"It's hard to go from believing you're crazy to realizing the whole world is.

The art style has such an ashy quality. I'm not sure if this has no digital elements, but it sure looks like charcoal. Now, for purely superficial reasons, I did not like the photorealism artwork here because, at some points, the characters look downright ugly.

I also don't like

cheating

plotlines. Amanda deserved better as a character.

She was just here to serve and be the long-suffering sidechick. Lady, you're forfeiting your paycheck over to a man that sits on a couch all day, glooming over his own inability to be faithful and speak up about his insecurity, and taking care of his daughter. BIRD BEHAVIOR! I'm kidding. And yet I'm not.

Rue had some nice moments of narrative, but, overall, I found her friends and her to be too wannabe-edgy.

A little more cohesive than the first, but still irritating with its narrative. I want to fight this book. Every story doesn’t have to be linear, but it needs to make sense at some point. The reader should be able to have an “ah-hah” moment. This volume has a bit of a spotlight on Sarah, which I liked. Her family is beautiful.

I’m not really sure why she loves him/they’re in love. He brought a lot of trouble to her doorstep and almost got her precious baby boys killed last volume and her brutally beaten. I guess they bonded over Sissy? Whatever.

so, Johnny is a reaper and he can turn into a coyote. Okay, that makes sense considering his last name. But he has a sister molly? And they constantly switch their roles of good and bad luck !?! sigh

2.5

What?

First, let's get the good out the way. I loved the artwork! One of the artists for Batman: The Animated Series did the artwork, and his work shows a wonderful balance between cartoony and mature.

Onto what the heck this story was... None of it makes sense, so don't try to understand it.

ARC 1
-"promiscuous" wife, Tito, in a small town wants to leave; cheating on husband with an abusive dude Anton; wants to have sex with every male character alive except Bundo (I'm sorry, but she just felt like a sex-kitten fantasy some writer dreamed up. Why does she feel stuck there? Is she poor? why isn't she looking for a rich dude? why is she with Anton?)
-Anton talks about his "big balls." Okay, we're back in high-school everyone *eye roll*
- 3 kids look into a magic ball of light and go blind (makes sense)
- random white-haired lady, Ela, that looks exactly like Tito shows up
- A scientist named Felix shows up. he's mysterious?
-Sherrif is a stick in the mud
- Bundo is an alcoholic still depressed about his family dying and strangely attracted to these weird balls of lights
- cool lady in a black suit talks but never does anything important

ARC 2
-Tito wants Felix; Felix does too? until Ela shows up.
- Tito's husband is okay and knows Anton is sleeping with his wife every night (so why did they have to sneak around?)
-Tito has a temper tantrum that Felix wants Ela
- Sherrif has anger issues and pins Tito to the ground like she robbed a bank
-Tito's husband gets freaked out/turned on whenever he sees Ela? I DON'T KNOW! Did they have history or something?
-Antwon slaps the fire out of Tito like the wimp-made man he is
-Also, when adults look at the ball of light they go naked, but kids only go blind? why? because fanservice.

ARC 3/4
-umm, alien-girl Ela says she gon' put a stop to the "evil" balls of light. Okay???
-Tito tells the sheriff he better have sex with her because the world might end
- antwon and Tito's husband work together to get rid of Felix
- some secret agents in Hawaiian shirts keep showing up, but they're really irrelevant
- Back to Ela, apparently she can talk now for some reason??? because before she could only communicate to the blind kids with her hands in contact
-Ela waves her hands around and the ball of light disappears.
- Apparently, Felix and she are in love
-

Ela and the sheriff hook up? whyyyy? he manhandled you like dirt? I thought you wanted to leave this place!?!

SOMEBODY MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!

To be honest, I had low expectations, but I thought the romance might be cute.

"It's hard to know what to be afraid of when you don't even know what the threat is."

Okay, you need to have some suspension of disbelief when reading this story. Romiette seems really young in her first journal entry. I'm not saying there aren't light-hearted, juvenile sixteen-year-olds, but are African kings and presidents really out here visiting her mom's pan-African boutique? This was before Facebook was even popular, so how in the world would they know about the store? Also, why was Ben so gracious and friendly after Julio gave him a bloody nose? Like it would've been better if they started on the wrong foot but learned they were wrong about each other.

Nitpick: Why the heck is brown-golden skin and fried chicken in the same sentence when Julio is describing Romiette. Yes, he realizes how trifling that simile is, but why even put it in there? I have never read she was pale like mayonnaise in a story. -_-+
Julio's dad is also Liam Neeson.

A group of drunk black guys in a truck killed his high school sweetheart, so he has hated black people ever since.

Anyway, Romiette and Julio is definitely more plot-driven than character-driven with too much telling and not enough showing. I like the bite-sized chapters, but they consist of mostly dull dialogue. The most interesting character to me is Destiny, and I'm not being biased. The story is also dated with chat rooms and VCRs. I was going to laugh if they had AOL dialup internet, but alas they did not.

The part when Romiette and Julio shared their dreams about each other was really cute.

"Romiette you are my dream.

Julio, my dreams are sometimes terrifying.

I will protect you.

From my dreams?

Maybe I will be there for you in your dreams" (pg 93)

Overall, it's not really worth reading in 2019 and there wasn't enough romance.

I’m not sure what to make of this. It’s quirky, calm conversations between an unlikely(?) pair of friends. The characters think they are edgy, but they aren’t too obnoxious about it. The tone is very slice of life-ish and walks at its own pace. Franck seems kind-hearted despite his stone face, and Anjeline seems happy to just go with the flow and randomly giggle for no reason. I especially liked the different hatch lines and patterns throughout the art. The story takes a sharp turn (for no reason), ending a bit sadly though it’s slightly fitting.

2.5

I liked the dialogue and characters, but I didn't care too much about the story.

A whole lot of angst and drama (self-esteem, self-harm, substance abuse, body image, family problems, growing pains, teacher-student relationship, DRAGGED OUT FRIENDSHIP DRAMA OH MY GOD) accompanied by some beautiful color direction. The colors are like gluing a million different sticky notes together. I loved it! One thing though who under the age of 60 is calling anyone “heifer?” That’s grandma language right there, and it’s used repeatedly.

This story tries to tackle a lot, but it doesn’t try to solve it either. Life’s like that sometimes, everything can’t be tied up with a bow.

Some people were so maddddT (yes, I meant the T) that a fat girl wanted a relationship and with a good-looking guy at that. What? Can't round girls desire to be loved and be with attractive people? And yes, it's dumb and unrealistic for her to think she would marry and have a kid with her (first?) boyfriend, but she was also a teenage girl. Let her have her dreams.

With all that being said, I didn't enjoy this book. It was hard to read through Jack being so jerky (when he could've just told his family!). I liked Libby's narrative better but she was whiny too. 

I also really liked the sprinkle of diversity since Jack and his brothers were multi-ethnic and the few diverse school friends. I was pleasantly surprised when Carolina the super-model pretty, popular mean girl was dark-skinned because generally that character trope is written as a blonde or brunette white girl. Anywho, Carolina was too flat of a character too.

I had never known about prosopagnosia, so this book definitely brought awareness to me.

Overall, I don't recommend the book because it ended too cliche and highschool love is oh-so special and long-lasting. And I just couldn't STAND Jack's cheating dad. He just burned me up. 

Ehh, I get Hameline's frustration. Y’know two wrongs do not make a right, but it’s so easy for the majority to tell the minority ones not to fight back. Anyway, Radiant is getting increasingly slapstick/juvenile with its humor (i.e wiener, pee, Konrad-kiss jokes). However, I checked out every volume up to 9 from the library, so onward we go!

Okay, Inquisition Captain Dragunov is so clearly designed to be the cool, anti-hero or dude with his own set of morals. Don’t know too much about him, but I find him (and Grimm) intriguing. That is one of my absolute favorite character arch-types, so it is not hard to see why I like him more than the others.

ending spoilers:

It would have added a nice weight if Doc stayed dead, but him having a molt infection is fine as well. I am not feeling anything for Melie despite the flashback to her past. Also, super surprised that we were introduced to Seth’s brother so quickly.