Hmm, I struggled with this one. I think that was intended--the voice here is really strong and gets you deep into Ebony-Grace's head, and she seems to be a character who's pretty clearly on the spectrum but, given that it's set in 1984, that word is never used. Instead her parents call her spoiled, fresh, tell her to stop playing around, etc etc etc. So I get that we felt left out of the story because her family was keeping things from her, but in the end it felt unsatisfying because there were really big pieces of information that we never got as a reader.

Still--it's an interesting POV and I think some readers will really connect to it, and it's great to see a character who's a young black girl inspired by Uhura from Star Trek--the power of representation!

I didn't like this as much as I'd hoped, and I've been chewing over why, and I think what I've come up with is that it's TOO ambitious? I've loved similar books like [b:The Magicians|6101718|The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)|Lev Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1313772941l/6101718._SY75_.jpg|6278977], [b:Carry On|32768522|Carry On (Simon Snow, #1)|Rainbow Rowell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481729252l/32768522._SX50_.jpg|43346673], etc, and I think what works for this kind of book--that's clearly looking to respond in a fanfiction-like way to existing properties, to say, "Yes, these plucky teens saved the world, but at what cost? Let's really dig into their trauma!" But those books function by making their canon so similar to Narnia/Harry Potter/etc that they work as an effective shorthand. Here, whatever it was that her Chosen Ones went through...I mean, there are familiar tropes here and there but overall it's original, it can't clearly be mapped onto a Voldemort or whatever. Which is fine, except that then to start 10 years later and be reacting to piecemeal bits of information...it's not quite so satisfying or comprehensible.

that said, I liked Sloane as a prickly, traumatized heroine, and I enjoyed the story well enough. I liked the diversity of her crew of chosen ones though some of her talk about microaggressions etc felt a bit clunky? (A bit, perhaps, like Roth is someone who has been taken to task about such things in previous books but still doesn't feel totally comfortable writing about them? ah well a nice effort).

This is her first "adult" book but it doesn't feel too different than her YA ones except that the characters are aged up (and eg talking about marriage). I feel like she could have made more of her "adult" status by making this longer and digging into all of the worldbuilding a bit more.

eh!

I LOVE this series but this is maybe my least favorite of the bunch? I'm not sure. Part of it for me is that the adventure is kind of gross? (Intentionally so and all the characters are also grossed out.) Still, I am glad for more time with these characters.

this was such a fun, sweet read that captures the joys of fandom as well as fandom's toxic underbelly. It was great to get glimpses of favs from [b:Geekerella|30724132|Geekerella (Once Upon a Con, #1)|Ashley Poston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1476734515l/30724132._SY75_.jpg|50652411] but I loved the new POV characters here. (And I think it would stand alone fine if anyone wanted to just skip to the book with the primary queer romance.)

Hm. I love the Magicians books, and I love the Magicians show, but I have to say this book was a little bit disappointing in a world where the Magicians show exists and has done so much to flesh out the women characters. This is ostensibly Alice's story but there's hardly any content here that isn't in [b:The Magicians|6101718|The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)|Lev Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1313772941l/6101718._SY75_.jpg|6278977]. Like we're getting Alice's narration but still on scenes that revolve around Quentin. Ehhh. The art is good though.

Audio re-listen in preparation for [b:The King of Crows|25985242|The King of Crows (The Diviners, #4)|Libba Bray|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1555345715l/25985242._SX50_.jpg|45897242]. THIS SERIES SLAPS.

I have such a complicated relationship with SJM where I'm like, this is always so epic and sprawling and nonsense and all the stuff I generally don't like in fantasy, and I can never keep the characters straight or remember any plot points, but I'm also always just like



So I was excited to get my hands on her first urban fantasy book, hoping it would cut down on some of the fantasy nonsense, and.....it somehow all just felt more strange and more surreal than her pure fantasy? Like this is a world where the internet is unironically called "the inter-web"?? and allegedly snarky, world-weary characters have a whole conversation about "mer murders" without ever pointing out the hilarity of "mer murder"??? Is....Sarah J. Maas an Earth creature??? I would not be shocked to learn that she is of another realm.

Also it's weird that some concepts here seem to be from Norse mythology (Vanir, Hel, etc) but then also fucking whatever SJM is horny for (angels, Fae, vampyrs, etc). As in her traditional fantasy books, there's a bunch of weirdness about alpha males and slavery and like, whatever. You could write a dissertation about the problematic horniness of SJM. Probably someone has.

But I'm still gonna keep reading her books bc the trash is somehow so compelling to me!!!

I wouldn't normally review a cookbook but I did actually read this and found it very entertaining. All the recipes are introduced with notes from various characters and they're very fun. I tried a few recipes from this and they turned out fine. It's a pretty meat-heavy cookbook but there were some nice desserts/side dishes, and I liked the cocktail recipes. A fun read for a True Blood fan and a seemingly decent cookbook.

SCREAM I loved this so much!! For me personally I preferred it to the first because it was less scary-scary and more about the characters' fears/desires. I also loved the building suspense about Project Buffalo, getting real X-Filesy up in here. And I loved getting more of the characters from the first book as well as the introduction of Ling. (Badass disabled Chinese-American possibly-queer character in a genre novel, what upppp)

But now I have to wait for book 3?! Noooo

--

upon re-read: still heckin great

This book is great if you like crying and/or sharks! Reminiscent of [b:The Thing About Jellyfish|24396876|The Thing About Jellyfish|Ali Benjamin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439121354l/24396876._SX50_.jpg|43981451], in that it's another book about grief + aquatic life. It's set in a coastal town so idyllic that it took me awhile to pick up on the fact that it's historical fiction. It kinda seems like a place where kids would just ride their bikes around and not have smartphones for fun, not just because it was the 90s. It's subtle but well, there are some types of stories that are more adventurous when you can't just google "shark facts" but instead have to take a trip to Maine to visit your dead mother's former academic mentor in a nursing home to ask him shark facts.