AMERICAN GIRL: Courtney

 

I'm not sure how, but I really thought I'd reviewed Courtney's first book and I never did! Agh. I read it back in November, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I can say for sure that the book and the cute art and the nostalgia all combined to make me want the doll. I haven't gotten her yet, but I certainly intend to. 

Courtney is something that's been a long time coming: a historical girl from the 1980s. This made less sense in, say, the 90s, but now that we're in 2021, an 80s girl definitely qualifies as historical. 

Courtney's first book introduces us to her world. She comes from a "blended family" (as it's called on American Girl's item page for the book). Only child Courtney's mother married a man with an older daughter, and then together they had a son. So both Courtney and 13-year-old Tina have a 2-year-old half-brother named Rafi. Courtney struggles with sharing a room with Tina, who's a typical bratty 13-year-old. She's really quite mean, though a lot of her pain comes from seeing Courtney with her mother. Tina's mom died when she was quite young, so she sees all these mother-daughter moments she'll never get. She's still not a likeable character, but you understand why. Mostly. 

Courtney likes to play video games in the arcade, as shown on the book's cover. Her best friend is named Sarah and they have another friend, a boy called Kip. 

One of the plotlines is that Courtney's mom is running for mayor. Not the most interesting thing, but definitely different. 

Another is that Courtney is working on a big project for school. She sees hardly any female characters in video games, so she plots her own game with her main character being a friendship space superhero named Crystal Starshooter. 

And then we've got Courtney's dad moving 3 hours away for work, so she won't see him as often. She struggles with that, but I liked the close relationship she and her father have.

The Challenger disaster is also covered in the book. 

Courtney's second book only recently came out (like I just got it yesterday) and it's far heavier than the first one. 

After taking part in Hands Across America, Courtney wants to spend her summer doing big things that will inspire the continuation of Crystal Starshooter's adventures. She goes on vacation with her father and then when she's home again, she meets a new friend named Isaac. He's a video game whiz and he quickly fits right into Courtney's friend group. When school starts, Isaac and Courtney are in the same class, while Sarah and Kip are in another. 

There's only one major issue in this book: Isaac has HIV. He's got hemophilia and ended up getting infected during a large blood transfusion. These were the early days of AIDS when it was more hysteria and misinformation than fact, something Courtney fights against during the rest of the book. She sees Isaac forced out of school, though that's illegal in California and his family fights it. She sees other kids being taken out of school and people who don't think he should attend, including Sarah. Courtney is appalled by Sarah's behavior and they stop talking. Parents begin protesting. Courtney herself is victimized for being Isaac's most visible friend. The entire situation is really traumatic from her point of view, but she realizes how much worse it must be for Isaac and keeps on being his friend. She spends a weekend with her dad and they research HIV/AIDS together. Courtney decides to do her upcoming class current events presentation on it and comes armed with a flyer full of facts for each person in her class. But despite her particular class's improved understanding, the situation keeps escalating until an assembly is called. Courtney's teacher asks her to do her presentation for the class and she breaks down from all the stress and fear. After more time with her dad, she returns and ends up doing the presentation...sort of. She combines forces with her friends and they make a video of Isaac talking about himself and his experiences and that's what Courtney shares with the whole school, along with copies of her flyer. In the end, Isaac comes back to school and is mostly welcomed. I'm sure there are still dissenters, but they're no longer mentioned. It's a heavy topic and I thought they handled it well.

The secondary storyline is Courtney's fight with Sarah. They originally stop talking over Isaac, then make up, but then Courtney forgets a choir performance because she and Kip decide to take Isaac to the arcade. Courtney doesn't tell Sarah because she still wants nothing to do with Isaac. So Sarah's pissed because she sees it as Courtney choosing Isaac over her. Courtney eventually explains that Isaac needs her more, but admits she also was a bad friend to Sarah. Yeah, no. I think she apologized too much and Sarah not enough. Ugh. Not a fan of Sarah. 

The highlight of the book for me was Courtney getting a Pleasant Company catalogue in the mail. She becomes obsessed with Molly because she relates to her instantly. A dad 3 hours away isn't the same as a dad at war, but for a kid, even small similarities can be relatable. (I related to Molly because I also wore glasses and I didn't see a lot of dolls or characters with glasses.) She shows the catalogue to her mom, who says Courtney is more of a stuffed animal girl and then pretty much says no to Courtney asking for Molly for Christmas after seeing the $75 price. Courtney shows the catalogue to Sarah (this is before the HIV storyline begins) and Sarah falls for Kirsten. Clearly here we have the most unrealistic thing in the book. Neither girl is into Samantha, who was decidedly the fan favorite from the start. I remember. I was there. I turned 8 in 1986, so Courtney is only 2 years older than me. Courtney goes to the mall on one of her visits to her dad's and she buys Meet Molly. The Molly storyline disappears into the background, but resurfaces when Courtney is really upset over the Isaac situation. Her dad surprises her with Molly and she's thrilled. Then later after making up, she shows her to Sarah. I'll admit this is self-indulgent of the company, but they do have a long history and I don't mind them inserting themselves into the 80s books because it's not like it wouldn't be relevant. 

So yeah, Courtney is a blend of 80s fun and seriousness. I really loved both books and I hope they do more with her. I plan on getting her doll, the splatter-print dress, the cardigan, maybe the suspender skirt, and definitely mini Molly with that tiny replica catalogue!

FATE: THE WINX SAGA

Ah, Winx. Sort of. I binged all six episodes of this show on Netflix in a single day and my back hated me for it. 

The show is extremely different from the old cartoon. Hints of the original remain, but it's mostly been darkened up like a lot of similar teen shows. I thought I'd probably hate it, but...I fuckin' loved it. A lot. You just can't go into it expecting anything like what you're used to. Come in with an open mind and it's brain candy. 

So is this book. 

The book summarizes the six episodes from different points of view. Bloom's sections (headed "Fire") are the only ones in the first person. The other characters all use third person. It's an odd choice, but it also works. I do think they could have gotten away with first person for all of the PoV sections though. There are some with the teachers that could have remained in third person. 

But you've got different sections, each headed with an element. As mentioned, Bloom is Fire. Stella is Light. I think she gets the fewest sections. Aisha is Water, Terra is Earth, Musa is Mind. I want to say we saw more of Musa and Terra than Aisha. Then there are ones generically titled Specialist. They're Sky or Riven. I was sad there were no PoV sections for Beatrix, as I loved her. (Of course I did.) But maybe being in her head even in third person would have given too much of the plot away. 

The book is missing a lot of the dialogue from the show. It cuts out the rather prodigious swearing, too. They said "shit" a lot on the show. But the book does add a handful of interesting scenes and backstory that would have rounded out the show better. It's interesting getting into Riven's head, too. 

So I definitely recommend this if you're planning on watching the show. As a stand alone, it's just okay, but paired with the show, it's pretty excellent. 

LORE

This book just released on the 5th and it was a must have for me. It's a little longer and I've been working, so I couldn't devour it in a day like I wanted to. But it is SO GOOD. 

The premise is that the Greek (and other) deities actually exist. Zeus got pissed at them centuries ago and created the Agon. Once every seven years, certain deities become mortal and can be hunted and killed by the bloodlines of various heroes. If you kill a god, you take their power and become the new version of them. 

So this hunt has been going on for ages and the story is set in the modern age. It centers on Lore (short for Melora), who is the last of her Perseus line. She thinks she's escaped from the horrors of the Agon and the life of the Blooded, but she gets roped back into it when the goddess Athena comes to her for help. 

I loved this so much that I'm not going to spoil much of anything at all, so not many plot details here. I liked a lot of the characters, but discussing them is also spoilery. 

I will say that if you liked Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Divergent, and other teens save the world-type of novels, you'll want to check this out. It's definitely more mature than those series. It's got world-building that reminds me of Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones lite maybe. I mean, the book is nowhere near Martin's typical A Song of Ice and Fire lengths. But the different bloodline houses are definitely reminiscent of GoT, as well as a lot of the more antiquated viewpoints that the Blooded are stuck in. 

If you're curious about the Bloodlines, they're descendants of Herakles, Cadmus, Perseus, Odysseus, Jason, Theseus, Achilles, Bellerophon, and Meleager. 

There is definitely a lot of misogyny in the story. It's blended into the world of the Blooded. Women aren't supposed to ever kill the gods and take their powers. They're not supposed to be the archons of the houses. They can fight and several are hunters or "lionesses" who fight for their archons but won't take the killing blow. There are also some traditions that still remain from the old days, like having groups of young girls in each house for breeding purposes and marrying at the fabulous age of...twelve. So yeah, expect misogyny. It's presented as a bad thing, so don't think it's not, but there's some uncomfortable stuff here. Lore even addresses it with Athena, asking her why she never mentored a female hero and questioning her about the Medusa myth. My only nitpick about this is that there's a bit of backstory where Lore's a sexual assault survivor. It almost plays into her character more than coming home and finding her parents and little sisters murdered. I feel like it could easily have been taken out and not changed the story at all. The trauma of her family's murder is enough to drive Lore. She doesn't have to be an assault survivor, too. Not to say those aren't traumatic events, but they're so often used as character development or defining features of strong female characters. It's a trope to have rape or sexual assault be part of a female lead's tragic past. You don't see male leads with rape as part of theirs, so why is it so often used for women? I honestly liked everything about the book except that one bit.

Speaking of female heroes, they could easily have included Atalanta instead of Meleager. I don't recall her even being mentioned. Hmm.

The whole thing reads like an action movie. I could see this easily being turned into a series. I don't think a single movie would do it justice. I definitely give it a very high recommendation.

MUSE SQUAD 1

 
I think this was an Amazon suggestion for me and boy, was it a good one. 

I'm a sucker for anything Greek myth-based so of course this is right up my alley. 

The main idea is that the power of the muses lives on throughout different women. Each woman has different abilities based on the muse she represents and all nine aren't always active at the same time. They're mortal, so they can die, and it can be a while before the next muse awakens her powers, something that usually happens during a time of dire need. 

Our main character is Calliope, called Callie, an eleven-year-old Cuban-American girl from Miami. She represents, duh, Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. Calliope is supposed to be the oldest and most powerful, so Callie's ability is to create heroes, people who discover how to be their best selves basically. Every muse inspires, but she REALLY inspires. 

The other members of the "junior muses" or Muse Squad are:

Thalia, the redhead from London, who represents Thalia, the muse of comedy. She's the comic relief and her powers are mostly used to make people laugh or act silly as a distraction, but she could easily make you laugh yourself into an asylum if she had to. 

Nia, a science-obsessed black girl from Chicago, who represents Urania, the muse of astronomy. She's more general science here, though Nia is really into NASA and space. 

Mela, the cat-obsessed, bird-hating, country music-loving girl from New Delhi. She represents Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, so she and Thalia are an amusing pair. Mela's powers are the most terrifying, because she brings tragic moments into people's minds and cripples them with grief. (She's my favorite.)

The older muses are led by Clio (representing Clio, muse of history), who works at the Victoria & Albert Museum that the muses use as a headquarters. Their HQ is always in a museum with magical entry points for each girl to travel to from her hometown. Then there's Etoro (love poetry), who's an old woman from Nigeria, and Paola from Colombia, who represents Polyhymnia (sacred poetry). The remaining two are college-age. Tomiko is from Tokyo and she's representing Terpsichore (dance) while Elnaz from Istanbul is Euterpe (she's supposed to be flutes and lyric poetry, but they're using "music" for the book).

The four younger girls are tasked with protecting a Fated One from the sirens, who are three shapeshifters that love to cause chaos and sow doubt. The mission has a lot of ups and downs, but as you can imagine, it does end successfully. All the problems are solved in typical middle-grade dramatic action style. Yeah, I'm being very vague to avoid spoilers. 

I really enjoyed this. I liked a lot of the characters and it's got good diversity. The vast majority of the characters aren't white, which is really nice. Thalia might be the only one actually. And maybe Clio? I can't remember if Clio's ever really described that thoroughly. There are a lot of Hispanic characters from many different countries and a couple Haitians, too. I'm not sure I've ever read a book of this type with one Haitian character much less two. 

My only real nitpick is the same problem I have with a lot of these. I love Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and all that, but I do get tired of children being given extraordinary power and being stronger than the adults. Why is an eleven-year-old girl made into the strongest muse? Why couldn't they all have equal power levels? I feel like that would make more sense instead of falling into the pattern of The New Kid Is Really Strong and Saves the Day. 

It's a minor nitpick though. Really it is. I'm looking forward to a sequel.

PANDORA 5

 
Like the second book, this one is almost non-stop action. This might be my favorite one, though I do love the Egyptian setting for #2. 

Iole, Homer and Pandy are struggling through the Arabian Desert trying to get to Baghdad. They meet up with a caravan, which contains Mahfouza, one of the dancing girls from Wang Chun Lo's carnival. The point of the caravan is to take a famous physician and his son to Baghdad, where the physician's execution will take place. This is a story from the Arabian Nights, where the physician is executed, but he gives the prince a book with poisoned pages, so he dies as well. Pandy and Iole trap some lesser evils that were stuck inside the prince. 

Meanwhile in the underworld, Alcie is being shown around by Persephone, who is decidedly goofy but also loveable. I like their version of Hades, who isn't really scary at all. At least they did well by him, despite falling into the trope of making Hera the big bad. Hades goes to Lachesis, one of the fates, and she brings Alcie her life thread. Because Hera's actions went against what the fates had planned, they did cut the thread but had not yet cast it into the final flames, so they were able to attach a new thread to it. Alcie is now the only person in Greece who has control over her own life. (There was a heavy belief that everything was fated.) Thanks to one of Hades' devices, Alcie is able to talk to Pandy not once but twice. Hades sends her to Earth, but she's stuck in a tree in the hidden garden of the djinn, so it's up to the others to go find her. 

The garden adventure is really good. I feel like this was also in Arabian Nights. I need to read that. They go one by one through a pitch black room surrounded by snakes, then into three successive rooms, each filled with either copper, silver or gold. Voices tempt them to pick up the coins or try to frighten them. As soon as a coin is touched, the person becomes a black rock on the floor. Pandy, Iole and Douban (the decapitated physician's son and Pandy's love interest) each try and fail. It's Homer with his love for Alcie who's able to resist and get through the rooms to her in the garden. He gets her down from the tree, though she does have a small branch growing through her shoulder. Then the two of them discover that the black stones are transformed people and using oil from the djinn of the garden's lamp, they restore them all. All the djinn who created the garden are grateful and give them jeweled fruit from the trees, then move the garden so no human can find it again. 

Next, they're off to Mahfouza's house. The point of the Baghdad adventure is to capture wrath/rage and they discover it's in the djinn who was trapped in the garden but learned how to escape. Mahfouza's youngest sister was poisoned by three lesser evils and her actions led to the family peri being killed. The garden djinn loved that peri, so he's filled with rage and cursing the family members. Mahfouza's parents were killed, but her brothers and sisters all have had horrible, body-mangling punishments. When she returns home, while the others are in the garden, Mahfouza gets taken apart and put back together incorrectly, so she's a mess of mixed up body parts.

The others realize that the fix is in the jeweled fruit, so they slowly figure out which fruit is which person, feed it to them and they return to normal. Each is a small riddle. Mahfouza had her pieces mixed and the only fruit that can be in segments is the orange. Another person is being pitted like a peach, another was split into halves (a pair/a pear), another is being cored like an apple. This is definitely the most gruesome part in the series so far. I love that it doesn't shy away from being more realistic in that way. It's not light and fluffy, no way. 

Pandy is able to defeat the garden djinn using the old "I don't believe you fit in that tiny lamp" trick. Ah, they always fall for that. Then they save everyone in the house, box up the lesser evils that had possessed the youngest sister, and...then Hera shows up. The sidestory with Hera in this book was so annoying. I hated it. Like every bit of it. Enough crazy crap happened that they could have skipped her part entirely and it still would have been well dramatic enough. Hera's taken care of with some help from the tiny rocs (which control djinn and magical powers in the land), then they're off to Rome to capture greed. 

Despite the boring, annoying Hera bit, I think this is my favorite so far. Lots of good characterization, characters and details. 

PANDORA 4

Pandora #4 is pretty much nonstop craziness. 

First, the gang knows they have to go to Mount Pelion to find Lust. The problem is...Lust is 1300 years back in time. 

The gods help out more in this book than any of the 3 previous. Hermes takes them to the mountain and then sends them back in time, where they find themselves working as temp serving help for the wedding. 

What wedding? 

I'd say the most famous wedding in Greek myth: Thetis and Peleus. 

AKA: The one with the For the Fairest golden apple that sparks the Trojan War. 

I loved the time at the wedding itself. It was handled really well, including a conversation between Pandy and her father, who at that point is of course not married and not a father. 

Eris shows up, the apple is delivered and chaos ensues. The challenge is issued and Hermes will take Aphrodite, Athena and Hera to Mount Ida the next day where Paris will make his judgment. 

Pandy received a coin from Zeus and she and Alcie both got them from Hermes. They can be exchanged for godly assistance in travel, but it costs them two weeks of their allotted time. 

They give one to Hermes and he gets them to Mount Ida, then turns the girls into dogs so Homer can pretend he's got 3 dogs with him, instead of 4 kids randomly appearing on Paris's mountain. 

Then just as at the wedding, everyone kinda stands around and watches the myth play out. Dog Pandy finally goes after the apple when Paris tosses it to Aphrodite, but Aphrodite systematically injures Pandy, Alcie and Iole as she stops their dog forms from taking her precious apple. 

Hermes helps them get back to the present, where Pandora's broken arm is now badly healed and whatever happened to Iole is also badly healed, but Alcie remains blinded. Hermes can't fix curses done by other gods, so they're stuck that way. 

The gang plans to use another coin to get to Aphrodisias, where a temple to Aphrodite is being built. They're going to ask present day Aphrodite for the apple. 

However, Hera's been working behind the scenes to get back at Pandy for a ridiculous slight from years ago. She tortures Hermes to get information, then traps both him and Aphrodite while Hera herself impersonates Aphrodite. Hera/Aphrodite agrees to give Pandy the apple in exchange for one thing: one of their lives. 

There's a horrible scene where they fight over who gets killed and Alcie finally insists it has to be her. She's bitten by a snake and dies. Then Hermes and the real Aphrodite arrive as Hera reveals her ruse. Pandy (with Aphrodite's permission) slaps Hera and then sets her on fire. Zeus arrives as this is dying down and the others lie to cover up Hera's deceit and all the assistance they've given Pandy. Zeus gets Hera out of there and returns Dido to Pandy. Aphrodite heals Iole and Pandy's injuries, but she cannot bring Alcie back. She does give them the apple though, so that's four down, three to go. 

Next up, it's off to Baghdad for Wrath (Rage in the book). 

And down in the underworld, Alcie is causing a ruckus. Go, Alcie!

PANDORA 3

For Pandora's third adventure, they find themselves headed to Jbel Toubkal, which is the highest mountain in the Atlas range. 

Pandy is separated from everyone else, gets some help from Dionysus and his team of crazy squirrels, and meets two young boys who accompany her for most of the rest of the book. 

Alcie, Iole and Homer end up being taken captive and find themselves on a ship newly-captained by the same guy that was the captain of the ship to Egypt. He recognizes them and puts them in his care. While onboard, Homer works for the captain while the girls mostly cry about Pandy, thinking she's dead. They then have a run-in with one of the lesser evils: Misery. 

Nearer the end, once everyone is reunited on Jbel Toubkal, Pandora has to get Laziness, which exists in the form of an ugly nose hair on her uncle Atlas. Homer is one of the men baked waist-down into a column so he can help support the heavens because Atlas is now too lazy to do so. Pandora's father Prometheus is there in disguise along with Hermes, who's helping him out as much as he can. Prometheus sees Pandora in action and realizes what his daughter is capable of. 

The book ends with our foursome getting on a ship again, bound for Thessaly where they're after Lust next. 

I found this one not quite as strong as the second. The first is slow going because it has to set the story, but the second was non-stop new characters and action and of course I also favor Egypt. This third book is good, but it dragged on in a few places. I still love all the characters and the storylines though.