The Ending You Deserve

 

Ava Quirk is a junior at Faraday, a prestigious, arts-themed private school near her hometown. She applied for two years before finally getting in. 

However, Ava isn't entirely likeable. She describes herself as a bitch. Except she's not really. She doesn't come off as a stereotypical mean girl, but more as someone who's too afraid to get close to people and who speaks her mind, even if her timing isn't great. Like she laughs during a fellow student's pompous introduction of their famous teacher at Parent's Day. Was there reason to laugh? Yes, but she could have kept it internal. 

After a brutal writing critique in which she upsets two students, Ava is pulled into the office of her advisor, the famous teacher who won poetry awards and who she admires. He basically tells her she's not going to keep her scholarship unless she improves her grades in all her classes and makes some friends. She mentions the son of the school president, who she just had a positive interaction with, and his friend, a talented girl that used to be in the writing and acting programs but switched to only acting. The teacher latches onto this and wants her to get closer to them, to actually have a social life, as well as to work on her classes. 

Ava quickly falls in with Graham, the president's son, and Love, his bestie. Ava hints at troubles at her old school with an ex-girlfriend, so it's never really clear if she's interested in Graham or not, but there are moments. She never clarifies her sexuality. Everyone comes off as bi or pan, really. She has a crush on Love, but frequently wonders to herself if they're a couple, until it's Graham who says they're not. They should have just been a throuple. 

Anyway, as Ava grows closer to the group and joins their private writing critique sessions, her teacher's real motive comes out. He wants a copy of Love's novel. Why? Because he's so worried about her mental health. Yeah, sure. Ava doesn't want to betray her friends, especially after reading said novel, but the teacher is essentially blackmailing her now, threatening her with not only expulsion but a lie about her cheating that could affect her future. 

So Ava has to find a way to make everything right and the book gets surprisingly violent as it goes on. I'm being vague so as not to spoil anything and it's frustrating. 

Ava isn't instantly likeable, but she does get there. Graham and especially Love (who's kinda like goth-lite) are awesome. All of them have complicated family stuff, though Graham's is pushed to the side a bit. That could have been worked with more. I liked Ava's roommate a lot and wanted more from her. I'm a fan of how few straight characters there are in this. 

Probably my least favorite thing is that it falls into the trope of undescribed POV. Frost was like that in my previous review. The POV characters just don't describe themselves. I don't remember Ava mentioning the color of her hair. You only know that it's long and curly. You know her aunt is white and blonde and German, so Ava is at least half-white, but I think that's it. I dunno. Maybe I just glossed over some details, but I never had a clear picture of her in my mind and that tends to drive me nuts, especially if so much time is spent describing Graham and Love. 

Anyway, I mostly liked this. The ending is pretty satisfying.

POSTED

 

Set in a middle school where phones are banned, the student body starts leaving post its on lockers. Naturally, this spirals into bullying. 

The cast of characters kept this book going for me. 

Frost: POV guy. A poet who won an award once. 

DeeDee: The most nerdy one. Into LotR and D&D. Has a dad who's described as an "Indian Santa Claus," which made me sad he was never "on-screen" in the book. 

Bench: The athlete who rarely gets off the bench. He's one of two black characters mentioned, the other being the girl who got phones banned in the first place. (She never plays another role in the story.) The one closest to being middle school cool.

Wolf: Not because he's a badass, but because he's like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A piano prodigy. 

Rose: The new girl trying to find a place to fit in. She's such a big girl that the guys' initial opinions of her were that she had to play some sort of sport. So think athletic girl bigger than a lot of the guys her age. Except she's not into sports. Rose is awesome. She was my favorite pretty early on. 

The drama begins when Rose joins the four guys at their lunch table and no one but her is comfortable. Wolf and she quickly become besties, while Bench gets teased by his teammates and abandons the group, especially after making a game-winning catch. Frost, who was closest to Bench, is upset by this, but it's never properly addressed until nearer the end. 

Meanwhile, there's homophobic harassment aimed at Wolf, who I don't think clearly comes out, but I got the feeling he wasn't straight. And Rose stops the bullies from bothering DeeDee by taking on a possibly dangerous bet. 

I liked this, but it was frustrating to not really like the POV character. Frost isn't terrible, but he's too wishy-washy for me. I can't remember if he ever even shared his poems with the others by the end of the book. I would have talked to Bench much earlier. I wouldn't keep my friends at arm's length, which is kind of what he does. Wolf and Rose are the two best characters, so I kept reading for them. Not something I'd reread, but I don't regret reading it. 

MALL GOTH

 

I cannot remember the exact year this is set in, but definitely early 2000s. I remember a reference to Evanescence's "Going Under," which was 2003. 

It wasn't that far off from me being a mall goth in the late 90s. Like malls are still very relevant places in this time, too. 

This was a very nostalgic read, even though it's nothing like my life. I wasn't goth in high school. I would have been a rivethead, if I'd known that word at the time. I got into goth more in early 1997. (I'm still a music-based subculture hybrid. I call myself a metalrivetgoth, because I enjoy all the music.) 

So Liv is a 15-year-old goth who just moved to a new place. She's an out bisexual, which was unheard of in my day. I imagine things weren't really that different only a few years later, especially in high school. She's navigating making new friends and hoping they'll be more comfortable with her than people in her old school. She does fairly well pretty quickly, but also catches the attention of her English teacher. 

This is filled with drama on many levels. Liv's friends with a couple guys, one has a girlfriend that doesn't like her right away, the other has a crush on a girl who works in the video game store and Liv also thinks she's cute. She's struggling with her father never being home and then with her parents getting divorced. The friend with the girlfriend is sending all kinds of mixed signals. She's found a job at the mall, but she's the mascot for an AU version of Build-a-Bear and she hates it. And the thing with the teacher is...well, you can see where that's going. 

I love all the little nostalgic Easter eggs the most. The story is mostly well-written, though it felt like it could have gone on much longer and been more detailed. Like one couple got interested in each other completely off-screen and I wanted more details there. The drama problems were on their way to being wrapped up, but some of that would occur off-screen. Overall, I liked it enough to want it to be much longer. If you were growing up goth back in those days, this is a fun read. 

ACHILLES

 

I am really behind on my reviews. 

I had intended to go crazy with this series, but I'm currently stuck on Anansi, the one after Achilles, because the nonfic essay is kinda rambling and boring, so I keep putting it down. But I have the two newest volumes on the way and I will definitely get Anansi done soon. 

Because it's been awhile since I read this, I don't remember a lot of details, but I do remember that the essay was actually good. I'm not a huge Achilles fan. He's kinda overpresent in modern retellings and such when other characters in The Iliad get looked over. But that essay made him interesting, so that's saying something.

The short stories were enjoyable. I remember that much, but again, no details. 

So apologies for the crappy review, but I liked this one. I think overall I liked it better than Circe. That opening nonfic essay is really what's going to make or break these books for me.