gets a solo in the fall church program. Yvonne comes home for the summer and is refused a job at the bank because she's black, so badass Melody marches in and closes her account, saying exactly why she's doing it. Yvonne ends up kicking ass in sales at their grandfather's flower shop, so he hires her. Dwayne struggles with his parents wanting him to go to college when he has Motown opportunities. He moves out right before an audition, which his group does well enough at to go out on tour. Melody's cousins move to Detroit from Birmingham due to all the race-based violence. 

There are several incidents of racism throughout the book. Yvonne's failure to get hired at the bank, as I mentioned. Dwayne and Melody being profiled when they're just trying to shop. The cousins having trouble finding a home to buy because of racists in the neighborhoods. All of the men struggle with job-based racism. 

Inspired by MLK, who she got to hear speak, Melody finally figures out which song to sing for the fall program. She practices and earns the respect of Diane, her now former rival and new friend. 

Sadly, then the Birmingham church bombing happens, and Melody is profoundly affected by this incident and the death of four little girls. Medically, it would have to be coincidence, but she develops laryngitis the same day she learns of the bombing. After she recovers, she freezes on the steps of her church and can't go inside. She loses her voice again, not from medical reasons, but because she's so utterly freaked out by the bombing that she's terrified of her own church and overwhelmed by her feelings. 

With the help of her friends and family, Melody regains her voice and is able to sing for the four little girls who no longer can. 

I really enjoyed this book and all of the characters. It can be hard to read at times, but that is how historical things are. It's important to tell these stories and not shy away from the truth, in hopes that someday we'll be better. I really wish I could say things were a lot better now than in 1964, but the same problems still exist in ever-shifting forms and that's what makes these stories hard for me sometimes. 

Melody's second volume is mostly more light-hearted. On her New Year's Day tenth birthday, the pastor encourages his congregation to help make positive changes in their community in the new year. Melody eventually decides to help clean up her neighborhood park. She and some of the other kids form a Junior Block Club and set to work on their project, which takes up most of the book.

Val's family finally gets a house. 

Everyone participates in a protest against the store that profiled Dwayne and Melody in the first book. 

Melody sings backup for her brother on his first song to be recorded on vinyl. 

Melody, her mother and grandfather, and Val all take a trip to Alabama to visit the old family farm, which Melody has never seen. It's mostly gone, but there are memories. Then they visit her grandfather's older sister and it's there that they learn Yvonne has been arrested. She's been working with the Freedom Summer campaign to help black people get their chance to vote. Naturally, groups like the KKK don't like that. Three students were murdered and the book references that incident, though they're still missing in the events of the book. It's mentioned in the notes at the end though. Yvonne broke her wrist during the arrest, but her mother and grandfather got her out of jail. She doesn't want to stop working for the cause though, so she'll be getting right back to it. 

This one was good, too, but not the emotional roller coaster of the first book. 

I really want to like this. I do and I don't from different points of view. 

Melody accompanies Val and Tish to a meeting of the Fair Housing Committee on Belle Isle, a big island in the Detroit River. There she meets Leah Roth, a 14-year-old Jewish girl whose mother is also on the committee and friends with Tish. Melody is instantly wowed by Leah because she's very fashionable, but she's also nice. Val isn't a fan, though she won't say why. 

Melody starts a friendship with Leah, though it causes a rift between her and Val. Val won't ever give a concrete reason as to why she doesn't like Leah. Her excuses have a million holes. I think it's basically because she doesn't want to share Melody, but she already shares Melody with Sharon and Diane, so what's one more person? The whole Val doesn't like Leah plotline was pretty weak. 

Melody meets Leah's grandfather, a Polish botanist who was trapped in the ghettoes during the Nazi invasion. He managed to get to the US with a clipping of a rare lady's slipper orchid, but his ill treatment ruined his health forever. He's only 68 but he isn't doing very well, and Leah is very upset about his health. She's found a doctor in New York who might be able to treat him, but it's expensive and her grandfather isn't willing to try. 

There's a flower show at the conservatory on Belle Isle and Melody's grandfather is taking part. The guy in charge comes across as racist, so of course when some rare orchids are stolen, this asshole points the police to Melody's grandfather because he'd caught the two of them in the orchid room and been pissed about it. 

Melody and Val go to the party that night determined to look for clues to clear Poppa's name. Leah and her grandfather are also in attendance, because he's giving a talk about orchids. He's brought his very rare orchid and Leah is all worked up about it. She ends up knocking it over, the conservatory guy tries to rescue it, another guy tries to steal it, and both Leah and Melody try to stop him. Everyone gets carted off to the police station, where Leah's story comes out. The thief is related to the man that helped Leah's grandfather get to the US with the rare orchid. He's an unscrupulous plant dealer. He sees how Leah cares about her grandfather's help and it's him that shows her the article about the doctor in New York, trying to get her to help him steal orchids so they can split the profits. She assisted him in the theft of the first ones from the conservatory, but she tried to stop him from stealing the lady's slipper. Her grandfather basically tells her he's lived a full life and he's ready when the time comes, so she needs to accept it. Melody's grandfather's name is cleared. 

From a character standpoint, I really liked this. Leah is likeable when she's not being a thief. Her grandfather is awesome. I liked how they told about Jewish people helping black people with civil rights issues. All of that was done well. Val is out of character and her storyline really doesn't add anything to the book, so it felt unnecessary, but everything else character-wise was good. 

Oh, one thing that I didn't like. This book is clearly set a year after her second book. Melody turned 10 in that book, yet she's said to be 10 here. She isn't. She's 11. Work on your math better, author.

As a mystery though, this is terrible. It was very apparent from the second time you saw this red-haired thief that he was gonna be the bad guy and that Leah was involved. Once Melody learned the grandfather's story, it was equally apparent what Leah's motivation was. It was too obvious. 

Overall, I enjoyed Melody's books a lot and I'm glad I finally got around to finishing them. 

Daughter of Sparta

This is not one of those ancient Greece set books where women behave as they actually would have had to, so if you can't set that sense of disbelief aside, this one is not for you.  

The Spartans really don't seem like the type that would ever let an outsider female learn their warrior ways, so right off the bat, this book is unbelievable. That's the main premise of the beginning. Daphne and her two older brothers are outsiders, adopted by one of the politicians of Sparta, so they're raised somewhat privileged. The eldest is married and a stick in the mud. The younger brother you barely get to meet, though he comes across as irresponsible. Daphne herself is your typical feminist protagonist that feels very anachronistic. She wins a duel against a male warrior and then is allowed to compete in this men-only super important race when her second brother doesn't show up. If you can make it past these scenes without being completely taken out of the story, you should be good for the rest of the book. 

Daphne plows into the nearby woods, tracking the deer whose neck she must get a wreath from, alongside her maybe crush and some other dudes. Separated from the others, she runs into Artemis. The gods make their presence known very early and don't ever go away. Artemis is threatening and scary. She gives Daphne the Midas Curse, which means liquid gold runs across her skin constantly and it allows Artemis to have a hold on her. Artemis wants Daphne to help Olympus regain nine things that were stolen from it, because the loss of these things is draining the power of the Olympians. She turns her brother who never showed up at the race into a deer to really convince Daphne she's got to help her. 

So Daphne leaves Sparta alongside Apollo, who also is on this quest for reasons that are layered and don't get revealed until nearer the end. Lykou, Daphne's maybe crush, follows them but is caught by Apollo and turned into a large black wolf. It is mentioned a few times that maybe the gods should stop turning people into animals if they want their help. 

I'm going to sum up the action fairly quickly and spoilery. Daphne and Apollo travel to see Prometheus, who gives cryptic prophetic advice only to Daphne. Then they're off to Knossos, because Minos has three of the nine things. They meet Theseus there and he joins their group. Daphne battles the minotaur and wins. She frees the three things that were stolen and it's revealed that they're the Muses. The group is then off to Thebes to stop the "plague of Thebes," which anyone with any myth knowledge is going to know is the Sphinx. On the way, they get captured by asshole centaurs and fight them alongside Hippolyta of the Amazons, who briefly is part of the team. The Sphinx scenes are my favorite of the questy battle-type scenes. There are a lot of other monsters captured by the Sphinx and Daphne frees them all. Many of them promise to come to her aid in the future, though that is never played out in this book. I'm hoping the author remembers it and we see at least one of them in the sequel. Three more Muses are now free. With the Sphinx defeated, Theseus could go on to rule Athens but instead chooses to complete the quest and he's killed by Minos in the next scene. Minos has been stalking them so the group has to battle him, as well as Phobos and Deimos. After killing them all, the group moves on. They go to Eleusis to hopefully catch Persephone there and they do, so we meet her and Demeter. Then it's down to the Underworld with Persephone guiding the way. At the Styx, Apollo trades his passage for the freedom of two more Muses. Daphne is on her own from there on out. She battles Arachne and is fatally poisoned, then faces Ares and Hermes, who have both been helping the big bad who stole the Muses in the first place. Daphne stabs them both, thinking she killed them, but she didn't. They're out of the fight though. Then Daphne has to fight the big bad herself: Nyx. She can see the sky in the Underworld, so she reaches up and plucks Artemis's bow from the crescent moon. Apollo explained a few times earlier in the story that he and his sister each have a bow with a single shot. Artemis's can kill, Apollo's can resurrect. So Daphne uses Artemis's death shot to kill Nyx, though only her body, and at the same time, Apollo appears and uses his shot to resurrect Daphne. She wakes in Olympus and meets almost all the gods. Zeus makes her promise to become the Storm of Olympus and battle for them again in the future. She agrees, but only after making him swear to keep her family and friends out of it this time. Then she heads for Sparta, alongside a restored to human Lykou and Pyrrhus, the brother that Artemis turned into a deer. 

If that giant paragraph is a mostly quick summary, you can see how much stuff goes on in this book. And those were only the major plot points. One of the book's best features is that it is absolutely action-packed and mostly fast-paced. The hits always keep coming for poor Daphne. 

Let's see, where to begin now that we've covered plot? 

There are a lot of mythological aspects to this, though none of them are accurate. I think even the Goddess Girls series does myth more accurately than this book, but I warned about that from the start. Obviously, this is the myth of Apollo and Daphne, but the only thing replicated here is that Apollo constantly flirts with Daphne. She's not a river nymph. He's not spelled by Eros. She does flee from his advances, but she's not physically running away. And she does give in a few times. Their romance is an okay aspect of the book. You can see her feelings progress over the weeks they're doing this quest, though his are there from the start and you wonder alongside Daphne how much of them are real. She keeps her distance because she knows the myths of Apollo and doesn't trust any god very much. So they kiss a few times, but it goes nowhere really. Maybe poor Lykou has a chance after all. Other myths covered are the ones involving Theseus and the minotaur and the sphinx. Again, nothing like the myths. Ariadne gives Daphne a map of the labyrinth and she doesn't give a shit about Theseus. And Daphne is the one to best the sphinx. 

The language in the book takes some getting used to because it's peppered through with Greek words. There's a glossary in the back but zero pronunciation guide. Authors, if you're going to continually use words from other languages, DO include pronunciation in your glossaries! The majority of people who read this book are not going to have taken ancient Greek like I did. 

Daphne is a mostly likeable character. She's a bit on the Mary Sue side. Like she already broke boundaries by being a female Spartan warrior, but she also has to be the one to kill the minotaur AND the sphinx? And beat Minos, Hermes and Ares? And Arachne? And a lot of others? I get that the author is going for some girl power heroic thing here, but it comes across as a little bit too much. Flip the myths on their heads, but if you get too superheroish, it gets to be too much. Daphne's backstory is interesting because her mother died in childbirth and there's a lot of mystery going on here. It's revealed over the course of the book that water can restore her (though it doesn't always) and that she has ichor in her veins, so she's not human. She's some sort of demigod. Her father remains a mystery at the end and her mother isn't well explained either. There's this whole thing with Princess Koronis, a human that Apollo fell for, but she loved another, so he and Artemis basically destroyed Koronis's kingdom. He got into a fight with Zeus over it and Zeus eventually punished him by making him protector of the Muses, which is why he's along on this quest. But it's said the Koronis thing happened a very long time ago, yet it also seems hinted that she's Daphne's mom because Daphne looks just like her. It's confusing and it needs a lot of work. But Daphne is definitely some sort of demigod and she has powers that she'll eventually learn. This somewhat helps with her ability to constantly survive and win all these big fights, but without any big reveal of her heritage, it's still frustrating. But yeah, she's pretty likeable. 

Apollo is okay. I didn't believe in him as the love interest because I had the same reservations Daphne did. His constant flirting gets annoying, but he holds his own in several scenes. I felt the same way about Theseus. The male characters aren't nearly as fleshed out as Daphne. It's clear she's the sole focus in the author's mind, but that weakens her supporting cast a lot. I cared more about wolf Lykou than Apollo or Theseus. 

The other gods you don't see much. Demeter and Persephone were both great. Hades is, too. Persephone explains that she wanted to come to the Underworld, so you've got the nicer version of Hades/Persephone here. Hypnos was the other standout, as he helped Daphne a couple times, even though he's Nyx's son. Hermes betrayed Olympus because he wanted to take over while Ares just wanted constant war. Aphrodite and Hera both dislike Daphne because of the Ares thing. 

Oh, Hippolyta. She was awesome. She got better characterization in a few pages than the males did the entire book, I thought. I think she'll be back in the sequel, as she mentioned Penthesilea and the second one covers the Trojan War. 

I also liked this version of Ariadne and wished we saw more of her. 

Again, it's clear the author gives more thought to her female cast than male. I get the intention behind it, but when you're dealing with a co-ed ensemble cast, it's not the best approach. 

All in all, this wasn't a bad book. A little YA flowery in some places, but on the other hand, for fuck's sake, if you have the money to buy horses and food constantly, buy some clean clothes. I got tired of Daphne saying how dirty she was. It wasn't too heavy on the romance and definitely went more for the action and story, which I agree with. I'm hoping the sequel is the same but we clear up some of Daphne's backstory mystery. I also hope she doesn't end up as the star of the Trojan War and Troy will somehow win just because she's there. Make her a little less heroic, please. We get it. Women can be written as heroes in Greek myth, too, but take it down a couple notches. 

Reality Check

Ah, early Jen Calonita is not great. This one was written a little after Sleepaway Girls, which I think is the only other non-series book of hers I've reviewed. I really enjoyed Belles and her later work, but you can tell she was finding her footing as an author with these early ones. 

I don't remember much about Sleepaway Girls, but from my review, it seems I liked some of the characters. That's more than I can say for this one. 

Reality Check is about four teens from Long Island. Apparently, they're from the more small beach town side than the richy rich side. Main character Charlie (Charlotte) is working in the small cafe in town when she's discovered by a tourist that turns out to be a reality TV producer. Said producer wants her and her three besties to star in a cute, down to earth reality show about small town life on Long Island. 

Yeah, that won't end badly. 

The girls start fighting almost immediately. Charlie's love interest doesn't want to be on camera. One of the girls pulls away from the others after catching the attention of the rich girl she's always wanted to be like. Then the girls start to realize that they're being manipulated by the execs and forced into dramatic scenes and fake dates. They team up with their producer, who's the underling of the one who discovered them, and mastermind a live show, then use that as a platform to expose how they were treated and how scripted reality is totally fake. 

A quick look at the cast and then we'll be done with this review. 

Charlie: She's a Type A who loves to organize things, but she's also a goody-goody. She's likeable but also pretty bland. Black hair. 

Brooke: She's a farm girl obsessed with people not thinking of her as such. Social climber. Wants designer clothes and gets them at outlets. Wants equal screentime with Charlie and can't stand the fact that Charlie was picked to be the star and she wasn't. Once they're filming, she catches the attention of Marleyna, the Paris Hilton-esque rich girl Brooke has always idolized, even though Marleyna was a bully to her when they were kids. Brooke is a thoroughly unlikeable character and drops her friends in favor of reality TV and how she thinks it can get her away from the farm forever. 

Hallie: The gorgeous boy-crazy one. She's tan and brunette. I feel like they wanted to make her more than just white but didn't. She waitresses at her parents' popular seafood restaurant on the water. She really has zero character aside from this. She's likeable, but you don't get to know much about her. 

Keiran: The blonde. She has younger siblings she's forced to babysit for a lot and the execs want her off the show because they say her life is too boring. She feels like the smart one, except I do think she's a pushover when it comes to her free time. She's making several thousand per episode. Pay for a goddamn babysitter yourself and have some alone time. If your parents are too busy to parent, they shouldn't have had that many kids. I liked her the best of the four, but like Hallie, you don't learn much about her. 

The most likeable character in the book is Zac, Charlie's love interest, who's smart, funny and not interested in fame one single bit. 

Overall, this book isn't good. It's not a total waste of time, but it's not well-written, the characterization is weak, and there are rookie mistakes like putting Hallie in a totally different outfit two pages after she was described wearing something else. The outfit descriptions are unnecessary and don't work as well as they do in series like The Clique, It Girl and Poseur. They're clunky here and they tend to be repetitive. It's not horrible, but I've read a lot better YA girl drama books. The best thing about it is that they used Pullips as the cover models. 

Goddess Girls 28

The 28th Goddess Girls book finally gives Artemis her third focus book. Her last was #7! 

This one retells the obscure myth of Alpheus the river god and his unwanted pursuit of Arethusa the sea nymph, as well as the variant where Alpheus pursues Artemis herself. I love that they're getting obscure with the myths. 

Artemis is protector of the nymphs, so they come to her for help, though she thinks they could try a little harder to solve their own problems. Arethusa drank from Alpheus's river without permission and he took her special cup, which unbeknownst to him, increases any magical powers the bearer has. To get her cup back, she has to agree to go out with him. She's devastated by this and four other nature nymphs call upon Artemis to help her. 

Artemis has difficulty bargaining with Alpheus though and she gets a bit in over her head with this one. He cheats during a contest and then she's the one who's supposed to go out with him. She asks why he's so dead set on a date that he's relying on trickery, but he won't tell. With the help of the other GGs and the nymphs, Artemis comes up with a plan, but ends up skirting around it so Arethusa ends up voicing the same idea herself. Alpheus said he liked Artemis so much that he could pick her out of every girl in the world, so they gather fifty nymphs and the four GGs, all dress in nymph chitons, hide their hair under leafy caps, and smear mud all over themselves. Alpheus tries a couple tricky plans, but the girls stop him and he guesses incorrectly, though he ends up choosing a nymph that actually does like him. He's relieved that he's still himself and Artemis learns later that Poseidon decided to trick him. He told Alpheus that Zeus decreed every boy had to get a date before his 13th birthday or he'd turn into slugs. It's pretty stupid and Alpheus seems to clever to fall for it, but he did. 

The B plot is that Artemis and her crush Actaeon have a fight. They make up at the end and it's he who tells her about Poseidon's trick. 

The C plot is the other GGs finally helping Artemis clean her damn room. Considering the clean clothes spell Aphrodite did took literally seconds, GG 'verse Artemis is honestly pretty gross. I'm hoping she sticks to the organizational system her friends helped her with because ew. Artemis deserves better than to be represented as such a dirty being. 

Definitely not my favorite one, but I do appreciate the obscure myth and I liked seeing a lot of older characters like Echo and Minthe. And meeting new nymphs. We meet Syke (fig tree), Karya (nuts), Pitys (pine tree) and Britomartis. Britomartis is interesting because I'd never heard of her and apparently, she was like the Artemis of Crete. In myth, she's also called Dictynna/Diktynne, the goddess of Mount Dicte/Dikte, where Zeus was born. In this book, Britomartis hates her name and wants to be called Dicte. I liked her character because she was a bit on the negative side yet not a bad character. So yeah, all in all, a good addition to the series. Next up is Elpis (hope). 

Goddess Girls 27

I swear, one of my worst reading habits is letting new Goddess Girls books sit for like a year before finally finishing the previous year's one right as the current year's one comes out. Artemis just got a new book that should be arriving later today, so here I am, finally finishing Hecate's today. 

I'm honestly not even done with it yet, but I had thoughts I wanted to get down. 

Hecate is one of my favorites, so the reason I ended up setting this book aside is that the authors turned her into an overly anxious scaredy cat. I think they're going for some sort of portrayal of anxiety, but Hecate is just so powerful to me that it doesn't ring true for a younger version of her. 

Hecate is a witch that attends the Hexwitch School on Earth. She's a mortal. And she's definitely got some description disjoint. According to the text, Hecate has dark eyes while the cover shows her with green. She wears a black chiton. Okay, that matches. Then she wears red and white-striped stockings and boots. Outfit disjoint. I wish Hanson had left her with dark eyes, but I do prefer his more Greek and less modern take on the uniform of Hexwitch. She doesn't need stockings and boots. Oh, and a hat. They wear pointy black hats. In ancient Greece. No. So the authors created a more stereotypical witch look and the artist turned her into something that actually fits with the Goddess Girls world. However, I wish they'd talked about this, because my biggest issue is the hair. Hecate is described as having long black hair that is "messy" because "she rarely combed it." Witches are supposed to have messy hair in this world. It's mentioned twice in the first half of the book. I have a feeling the authors envisioned a gothy, pale, stereotypical witch look and Hanson turned her into a more elegant black witch. The problem is that no one would look at that cute afro on the cover and think it was okay to describe it as long, messy and wild. So you've got to get over the disjoint between the cover art and the text version of Hecate, because they very much do not match. I find it very annoying. 

Anyway, the appearance disjoint and her being scared of everything are what slowed my reading down. She's turning 12 the next day and she hasn't been paired with a broom yet. Most witches her age have flown for a couple years but her anxiety holds her back. A witch's broom is a sentient being that a witch is matched with for life, so there's the matter of finding just the right pairing, but Hecate's fear is really what her problem is. 

She deals with some bullying from bitchy, overly competitive witches that like to see others fail. But Hecate is no real threat because she only does well in one single class. To combat her anxiety, she collects facts and writes them on those small pieces of paper hanging around her neck on the cover. Random facts. Let's call them...trivia. Now this I like. Hecate is known as Trivia or Hecate Trivia due to her connection to crossroads. She's also frequently depicted with three faces/selves all melded together. Turning this trivia into our version of trivia amuses me. 

So Hecate has a lot of anxiety and fights it by collecting trivia. If it was only this and her broom issues, it wouldn't be so annoying. But then...they made her scared of animals. Hecate who is often shown with dogs. And ghosts. A witch scared of creepy things. She's got too much going on and it works against her when it comes to her being a likeable character right away.  

After her flying failure, her class goes to the cemetery at midnight to do some gravestone rubbings. There, she stumbles upon the pet cemetery and meets Melinoe, the other girl on the cover. Melinoe is a daemon, not a goddess, and she desperately wants to be the goddessgirl of ghosts, but after getting a prediction from Cassandra, she knows Hecate will be, not her. So she schemes against Hecate and curses her somehow. The pair work together and invent trivia in the form of a question with three answers to choose from and Melinoe's curse seems to be related to that, though it's not been revealed at the midway point where I am now. Melinoe has a bunch of ghost animals that she helps cross the Styx and of course, Hecate is afraid of them because not only are they ghosts, they're animal ghosts. 

Imagine then how happy she is to wake up the next morning on her birthday and find a ghost cat and dog have accompanied her home and won't leave her alone. She also sees a random bit of glitter on her skin that vanishes, so she thinks she's been cursed by Melinoe, who wasn't 100% nice to her in the cemetery. She goes to a witch teacher for help, but the teacher suggests she visit her grandmother, Ms. Hecate at MOA. 

I forgot to mention that part in chronological order. One of the bullies is making fun of her name in the cemetery and Hecate claims to be named for her grandmother. So everyone jumps to the conclusion that it's Ms. Hecate from MOA. That's how the authors are getting around the fact that they've already got a Hecate character in the series. They're not related. They only share a name. But Hecate doesn't correct her lie and it gets passed around her school. 

Off to MOA with Hecate it is. The trip is amusing because she uses a "whisk her" spell to transport herself but can only travel from crossroads to crossroads. I love that nod to her mythical role. She leaves necklaces with her trivia questions at each crossroads because they entertained some people at the first one. 

Upon arriving at MOA, she winds up in a classroom doorway. The four goddessgirls are there, along with Pandora and Pheme, making a card that will welcome Ms. Hecate back. Yeah, she's not even there after Hecate travelled all that way. Artemis's dogs start playing with Hecate's ghost menagerie, which has grown over the trip. Zeus is well aware that Ms. Hecate has no children so she can't have a grandchild, but the goddessgirls talk him into allowing Hecate to stay overnight.

In the cafeteria, Hecate drinks nectar and her skin begins to shimmer. She's a goddessgirl! The glittery part wasn't the curse from Melinoe. Athena tells how she didn't know she was a goddessgirl until Zeus wrote to her, so this isn't unprecedented in the series. After dinner, she bonds with the other GGs a bit. It was nice to see Pandora included for a while. She gets forgotten a lot, despite being Athena's roommate. She feels especially close to Persephone because she knows Persephone must have a dark side to like Hades and be comfortable in the Underworld. But Persephone has to head home and Hecate will borrow her bed in Aphrodite's room. Aphrodite wants to do a makeover, but Hecate protests that witch hair is supposed to be wild, and she borrows a black nightgown from Aphrodite and the two go to sleep. 

That's where I left off last night, so it's time to finish the book and see what happens. I do like Hecate much better than I did at the beginning. She's become mostly unafraid of the ghost animals and she's more comfortable talking to people than she was before. She spouted out a bunch of thunder and lightning trivia around Zeus, but who wouldn't be nervous around Zeus? And she even says "Sorry. You're a big deal. I'm kind of nervous." I liked that a lot. She's more in command of her anxiety and owns up to it instead of hiding it behind the facts and not explaining it. 

Okay, now I've finished the entire thing. A lot of time is spent in the middle with Hecate being badgered by everyone at MOA to simply sit and make more trivia cards. They all become obsessed with the game to the point of Zeus cancelling classes and no one stopping to eat. 

Demeter comes to the school because Persephone has gone missing. The night before, she took some of Hecate's new trivia cards to the Underworld to play with Hades, so Hecate grudgingly accompanies Demeter to the Underworld to rescue Persephone. Yep, just like in the myth of the abduction of Persephone. Heh. There's even a scene where Hecate carries torches. 

While in the Underworld, Hecate runs into Melinoe, who villain monologues. Her curse was to make the trivia game so engrossing that immortals would stop eating nectar and ambrosia and lose their immortality. And die. Yep, she actually says she wants them to die so she can take Zeus's thunderbolt and rule everyone. 

Hecate tricks her and ends up getting back to MOA to stop her from taking the bolt. She asks her ghost dragon to destroy Melinoe's bespelled charcoal that wrote all the cursed trivia cards. When it's destroyed, the curse is over and the spell on everyone is lifted. Including Zeus, who happens to be right there in the office to stop Melinoe, and Ms. Hecate, who is finally back from wherever she went. The ghost animal problem is finally addressed and Zeus names her goddessgirl of ghosts. Because she finally asked the ghosts if she could help them, they suddenly can talk to her and tell her what their last wishes are before moving on. 

Sadly, Melinoe doesn't get much of a comeuppance. She shows zero remorse, even when Hecate tries to help her, and it takes Zeus's threats to make her act a teeny bit repentant. But she gets a role as Herder of Ghost Animals, which is all she really wanted, some sort of title and power. She has to live in the Underworld, also something she wanted, and will take any ghost animals from Hecate once they've crossed the Styx and gone from ghost to shade. She doesn't get the huge amount of glory she wanted, but she still isn't punished for what I think is one of the worst villain schemes in this entire series.

Hecate is offered a place at MOA and takes it, but still wants to attend Hexwitch. So she spends Mon and Tues at Hexwitch, Wed and Thurs at MOA, and then Fridays she helps the ghost animals with their final wishes and moving on past the Styx. 

She finally passes her flying test and one of the witches on the Broom Zoom team tells her she should try out, which is something she wanted to do. 

All's well that ends well, I guess, even if we have another villain not very well punished for their bad actions. 

One final thing, in the author's note at the end, they say how Hecate is called Trivia in Rome because Romans left small gifts for her at the crossroads, which she was the goddess of. They also exchanged news and bits of information there, so trivia came to mean "random, commonplace facts." However, trivia comes from trivium, which is the word for crossroads. So the explanation is only partial in that it never says trivia comes from the word for crossroads. Because it was the word for crossroads, it came to also mean the bits of info passed on by travellers at said crossroads. It all comes back to the crossroads she is the goddess of. 

This one obviously took a while for me to get into, mostly because I'm just a big Hecate fan and I'm picky about how she's depicted. I liked her character growth. She's not afraid of much by the end. I wish the middle hadn't dragged so much and part of it had been replaced with a couple pages of her helping one of the ghost animals. It's just mentioned off-screen that she helped six of the original nine animals. I think that would have been more interesting than many pages of characters making her write more cards. I also hope they work on communication about appearances better, because again, Cover Hecate and Book Hecate are not the same character. 

Angelology

Gah, this thing has been in my TBR pile for yeeeeeears. I can't even remember where I got it. 

It's set in multiple time periods. 1999 is the present day, though the book was written in 2010. That's the first chunk of the book, which introduces the main cast. 

Evangeline is a nun who is learning about her past. Her mother was murdered when she was young. Her father died a few years back. Her grandmother she hasn't seen in years. 

Verlaine is an art historian/professor working on a book about Abigail Rockefeller. He's the only main character to be referred to by his last name. There's only one other in the entire book, Mr. Gray, and he's barely in it. Verlaine is currently working for Percival Grigori. 

Percival Grigori III, his younger sister Otterley, his mother Sneja, and his father Percival II are all Nephilim. 

You see, the Nephilim never died out. They continued to live over the millennia and have taken part in some of the worst instances of human history, though never in the forefront. Like Hitler was human, but the Nazis definitely had backing from Nephilim. Humans developed angelology, the study of these creatures and the defense against them, as a protective measure. 

Verlaine meets Evangeline, as she's one of the librarians at her convent. They slowly work together to solve the mystery of what Abigail Rockefeller was doing writing to one of the past mother superiors. 

Evangeline talks with Celestine, an older nun ill with cancer, and Celestine tells her some of what she knows. She's a former angelologist. She also gives Evangeline letters from her grandmother that have come to Celestine one per year. They were supposed to be given to Evangeline at age 25, but she's only 23 now. 

The second part of the book goes back to WW2 when Celestine and Evangeline's grandmother Gabriella were students of angelology in France. This was a pretty interesting part, but it was also odd to move away from the main cast for such a large chunk of the book. There's a letter inside this part from before AD 1000. Can't remember the exact year. So there's briefly another time period, too. 

The third part goes back to the present day with Evangeline reading her grandmother's letters. Gabriella is still alive and soon enters the picture and things get even more action-packed. More angelologists appear and split up into groups to find the pieces of Orpheus's lyre, the thing both the angels and angelologists are searching for. Then there's a huge final confrontation and I won't give any spoilers for it. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this. It could easily be a series. I don't think it would work as well as a movie, but TV series are better suited for longer time jumps. Flashbacks are one thing, but Celestine's story would need multiple episodes, not just a few scenes. There's a lot of history and it tries to look at angels from multiple viewpoints, including scientifically. The cast is all likeable. The plot may seem to drag, but I assure you, there's a lot of important stuff going on in Celestine's story. I think this is worth reading.

Seven Deadly Shadows

This is actually not the first Courtney Alameda piece I've read. I read a short story based off her Shutter novel and then I read Shutter itself. I think she was in another anthology, too. I didn't review Shutter here, because I meant to reread it and take it apart, trying to find out what exactly I didn't like about it. I may still do that. I don't remember hating it, but it didn't work for me either. 

Seven Deadly Shadows is better than that. It's set it modern day Japan and the main character is a miko. She's 17, I think. Somewhere thereabouts. Her name is...Kira. Her name confuses me because her parents are traditional, yet I don't think of Kira as a traditional Japanese name. The authors could have chosen something better. It's my guess that they named her Kira after Akira Kurosawa, because a lot of the characters are named after the Seven Samurai, but it did take me out of the story a little bit and as the main character, her name is mentioned a lot.

The book starts off with Kira being bullied by the popular girls at her school. She's a scholarship kid basically and the school is mostly filled with spoiled rich kids. Then a few hours later, a bunch of yokai (assorted supernatural beings) attack the ancestral shrine where Kira works with her grandfather and other priests, including two guardian kitsune. Kira and her younger sister Ami are hiding under the floorboards where their grandfather hid them and get a sad, front row seat to his murder by an oni. Kira and Ami manage to flee after the yokai leave and the police are on their way. 

Later that night, Shiro, the younger of the two kitsune brothers who guard the shrine, comes to Kira's home and they make a plan to go to Tokyo (they're in Kyoto) to talk to Shiro's mom and Goro, the former kitsune guardian of the shrine. 

I'll pause a minute to discuss the characters. Kira and her grandfather can see yokai, which most humans can't, so there are some great descriptions of random ones throughout the book. The kitsune are both really hot guys with fox ears and claws that humans can't see. Ronin, the elder, has two tails. Shiro has none. Ronin is actually the one who betrayed the shrine and Kira blames him for her grandfather's death, as much as she blames the oni who actually killed him. Then there's also Shuten-dōji, the demon leader who is behind the entire plot. 

Kira's family sucks, both in character and in how they were written. Kira's mother and father are both business types who think the whole demon thing is overactive imagination. Her older brother is a completely useless dick who doesn't even seem to care about his grandfather's welfare. He makes one brief and painful appearance near the beginning and is never seen again. He was handled very poorly because he at least could have showed up somewhere near the end after everything was sorted out. Kira's younger sister Ami is cool for a child, but she also never gets an appearance after the initial attack scenes. I didn't feel that was realistic. She could have talked to Kira in school once or twice. Something. But no. The father is strict and honestly barely a presence. The mother ends up revealing that she, too, can see yokai but after a prediction when Kira was born, tried to shelter her daughter from the shrine life, thinking she could avoid the prophecy. Do not try to avoid prophecies. It never works. All of the family could have used some extra screentime in the aftermath of the final battle just to normalize themselves a bit and become better characters. But, again, no. So yeah, poor writing when it came to Kira's family. 

Excellent writing when it came to Kira and Shiro though. They're adorable. Their typical supernatural YA relationship really isn't rushed and they felt believable. I was on their side. Distracting name or no, Kira is a likeable lead, even though she does have some minor Mary Sue hints. She's doing magic way too quickly and also learns her sword-fighting a bit too quickly, too. She is shown as progressing at both things over time, but I don't think she should have been as good as she was after only like a month of practicing both things for the first time ever. 

Anyway, Kira and Shiro meet with O-Bei, Shiro's adoptive mom, who is a shinigami, a death god. They go around collecting souls, which appear in the form of butterflies or moths in different ways specific to each shinigami. Some of them appear to lead humans toward death, where others are more like merciful grim reapers. O-Bei agrees to help Kira, sending her main kitsune helper and a bunch of other kitsune to go rebuild the shrine, if Kira and Shiro can find a total of seven shinigami to stand as a cabal against Shuten-dōji. O-Bei wants to take over his role, though that's not revealed right away. She's clearly not a trustworthy character though and it's her fault that Ronin gave up being a kitsune and turned into a shinigami. 

Aside on Ronin: he is completely underdeveloped. He barely does anything, though a lot of that is because whenever he tries to talk to Kira and apologize or explain himself, she blows him off. So Ronin, the catalyst of all the death at the beginning, becomes barely a character and never gets any sort of resolution. Bad writing. 

Kira and Shiro start in Tokyo and then return to Kyoto, pretty much failing at all their tasks. They have very little luck finding shinigami because no one wants to cross Shuten-dōji or work with O-Bei. They also have no leads on the shard of the sacred sword hidden in the family shrine. That's what Shuten-dōji is after. He has all the other pieces. 

Slowly, shinigami come to help. They're all named after Seven Samurai characters. There's Shimada, the leader, who's very skilled at being a shinigami. His friend is Roji, who is shown as a young woman with short hair, gauged ears and tattoos, but her actual original appearance is more traditional. It's never explained but theorized that both had something to do with the sword long ago and were cursed to be shinigami. Roji is easily my favorite. I love her sass. The third is a cook named Heihachi. He only has one small white butterfly with him, clearly a child spirit, and he refuses to kill because of whatever happened with her. The fourth is Yuza, who was actually Shuten-dōji's best assassin, sent to kill Kira, but she was bested by the others and ends up flipping sides. O-Bei and Ronin are five and six. The seventh ends up being an oni who steals the pieces of the sword for them. 

The process of gathering all the shinigami and trying to get the sword (Kira and Yuza go to the death realm to look for it, not knowing Kiku the oni stole it already), while Kira is also still in school and trying to balance that and dealing with her bullies takes up like 95% of the book. It's a LOT of build-up to end in one rather short final battle. 

I think the authors did a decent job at it. I did like that Kira had to maintain her school life instead of the typical get out of real life while you're on your quest stuff that tends to happen to these YA heroes. I liked all the characters, except for the ones you're not supposed to like. The biggest failing is definitely the lack of character development for the family cast and for Ronin. 

It was an enjoyable departure from the usual YA religion/folklore stuff, which tends to focus heavily on Western. It's worth a read if you want something different, fun and fairly quick to get through.

American Girl Corinne

 
Well, I've had Corinne's books sitting around for about a year. I'm sad to say she just didn't interest me much. 

Corinne is a bit of a frustrating character because her key problem in both books is communication. So you see that she learned nothing from the events of the first book if she's once again not communicating her feelings in the second. 

Corinne lives in Aspen with her younger sister Gwynn and their mom. Their mom is shortly going to get married to Arne, who's a wealthy businessman of some kind. He's Swedish. Corinne's mom wants to open a Chinese restaurant in Aspen. Corinne's dad is a skin instructor at a nearby resort. They're divorced. 

Some of the tension in the book involves this weird idea of Corinne's that she's not supposed to talk about Arne around her dad and vice versa. Her mom's clearly been dating Arne for a while, so I'm not sure how she thinks any of that is an issue. It's not like Arne is a new thing and if they've been divorced for a time, there shouldn't be an issue of hurt feelings. And there isn't. It was all in Corinne's head. 

There's also tension with the girls moving into Arne's house, which was done by a professional decorator. He's not sure how to handle two kids there and there are some new rules for the girls, but everything works out well. 

Gwynn wants to be an ice skater, so Arne pays for her lessons. Corinne doesn't know what she wants to do. She enjoys winter sports like skiing but doesn't want to get serious about them. Then she sees a rescue dog in action and decides she wants to train one. Arne is not pleased with the idea of a dog but gives in and they get Flurry from a shelter. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of yet another dog-training book. Ugh. Nicki was one of my least faves. But the training is actually interesting and doesn't take up too much of the book. 

Corinne has a best friend named Cassidy who doesn't like the snobby rich girls who get new things all the time. One of them happens to be an ice skater so Corinne has this ridiculous idea that Cassidy will think poorly of Gwynn for getting lessons. This is another just plain stupid idea that is all in Corinne's head. As if Cassidy is going to spontaneously dislike a child that she's known for years just because he's getting lessons. Come on. 

Not talking about her feelings ends up with a big blow up between Cassidy and Corinne in the stands at Gwynn's first competition. The loud noise makes Gwynn falter during her routine and a guilt-ridden Corinne runs away and proceeds to get lost on one of the mountains, trying to find a necklace Gwynn had left as part of their sister shrine. (The shrines are explained in the book. I'm not doing it here.) Flurry ends up finding her and the day is saved. Corinne finally talks about all her feelings and everything is resolved. 

Now there is one thing that I thought they did really well. Corinne is Chinese-American and this is set during covid times, so she endures multiple incidents of covid-inspired racism against Chinese people. She tries telling Arne but he blows her off a couple times and she finally tells him that this is serious. He sheepishly explains that he just wants her to be happy so he tried not to dwell on it, but she solved that problem. There's also a great scene where her mom tells off a couple asshole racist adults. If Corinne was able to talk about all her issues as well as she handled this, there wouldn't have been a plot, but she would have been a better character for it. 

The second book is set in summer. Corinne is still training Flurry, just not with snow-based things. 

One of Corinne's problems this time is the fact that she and Gwynn were supposed to have separate rooms but decided to share instead. Corinne did it to help Gwynn adjust to living in Arne's house. But now Gwynn is pretty annoying and Corinne is about to ask for separate rooms when her mom drops a bombshell: she's pregnant. Apparently, rich Arne somehow only has three bedrooms in his house so poor Corinne is stuck and this issue is never mentioned again. Sigh. 

It's replaced by a new problem: will Arne love the baby more because it's his kid? See what I mean about Corinne not learning anything? Also, both this and the "don't talk about dad in front of stepdad" feel like things a younger person would think, not someone Corinne's age. 

Corinne pressures the family to do their usual summer camping trip. Arne is not much of a camper and he's worried about his pregnant wife, but she's into it, so off they go. Things are going well until a canoe trip where there's an accident. The family (and Cassidy, who's along for the trip) all make it to shore, but they lost their water, Arne injured his leg, and Mom vomited and is going to be on the road to dehydration soon. It's up to Corinne, Cassidy and Flurry to follow Arne's topographic map and make their way back to camp so they can get the rest of the family rescued. Corinne is presented as capable of stuff like this, which is why her worries seem much more immature than the rest of her character. The girls make it back, despite a rockslide and a mountain lion, get help and save the day. 

Three months later, the baby is born and all is well...except they named him Blix. Like seriously? There's a scene where Arne mentions he's considering Love (pronounced the Swedish way) as a name and Corinne points out he'll be teased. She's not wrong. But she doesn't say a word about Blix? It's a goblin name! (It is. In the 80s fantasy movie Legend.) According to several pages I read looking it up, it's also primarily a feminine name. Definitely an odd choice on AG's part. There are so many Swedish names that aren't so out there. 

Overall, Corinne's books aren't terrible but they're far from great. Gwynn is on the annoying side and of all the characters, I think I actually liked Cassidy, who's not even part of the family, best. Mom is pretty cool, too. Corinne's problems are in some cases handled well, but mostly they're too immature for her and she clearly learned zero lesson from the first book. Not their best work. 

The Lost Apothecary

I have a bad tendency to set aside my fiction for adults and get mired in YA stuff, favorite kids' series, and historical fiction for all ages. Finally finishing The Maidens yesterday sparked a need to read more books written for adults, so I grabbed The Lost Apothecary from my stacks. I also added some more adult fic to my selection of books going with me on vacation. I might have to throw a few more in there, too. Clearly, I have nothing against being far older than the target market for the books I read, but I need to balance things out more. 

I quite enjoyed The Lost Apothecary. It's set in chapters that alternate both PoV (all first person) and time period. The main character in the present day is Caroline, who's visiting London alone on what should have been her anniversary trip with her husband. She found out right before that he'd been cheating, and she wanted the vacation alone to figure things out. On her first day, she goes mudlarking, which is searching the banks of the Thames for cool old stuff, and she finds a small blue glass vial marked with the etching of a bear. She takes it to the library and her search for the lost apothecary begins. The main character in the past is Nella, the lost apothecary herself, who lives in 1791. Nella is both an apothecary and a provider of poisons for women who need to rid themselves of troublesome men. She never gives poisons to be administered to other women. There are also chapters from Eliza, a 12-year-old maid sent to Nella by her mistress, because the master of the house is a little too interested in Eliza's maturing. 

We learn what happens to Nella and Eliza after a botched poisoning as we watch Caroline find the lost apothecary shop itself and try to find herself along the way, hindered by her idiotic husband who decided it would be a great idea to join her in London when she'd clearly asked for space. Like all of the male characters set in the past, Caroline's husband is a total asshole who poisons himself to try to win her back. Caroline, Nella and Eliza are all faced with difficult circumstances near the end and I enjoyed reading what happened to each of them. 

Overall, this was a really good book. The changing PoVs were done well and they made me want to read faster to unravel what would happen. All four of the main female characters were likeable and I cared about them. (The fourth is the librarian, Gaynor, who helps Caroline on her historical research quest.) 

This author has a new book coming out in March and I'm looking forward to it. 

The Maidens

Man, I really wanted to like this. Alex Michaelides is the author of The Silent Patient, which was so good. One of the best twists I've read in recent years. Sadly, The Maidens falls flat. Maybe it's some sort of second book curse. 

This one is about a series of murders taking place at Cambridge. The lead is a psychotherapist named Mariana. Her niece's friend is the first one killed, so she goes to help her niece process everything and then turns into an amateur detective, because the niece seems to think one professor is the murderer. 

I feel like Mariana should have been a lot smarter than she was. And there are other instances that feel completely ridiculous, like when the lead investigator reveals that Mariana is suspicious of the professor in question...while he's questioning said professor. 

The twist here is not good. It's gross. Michaelides struggles with writing likeable male characters. Even the one that's a good guy in this book feels manipulative and creepy. I liked one thing about the final reveal but I can't say it without it being a spoiler and I try not to go too spoilery with these mystery thriller reviews. 

This book suffers from being too long-winded in several places and avoiding character development that could have made us care more about pretty much every character in the story. A lot of backstory was needed and just better writing overall. It's a shame because I thought this author had a lot of promise. Maybe his inevitable third will be better. 

The best part of this was the integration of Greek mythology and plays. I wish he'd done more with it. 

American Girl Claudie #1

I finally got around to reading Claudie's book! 

I think the easiest way to review this is to break it down. 

PROS: 

1) Excellent characters. I really enjoyed every one of them. I'm impressed they were so well characterized in the short number of pages this poor author had to work with. 

2) I like this time period so it's always good to read more about it. 

3) The author doesn't shy away from the bad things that happened in history during this time. I learned a couple things I never knew about. 

CONS: 

1) LENGTH. This is the book's biggest flaw. I can't believe the author would limit herself in such a way, especially when she's working on a dream project, so I imagine this is some poor corporate choice. This is easily the shortest historical book that we have. It's shorter than GotY books, ffs. It begins with an introduction from the author that takes up five and a quarter pages. It ends with historical notes that take up eight pages. The actual story? A measly 71 pages. And some of those are full-page illustrations. Not that I have anything against illustrations. I love them. But this book is way too short. I'm highly impressed that the author was able to characterize her fairly large cast well enough to make me like them all in such a small number of pages. She does an excellent job with that. She also does a great job of telling some of the historical things that happened. What suffers is the environment. NYC is a character in itself and so are all the neighborhoods that make it up. You love the people of Harlem in this book, but you don't get a chance to fall in love with the setting of Harlem. I would have loved to have seen this be twice as long. There are so many opportunities for added characterization and more scenes out in Harlem itself. It's very disappointing that someone at AG thinks this is an appropriate number of pages to devote to the Harlem Renaissance. 

2) This is another corporate complaint. This book doesn't exist in paperback. You're forced to buy the $16.99 hardcover. And then it's as short as it is. WTF, AG? 

3) One major historical inaccuracy bothered me. There's a note at the front about certain words used to describe Black people being used in this book because those are the words that were used in the 1920s. They're not appropriate now, but those are the words they would have said then. That is perfectly acceptable and the right way to write a historical book. However, Claudie's father is a WWI vet. It's mentioned at least a couple times in the text of the story itself that he was in "World War One." Um, no. This book is set in 1922. They would never have called it World War One. They didn't know there would be a second one! So that took me out of the story the few times I saw it written that way. If you're going to write as if you're in the 20s when it comes to people's words for themselves, then stick with that all the way through. 

4) The second one doesn't come out until next year and there's a lot of important stuff that was left hanging. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this and I wish it was twice as long. Claudie, her fellow cast, the author, and most importantly, this time period deserve better than what AG is giving them. 

I may end up with Claudie. And the dog. And some of her outfits. Next year!

Serena Valentino Disney Villains 7

I regret ever complaining about the Odd Sisters and the intertwining of all six previous Villains books again. I was looking forward to this one because I knew it would be different. It was different, all right. It was utterly horrible. 

I'm so tired of these villains getting abusive backstories. Find a new angle for why people go bad. They can't all be victims. Seriously. 

Cruella's book simply went on far too long. It starts when she's 11. She's super rich and raised by a governess. Her father is nice to her and tries his best, but he's got a busy job. Her socialite mother clearly is not meant to be a mother and the hour a day she spends with Cruella is eventually revealed to be at the governess's insistence. Her mother cares about wealth, spending money, shopping, keeping in fashion, and hanging out with her like-minded friends. I believe she does love her husband, but it's eclipsed by her love of being rich. 

Cruella's best friend growing up is Anita. But her mother despises Anita. I don't know why she's so creeped out by the poor girl. It seems to be beyond just the difference in station. 

After her father's untimely death, the two girls go off to finishing school together, but Cruella is forced to quit after standing up for Anita and threatening to stop giving financial donations to the school. You see, Cruella's father willed his entire estate to her. Not her mother. Only her. Under the condition she keep the de Vil name, even if she did get married. 

You can see where this is going. Her mother schemes and plots to marry Cruella off to someone rich, hoping she'll fall in love and change her name, and because he's rich, she won't need her father's fortune. It doesn't work. Cruella's mother brings home the perfect man for her, someone who likely reminded her of her husband and she knows Cruella would only fall for a man who was more open-minded like her father. The pair end up being a match, but her mother is thwarted because Jack agrees to take Cruella's name! Ha. 

But no ha. Not long after, Jack dies in a fire. Cruella is left with nothing. Her home with Jack is destroyed. His businesses were failing and he didn't tell her. He was trying to burn a bunch of papers and that likely caused the fatal fire. Cruella also signed a pre-nup, so she won't see a penny of his family's money. And guess what she did right before learning her husband was dead. Yep, she signed her fortune over to her mother. And guess what her mother does. Yep, she sells the family home and doesn't provide for Cruella AT ALL. Cruella still has what becomes known as Hell Hall and she has a small bit of money left. She languishes there and mourns her losses. Then she decides to reconnect with Anita and that's where the puppy story comes in. You see, Perdita was a posthumous gift from her father when she turned 18, but Cruella managed to push away every good influence she had in her constant need to make her cunt of a mother happy. So she does the movie plot, intending to give the puppy coat to her mother, and ends up being locked away in Hell Hall by her mother, because she was so embarrassed by her. 

The book is really frustrating because it constantly changes. Cruella's father gave her those round jade earrings she always wears and they're supposedly cursed pirate treasure. There are several times when they appear to physically bother Cruella and she acts poorly when she wears them. But I believe there were also loads of times she didn't have them on and still was nasty. She starts out by not seeing servants as people, slowly gets better with that thanks to Anita, and then keeps vacillating on it. She has a few times when she clearly sees her mother for what she is, but every single time, she's roped back into her perpetual need for bitch mommy's approval. I did like Jack. He was a good influence on her. After Jack dies, Cruella loses it. That's when she gets too skinny, her hair turns half white, and she keeps wearing the same clothes over and over. And it's then that her mother seems to change for the better and start being a halfway decent person, but then after that, she doesn't help Cruella with anything. She seems better at the end before she locks Cruella in Hell Hall, but does she care about her or only about appearances? Probably the latter.  

Cruella starts out as a character with potential. She loves fairy tale adventure stories and she and Anita read about Tulip, Oberon and Popinjay, so that's worked into the story after all. Cruella doesn't want to marry. She wants to travel and have adventures of her own. She invites Anita along with her but Anita wants to go to typing school so she can find her own future. Seriously though, if my rich friend invited me to travel, I'd do that first. It's not like typing school is going anywhere. Do it later. I believe Anita's "abandonment" of Cruella is where Cruella truly becomes without redemption. 

I simply did not enjoy it. I don't think every villain needs an abusive backstory that's supposed to explain why they're like that. Valentino did it with Grimhilde (bad father). She did it with Ursula (bad brother). She did it with Maleficent (asshole fairies). She did it with Gothel (bad mother). Now she's done it with Cruella (also bad mother). Beast is the only one that was an asshole himself. Reading all of these spaced apart as they originally came out would likely have been far more enjoyable than reading the same "villain as abuse victim" story over and over. I'm hoping for something better for Tremaine and Hook, but I'm not really expecting to get that.

Cursed Objects

I picked this up because I watched the cursed objects episode of The UnXplained and the author was on the show, along with a mention of his book title. 

At least, I think it was him. I know the book title was Cursed Objects and this is the book that came up. It looked like something I'd like and it was. 

I've read so much about this stuff that there weren't many objects I haven't heard of, but the presentation was fun and the art was cool. 

If you're interested in supernatural things, I recommend this, especially if you don't know much about cursed objects. There's a lot of beginner info in here and then you could go on to research things in more than just few-page sections. 

I liked this so much I used it as incentive to keep reading Evil Thing, which is the Serena Valentino Villains book about Cruella. I'd read a chapter of Cruella, then a section of this book, then another chapter of Cruella. It's pretty bad that I had to use another book as incentive to get through Cruella's. It's not horrible but she's been turned into the victim of her abusive mother and of course you know that is never going to end with the proper person getting any comeuppance, so it's been hard to get through. 

Serena Valentino Disney Villains 6

Okay, this is the one we've been waiting for, the one that finally wraps up all these storylines. 

I'm just going to go spoiler-crazy and try to make sense of it all. 

The big secret of the Odd Sisters is that Lucinda is the daughter of Manea, who was the one who created Gothel. Manea's mother, Nestis, decided to split Lucinda into three different sisters, which is where we get Martha and Ruby. But all three seem to basically be one person split. Jacob, the main undead guy from Gothel's book, is Lucinda's father. Manea loved him but when Nestis threatened the baby, she made Manea choose between Jacob and the baby and she chose the baby, so Jacob died but Nestis split the baby anyway. Stupid Manea. Nestis apparently had some big visions of ruling beyond the dead woods, so the ancestors and Manea were worried about that. Eventually, Manea sent the Odd Sisters, who they knew would be very powerful, away. Nanny (AKA: the One of Legends) was the fairy given charge of the babies and she left them with the White family. Remember how they were said to be related to the king in the first book? So that's the history of the Odd Sisters. 

The fairies are bitchily trying to decide what to do about them and hold this ridiculous trial where Fairy Godmother and the three asshole good fairies from Sleeping Beauty all are completely insane with their fairy bullshit. The only good fairies are Nanny, who prefers to be called a witch, and the Blue Fairy. Oberon the Tree Lord comes to shut them up and agrees with Nanny, who wants the fairies to assist anyone in need, not just pretty, pretty royalty. Valentino must really hate fairies because there are zero redeeming qualities for any of the four. 

Tulip is working with Oberon to rebuild everything. Popinjay is fine with this. Eventually they will be married. 

Snow is researching the history of the Odd Sisters. She's the one who will discover the secret. She and Circe go to Mrs. Tiddlebottom to retrieve Gothel's library. They learn that Hazel and Primrose were finally healed by the regrown rapunzel flowers and are on their way to the desd woods. Snow and Circe rush there to tell them all that's happened in the centuries they've been dead, but surprise, they already know. There's a middle realm in between life and death where you can basically just chill and listen in on the world. So they heard everything. They're on the side of good. Circe feels at home there, which makes sense, because she's Lucinda's daughter, so she's of the dead woods bloodline. 

Meanwhile, Pflanze the cat has summoned all her magic to pull the Odd Sisters out of the dreamlands. They're in the place in between for a while, but then resurrect Maleficent in her dragon form. They have help from Grimhilde, who just wants to find Snow again. Circe has been keeping Snow away from her mother, which turns out to be a mistake. 

The Odd Sisters and Grimhilde arrive at the castle in the dead woods, where Grimhilde makes up with Snow and then dies, though Snow is also relieved at this. The Odd Sisters are somewhat quelled by Jacob, their father. But there's a lot of chaos and Circe stabs herself to end it all, knowing that by dying, the good parts of her "mothers" will return to them. Maleficent falls dead again before she can destroy the fairylands. The dead woods ancestors speak to everyone in their castle and the Odd Sisters are given a choice. 

So the book ends with them, along with Circe and Pflanze, chilling in the land in between. I'm hoping this is the end of the Odd Sisters for a while. Trying to link all these together was A LOT. The next book is Cruella, which is far more modern, so I don't think they can be part of it. Then there's Lady Tremaine, who I believe the sisters did mention, and Hook. 

The thing I liked best about this one was the illustrations. I wish they'd all been illustrated. I like that they tied everything up and I'm looking forward to a break from trying to remember how all the tales link together. 

Sweet Valley Twins Graphic Novel #1

Several years behind the BSC, the Sweet Valley Twins finally get their own graphic novel! The second book, Teacher's Pet, is coming, too, so I hope the series continues. And Nora Mercandy better look gothy in book three or else...

The art style is interesting. I'm used to seeing the beautiful cover art from the books so the girls look a lot younger here and it takes some getting used to. 

The story has been updated, but only minorly. The Hairnet has a tablet Jessica has to swipe and the girls have to share one cell phone. I don't think anything else has changed much. 

Best Friends is the one where the girls still dress alike at the beginning and the main plot is Elizabeth struggling with Jessica having different interests. Liz starts the paper and Jess joins the Unicorns. Liz tries to join, too, but refuses to do the pledge task of putting shaving cream on Lois's sundae, so Jess pretends to be her and does the task. Liz gets pissed and Lois gets revenge later. Both girls realize they can look different and have different friends and different interests and still be each other's best friend. 

I mostly enjoyed this, but I do have some criticisms. 

First, people aren't named. In a new graphic adaptation, you have to expect there will be a lot of race changes, because back in the mid-80s, most of these characters were white. Updating them is great, but if the character no longer looks like the book description, it doesn't hurt to actually put names in the dialogue to identify them. I'll list a few of the differences.

Bruce Patman is now a tan blond. At least he was named right away. 

Amy has a red bob and glasses. This works for her. She's also named right away so there was no confusion.

Julie Porter is black. She wasn't named in conversation, but a few pages before the lunch scene, Elizabeth tells Amy she'll talk to her and Julie at lunch, so you know that's Julie. She seems to have a bigger personality than in the books, which is nice. 

Caroline Pearce went from preppy redhead to a curvy, tall, brown girl with big curly hair, a lot of jewelry and sass. I really like the new Caroline. She isn't named right away, but her name is mentioned later so you know it's her, but if you know SVT at all, you know the gossip is Caroline. 

Lila is identifiable not because she's named right away, but because she looks classier than the others and has more jewelry. There was a mention of her when Jess was talking early on and she's shown in a sketch, but the colors were off so she looked more like a paler redhead there. She's tan with dark brown hair. She's always got her hair in a ponytail though, which doesn't seem very Lila. 

Janet is now black. She's taller than the other Unicorns shown, and she tends to do some of the authoritative talking, but those are the only clues that she's Janet. Also, I'm pretty sure she never once wears purple, despite having a line that says, "Like this year, we decided purple was our thing, so we all went shopping." And she is not wearing a lick of purple as she says it. Janet and Lila looked alike in the books and now they don't look alike at all, which is totally fine because cousins can certainly be very different, but they really should have name-dropped Janet to make it clear that was her. 

There are two other Unicorns shown a lot. One has a white-blonde bob with very pale blue eyes. She always wears overalls, which I think is a Choice on the part of the artist. These girls are supposed to be the most fashionable in the school, so why is this one constantly in overalls? Have overalls ever once been fashionable? I'm pretty sure this is Ellen, because she shows up quite a bit and is in class with Lila and Jessica, but she is never IDed. The second girl is Asian and I have zero idea who she is. She gets a few throwaway lines.

For a club which Janet explicity stated has 12 members, you only ever see 5 of them and that includes Jessica. 

Tamara Chase is never "on screen" but she's mentioned by Janet with a little sketch of her by the speech bubble so we know what she looks like. 

There is a band-aid on "Ellen's" knee on page 50. How is that Unicorn-esque? Did this artist even read the series? 

Winston is now black but clearly called Winston, so no confusion there.

Near the end when Lois gets her revenge, there is a sixth Unicorn: a brown girl with very short hair. No idea who she is. 

The fashion is my first major problem with this artist. The Unicorns are FASHIONABLE. Ellen would not wear overalls every single day. And they barely wear purple. That's such a huge thing in the books. Why even have Janet say anything about purple if they're not going to do that? 

My second major problem involves the Wakefields. The girls look a little too young, in my opinion. Ned looks pretty hot. Good job there. And Steven is really cute, too. He makes some great faces. But Alice. Oh, Alice, they did you dirty. Her hair is a constant mess. She wears frumpy clothes. She has glasses now, which would be fine if she was fashionable at all, but she isn't. She looks like the eccentric scientist mom or maybe the quirky teacher. She does not look like Alice Wakefield, young-looking enough to be called the girls' older sister and interior designer to the stars. Yeah, my biggest issue with this adaptation is the de-glamorizing of Alice. 

Nitpicks aside, I enjoyed this. I always love me some SVT and plan to get back to my reread after I finish plowing through my dark Disney stuff. 

Serena Valentino Disney Villains 5

I finally made my way through this one. It's all over the place. I'm just going to go spoileriffic to try to summarize as best I can. 

Young Gothel lives in the dead woods with her mother, the queen of the dead. Her mother is basically a necromancer witch who grows rapunzel to keep herself eternally young. Gothel has two sisters and the three are triplets who look nothing alike. Primrose has red hair and is the perky, nice one. Hazel is the introspective one. She had white or silver hair. I can't recall. Gothel is the one most interested in witchcraft and her mother agrees to begin teaching her, but Primrose is against all of them learning together. There's a lot of drama with this and Manea, their mother, attacks Primrose and Hazel because she really only cares about Gothel. Gothel kills her mother and destroys all but one rapunzel flower in the process. 

In the time that follows, Gothel uses her control over the dead to rebuild her life and make the woods a nice home for her sisters, but her sisters have never fully recovered from their mother's attacks. The odd sisters arrive and want to help, but Primrose and Hazel end up dying. In an attempt to help her with her grief, the odd sisters put Gothel into a decades long sleep, possibly for even hundreds of years. It's never specified. 

While she's asleep, the sisters are dealing with what happens in the other books. Then the king of the kingdom that grows near the dead woods has a wife having a difficult pregnancy. She needs the rapunzel and Jacob, Gothel's lead zombie guy, gets her and the bodies of her sisters out of the woods, having set up a cottage for her to start a new life in. 

Gothel is obsessed with resurrecting her sisters, but the stupidest thing she ever did was not drink the vial of her mother's blood that would have given her magic. She spends years trying to figure out how to bring them back and being angry at the odd sisters for abandoning her. 

Eventually, the king's soldiers come for the last rapunzel flower, which is the one the queen eats and it makes Rapunzel magical. Gothel steals the baby, moves to a tower, and she and the odd sisters put Rapunzel to sleep. The life she thinks she has is all a dream until she wakes and the events of the movie occur. Gothel in the book wants Rapunzel to help heal her sisters instead of only keeping herself young. The odd sisters, trying to escape the dreamlands by making themselves look good to Circe, hinder Gothel as much as they can. They tell her that Manea created Gothel magically and the other two aren't her real sisters. The events of the movie play out and Gothel dies. 

Circe bitches at the odd sisters, having no plan to free them. She and Snow seem to be about to live happily ever after having adventures in the fairy tale kingdoms. 

This book was just weird. I don't think Gothel needed this elaborate necromancy witch backstory. Everything got to be too convoluted, and I have a hard time believing she'd really never drink the blood and gain the powers. She wasn't a likeable character and the odd sisters aren't always, so it was hard to get through this one. The next one is all about the odd sisters, so maybe getting some backstory on them will make me like them better again. 

Serena Valentino Disney Villains 3 & 4

I'm finally getting back into reading my huge backlog of dark Disney stuff. I started this one ages ago, but finished it a few days ago and then just finished Maleficent's now. 

Ursula's book is the most annoying one so far, because so much of the story isn't about her. It follows a few plotlines. 

There's Ursula's past. She's Triton's sister and it's revealed that he hated her, so he basically lost her on purpose. She ended up being adopted by a human fisherman, then grew into her powers, so the villagers became afraid of her based on her looks alone and tore apart her father who was trying to protect her. Ursula turned them all into her soulless servants in return, which prompted Triton to appear and be pissy with her, but then he tried to take her to his kingdom to be part of it. He forced her to remain in an unnatural for her mermaid form though, because apparently her octopus form is hideous to him and he's really rude about it. She ends up being exiled blah blah you know this part. 

Then there's the part with the odd sisters. Ursula gets them to help her try to kill Triton, which is the Little Mermaid plot. There is surprisingly little of this in the book. The odd sisters want Ursula to help them find their little sister Circe (the Enchantress from Beauty and the Beast) in return for them helping her. 

There's another plotline back in Morningstar, where Tulip is dealing with her returned beauty and voice. She just wants to read and be a better person, but all these suitors are driving her nuts. One of them turns out to have promise though, and he continues to play a small role in future books. He has the amusing name of Prince Popinjay. Pflanze, the odd sisters' cat, is there with Tulip, doing some investigating of her own. Her presence somehow restores the memories of Tulip's nanny, who is actually a very old, very powerful witch/fairy referred to only as the One of Legends. She's telepathic, as are the odd sisters. 

I am blanking out on all the details, but the odd sisters discover that Ursula made Circe one of her "poor unfortunate souls" and they are furious. They use their magic to assist in her demise, which happens like it does in the movie. So Ursula is dead and Circe is restored, but now the odd sisters are in some sort of trance sleep.

Moving right on into Maleficent's story, the plot continues with Circe trying to wake the odd sisters while still in Morningstar, so Tulip, Nanny, Pflanze and Popinjay are all still there, too. 

The events of Sleeping Beauty are taking place right at this time. Aurora has been cursed to sleep. Maleficent made a brief appearance in the last book, because she tried to warn the odd sisters about Ursula's betrayal. 

So Aurora and the odd sisters are all in the land of dreams. Aurora is surrounded by mirrors and she learns she can control what they show her. The odd sisters spend a bit of time tormenting her and then make her show them Circe. 

Meanwhile, Nanny has been remembering Maleficent's story, which is infuriating. Maleficent appeared in the Fairylands as a tiny green baby with horns. Fairies are apparently horribly bigoted, so they immediately thought she was evil and left her in the care of the crows. (This is why Maleficent loves her crows and ravens.) When the One of Legends returned for her turn in running the Fairy Academy, she was appalled and bitched out her sister, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother. Fairy Godmother is like Triton. She's an asshole who judges character based on appearance alone. So the One of Legends (Nanny) adopted Maleficent, who was four by that time, and raised her to be a good fairy. Maleficent tries going to the academy, but the other fairies are total dicks to her. The three "good" fairies from Sleeping Beauty exhibit the same assholery as Fairy Godmother. Maleficent shows aptitude for magic beyond just simple fairy magic, so Nanny decides to home school her, using her own spellbooks, some of which were written by the odd sisters, who become favorites of Maleficent's. 

All this backstory is mixed with the present time. Maleficent is on her way to Morningstar because she needs the help of Nanny and Circe to keep Aurora asleep. Snow White over in her kingdom is graying at the temples and her children are grown. Her mother, Grimhilde, is dead, but watches over Snow from within the mirrors. Snow gets involved in the main plot because in Grimhilde's things is a fairy tale book the odd sisters had left for Snow White when she was young. (Remember, they were related to her father.) That fairy tale book writes itself as events happen. The Tree Lords reawaken and come to Morningstar to protect it from Maleficent. The fairy lord (and Tree Lord) Oberon wants to punish Maleficent for destroying the Fairylands years ago. 

Back into flashbacks. Maleficent is now turning 16 and wants to sit her fairy exams. Only three fairies each year are chosen to be wish-granting fairies and she wants to try her hand at it and get her certification to show she really is a fairy. I like the detail in Maleficent's description that her skin is basically a mood ring. She's only green when she's angry or sad. She's mentioned as very pale purple in this scene. The odd sisters come to celebrate her birthday, which is the next day and the day of the exams. Maleficent has never met them before but loves them instantly. There's a lot of hint-dropping that Nanny has seen her future and it might not be great. The stupid Fairy Godmother comes and tries to get Nanny to not allow Maleficent to take the exams, but Nanny tells her to fuck off basically. Maleficent goes to sleep worried because her favorite raven, Diablo, didn't return home. The next morning, she and the three "good" fairies are the only ones planning to take the exams because, as the good fairies bitchily explain, why would anyone bother when they're going to take all three wish-granting spots? Flora and Fauna are worried about taking the exam separately because clearly Merryweather is the leader. Through some clever maneuvering, Nanny manages to say all three can take the exam together but that means they only earn ONE wish-granting spot and must act as one in the future. This leaves two spots open. The Blue Fairy from Pinocchio is the first to step forward and say she wants to try. She also tells Maleficent that she wishes she'd stayed in school because they didn't all hate her. Other fairies also want to try the test. Each one goes down a path and finds a human charge they have to use magic to help. Maleficent ends up finding Snow White and defeats the queen's father in the mirror, freeing both the queen and Snow. After everyone returns, Nanny and Fairy Godmother sit down to go over the results, though Fairy Godmother keeps reminding Nanny that the choice is hers. Then all hell breaks loose. The odd sisters appear, bringing a crying child. That's Circe as a young girl, who was one of the charges for the test. (Some charges are real. Some are kind of images from the past like Snow was.) Circe claims the good fairies attacked her. Then Maleficent storms in and demands to know where her bird tree is. All the bullshit comes out. Fairy Godmother let it slip to the good fairies that Maleficent was taking the test, so they kidnapped Diablo. Circe saw into their hearts during the test and decided to transform herself to look like a worried Maleficent to test whether the fairies would help her or not. They refused. Somehow Maleficent's entire tree got there and the stupid fairies set it on fire trying to attack Maleficent. Because they're ASSHOLES. Maleficent yells at the fairies upon learning this and Merryweather bitches back at her. Fairy Godmother finally explodes and says Maleficent is going to be evil no matter what and even Nanny knows it. That's the last straw for poor Maleficent, who turns into a dragon for the first time and in doing so, obliterates the Fairylands with green flame. 

So she did destroy the Fairylands, as Oberon saw, but she was provoked and lost control of magic she didn't know she had. The real fault here lies with the bigoted fairies. Even Oberon admits there's going to be punishment for them but sadly, we never get that. 

As the story moves on, Maleficent and Nanny talk and Maleficent is angry because Nanny didn't try to find her. Apparently, Maleficent stayed in dragon form for years because the transformation hurt and Nanny couldn't detect her because she was a dragon. Maleficent thought she'd killed her, but the odd sisters had transported them into the alternate reality space created for the exams. So all the fairies there and Maleficent's birds lived. Maleficent was basically terrified to go out into the world because she didn't want to hurt anyone else, so she lived in a ruined castle for years and her birds brought her things. It used to be Hades' castle, so that's where the movie minions came from. The odd sisters would come visit her from time to time. They never had word of Nanny, because to punish herself, Nanny wiped her own memories. That's why she's just Tulip's nanny in her first appearance. 

Then things get even weirder. The odd sisters develop a spell that will create a daughter for Maleficent out of everything good in Maleficent. Problem is, that leaves Maleficent cold and unloving. This is also how they created Circe, as it's revealed she is their daughter, not their little sister. However, Circe has no memory of the Fairylands events and the odd sisters used to be different and nicer, so there's still an untold story here. The Circe that exists likely is not the same as the Circe in the Fairylands scenes. So this spell explains why both the odd sisters and Maleficent are on the evil side. Circe is pretty wrecked when she learns all this. I completely forgot to work it in, but Snow White is with her, having brought the fairy tale book to Morningstar. The odd sister's house automatically transports itself somewhere, taking Circe and Snow with it, so they're both trapped who knows where. 

If you haven't guessed it, Aurora is Maleficent's daughter. And the reason she decided to spell her to die is because when she turned 16, she lost control of her powers and obliterated the Fairylands. She's not trying to hurt Aurora. She's trying to save everyone from her. She saw how Circe got the powers of the odd sisters but much stronger, so she figures Aurora will get her own powers and lose control like she did. 

The end gets a little crazy. The odd sisters work from the dreamland to provoke Maleficent into being truly evil and things play out like they do in the movie. Circe works her magic on Aurora through mirrors and is able to bind her powers. Now she has to decide whether she's going to try to wake her three mothers or not. 

This book is not easy to review. It switches points of view and time periods A LOT. It's not confusing when you're reading it but trying to summarize it in a coherent manner I don't think it working very well. 

Let's just say that Valentino went the same route as she did with Ursula. Both Ursula and Maleficent were not bad people until others treated them with prejudice and cruelty. Ursula was ruined by Triton. Maleficent by the bigotry of the fairies and the lack of honesty from Nanny. I didn't like Ursula in her book though and I did like Maleficent. Death-dealing or not, she's trying to save people. Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that. What's most frustrating about her story is if the damn fairies hadn't been such dicks, everyone probably could have worked together to contain Aurora's powers and she could have lived a normal life and Maleficent could have also remained alive. And I'm sure they're not going to get any sort of comeuppance either, just like Triton got out of it. That's the problem with where Valentino keeps going. She's trying to still stick by the movie world so while she's making the good characters into bullying toxic influences, they're still getting the happy endings of the good characters they are in the movies, and that's getting frustrating.  

I do really enjoy the character of Tulip though and Circe is great, too. And Pflanze. I love Pflanze. Next up is Mother Gothel, so I'm intrigued where that's going to go.