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.