PANDORA 7

Ah, here we are at the end. And what an end! 

Pandora's final journey takes her to the Underworld, where she runs into various personages before finally locating the final big evil: Fear. 

Cerberus is there for a brief time. Sisyphus. Tantalus. The lesser known Ixion and the Danaids. The Danaids scene was gross but I loved it. 

Persephone, easily my favorite immortal in this series, makes several appearances. I KNOW!

Achilles is a slightly more featured character, though I really don't like how she portrayed him. It seems stereotypical. I'm not going into further detail, but it wasn't a good idea.

The human characters have to pass through the Styx to get into the Underworld and it leaves each of them with a metallic coating of some trait of theirs. Alcie is copper. Pandy is bronze. Homer is iron. And Iole, with her very large, dense brain, becomes lead, which makes her sadly dull-witted. With Persephone's help, they break Iole out of her leaden skin, making her more confident in her genius and less worried about what people will think of her being so smart. My only problem with this scene is where she says "I can't get any smarter." We can always learn, Iole. You're not omniscient. Homer loses his iron coating in the Danaids scene and basically becomes more mature and gentlemanly. Alcie loses her copper nearer the end and just gets more beautiful. And Pandy? Well, Pandy doesn't lose hers until the very end, after being frustrated that all her friends are new and improved and she's still the same. I don't believe there's any mention of her changing at all, unlike the other characters. So she does get a little shafted. 

So there's a final battle with Hera and Pandy defeats her by finding Fear and completing the quest. Then everyone is whisked away to Mount Olympus where the heroic foursome is rewarded and the treacherous Demeter and Hera are punished. Demeter's punishment is to live forever without her goddess powers, being forced to watch how humans fuck up the planet. Hera, Juno and Ceres are depowered and transported to the future to work as maids in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. 

I love this series. It's always fun to reread. 

PANDORA 6

 
Wow, I left poor Pandy hanging for slightly over a year. Sorry, Pandy! 

I finally picked up #6 again and finished it. We last left Pandy and crew in Baghdad after their adventure there. Hera was made into sandals and then left buried in separate places, so she's in pieces. 

Now we're in Rome and the search for greed is not going well. Pandy and Alcie are slaves. Iole is a Vestal. Homer is a gladiator/stable boy. 

And Julius Caesar is in it. 

The history-minded might see a bit of a problem there. Yeah, it takes a few chapters for Pandy and friends to be told they've travelled into the future. 

 Both versions of each god are around, which gets entertaining. And Juno of course is the one to figure out what's going on and put all Hera's pieces back together. 

It's not the most interesting or action-packed of the books, but it's good. I loved Cloacina, the Roman sewer goddess playing a large role. 

The final quest...find fear in the underworld. Let's finish this, Pandy.

Outrun the Moon

Outrun the Moon is the story of a girl from Chinatown trying to get the education she thinks she needs to start a successful business, dreaming to make enough money to move her family out of poverty. Problem is, this is set in San Francisco...in 1906. If you know your history, you know what's coming. 

With the help of her would-be boyfriend Tom, Mercy Wong bribes her way into St. Clare's Academy for Girls, hoping to get a white girls' education and therefore be more successful in starting her own business. While this sort of works, she does quickly learn that the classes for upperclass white young ladies aren't exactly economics (comportment, embroidery and French...so useful), and that it isn't easy to pretend to be a Chinese heiress (the ruse forced upon her by the school board member that accepted her bribe). 

Mercy manages to befriend an Italian girl that just wants to cook for people and slowly adds others to her side: a feisty redhead from Texas, her shy best friend, and one of a pair of South Carolinian twins. Unfortunately her secret is soon revealed, but on the same morning, the earthquake hits. The nicer of the Southern twins is killed, but the other girls, including Mercy's nasty French roommate who also happens to be the daughter of the school board member who got her in, make it out, alongside the headmistress who has it out for Mercy. 

Revealed before they leave the school is the fact that the young priest had been sleeping with the French roommate's mother, something they successfully hide from the girl, although they do find a subtle way to let her know that her mother didn't make it.

Living in a park, the girls put aside any remaining differences to work together to survive. Mercy learns her mother and younger brother were killed, but her father and Tom make it back to her at the end of the book. 

It's a great book, one of the better ones I've read about the earthquake and Chinatown during that time period. A lot of authors writing about the earthquake choose to aim for Chinatown as a setting. Interesting. Mercy is an excellent POV character, although she does have moments where she seems a bit too ahead of her time. I loved Francesca, the Italian cook, and Katie, the wealthy but very down to earth redhead from Texas.  

Cute Mutants 2

SPOILERIFFIC

This second volume finds our heroes forced to make a terrible choice: train with Yaxley or go to mutant "jail." They're assured it's comfortable, but it's still not freedom. So they give it a try and quickly realize Yaxley are...yeah, you guessed it...bad guys. And they have a rival called Jinteki that experiments on mutants. 

There is a LOT going on here that I'm not going to get into. These books are like reading an entire season of show all at once. But the CMs learn they're not the only mutants and some of these others have been created using Emma's blood. 

During a mission to rescue Emma, they also grab Katie, who can spew fire from her mouth. She's written like a much younger character, but I'm pretty sure nearer the end they said she's 16. 

Other newbies are a shy teleporter, an acid spit/vomit girl (very Zeitgeist), a character that can see your fears and use them to fuck with your head (verbally, not any physical manifestation), and a flutist that conjures nightmarish creatures with her music.

My biggest problem here is that everyone gets some further characterization except Bianca. She was left in the cold in the first book and it happens even worse in this one. How? THEY FUCKING KILL HER OFF. And it wasn't even on screen. I was furious when I read it and I'm still mad. I loved Bianca. 

And then at the end, they take the most interesting of the newbies (Cha, the Sri Lankan flutist) and kill her off, too. COME THE FUCK ON. We couldn't have killed the teleporter who wants nothing to do with anyone and whose powers make some things a little too easy? 

I get that they're trying for the shock value of comics and screen deaths, but it feels unfair to these characters, especially Bianca. It's like they created her and couldn't figure out what to do with her, except when she antagonized people or was Dylan's "emotional support himbo," so what was left to do but kill her off? Or maybe she was always destined to die because she wasn't the hot main couple, the mutant creator, the cinnamon roll, or the mostly useless trans boy. Seriously, Lou feels kinda token at this point. He's now the one with the least characterization, especially in this book because now he doesn't even have jealousy or cowardice to fall back on. I mean, he's gotten cooler but it's mostly because he stopped being those two negative things. Sorry, Lou. I'm just mad about Bianca. 

So yeah, the book is the CMs dealing with being forced to work for bad people, rescuing Emma, rescuing the other mutants, and finally defeating the worst people from Yaxley, while Gladiola (sees your fears psychic girl) takes over Jinteki, because her father ran it.

Don't get me wrong, it was good. I can enjoy something and think it was good and still be furious about killing off characters. But these books are such an emotional ride that I'll never be able to read them consecutively. I'm taking a break to read some historical fiction. 

Cute Mutants 1

 
I don't know how this series has existed so long without me coming across it. Bizarre. At first I thought they were graphic novels but no, they're regular novels. 

Cute Mutants is your basic comic book premise: a bunch of teens develop mutant powers and deal with having them. One difference is that there's a singular source of their powers. They each kissed the same girl at a party. 

Did I mention they're girls and a trans male? I don't think there's a single straight character in this book unless you count the villain and maybe some very background characters that are barely there. They're all at various levels of figuring themselves out, so that's discussed a few times. 

The book is set in New Zealand, so expect the appropriate spellings and slang. 

There will be spoilers here. 

I'll give a quick rundown of the cast. 

DYLAN: POV character. Dylan is actually the character I like second least. I loved this book and I loved every character, but her constant self-loathing is SO ANNOYING. She spends most of the book trying to come to terms with the fact that people like her, that she has friends. And with someone like Alyse in the mix, how can it take you that long to get it? She's so set against herself that it makes her very, very dense. She blames herself for literally everything when very little of it is her fault. In that aspect, she's so self-loathing that it becomes self-centered. Not everything that goes wrong is your fault. Stop thinking you're so important that every problem has its root in you. Dylan is your basic quirky female POV that attracts people like flies. She doesn't try to dress well. She thinks she's unattractive, even though so many people tell her she's gorgeous. How many of these lead female characters are there? A lot. I don't think I've ever read one as incredibly insecure as she is though. I'm hoping as the series progresses that she gains a sense of self-worth. She needs one. Dylan is working out her sexuality but doesn't shy away from pansexual as a descriptor. Her boyfriend at the beginning of the book is Lou, who we'll get to next. Dylan's voice is definitely on point for a 17-year-old. She drops a million pop culture references (Buffy, Gilmore Girls, the newer She-Ra, K-Pop) and expect a ton of inside X-Men references. Her nonbinary parent who gave birth to her passed on their love of comics, specifically X-Men. The only thing that annoyed me a bit was having to read text speak in the middle of regular prose. It's obviously fine in written text conversations in novels, but having it actually in paragraphs in the middle of sentences is...it took a lot of getting used to. I'm old. Also, if you read this, here's a hint: "alg" is short for "all good." Apparently, this is a New Zealand thing. So yeah, Dylan is the self-loathing, mutant-loving, bumbling leader character. Her power is unusual. I read some reviews talking about how unique people think this is. She talks to objects. Her presence can "wake up" certain inanimate objects. (There's no telling what.) So she has full on conversations with objects and you'll find yourself thinking of them as characters, too. As she practices, she learns she can not only convince objects to do things for her, but help them move telekinetically. It's not quite clear to me whether she helps them move when they want to or if she can move them without their desire. I think it's more the former. It's an interesting power, but I raised an eyebrow a bit when I saw people saying how unique it was, because Will from W.I.T.C.H. has been talking to electronics for years. Yeah, hers is electronics only, but it's still having actual conversations with objects. Anyway, that's Dylan. Codename: Chatterbox. (Which she doesn't like.)

PEAR: Breaking from the Cute Mutants lineup for a second here to discuss Pear. Pear is short for Parent like Mom is for Mother. I'm still very pleased by how freakin' clever that is. I love it. Pear is a great example of a non-binary adult character. They're never misgendered by any of the positive cast. They also shave their head and wear the exact style black leather coat Spike wore in Buffy. So in short, Pear is badass. Pear is mentioned as being ace and in a relationship with a woman named Sarah who has...I think 2 kids? I can't remember. Not important. Oh, and there's also Summers, the Taylor family dog. He's pretty awesome. 

LOU: Lou is the lone trans male student at an all-girl school. Imagine how fun that is. His parents are assholes who don't accept his transitioning. Lou is a frustrating character for me because he's the stick in the mud. He doesn't want his powers. He doesn't like being on the team. He's not into the violent aspects of basically anything. And he's so insanely jealous that it pits him against Alyse who I love. He's kind of a coward honestly. In a lot of ways. He's another one that I'm hoping improves as the series goes along. Lou definitely did not get a great power. He heats up and can shoot light blasts...but only when he's turned on. Trying to weaponize arousal ought to be interesting as the series moves forward. Codename: Glowstick. 

ALYSE: Alyse is the first mutant Dylan runs into and she is immediately endearing. Alyse is the stereotypical rich girl that gets ignored by her parents but she's the cinnamon roll character so she's not snobby or anything. She's described as Pasifika, which I had to look up. They're the people of the smaller Pacific islands that now live on New Zealand. Awesome. I'm pretty sure her name is pronounced more like Elise than Alice. Dylan shortens it to Lys which works more with that pronunciation. Alyse has the fun power of shapeshifting but she does it almost uncontrollably and it reflects her moods, hence her codename of Moodring. She comes up with some pretty excellent stuff though. I love it. Alyse becomes Dylan's best friend, which is really cute. 

EMMA: Emma is the catalyst to all of this. In trying to figure out her sexuality, she experiments at her own party. She creates a fake app that looks sort of like a kissing game. What she really did was ask her friends who the hottest girls were and she goes around kissing each of them to see if she feels anything. (She gets Lou, too.) Emma's super power is apparently to trigger powers in others. It's her kiss that turns them into mutants. Even the villain, a party-crashing guy who kisses her by force and ends up with earthquake powers. Emma is the team's super tech genius. She's got drones and computer skills and all sorts of techie knowhow. She's described as Kiwi-Chinese, so there's some more diversity. She and Alyse might like each other but it's only been slightly hinted at so far. Emma's codename is Goddess because she created them. 

DANI: Emma's best friend is the "ice queen" Dani Kim, adding Korean to the diversity mix. (I don't think Dylan, Lou or Bianca is explicitly described to include their ethnicity.) Dani is extremely intelligent and wants to be a doctor. (I think? I'm honestly blanking a little bit.) She takes forever to come around to joining the team because she doesn't like Dylan's recklessness. Though she does like Dylan, a fact clear to everyone except Dylan, who is convinced Dani hates her. Dani's power is telekinesis, but she has to hurt herself to make it work. It gets a little violent. Her codename is Marvellous, because like Dylan, she's into comics and pays homage to Marvel Girl/Jean Grey. Dani is my favorite character along with Alyse. I kinda wish the second book was from her POV just to get a different voice in there. And because I don't think she'd annoy me like Dylan does. 

BIANCA: Bianca is Dylan's self-described "emotional support himbo." She's a 6-foot buff goth. Not explicitly identified as goth, but she wears dark makeup and black all the time, so I'm going with it. Also because I think it's cool to see a buff goth character. You never see that. Bianca is blunt and brash. She's not always nice, even to her friends, though she improves as the story goes along. She has a 21-year-old girlfriend who's a bit possessive. I actually love Bianca as a character so I was disappointed she's the least developed. Unless I skimmed it by accident, you don't even learn what her hair color is, while Dylan emphasizes that she (Dylan) has short hair well more than once. Bianca's power is to pull her chest open and reveal a black hole that three creatures come out of. She's literally exposing her inner demons and she can use them for various things like making her a form of invisible and sharing her emotional trauma with another as a means of incapacitation. Bianca is a powerhouse and I love her for it. Codename: Wraith. 

Okay, that is everyone. Most of the book is the team developing as a team itself and their interpersonal relationships while also dealing with the earthquake guy that Dylan calls Tremor. It gets pretty wild, especially the final battle scene. Wait til you meet Roxy. Heh. 

I really enjoyed this despite its few flaws. It's unlike anything I've ever read and I'm digging into the second one shortly. 

GIRLS SURVIVE Series: Parts 5 & 6

We're going way back for the earliest-set installment of the newest batch of Girls Survive. It's time for the Black Plague. 

This book is as you'd expect it. Bleak. Set in Florence, Maria endures standing in bread lines because the city is starving and her father won't let her look for work. They've already lost her mother and her younger sister, but as the plague comes in, she loses the grandmother figure she's not actually related to, then is left with uncertainties for the others. 

Her oldest brother goes to Pisa to sell wool to earn money so they can flee to Milan, but the Florentine rulers declare no one from Pisa or Genoa can enter their city, which means her brother cannot return. 

Forced to leave without him, Maria sees her friend Joseph, who's become a grave digger, one last time. 

Then on the walk to Milan, her father contracts the plague. 

Maria is taken in by a band of travelers who will help her in Milan and her story does have a fairly happy ending, but you never know what happened to the older brother or her friend or her father. I think we can safely assume the father died and likely the friend also, but maybe there's hope for her brother. The author even mentions it in the notes at the end. 

This one is decent and fast-paced. Not boring, but definitely very bleak. 

From the Black Plague in Italy to the decks of the Mayflower. This one is decent, but suffers from what I call "Matilda Syndrome." (I call it that because in her book, Matilda from A Girl for All Time was suddenly the one who helped her cousin Katherine get with King Henry and just no.) Basically, the heroine is given a level of importance that far outweighs what a girl in her time would have or what historical evidence shows. 

So Constance slaps a bullying sailor, helps figure out how to fix the broken ship, helps the sailors save her would-be suitor who fell overboard, and breaks up an argument between grown men who are leaders of their respective communities. It's too much.  

It is good? Not from a historical standpoint. Is it enjoyable? Sure, but others in this series are far better.

This one is set during the bombing of London in WWII. Time flies in this book. Roughly half of it is spent in the early part of the war, but then the kids are evacuated to the country, where they spend over four and a half years. 

Like some of the books in this series, this book suffers from trying to cram too much time into too few pages. I didn't become attached to any of the characters and their time away from home felt like nothing because it was written in so few pages. Is it an important subject matter? Of course. But I do think it could have been handled better, perhaps in spending the entire story leading up to the evacuation and then telling what happened after in an epilogue. You're still cheated out of a good chunk of story that way, but to me, it feels like less of a cheat.

I have had this post sitting in drafts for almost a year. I left this 9/11 book because I started reading it and it felt too soon. 

It's over 20 years now, but it still feels too soon. 

The events of the book take place over a very short time. The night before. During. Short parts from the days after and then 6 months later. 

It's good. I loved the characters and their family dynamic. But I can't say it's easy to read. 

I was really surprised to see two more new books in this series! I thought they were done. 

This one covers Tulsa, which is something I admittedly don't know much about. I think the world could stand to know a lot more about this and it should be taught in every American history course. 

It is hard to read because it is a horrific incident but read it. 

 

This one is quite anticlimactic after the horrors of the previous two. It's a terrible accident, but it was an accident not terrorism. Basically, the main circus tent caught fire back in the 40s and it's the story of a girl trying to get out of there with her two twin sisters. One of the sisters is a fucking idiot and ends up stupidly risking her life instead of conquering her fear of heights. It was okay, but definitely not one of the best.