This book has aaaaaall the spooky season vibes. It's like Tim Burton's Wizard of Oz. It is Spirited Away and Corpse Bride and Coco and Coraline... It is a dark and dreamlike adventure, with an Every Girl (and an Every Cat!) at its core who must discover what courage, compassion, and ingenuity they truly possess when put through a trial-by-fire.

I have to say, though, for as much as I'm a fan of sinister stories, I had to knock off a star for false advertising. Labeling this a middle grade book is generous, and the fact that the protagonist is 10 is disturbing; I wouldn't recommend this book to a younger audience. From the front covers, and the title, you might expect this to be a fantasy book with some classic fantasy violence, like goblins and wicked witches and such. It. Is. Not. The realm May is transported to is one of haunting spirits, both nightmarish creatures of folklore AND the souls of the dead. It is their job to trick, scare, and harm people. The depictions of these spirits is more traumatizing than fantastical. There are a shockingly large number of suicide and murder victims, floating about in gory detail. The ever-smiling, dead-fish-eyed, skeletal-faced bogeyman who dissolves your soul into nothingness. An eyeless bee-person. A dead pirate covered in maggots, cockroaches, and other creepy-crawlies. I could go on. This book is not a fairytale, it is a ghost story. This book is for the young horror aficionado, someone old enough for Pirates of the Caribbean or The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Goosebumps crowd will love it!

I admit too - and this is personal bias - that I'm inclined to knock off another half a star for the whole dreamscape thing. Some people love an odyssey, they don't mind a children's book with a series of D&D-esque random encounters in a loopy setting with little internal logic. I had a hard time keeping straight what was happening, where was it happening, why was it happening. There are a lot of homages to folklore and superstitions and ancient practices, all around how we treat the dead or other spirits. But there are also nightmare physics, like hallways that go on forever, or a teleporting bad guy who is always inexplicably right behind you giving chase. It's the afterlife, but it's also a spirit realm where every ghoul and ghostie and thing that goes BUMP in the night is real, but it's also another planet in another galaxy! The capital city is inside a wormhole! It has a massive sewer system, even though ghosts shouldn't need to excrete? Well maybe, ghosts DO eat sacrificial cakes that muggles on Earth leave out for them, even though we shouldn't know that spirits are real because we lose the gift of True Sight when we're children! Bodies of water, mirrors, telephone booths, and graves are all portals, but none of them can take you home. Pets are outlawed by the most evil man in all the land; his name is Bo? It was very hard to A) Keep track of what was happening, B) Believe in the stakes, or C) Sympathize with the random barrage of characters. I wish the book had been a little firmer in its lore, and had exposited more to May/the audience, and I wish the characters had been connected to May in a deeper, less random, way. I never felt an ambience, or message, or sympathy for the protagonist's arc, the way I did reading a V.E. Schwab novel. There was just something about jumping frequently from thing to thing was like trying to keep up with a kid's imaginary play. It was thematically appropriate, but I didn't connect to it.

You got me though, book. That cliffhanger ending got me. I need to find out what happens! So, I'm here for the long haul. We'll see what becomes of May in book 2...

This book is incredibly wise. It took the concept of The Great American Novel, and made its bittersweet musings safe and digestible by sandwiching them with the fantastical. All of the legends from the great explorers, all of the Here There Be Dragons, the killer mermaids, the ghost pirate ships, the wicked witches in the woods, the territorial sasquatches... somehow, by including them as everyday facts, they make what we take for granted about our planet - nature, community, scientific discovery, our whole human history! - seem like the truly extraordinary. I feel a compassion for the pioneers like I never really did before when simply reading from a textbook. They left the civilization they knew on a hope and a hypothesis, braved unimaginable dangers, suffered losses, and many times over failed in their mission. But they also witnessed all things beautiful and unexpected, sad and strange, and their steps led to our future. The universe is vast and uncharted, and what we don't know is really only what we don't know yet. There is a ton to unravel in this book: The stages of grief, yes, but also the human condition in general. Do we meet obstacles with curiosity, optimism, violence, denial... There's no one "right" answer, but an acceptance that we are flawed and messy and ever-learning, ever-changing... Heavy, but beautiful, topics for a kids book to cover!

I think I can say without spoilers, that if this book were adapted for a Netflix movie, the ending would be changed. I think the author was very brave to choose a realistic ending, and that A LOT of kids need the catharsis this book can give. But, I also think that what makes this book the equal of any classic American novel currently taught in schools, is also what would make it too sad for the average kid to just pick this book up at the bookstore. To "sell" this book to a young audience, I imagine an adapter would edit in a happier ending. But then again, "moody" is the new mainstream right now, so maybe it's exactly the Good Cry book our current middle graders would reach for!

Regardless, as an adult, this book makes me want to watch a sunrise and then plan a road trip. It's one of those books that inspires you to cherish all things past and present, to carpe diem but to also be still and present. It's hard to describe wanting to Do and Not Do at the same time. It's the euphoria of "I want to take a long hike, and then I want to sit at the top of a cliff and just look at all I've surmounted."

Complex, cathartic, and inspiring.

The sequel was better than the first book!! ^_^ Witty, exciting and emotional! The more traumatic horror elements that gave me pause in the first book were eliminated in favor of more cinematic horror monsters, and the dreamscape storytelling evolved into something a little more linear. Still an odyssey, still spooky Wizard of Oz vibes, but the dangers were more impactful, the world more visceral. Even the secondary characters each get a hero moment or an arc moment, some meaningful highlight. May's character arc is impressive, literally sinking into the depths of Despair before climbing her way back out to defend her friends, every inch a hero as she faces all of the horrors that have plagued her for two books. There is an amazing convergence of evil forces at a disco, and a fight scene set to "Staying Alive". You can see the potential Netflix adaptation right there, the book sings!

Unfortunately, I did knock off one star: Half for goofy cat antics and half for redundancy/tropes.

Let's start with the cats...

In the first book, it was obvious that Somber Kitty was based off of a real, beloved cat. But his ample page time was charming, very Homeward Bound; you don't have to be a cat lover to sympathize with the relationship between A Kid and her Pet, hearts and fates entwined no matter the distance between them. But in this sequel, for some bizarrro reason, Kitty was given a demonic cat nemesis, Commander Berzerko, who is an annoying, goofy distraction that eats up WAY too much of this very short book. Berzerko is a Crazy Cat Person's idea of funny: Cute on the outside, diabolical on the inside, the frizzing and whizzing of an angry cat indicative of paranormal powers. Her rivalry with Kitty is unnecessary, it doesn't serve May's arc or the duo's journey home. If anything, Berzerko cheapens Kitty, turning him into a cartoon: They literally get into a karate match! I could believe that Berzerko is also based off of a real life puffball, and that the author had fun hyperbolically describing a real squabble between her pets. But it had no business here. Maybe as a bonus chapter in a B&N exclusive edition, maybe. Maybe as one silly chapter near the end, to take some of the terror out of the big confrontation. But not as a running gag throughout the ENTIRE book. If books came with Skip buttons, I would have been happy to Skip all the Berzerko scenes, I wouldn't have missed anything important.

The other half star is about the ease with which our characters get out of danger. This book is clearly a kids book, because the heroes rarely have to make tough choices, things just work out. Surprise friendlies, or safe havens, or accessory upgrades, all show up out of the blue just in the nick of time. And it would be one thing if these tropes were only in this book. But some of the exact same plot coupons or locations show up in My Diary From the Edge of the World. Looking at Earth from the edge of the world, hopping a flying horse to safety, crossing a desert and a snowy mountain and pausing to behold The World Tree, miraculously stumbling into a wise old friend (Arista/Prospero) who heals the party and outfits them for the arduous journey ahead... It's almost as if this book was the rough draft for the other, all of the Underworld monsters replaced with cryptids. I don't understand why so much material was recycled. The author clearly doesn't suffer from a lack of imagination. What is with the nostalgia for shanty towns, cowboys, American explorers?...Is it the author's own biases again bleeding through? Did some editor advise Anderson that certain plot beats need to happen in a fantasy adventure story? I don't know why, but choices were made, and then repeated, and I noticed, and I'm annoyed. *Shrug*

All in all, though, it's easy to ignore those two half stars! The rest of the book shines. I cannot wait to jump into the final book!

This was a pretty good finale to the trilogy, and for most of the book it was the strongest installment! At first I was thrown by the time jump, but I grew into it once the themes began to emerge. I loved the book's messages about individuality vs. conformity. The fact that Gentrification was literally defeated by a group of Free Spirits was just *chef's kiss*! This book is some goth kid's manifesto. It's me, I'm some goth kid. I love, too, that wrapped into this story was one about nature vs. consumerism, and how big corporations destroy what's naturally wonderous about a place for seemingly... no real benefit, just self-perpetuation.

This book had a similar feel

The way this book was written almost entirely in free verse with tons of impactful of refrains, as if it were a song, is impressive and evocative.

...

That is the only positive thing I can say about this book. :/

I'm sure the age-gap, friends-to-lovers thing is somebody's ship. SOMEBODY watched Ouran High School Host Club, saw energetic and emotional little Hani and gentle giant Mori, and had an immediate sexual awakening! But I did not go for the romance that began with a 10 year old proposing to a 16 year old. Nor did I care for the younger, Joe's, clinginess and jealousy. He sulked, and was rude, and leaned on his traumatic past to make Ox feel guilty, and shrink their world to them two.

About 200 pages in, it hit me that the whole guilt trip THING is a reoccurring theme in TJ Klune's writing. It's not always romantic, but an older, average man is surrounded by fantastical beings, is instantly praised and adored as if his basic human compassion is a superpower, and then guilted into being the emotional anchor for an abused minor. And once I saw the pattern, I got squicked out :/. There is being available for someone. And there is being guilted into believing that someone cannot function without you. The fact that over and over again these found families keep grooming the protagonist to exist for someone else's mental and emotional health is unsettling. A person is a person, and a person can offer empathy and sympathy and support, but a person is not a cure. No person should be used to hold another person together. Sacrificing one individual for another is not romantic, it's an unhealthy form of attachment. I don't know what it says that Klune's writing consistently marries child abuse, queer awakening, grief, and fated romance. But it's a recipe I'm no longer comfortable supporting O_o.

((PS - And this is reeeeeeally nitpicky, but Richard Collins is the name of the villain XD. I don't know why that's so funny! But to have a fantastical setting and the villain's not Voldemort or Sauron or Maleficent.... It's Richard XD. RICHARD! That's my uncle's name! XD I mean, sure, everyday people can be monsters, a villain can hide behind an unassuming moniker, like Jeffrey Dahmer. But, for me, I had a hard time suspending disbelief for Richard.

In fact, I had a hard time suspending disbelief for a lot of the book. The fact that Ox didn't realize his neighbors were shifters is mind-boggling. They were doing obviously inhuman things, like sniffing him. Or, their eyes changed color. Or, they openly said things like "pack" instead of family or "wards" instead of house alarm. I had a hard time believing that the villain got through said wards, or past said pack, when everybody is empathically linked and would feel the presence of interlopers/traitors. I just... overall had a hard time with this book.))

The style of this book was stellar. The poetic, minimalistic approach weeded out anything unnecessary and had me focused on clues, tone, and anything to be gleaned between the lines, almost as if I were eavesdropping on these girls. It was a very successful style for a whodunnit, and had me turning pages!

That said, the final reveal fell rather flat. There were a lot of red herrings, and the actual criminal is rather obvious once its obvious. (Spoiler alert, it's the one with the fewest viewpoint chapters, because obviously her own PoV would have given her away.) In fact, the flower-named girls are all a little too on the nose: Thorny Rose, weepy Willow, over-achiever Laurel, insidious Oleanna....

The book doesn't say much beyond the page, the basic jist being that girls will do anything for love (not just romantic love, but rather the affection of acceptance, the feeling of belonging.) In the end, there is no turn of the screw about the dangers of religious zealotry, or what monsters lurk beneath human skin, or masculine vs. feminine power, or a Gothic tale of how the leader of this compound is slowly losing his mind and his isolated group who follow him deteriorate as he does... There was a ton of potential that was missed. Even the title is misleading, suggesting a grand, dark fantasy. There is a metaphor about sheep vs wolves - i.e. being a follower of rules vs. a meter of justice - but it is only a metaphor, there is no Black Mirror paranormal twist where these teens are werewolves, or part of a bloody wolf-god-worshipping cult, or anything of the like. Without that extra OOMPH this book basically says, "Some girls are lawful. Some break rules. Everybody keeps secrets.".... No, duh? It's not the most mind-blowing takeaway, even if it was well-written.

This book is a good standalone. I think it could have been great. I think it could possibly be redeemed with a sequel, to see what becomes of the compound once Joseph falls. Alas, that may be wishful thinking on my part.

This book is an odd one to review, because much of it is poignant and perfect, and makes you reflect on our own society and the combined corrosive effects of Greed and Complacency. But parts of it are cliche or confusing - there are whole characters who seem underdeveloped, or who suffered from an edit taking too much away. Gina Chen's writing is gorgeous, quotable. And Violet is fully fleshed out and relatable (though not /likable/ universally, some readers will struggle with her, I'm sure). But the rest of the cast... I will say, if you're hungry for a "dark fairytale, with a strong female protagonist who rises from ruined to rebel queen", this is a good first book, a good foundation for that kind of arc. BUT it's also a genre-savvy book that subverts a lot of the usual YA expectations, for better or for worse.

Spoilers ahead.

One thing I will say that this book gets right, right off the bat, is that the passionate, often violent, conflicted relationship between Violet and Cyrus is NOT love. It is lust, mostly for dominance and partially for sexual gratification. But at no point is Violet dismissive of Cyrus's abuses towards her. She recognizes immediately that he projects his fantasies and fears onto her, and doesn't actually SEE her or care to try, he is too caught up in his own story. This is something most YA fantasy gets WRONG, pedaling the myth that if an abusive boyfriend - a dark prince, an ancient vampire, somebody with a grand scheme riddled with violent failures and good intentions - seems cruel, forgive his arrogance and wickedness. View his manipulations and outbursts as reasons to love him or pity him. Trust the plan, trust that he does See you, deep down - even as the man betrays you, belittles you, and deflects from genuine connection with bold sexual attention. Assume there is someone Good beneath The Beast's exterior. I am excited that, FOR ONCE, a YA book was genuine in its depiction of a volatile relationship. They are who they are, and bad BDSM is not a harbinger of a respectful Happily Ever After to come.

I am also grateful that this book holds its characters accountable for their bad behavior. Nobody is romanticized as being a tortured hero, everybody is just a person making mistakes. For example, the trope of the Brazen Heroine who runs her mouth at authority and magically impresses them with her uniqueness and toughness - NOT at play, here! Violet loses everything, in large part because she was TOO brazen with a person in power, and it backfired. He learned to believe in her temper more than her judgment, and not to expect honor from a person with a chip on her shoulder. (Sub bullet point, YEY for highlighting the hypocrisy of gender roles, and the helplessness a woman feels when she's labeled "emotional". Oh how easily society makes witches of women).

But for all that the book does well in realistically representing its protagonist and her doomed dalliance, it falls flat with... the rest of the cast:
- Violet's struggle for security, and with the misnomer "witch" when she's simply a shrewd person, is undermined by the arrival of an actual Wicked Witch, whose eye-roll-worthy monologue about, "We're not so different you and me; You deserve more in life; Turn to The Dark Side, we have cookies" is paaaainful for any veteran fantasy fan to read, and THANKFULLY is short enough to not ruin the whole book.
- Cyrus is presented as a charismatic person whose charms don't work on Violet because she's known him long enough to see beneath the veneer. She believes him to be a lazy altruist of the "Let them eat cake" variety; his privileged birth enables him to pity his struggling subjects and war-torn neighbors, but blinds him to any actionable political change if it means sacrificing some of his power and comfort. Fans of the genre expect that by Act 2 or 3, Cyrus is going to reveal himself to have a heart of gold, and to be moonlighting as an activist or something. You will be sorely disappointed. For all that Violet sets us up to believe everyone in this universe is a liar, and that her initial beat on Cyrus SHOULD be wrong... she turns out to be right. Cyrus BELIEVES himself a future savior, and envisions a world where everything is fair and painless simply because HE'S on the throne. But in the present, he's as volatile as his father, spouting delusions of grandeur, false promises, and even outright threats to the "friends" he seeks to control. If anything, Cyrus's self-righteousness comes across as a little psychotic. He's the deuteragonist, you're supposed to root for him, but just because he's the lesser of two evils doesn't mean that he's good, and he loses a lot of the audience's sympathy over the course of the book. Now, a subversion of prince charming is GREAT! But, this is book 1 of however many, and the cliffhanger at the end sets us up for a SECOND fake marriage plot in book 2. Without some humility or true heroism from either Cyrus or Violet, I'm not interested in investing in a Fake Relationship Turns Into True Feelings plot for them, they haven't earned each other. Cyrus definitely hasn't earned the audience's sympathy; it's not enough to have dreams, you have to DO something Good with your reality.
- In every bad ensemble there is a catch-all character. They are usually a token, be it race or gender or LGBTQA representation, etc. They have a very "strong" personality, which seems to mean different things to different people, but is somehow always the right kind of "strong" in every context: Confidant, authoritative, but also counter-culture, roguish, independent... All the things. They have a trillion different tricks up their sleeves, as many loopholes as the plot needs. And they are always "conveniently" incapacitated when the villain shows up. Camilla is that character. Need a makeover? She's got you. A swordfighter? She's that too. A token queer character who never develops any meaningful relationships over the course of the book, and who has to hide her queerness from an orthodox society? Check check check! She is a loud, vain, fashionista, who supports her father's war-mongering, and has a love-hate relationship with cake! But she's also the only woke person at court, wise to any gossip or magical trickery, is totally not a racist, and will be the only character who actually takes steps to unravel the evil conspiracy unfolding before them. AND ALSO, she's a nosy, sex-positive, gal pal, who shows up to offer unwanted relationship advice, or to add levity to an otherwise gloomy book. Camilla...you're doing too much. And yet, surprisingly, too little! Why isn't Camilla in cahoots with Dante? Or developing a relationship with Nadiya? Why isn't SHE making a grab at the throne, publicly supporting Violet and calling her brother out for being an idiot? You can't BE all of the things, and then DO none of the things! What heroic qualities Camilla might have we are told, not shown. She is summarized as HAVING DONE them. Camilla should be a proper character, with motivations and pitfalls and who grows over time, NOT a tool for fast-forwarding the plot.
- Dante is a ward of Balica, a neighboring kingdom basically at war with our heroes' home turf, Auveny. He is outwardly mocked at court, but is trusted implicitly by Prince Cyrus and co. He repeatedly pleas for Cyrus to intervene on behalf of the Belicans, and to publicly denounce the king of Auveny's current policies. He warns that if Cyrus won't take drastic and immediate action, then he, Dante, will, because the situation has gotten too dangerous to wait for help any longer. He will join a bloody revolution, and fight for his people... Even without Violet's ability to read minds, it should come as NO SURPRISE TO ANYONE that Dante does exactly that. AND YET, our dumb DUMB heroes truly believed that Dante was all bark no bite, wasting his days in scholarly pursuits instead of taking action, as he claimed he would. But once again, the author devastatingly underused this character, summarizing his discontent, and wasting his appearances in the book on huffs, eyerolls, and giving unwelcome advice on Violet and Cyrus's attraction for each other. If Dante's conversations with Violet were a little more suggestive that he was feeling her out, maybe trying to recruit her to his cause, or to persuade her to be a whisper in Cyrus's ear to make mutually beneficial changes at court, THAT would have been something. But alas, Dante's betrayal is both telegraphed too loudly AND not earned well enough with actual character moments. He is another character who suffers from summaries, existing to hurl the plot forward, but not really to provide any intrigue, growth, or foils.
In short, it seems like most of these characters were given broad palettes to work with as to who they could become in /future/ books, but weren't given enough concise arc moments in THIS book. I don't understand them, or care about them, as well as I do Violet.

Final thoughts, I am all about a dark fairytale. I love that you can see the influence of so many classic fairytales in this book, but it's not a 1:1 of any single story, it stands on its own. It's nice to see the subversions, too: The sympathetic witch; the charming-to-the-point-of-untrustworthy Prince Charming; The Prince and The Pauper swap made unwillingly/Cinderella at the ball under duress. But the book played a little too coy with its mechanics. I can see that some clues were laid about how the Fairy Wood, magic, and rot and witchcraft, are all connected, but my non-Puzzlemaster brain can't tease it all out. It's confusing, where magic draws its power, and who should be capable of what; the rules seems to change chapter to chapter. But, our narrator is unreliable, she was never formally trained in how to use her powers, and she misunderstands or makes assumptions to her detriment. I think I'm SUPPOSED to be confused, and I hope future books will make the mechanics clear. BUT, I hate when a book depends on its sequels too much. I feel like I should feel intrigued, not bamboozled. I should have part of the puzzle solved, and be looking forward to fitting the next piece. I wish this book's clues were a little neater. AND, similarly, I wish THE MAP at the beginning of the book, was for the CONTINENT, not Auveny's districts. Because the districts play NO role in the plot of this book, our heroes largely keep to the castle. But they discuss the outside world at length. This book is ALL a setup of the border disputes and the war to come, but it's hard to understand the dangers of this WORLD when I can't properly picture where these places are in relation to each other, or the comparative size of each neighboring realm to Auveny. There was no reason to give folks a map they can't use, and then make the plot hinge on a realm they need to visualize. If I can't wrap my mind around the physical or the magical aspects of this book... I'm just clinging to the narrator, hoping that Violet figures things out for me... when I know SHE'S unreliable. It's not a great place for a reader to be. And /I/ identify with Violet, but many other readers might find her cynicism grating, and give up on her. Without sympathy for her, this book and all its secrets and promises, won't be enough to captivate the audience. There is POTENTIAL here, a great fairytale aesthetic. But there is not enough that's concrete and known and sticks with the audience after this first book.

Hindsight will be 20/20 with this one; a sequel might make me rethink my opinions of the first book. But for now, I love Gina Chen's writing of Violet, and am at least invested in what Violet becomes, and what Gina Chen has to say about women, power, and what stories we really ought to be telling each other.

Another PERFECT personification of the feelings which haunt us by the master: Grady Hendrix!!!! We are not worthy. <3

This book takes a look at all the intangible things in our lives which, nevertheless, generate very real, very visceral responses. Grief, mental disorders, fear/war-mongering, generational trauma, family drama, etc. But not all are negative; feelings like faith, artistic inspiration, nostalgia, even the catharsis of a funeral, can fill us with warmth and strength in a way that can't be explained by simple, tactile experience. This book is a story about heartstrings, and all the puppeteers that pull at them.

I will admit, for all my praise, this book might be a matter of personal preference. I'm from the generation that grew up with Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, Muppets and Toy Story... And reading this book during the holidays - when I'm already feeling both nostalgic and grief-stricken for all things and people past - hit me harder than if I had picked this book up expecting a classic haunted house story. Personifying Depression as a sopping wet, gigantic, heavy, Muppet golem trying to drown you over an early grave, and filling your head with a sense of inevitable doom, is EXACTLY the metaphor I connect to and needed in my personal vernacular. But the image might be goofy for some. ;) But if you're like me, and dark comedy helps you through the tough times, this book might be EXACTLY what you need.

Boring, hideous, and unnecessary.

The front cover teases that this book is going to be about what happened after Jack's initial adventure, but it's largely not about Jack or the giantess he left behind. Instead of a sequel, or even a villain sympathy story like Wicked, it's just a straight retelling, and not a very imaginative one. What is added to the plot is grotesque (spiders with human heads for thoraxes?!?! WHYYY?!?!), but not in a way that creates a pervasive Gothic tone or social commentary or anything elevated. It's just the same old story of a starving boy accidentally growing a giant beanstalk, attempting to rob a giant, and having to fell the beanstalk before the giant can squash him... with the occasional, sudden, unearned, nightmare fuel spider. There was nothing artistic or fairytale in the way that the story was told, it just plodded from plot point to plot point, very didactic, with - again - the occasional jump-scare spider. Relying so heavily on shock value in order to feel adventurous, instead of building the world, or giving us character dynamics to relate to, really made the book flat and lifeless. There was nothing gained by reading this version that someone wouldn't have already gotten by reading the original.

I could once again see how this Further Tale would be the seed for Happenstance Found: There was the mysterious, whimsical, timeless Greeneyes; there was the depressed but kind "wizard"; there was the warmonger-slash-inventor come to conquer and destroy the world; there was the castle by the sea.... But it wasn't fun to note those similarities. It made me feel like either A) Catanese is afraid to write their own story, and is using pre-existing fairytales as training crutches; or B) Catanese can only tell one story.

This book actively put me off this author for good, because I feel like they just can't deliver anything new or worthwhile. :/

I was excited to dive into this book after watching the D20 campaign. Feminist zany space cowboys?! What's not to love?!?!

Well, a lot, turns out :/.

You're thrown into the 'verse without the benefit of a Star Wars text crawl to summarize the gist of what's happening. That's fine, that's a choice. But the PoV jumps around before you have a chance to get immersed in the setting, or to get attached to any one character. Unlike, say, Cowboy Bebop, which also throws you into the 'verse with very little context, but is obvious about who the protagonists are and what they want. Reading Starstruck, I didn't understand what was happening, who was important, or why I should care.

But I gave the book a chance, and tried to stick with it despite my confusion... and couldn't stomach it; I had to DNF halfway through. The characters were all casually incestuous in a way that I didn't understand (unlike, say, Game of Thrones, where the politics and relationships were meant to mirror actual history). I didn't see the big swing for femininity when every female character was introduced in relation to some dude who wanted to grope them. Final nail in the coffin - and I admit this one was a matter of personal preference - I didn't like the art style. It was sneering, lumpy, often confusing... It was unpleasant to look at, and when your media is VISUAL, that's a big problem.

In summary, I don't think I would have understood or appreciated even half this book if I hadn't watched D20 first. But the comic only made me pine for the simplicity of the show: To have an obvious cast of player-characters, and a GM who explains the lore. Better an RPG than a comic, is my takeaway.