I'd like to preface this by saying that this series is very popular among its intended audience, which I am too old to be a part of.

Anyway I've been trying to read a bunch of the paranormal teen romance series cuz for awhile the only one I had read was Twilight. And... I'm honestly surprised at how good Twilight is compared to a lot of these??

Anyway so like Michael and Shane are totes swoony or whatever but the entire town of Morganville makes no sense. Is this spoilers? Whatever. It's run by vampires so like, they make a big deal about how you can't buy wood at Home Depot because you could use it to make stakes or crosses. But they never say there aren't TREES in Morganville. IDK it just seems like there's tons of stuff you could make a cross out of. You could rubberband two pens together and make a cross. Bam. Also they make a big deal about how there are NO CHURCHES in Morganville, because vampires, but then Claire just happens to stumble into one at the exact moment she needs a church.

WHATEVER MORGANVILLE

WHATEVER

(Yes I'm overthinking this probably but they were really trying to drive home how the vampires controlled everything and just like... it seems like maybe they overlooked some very obvious things.)

Also I hate this trend of series books where it ends on SUCH a cliffhanger that it's not even really an ending. If your book is good enough people will pick up book 2 even if they don't need to just to figure out how the first book ended.

Also Claire's parents are idiots. Like... they're worried about Claire so they won't let her go to an Ivy League college, but they do let her go off to Morganville which by all accounts looks like a creepy vampire-ridden ghost town. Then they're unconcerned that she's being bullied/hazed but they want her to immediately withdraw from school when they find out that her housemates have a six-pack of beer.

Actually everything about this feels like it was written by an angsty teenager. Was it? Nope I just looked it up and Rachel Caine is 50 years old. Anyway she's clearly speaking to the angsty teen audience, sooo good for her.

Maybe my expectations were too high? This definitely didn't match the quality of Firefly the show, and I feel like the comics medium should have eliminated a lot of the barriers the show faced (production cost, network execs). Sigh.

This was fine... It's nice to revisit these characters but I think I'd probably be better served by reading Firefly fanfiction.

Whaaaat? A future government manipulates its population and trains its children to be soldiers? And this used to be AMERICA you say?! Well I never.

OK so maybe we've seen variations on this theme once or twice before. This is a solid effort with two strong characters. I also give it props for having more or less an actual ending and not a super abrupt "bet you can't wait for book 2 of the trilogy!" cliffhanger.

The audiobook was solid. It was nice to have two different voices for June and Day, and the story is fast-paced enough that it was great for my boring drive.

This felt very fresh to me! It's not a dystopia! There aren't any vampires! There are fully-realized female characters with goals and desires aside from dating vampires! LOVED the lady characters--Kami, Holly, and Angela were all unique and believable and awesome. Really unique look at lady friendship and the jealousies that can come up around pretty girls and how that can be overcome. Hooray!

The actual plot is a Gothic supernatural romance that's basically so old school it feels fresh and unique again. Very suspenseful & I'll definitely read the next one eeee.

I'm probably inflating this at least one star because of its PROMISE to be exactly what I want to see in comics. This volume is a lot of necessary exposition, etc. But who can say no to Wolverine and Kitty Pryde co-running a school? They're going to have so many adventures. Favorites!! Can't wait to read more.

The plotlines in this are totally bananas and I loved them. Wolverine and Kid Omega space gambling? Beast and Iceman inside Kitty Pryde's bloodstream? Also Angel is delusional and thinks he's an actual angel? Yes. Please. More.

I haven't read any of the AvX books, and for a reason... so tired of superhero teams fighting. Like, can't we all just get a long? Jesus. Anyway, without reading AvX this only borderline made sense and I only borderline cared, but it had its moments.

Also it ended very abruptly. GUYS can't you wait and collect a complete arc? >:( Whatever, I'll totally read volume 4 when it comes out.

This was a near-perfect blend of crack (X babysits for Franklin & Valeria Richards and the kids build a portal to a dragon world) and ~feelings~ (Julian, Remy, Logan, Jubilee, FEELINGS). Also I'm so stoked for Laura to join Avengers Academyyyyyy!

Also the art is pretty.

Also I was bummed that Laura and Natasha only interacted for like four panels. I would like for Laura to grow up and be an Avenger and be besties with Nat please.

I didn't read any of the other Fear Itself books (spoiler IDEK what that is and I didn't even look it up on Wikipedia and you can't make me, MARVEL) but I still thought this was a really solid Avengers Academy book. I liked that we got to see the kids really being tested and having consquences and figuring out what they wanted to do in the world.