Ivy

Good book and a good ending to the series. Gentle oof at an old white british lady writing a book largely centered on a Native American girl, on a reservation, and using our white teenager heroine as a mouthpiece for Native American creation gods? I feel like it was handled fairly respectfully, but I can't really say for certain because, y'know, not my culture. I don't know enough to even say whether it was handled well or not. I will say, again, this book continues the semi-aggressive “save the planet” spiel that's popped up in the last few stories, and it still doesn't feel preachy, which is just a miracle given how most authors write when they're trying to incorporate this kind of message. I'm glad I finally got to finish the series, too. I'd had no idea this book, and the last few, even existed.

This is the most standalone of the books I've read so far in this series. Also, bless, the mortal characters in this one were great. I think this is the only one in this series that doesn't have evil humans or human-disguised Bad Guys lurking around, which was an interesting change. I'm glad we've established that our heroine still hasn't read the entire handbook-I imagine like half of these plots and sudden occurrences that pop up and startle her and the reader would be solved if she had, but in fairness, it's fully in character.

You know, I think I have to compare this series to the Maximum Ride books. They're so, so different on the surface of it, but that series tries to make Big Statements About The World too, especially in the later books. And it's really not great. I read those as a teen, in the target audience, and they seemed trite and preachy and all the messages seemed painfully out of place. They went from “ooh, evil scientists and DNA experiments!” to “YOU MUST SAVE THE WORLD!” and then whiplashed into “You must save the world specifically via ending global climate change!” with some mind control and evil robots thrown in for giggles. And these manage to evolve just beautifully from “time travel is real and we're gonna help people!” to “we're gonna help people on a bigger scale” to “oh my god what is humanity doing to the place, how can we help there?” and it's impressively not preachy! I'm delighted.

I'm impressed that these hold up, given that I last read them probably sixteen years ago, at least. They aren't groundbreaking or anything, but as a middle-grade series, it's pretty solid, and a sweet read. I just wish it was something you'd be able to find to actually recommend it-British book series don't make it here that often.

That was sweet! I've read this one a dozen times before, but I enjoy it. I don't think I've encountered many stories where the second book picks up maybe half an hour after the first one ends! I'm glad to finally have context on Jim's backstory so I could enjoy it properly.

I finally get to read the first book in this series!! I've read other stories, but I never actually knew how the main characters met each other or anyone else. A great example of how, in older kids books, any random group of kids just start solving mysteries if they get a full series. I must've been born too late, cause clearly in Ye Olde Times, adults just turned to the nearest preteen and had them solve whatever weird thing was happening.

So that was adorable. I imagine you probably get more out of it if you're more familiar with graphic novels or D&D style Adventuring than I am, I enjoyed it but I'm not used to Big Battle Scenes visually or story wise, so it was a little overwhelming.
I am very interested in Prince Chirp who uses female pronouns? Is she genderweird, is Prince a non-gendered title in this world? I am very curious.

I love Book so much, ugh, he's great. And Inara. Pretty much everyone except Jayne, but I feel like that's everyone's read.
The characterization in these books is great. I will say I liked the other Firefly novel I've read better. I wanna say that's just because I encountered it first, but I like the whole gang being together, rather than being split up and chaotic. They can be chaotic together just as well.

Once Eve started going on the Big Deal Murders she really didn't stop, huh. We jumped pretty smoothly from killings to like...secret clone children being raised, trained, and sold to the highest bidder, massive conspiracies spanning years and tons of people. Not complaining, I enjoy the enormous conspiracies, but it's interesting remembering the earlier books.

Loved these books when I was younger! My mom had to order them from the UK Amazon website-looking back, I don't think I ever put two and two together and really got that it's a british series. I was young and kinda dumb, okay.
It's a fun series for tweenage and maybe early teens, and I'm enjoying the reread despite being heavily outside of the target range. Mel is impressively well written in the sense that she reads Very Much like a thirteen year old girl, and the side characters are honestly really sweet.

I really hope we discover, at some point, what becomes of Regan after this book, because she's brilliant and I want to know more. I do like this story, but it's so self-contained that it felt strange. I kept expecting threads trailing off some direction or another and there just weren't. I wish I'd had more time to get to know these characters.

Read this one a while back but wanted a reread. I'd forgotten how genuinely stunning and heartwrenching this book is. Also it's impressive to get me to hate So Many Fictional Characters, so props for that! I don't think I actually realized on my first readthrough that it was the same author who wrote Room, but on rereading I remembered that and could really tell. Donoghue has a talent for like, low grade creeping horror, and revelations that hit the reader as the same time they hit the characters and you find yourself utterly horrified by what this character just told you.

Couldn't remember the title when I was trying to find this to reread it, so I typed in what I could remember into Google:
“girl child saint book fiction incest starvation manna”
Turns out multiple people have actually done academic articles on this book!

Fair warning I was caught Very off guard by the super super aggressive racism about the Irish! I'd entirely forgotten that. I know it's accurate to the time and it makes a ton of sense for the character but also, yikes, I was actively unprepared for the main character to just be moaning about how awful this entire country and all her people are!

I've loved Sharon Draper since I read Out Of My Mind, and this was just as good. I'm still trying to decide whether I'm unhappy with the ending or not. As a reader, I like happy endings, something where the world gets better in that moment and we close the book feeling like it's only going to get better from there. At the same time, that wouldn't be fair to the context, which just isn't happy. We're still working on the whole “things getting better”.
I feel like I'd be less bothered by a hopeful, but not necessarily happy, ending if there were more options for middle grade black kids that did have happy endings.

I'd had no idea they made Wishbone books and now I've come across at least three different series. This is a super sweet adaptation that does reasonable justice to the original, considering it's a kids book.

I LOVE angry feminist teenager Diana it makes me SO HAPPY. This is a great work to start in on the social justice fury if someone isn't already there. Seeing the complex miseries of the world through the eyes of someone who is completely unfamiliar with it takes it a little further from “of course this is what happens, it always does and always will be” to “tell me again WHY you're angry at us for giving food to people??”
The big one though was Steve and his husband, Trevor, that's hecking delightful. Bless. And avoids trying to set up a 16 year old on a date with someone she doesn't really know!

Loved this one since forever, of course, because it's about books. Or more specifically, one book. I wish the book Ryter was working on was available, because he's such a great character and I'd love to know who he was before we met him.

The never-ending game of “oh my god THIS is the book I've remembered for years!” Can't believe I actually found it. It's a good variant of a post apocalyptic novel, and apparently there's a sequel, which I had no idea.

I've been interested in this one for a while. It's fascinating and important, and I'm glad it's out there, but I have thoughts. It seems like many reviews are seeing this as a brush to paint all of judaism, and I rarely see reviews behaving the same way when the story is an escape from an extremist sect of Christianity.

That was great and not at all what I expected. I would like how much I love Sydney to be registered officially, please.

Okay, so this is not a book to read if you're already sad! You might be smiling by the end but the middle is just a whole lot of gut punches. Triggers for suicide and homophobia as well. Silvera is a great writer but, yeah, just really excels at the painful stories.

Cool that freaking hurt, ow, really sweet and great but ow. Apparently Silvera just specializes in books that'll cause you pain? I do love books with a ton of little interwoven moments, though, and this was a brilliant example.

God, I love when I find fiction that reads like an emotion. This one's a ghost story and historical fiction at the same time, and I just. So good. There's a lot of catch-your-breath lines where it manages to express something so well that you have to pause for it.

Things I liked, and things I didn't-which is true of pretty much all books, really. Well written and painful, which based on the artist character is probably what the author was going for-something that matters.

I had this when I was a wee small and Matilda was my favorite movie in the world and until yesterday I thought I'd hallucinated it because I couldn't find it, until I stumbled across it at work. Me? Crying over finding a beloved childhood book? Absolutely.

God, Daniel Handler is a menace. I swear it takes me half the book to get used to it and then takes me an hour after I finish to get used to the real world again. Not sure what you're saying, but you say it so well, keep talking.

Also I saw the big reveals coming a ways away and I don't know if I'm smart or Handler is just really good at foreshadowing.