"please, what is it like to be loved by the gods?"

I love classics (that is, mythology/history, not Classic Novels — though I love those too) and I love poetry, so of course I had to pick up this collection.

As is always the case, some of these resonated much more with me than the others, but in every poem the language is beautiful and creates vivid imagery. (My particular favorites are "Hyacinthus I," "Persephone," "Apollo," "Perseus," "Livilla," and "Achilles II". Which, looking back, is probably at least half the collection, LOL.)

2018-19: Series buddy read with ✨Skye✨! ❤

I'm really tired of all the war, give me cloak-and-dagger any day. That said, I love getting into mythologies and deities, and the Tortall cycle has a particularly vivid and varied sample, between the animal gods, the Great and lesser gods, and the Immortals; that demigod intersection is where I'm comfortable hanging out as a reader. (See: Rick Riordan books.) Certain interpersonal developments made me roll my eyes —

Spoiler

Numair and Daine do a LOT of kissing in this one, though to be fair they keep having to separate and reunite

— but on the whole they made me smile and feel warm and fuzzy.

----
12/31/18: We're gonna try to finish this one in the hour before the New Year ... go go go!
1/1/19: So yeahhh, that didn't quite happen. I made it over halfway though, which will have to be good enough 😅

3.5 stars.

I definitely enjoyed reading this, but most of the Irregulars have been relegated to comic background characters (even Oona, the literal face of one of the main subplots) so Ananka and Kiki can continue to take center stage — the exception is Betty, who really comes into her own — and I really missed the group dynamic; it seemed like there were only a handful of scenes where Ananka is actually with the group, and half the time her mind is somewhere else. Leadership is hard, but I don’t think, objectively, she pulled it off quite as well as she implies.

Some of the “Fishbein’s Guide to...” sections are funny and practical, but some are just juvenile. That statement could really be applied to Ananka herself; she never seems to catch on to the inherent issue of panting after her friend’s boyfriend with the explicit hope of “stealing” him away, or to really recognize that other people have their own issues except when it inconveniences her with a self-imposed need to intervene.

There are only a handful of major plotlines, and yet at times I still felt like there were too many moving parts. Part of it might just be Ananka’s overwhelmedness coming through, but another part was that it was just messy — jumping around from focus to focus, switching between Ananka’s POV and Kiki’s (as told by Ananka, of course). The resolutions are too neat, as well as pretty abrupt, which was definitely disappointing.

I think there was a bit too much going on in this book, even though it all comes together neatly at the end — slightly too perfectly, but since these books are about the ultimately charmed lives of luxury that Singapore’s wealthiest elite families live, it does fit the overall mood. There are also several moments where it gets too extreme for my liking, whether it’s drama or cheesiness or just predictable cliches; that said, it’s still a fun story.

3.5 stars.

I’m still not a huge fan of the Big Bad battle/reveal — though I do like finally learning how everything fits together — and it frustrated me that it takes forever to find out what really happened to Noah. (Not that I ever had any doubts that

Spoiler

he was alive all along, or that Mara would manage to bring him back

.) The plot developments make logical sense, but I still feel detached — maybe because they’re almost completely predictable, even anticlimactic. Still, the epilogue is satisfying, though

Spoiler

the First Time scene

in particular bordered on cheesy.

3.5 stars.

As a sequel, this was pretty satisfying — consistent with the first book in tone and style (appropriate since it’s set just shortly after that ending), minus the paradigm shifts that came with further world-building and new ethical dilemmas. (It’s just a little disappointing that the ther kids don’t play a larger role; at the end of the first book, Matt was picturing how each of them could find a place in Opium, whereas in this book they seem more like a burden to him.) Third-person limited POV (Matt’s) can be limiting since he of course doesn’t realize which of his behaviors and thoughts are problematic; sometimes it’s easy for a reader with basic empathy to recognize, but other times it plays into a toxic status quo.

The dearth of complex female characters is mildly dismaying; admittedly the drug dystopia portrayed is extremely patriarchal, but even the women who spend most of their time offstage and might reasonably be shown as complex and independently motivated (Esperanza, Celia, Sor Artemisia, to name the most visible) are pretty flat — particularly disappointing considering what integral roles Celia and Esperanza in particular played in the first book. Mirasol’s storyline in particular is concerning in a variety of ways, consent foremost among them; the overlap with María’s storyline (yes, I do mean love triangle, unfortunately) is also dismaying, compounded by María’s extremely limited agency. Listen and Ton-Ton and Chacho were much more compelling, though the boys’ role felt more like a cameo and Listen’s like a sidekick.

Ultimately, the primary characters are just kids, simultaneously recovering from trauma yet sheltered from the world in different ways; the secondary adult characters are set in their ways but mostly not bad people. The setting is still vivid, even bigger than the first book lets on. However, the characters and plot undergo only minimal development, which I found disappointing.

IMHO, nothing about the virus/vaccine makes any scientific sense, and I’m not buying the hand-wavy “Olympias was ahead of her time and ours too” stuff; I’m particularly irked by the bemusing courses of action Avery settles on. What in the world makes her think that destroying the cure would be more likely than not to prevent the Saxons from unleashing the virus rather than a shortsighted annihilation of a perfectly viable Plan B in case they did? And I also wasn’t a fan of the rapid alternation between the vulnerable demographic: from the world at large to just Circle members back to the world at large. The last-minute twist also seemed highly underdeveloped, if not pointless.

A lot of the major characters made choices that seemed inconsistent with my understanding of them, while others left me indifferent because they were flat and thus I had no such understanding to begin with. On a related note, Anya seems more like a four- or five-year-old than seven — at such a young age there is in fact a huge difference — and beyond that, more of a plot tool/accessory than anything else. The main and minor romances also seemed propped up by reader assumptions, based in part on mainstream tropes and progressions.

All in all, I was absolutely not impressed with this not-so-Grand finale. (insert reaction gif of Gordon Ramsay shaking his head: Damn.)

Honestly, just the little moments between Scarlet and Rob would’ve earned the 4-star rating; they’re so clearly head-over-heels in love and wonderfully stronger together. I’m also a huge fan of the strong female leads, particularly the diversity: a lady-turned-thief-turned-Lady, a queen, a new mother, and so many others. Prince John’s repeated popping up “unexpectedly” to issue threats and fail to carry through does get a little tiresome and ultimately he’s more caricature than terrifying villain, but since one of themes underlying the series is how Robin Hood and Maid Marian (aka Scarlet) won over the people, it’ll do.

Look, I have a hard time getting super invested in the Final Boss battle; it’s kind of A Thing for me. Personal disinterest aside, this one just felt more rapid and action-oriented than the others, less of the slow-build mystery that I’ve enjoyed. It’s still good — particularly the ending; a bit predictable but satisfying enough — though slightly disappointing in the context of the series taken as a whole.

3.5 stars.

This had a pretty slow start, and in fact it wasn't until maybe 2/3 through that it won me over like the previous two books did. But I'm glad I stuck with it until that point, because at its peak this is incredible — good people who have to do not-so-good things, genuinely difficult moral dilemmas, sociopolitical tensions and their effect on individuals and communities.

There are a few moments that were a little much for me in their Pollyanna-ness:

Spoiler

some of the letters, moments with Peder, Dogface's abrupt reformation

. But overall, it was a nice third installment with characters I grew to love.