Reading roundup: WicDiv, Fangirl, more Whyborne and Griffin/SPECTR
19. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, The Wicked + The Divine, volume 1 -- this was a book L borrowed from Awesome Friend Allie (or, more likely to say, that Awesome Friend Allie pressed on her in an effort to get L into comics), and L read it and confessed to me she enjoyed it (with a great dose of chagrin, 'cos she knew there would be more coming), and I said I wanted to read it, too.
The protagonist, Laura's internal monologue is pretty hilarious (especially around Baal, on whom she has a huge crush), as are things as her impression of a Google search for Ananke "sit with no relevance blah blah blah another site with no relevance, yet more blah, and I going to have to go onto the second page of search results? oh god. no. this is turning into homework."
Predictably, I like Luci(fer) a lot. Making Beatles and Larkin references (Laura: "I'd appreciate it if you could at least be creepy in a way I could understand." Actually, there are a lot of unexplained references, including Cassandra saying "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" (about Luci) while standing under a portrait of Lord Byron.) Some of my favorite Lucifer lines: "Did you magically guess my name?" "Yes, with mystical going-through-your-wallet powers.""Do you have a cigarette? Or cocaine? Ideally cocaine? [...] Not even a little bit of cocaine?[...] What kind of teenager are you that you don't have class A drugs to hand? Hmm? Has The Daily Mail been lying to me?" Spoilers! I'm definitely sad she's exited the story, as she was my favorite of the gods by far.
My actual favorite, I think, is Cassandra, the skeptical journalist who gets some of the best lines: "Do you know what I see? Kids posturing with a Wikipedia summary's understanding of myth. [...] I see a provincial girl who doesn't understand how cosplaying a shinto god is problematic at best and offensive at worst." and later, talking to Laura, "You don't, Little Miss My-First-Search-Engine. I have a student loan's worth of this crap rolling around in here." I also like the way her being trans is handled. She's quite androgynous visually -- I thought "guy" in the first "wide-angle" shot from the top where we first see her in the interview, then "no, short-haired girl" in the close-ups on the next page, and it didn't even occur to me that Luci's crack ("Are you actually called 'Cassandra', or are you just another hypocritical little parasite?" -- for which Cassandra never forgives her) could be in reference to Cassandra having changed her name along with her gender, until the scene almost at the end, when Luci says, "For 'Cassandra' with the fuck-you quotations marks. Sorry. I knew you were trans. I wanted to hurt you." and Cassandra replies, "You did. Well done. Fuck you and your 'apology.'")
The Morrigan section was very confusing (both L and I found it so), and generally finding the gods hard to keep track of. What is up with Woden and the mask? I could kind of get where the others' symbols and pop-star incarnations were coming from, but him? Sekhmet playing with the "red dot" was both funny (I think this was L's favorite part) and tragic as it becomes clear what the red dot is (sniper rifle's scope) and kicks off the main plot.
I liked the art on the whole. The head-exploding art is kind of yuck. The cover pages with the symbols of the pantheon are neat, though I still haven't figured out all of them. The splash page of Luci's transformation, in flashback, is really awesome (falling flaming down the page as her mortal teenager form becomes her current godlike form). I also liked Luci's fingerguards in prison so she can't click her fingers, which is how gods use their head-explodey magic in this universe (which is kind of silly, but I guess it had to be something with visual build-up...)
21. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, The Wicked + The Divine, volume 2 -- this one I liked a bit less than the first one... The novelty of the setting is lessened just by virtue of being a sequel, but in general the main things about this one are the shocking twists and, honestly, I'm not a fan of either of them, though both definitely have good shock value. Spoilers! I'd actually managed to spoil myself for both, though not the specifics or when they happened, by reading TV Tropes, and Awesome Friend Allie had warned L that she didn't have book 3 on hand and that L would hate her for it, which warning L passed on to me after reading this book herself, so I knew there was a cliffhangery ending. But, yeah... killing off Laura, who started out as the protagonist/reader POV is an interesting move, narratively, but a) I'm so, SO confused by Ananke's motivations there, and in general what's going on... was Laura/Persephone meant to be the real twelvth god, whose space in the pantheon Baphomet has somehow usurped?? and b) I'd *liked* Laura, fangirl trying to play it cool, mourning Luci, getting into fights with her too-understanding parents (whose deaths I'm also sad about). And the second twist, Cassandra being one of the pantheon... Cassandra was my favorite character out of book 1 (probably my favorite overall, but definitely my favorite remaining character after Luci died). And I like the idea, intellectually, of the cynic becoming one of the gods and continuing to be a cynic (an interesting take on the Doubting Thomas), but I really preferred Cassandra as a normal, both from a visual design perspective and from a narrative perspective. But she still gets the best lines: (to Ananke) "You know, the answer to most of my questions seems to be 'a wizard did it'." and "It's still bullshit. Even if everything is true."
Those two twists aside, not all that much happens. I really enjoyed meeting Inanna, who is ADORABLE, dispensing hugs and apologizing for not asking permission first. So of course he was bound to be the next to die, as my post-Luci favorite, but I enjoyed his very shiny purpleness while it lasted. The Dionisys interlude I found fairly dull (and Delirium did psychedelic speech bubbled waaaay better; actually, this volume sprouted ALL the weird speech bubbles, but Inanna's were the only ones that really worked for me); I do like his YOLO + infinity shirt, though. I am still totally puzzled by Woden and his whole deal in this pantheon, as of the lot of them, he's the one that feels least relevant to the god-persona he inhabits (Woden isn't even a maker god, from what I recall? This one feels much more like a Hephaestus, if anything -- the god who makes stuff for other people and gets no respect for it, plus apparent physical deformity -- but I suppose the point is the Valkyries and Ragnarock and all that. But I love mythological Odin/Woden, and am annoyed by this slandererous take on him...) I'm also confused by what's going on with Baphomet and the Morrigan, although it looks like the two of them knew each other from pre-pantheon days, and, like, did she make him into a god somehow to keep her company even though he's not a real god? But at least that's an interesting mystery.
I usually don't pay much attention to the art in graphic novels, beyond pretty/not pretty and transparent/distracting, but this one has some interesting layouts, like the diagram of Laura's room and the Fantheon. I wasn't as impressed by Laura and Cassandra's transformation sequences as by Luci's, though, and Dionisys's party layout thing just plain didn't work for me. Graphic novels are confusing enough for me as it is!
20. Jordan L. Hawk, Summoner of Storms (SPECTR series 1, volume 6) -- OK, so that's the first series done. I actually don't have a whole lot to say about the last book as its own thing. Or at least I didn't think so, until I started writing stuff down. Lots of fun quotes in this one, though, and some general observations on the series, and the way it echoes Whyborne & Griffin at times. Spoilers from here! (including specially marked spoilers for the W&G books)
I'd heard that Kaniyar and Tiffany are both not active players in series 2, so was worried they might get killed, and was happy that was not the case -- promotion is better than death, and more likely to lead to cameos. I don't really care about the reveal of Gray's god-on-earth type status. Really, my main thought during that whole scene was that it was quite strongly a mirror of the one I'd just read in spoilers for Whyborne and Griffin books Stormhaven, where Whyborne is being ridden by the sea-dweller god-thing, the person subsumed within the awful power of the god, and Griffin has to recall him to himself by reminding him of the promise of their love. Different circumstances, slightly difference promise (Gray had promised to never hurt John, Whyborne had promised to stay with Griffin forever) but a very similar scene. I don't find it similar enough to be bothersome, but it's also a "here we go again" sort of feeling for what should be a tense scene. /W&G spoilers
Actually, there are lots of parallels between the two series in general -- again, not enough to bug me, but it is pretty noticeable. John // Griffin, both 'action' men who were abandoned by their families (for different reasons (though I doubt John's very religious parents would've been happy about the gay thing, either) and to various degrees; Griffin's parents do seem more loving, if misguided) and found identities in police-like organizations (SPECTR, the Pinkertons) which also betrayed them to various degrees (SPECTR through corruption, the Pinkertons by abandoning Griffin to an asylum). Caleb and Whyborne are a lot less alike, which is, frankly, a relief when it comes to the SPECTR books, as I've been getting increasingly annoyed by Whyborne.
Another general observation: I like the way John's faith and loyalty are done throughout the series. He is someone who obviously grew up with religion (Christianity) as a very important aspect, then turned his back on it (understandably) after the experience of the "pray the mal out" rehab facility. But he does seem to have genuine faith in his chosen goddess, Sekhmet, and the institution that replaced the church for him, SPECTR. And not just institutions, people, too: he gives his loyalty fast and for good, but when that loyalty is betrayed, as it is by Sean, he is shattered and very slow to forgive. I liked the way it was handled in this book, with Caleb, Gray, and Tiffany having to argue John around to working with Sean. And I liked that they cooperated, too. I had been expecting a heroic sacrifice for Sean best case (especially after spoilers for Whyborne and Griffin book 2 Elliot in the W&G books/W&G spoilers), and was happy to see that this didn't happen. It still might, I suppose, but I actually want to see John and Sean rebuild their relationship, and Sean get an actual non-fatal redemption arc.
I also liked that this book gave a chance for Sean and Caleb to talk, and that Caleb doesn't forgive him, so much, but realizes that John needs to come to terms with this, for his own sake. I also liked their conversation about eternal youth: "You think I should break up with him, if it turned out I'm living the eternal youth vampire stereotype. But if we've learned one thing in the last week, it's you have to talk shit out. So instead of making John's decisions for him, I'd ask him how he felt. Because guess what? The three of us are partners."
John feels a lot of random guilt in this book -- overt the NHEs he exoercised who were not humanely euthenized but kept in the spirit bottles, over the fact that those NHEs would be used to power Forsythe's summoned drakul ("as if he'd helped refine the ore for a nuclear bomb"), that SPECTR, whose ideology he bought into, was corrupt all the way to the top. I'm glad he comes to terms with all of this stuff, though, because the angst was not very interesting to me, though it does feel like a natural facet of John's character, sort of the flip side to the "Boy Scout" thing we'd seen throughout.
The revelation that having sex with Gray gives John enhanced exorcism abilities made me immediately think of the Magpie Lord books, but mostly it was just reason for a lot of hilarious dialogue: "Etheric energy doesn't work by fucking osmosis" (Tiffany; also LOL); "Etheric spunk. Now I've heard everything." (also Tiffany), "You're the one who asked." "That was before I realized the answer would involve so many horrifying mental images. Every time Starkweather does his new trick from now on, I'm going to have3 to scrub my brain all over again." and John: "Best mission prep ever."
Also, John intentionally comes up with different pet names for Caleb ("babe") and Gray ("darling"), which even Gray notices. And they have a conversation about this. (This reminded me about the whole "Ival" conversation between Griffin and Whyborne. What people call each other is definitely a thing of interest for this author; good thing that it is for me, too.)
The whole thing with the summoning NHEs into a human and them (when it's done for the first time to them) taking on the aspects of the human's (usually distrubed, because desparate circumstances are what leads to summoning) mental state and becoming corrupted. And the idea that Gray is not like that because his first "host" was "pure of purpose", a willing sacrifice (and female, which surprises John, leading Gray to remind him, "I have no inherent gender. Also, Caleb wishes me to thank you for reinforcing outdated binary notions. I do not believe he is sincere in his thanks, however." XP)
Random thoughts about this book specirfically: It was neat that it turned out the Gray knew Papillon, the founder of the Vigilant/moth sign people (that Papillon was Tiffany's ancestor I guessed pretty early on). There is another drakul in North American (presumably hopping merrily between dead bodies). I was amused by Caleb having to put on a suit and tie as disguise, and cut his hair (though Gray grows it all back first thing). Also, Caleb and Gray wondering about dolphins summoning NHEs was weridly adorable.
Quotes:
Caleb, to Tiffany's mother, la capitaine: "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, lady, but it's none of your business what two--three--whatever-- consenting adults get up to in their spare time."
Tiffany, on pinpointing the first drakul summoning into a living body: "And human lives don't become disposable enough for mass sacrifices to occur until you get city states."
John: Gray can't get nourishment from ordinary blood. Just the possessed.
Tiffany: Yeah, well I don't see a spot for heroin on the fucking food pyramid, but that never stopped anybody getting addicted.
When Gray smiles:
Caleb: That is the creepiest thing I've ever seen. And John is turned on by us?
John: I have to say, before last night, I never imagined you smiling. I like it.
Gray: Caleb says it is creepy.
John: Don't let Caleb give you a complex.
Tiffany, explaining the lwa ghede: "It's like a family dinner, except I might get some advice from my great-grandmother who's been dead for fifty years." And later, to John: "You don't know a damn thing about voodoo besides racist Hollywood bullshit, do you?"
"Christ," Caleb said, once they were past [security]. "Not that I wanted to get caught, but I'd expected more from my tax dollars."
22. Jordan L. Hawk, Necropolis (Whyborne & Griffin #4) - I liked this book on the whole. Up until the last two chapters, it was actually my favorite in the series, but I did find the overall impression somewhat spoiled by the climax, which just didn't work for me Spoilers from here! -- it felt like there were these insurmountable odds set up, an ascended goddess and an indestructible demon, and the author couldn't think of how to really defeat them, so she just wrapped up both enemies in one fell swoop (quite literally) and faded to black. The action scenes never work particularly well for me in this series (which is a little weird, considering that I have no such complaints in the SPECTR books -- I think maybe Whyborne's just not a great POV for action scenes), but in this case it was just kind of... perfunctory, especially then skipping forward several weeks -- which, of course, the book had to do because Whyborne had passed out and, once again, the series is (currently, anyway) limited to his POV.
Up until then, I'd been enjoying the plot: getting to see Christine in her element, learning more about her family (though it was all very sad; but I really liked the revelation that Christine's mother was a Civil War Polly Oliver who taught her to shoot and drink whisky; I wonder if we'll get to meet her in the next book), getting to laugh at Whyborne's camel/hat problems (and aww, Daisy!). I also liked the fact that Whyborne finally accepted the fact that he's doing more than studying the Arcanorum or dabbling in magic, and also the fact that the first thing he did was teach his mother some spells -- I agree with his logic, and with the refreshing approach of NOT keeping magic a secret from those closest to you, which frequently bugs me about protagonists. But I do also think Griffin has a good point about magic being dangerous and Whyborne minimizing that danger; I also liked that Christine took Whyborne's side in this as soon as he told her, "And do you enjoy it when others express concern over your chosen field of study, and suggest you'd be better off staying at home for your own safety?" It's not the same thing, since Christine (presumably) actually went to school for this stuff and knows what she's doing, but nicely played anyway. I also liked the way the incident with Daphne kissing Whyborne was handled between them -- no harm, no foul, basically, with Griffin acknowledging that (and Christine's very helpful suggestions of claiming impotence and being a eunuch as an excuse), Daphne's apology, and Whyborne's acceptance thereof: "It's only I'm unused to receiving such, er, compliments. And I fear I'm not at liberty to return them.") Oh, and I also really liked that Griffin's pragmatic suggestion about the waystation is just to dynamite it so nobody can find the map to the fane, and Whyborne and Christine are identically horrified at this suggestion.
Whyborne himself is still too whiny for my taste. I found it charming in the first book, in an adorkable way, but increasingly irritating since -- I'm not sure if it's that he's becoming flanderized like this, or if it's just repeated exposure, since I'm reading straight through them, but he still feels like a burden to Griffin, and not good enough for him, and like Griffin couldn't possibly find him desirable, and that his father can't possibly be genuinely coming around and trying to rebuild a relationship with him (I did like Griffin speaking up for Niles). I get that years of self-esteem issues are not that easy to shrug off, and that Whyborne is a very anxious person in general, but it gets old reading about it, and also characters who ignore mounting evidence annoy me, and I really do feel like any reasonably observant and intelligent person would've drawn some conclusions at this point instead of angsting about it continuously. (And yes, I know anxiety isn't rational, and there are RL people whose logic along these lines I find baffling -- surely they should know how awesome and loved they are! -- so it's probably quite realistic! But I don't have to spend books at a time in those people's heads, so...)
Speaking of mounting evidence, I guessed pretty early that Daphne was the bad guy/Nitocris -- like with Iskander, the amulet burning her tipped me off to what sort of threat she was specifically, but even before that, the way she had been introduced was suspicious. I was sad they didn't manage to exorcise her, because Christine and survivor!Daphne trying to build a real relationship would've been nice to see, and some family for Christine -- not everybody needs to have family issues! -- but the conclusion made sense. And I liked Iskander, and that he was both not an antagonist and that Griffin was right to be suspicious of him -- that part, actually, I thought played out fairly well.
(Also, Whyborne sure does pay a lot of attention to Iskander's looks. XP I could kind of see my way around to a Whyborne/Iskander exploratory one-night-thing, after Griffin convinces Whyborne that he really needs more experience, but of course he's not going to go to some random stranger in a bathhouse, and Christine pragmatically suggests Iskander's candidacy, since Kander already knows about Whyborne and Griffin being a couple, and Iskander is happy to help out because he's a helpful guy, and he still feels kind of bad about being jealous of Whyborne all that time when he thought him a rival for Christine's affections. Kander can wear Bedouin dress, since that seems to be a turn-on for Whyborne XD ...Yeah, I don't know where all that came from; probably an excess of Whyborne/Griffin shmoopiness :P)
And, actually, while I'm talking about shippy things, it occurred to me as I was reading this one -- I think I've reached some kind of critical mass with both SPECTR and W&G is why -- that the smutty parts work a lot better for me in the SPECTR books than here. It's not just that I find the situation with Gray interesting, although it is that too, but I think it's just the writing, also. And in this case I think it's the limitation of first-person-POV smut. I love first person narratives in general, but I don't think they lend themselves nearly so well to porn, frankly -- first-person porn just sounds faintly ridiculous to me, I guess.
I liked the supernatural aspect of this book probably the best of all four, because it's more mythology than horror, even though the ghouls and bridges of human limbs were gross. Wasn't expecting Whyborne's newfound magic wand to get destroyed as part of the action, but am curious if he's going to get/make himself a new one, somehow...
Randomly, I was amused that Whyborne and Griffin had in fact installed electric lights in their apartment, after all that stuff in the first book, and that Whyborne has come around to them, and I continue to laugh every time Whyborne decries Griffin's taste for dime novels. Also amused that even in a telegraph Christine insists on "Dr" before her name :D
23. Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl -- so, first of all, it was definitely the right decision to read this ahead of Carry On, because I found myself wanting to skim the Simon and Baz passages in this book (though I did peek ahead to Carry On now that I'm done, and that's in alternating first person, apparently, so maybe I'll like it better than the third-person in-universe canon or fic). Second, I read it in like two days, and I really liked it. The ending was weaker than I'd hoped, but on the whole, I found it funny and moving and relatable, and I wish there was more about these characters specifically (hey, maybe there's fic? :) (*googles it* there is fic, but of the 540 works on AO3, looks like only 35 or so are about the actual characters, and the rest are Simon Snow related). Spoilers from here!
I didn't know almost anything going in, so a number of things caught me by (pleasant) surprise. My favorite thing about the book, I think, ended up being Cath's relationship with her father, which I had not anticipated at all. Although maybe I should have, since I keep pointing out that, as much as I've loved set-at-college stories ever since graduating myself, at this point my CHILDREN are way closer to college than I am, so maybe it's inevitable that it's the parent/child relationships I would fixate on. But anyway, I really like what we see of Cath and Arthur, both damaged, both, as they each acknowledge, "crazy" (and a bit more on that below), leaning on each other and trying to do the best by each other, and just knowing each other so well. A lot of my favorite moments, the quotes I noted down, had to do with the dialogue between these two: "What's wrong, did you get an eyelid?" (after the Soylent Green reference), "I still wish you'd get a dog." "I'd never remember to feed it." "Maybe we could train it to feed you." and the serious conversation that starts off "Are you pregnant? Are you gay? I'd rather you were gay than pregnant. Unless you're pregnant. Then we'll deal. Whatever it is, we'll deal. Are you pregnant?", and the whole "Why couldn't santa get out of bed on Christmas?"/"Because he's North bi-Polar" parade of jokes.
And speaking of "crazy", I do like that Cath uses that word about herself BUT at the same time the way the real issues that she and her father have are contrasted to normal people acting 'crazy' / the colloquial way the word is used. There's Cath's whole monologue: "And I'm crazy. Like maybe you think I'm a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I'm a complete disaster." And: "Professor Piper regarded Cath thoughtfully, tapping the edge of the desk. This is what it looks like when a sane person taps her fingers."
And speaking of parent/child, I liked the way the whole thing with Laura was handled -- that it's shown to be OK to want to have some sort of relationship with the woman who walked out on them (Wren) and also shown to be OK never to want any of that, to be angry and demanding that she earn that right if she really wants that (Cath). I was worried we might end up with Cath reconciling with her, as some kind of Very Special Lesson, and I'm glad that they don't, even when they do meet. And the scene where Cath sees her was a bit overwritten for my taste, but also nicely complex. The childhood memory of her as "Her hair was dark, and she tucked Sharpies into her ponytail, and she could draw anything. A flower. A seahorse. A unicorn." was really touching (I remember how impressed I was as a little kid with my mother's ability to draw things for me, and how I used to enjoy showing off the same for the rodents, even though neither of us is actually an artist).
Cath's relationship with Wren for most of the book wasn't something I was enjoying very much, but I figured that was the point and we would get to a place I liked, and we did. I wish Wren had been a bit more than an object lesson, than a foil for Cath, but I also realize that is not the point of this book at all. And I did like seeing them at the end, the revelation that Wren was still reading Cath's fic, that Wren was still every bit as invested in the canon as Cath, for all her earlier snark, and that she got a (background) love story of her own, even though Jandro is an unbeliever who thinks girls writing slash is "deviant". He seemed like a nice guy.
Which brings me to Levi, who was adorable. He is actually a really nice mix of traits for Cath -- a genuinely good, decent guy, but also not perfect and genuinely really different: older, outdoorsy, small-town, not bookish or a good student (though smart, which both Cath and Reagan adamantly aver), not a reader, though he loves stories -- and I do love that those two things end up being shows as markedly different, and that Levi can be just as much of a nerd as Cath and Wren). I like that Levi screws up on occasion -- and screws up in the believably people-pleaser, joking-around-to-keep-things-light ways -- but apologizes and learns to really ASK Cath things instead of trying to guess/waiting for her to tell him. I liked him a lot, and could see the relationship between him and Cath because he would WORK so hard at it and tend it. Completely agreed with Reagan, basically, that it's "Good for you. Good for Levi. Better for you, I think." I also really liked the way the two of them used humour to negotiate Cath's multitude of issues:
Cath: We'll walk in [to your bedroom], and all that will be in there is a bed. And I'll throw up from nerves.
Levi: And desire?
Cath: Mostly nerves.
Levi: "Do you think you could relax and just... let me touch you?
Cath: What kind of touching?
Levi: Do you want me to show you on a doll?
[and later]
Levi: What kind of touching?
Cath: Did you already give the operator your credit card number?
Speaking of Reagan, she was really fun! I liked the way Cath thinks about her, and the way their friendship develops, from charity to genuine (if brusque) affection. (As a side note, I can see the Levi and Reagan relationship, too -- he is such an accommodating person, as well as a caretaker, and Reagan and Cath would bring out different sides of him, but I could see how it worked for three years, even if they hadn't been the only date-able people in Arnold.)
Let's get Nick out of the way before I get to Cath herself. He is, of course, mostly there to be a foil. A foil for Levi, the red herring love interest, the person who is superficially similar to Cath and shares her interests but who, at heart, is not at all what she needs (they both 'exploit' her to some degree, too, but Cath's assistance to Levi is freely offered and really appreciated and not the ONLY thing they have, while Nick, she feels, robbed her of her contribution in service of a story she didn't even care about.) It's interesting, also, that when it comes to writing, Nick gets the 'pro-fic' side of Cath, the mechanics and style, the side she decides she doesn't want, and Levi gets the fanfiction, the story. But Nick is also a foil for Cath, the pretensious "hipster Hemingway" what is trying to be edgy and slick and do the Real Writer thing while Cath doesn't care about that -- she just wants to spend time with the characters she loves. I didn't particularly like the resolution with Nick -- while I can't fault Cath for not wanting to attach her namein print to a story that never mattered to her, denying Nick the publication actually seems pretty petty to me. It's a neatly wrapped-up revenge, more authorial than character-perpetrated, but it just seemed TOO pat, in a book that otherwise dealt pretty well with ragged edges. I guess... given that Cath's whole thing as a fanfiction author is redeeming the Draco character, it felt like an off note to have Nick simply punished (stripped of his TA role and denied the publication) and pushed offstage.
Oh, fine, and since I'm running through the entire male population of the novel, let's talk a moment about Abel the end-table boyfriend, too. I know he wasn't actually in the novel, but I liked that there was... very little judgement about Cath's relationship with him. Like, obviously Wren was right and it wasn't a real relationship, and they both came to realize that, and the break-up phone conversation was ridiculous and awkward, but even in retrospect it was all quite cozy and family-like. Oh, and I found it a funny character detail that Abel (an engineering student who got a perfect score on the math section of the SATs) "had limped through Spanish" (funny because his family is Mexican). And totally endearing that Abel and his new girlfriend are planning to continue reading Cath's fic. Oh, and the laptop power cord gift that keeps on giving.
OK, Cath! Given how quickly I read it, obviously Cath's narration worked pretty well for me, although I found it frustrting, too, especially at first, while she's completely miserable and friendless at college. I share enough of her... I'm just going to use the Russian word, bzyki, because there isn't anyting better in English -- it means something similar to what 'brain weasels' connotes, but without the distracting imagery -- anyway, I share enough of Cath's bzyki, in far milder form, of course, to find myself nodding/cringing along with a lot of her 'crazy' thoughts. I hate being in new situations without a pattern or a person to follow (though I've gotten better about it with age, probably thanks to not having a twin sister to always coattail on); I tend to overthink things that I haven't dealt with before (Ravenclaw brain cycling idle/v holostuyu with not enough data). I've done the thing with building myself up to talking to a professor by walking past their office several times, and have dealt with having to talk to people before I've nerved myself up for it ("This was too much progress; she hadn't planned for this eventuality -- for actually accomplishing what she came here to do."). I like routine and am resistant to change, so I could empathize with those things, too. Obviously, I'm nowhere near so pathological, and wasn't when I was 18, either -- and while I lived at home while going to college, I did have my summer in Oxford right after high school, when I was completely alone in a new place, much farther from home than Cath, and it was actually kind of liberating -- but I guess it would be fair to say that I'm actually quite good at COPING with change, while hating it a lot. So I felt both sympathetic to and frustrated by Cath at once. Kind of a parental feeling, actually, which may also be why I liked her relationship with her father so much.
The fiction-writing stuff also spoke to me. I've never been a fanfic BNF, of course (and btw, the scene with Cath metting that Magicath fan who has no idea who she is on the internet in the library stacks was really fun!), but a lot of the other stuff felt really relatable. Having fic, and a fandom, be a fundamental constant in my life (LotR being the One True Fandom in my case), and the fic something shared with a person super-close to me, who seems to have outgrown it while it's still the most important thing for me (my friend R, in our college years). Coming to the realization that I really don't want to be a professional author, certainly not if it entails writing to the expectations of what 'real literature' is like, because I really don't care about any of that stuff. The way affected character words, like "bloody" become part of your own vocabulary, and it's at once perfectly natural and really noticeable to other people. The way you 'mine' your own experiences for fic (first with Wren, then with Levi - "Cath wanted to go back and rewrite every scene she'd ever written about Baz or Simon's chests."). It was all really, really familiar and tinged with nostalgia, since my own prose-writing days seem to be firmly behind me.
In general, I thought the fanfic thing was really well done. I liked being able to see Magicath develop as an author between the early excerpts and her mature work (going from "Simon curled on his bed like a wounded unicorn foal, holding the torn piece of green velvet to his tear-stained face" to, well, fic that's actually good). Using book words like "guffawed" to describe things around her and having a mental editor question her word choice. And all the fandom stuff: the fanfests with funny names, the fannish Etsy T-shirts, Cath's sense (supported by her fans) that the author of the books doesn't know/care about Baz as much as she does. I also really liked the argument Cath had with Professor Piper about turning in a fanfic story as her assignment: on the one hand, the professor is wrong that this is plagiarism; it's not. On the other hand, it is absolutely an immature mistake to treat fanfic as a wholly original assignment, which is what was required (i.e. the point Levi makes later). And I like that Cath doesn't manage to convince Piper that fic is worthwhile -- they just agree to not talk about it anymore. (I also like the way Cath's not-really-plagiarism and Nick's borderline-plagiarism mirror each other -- it's his idea but a lot of his words, and he does, ultimately, suffer consequences for this, while Cath gets another chance despite the F.)
I already mentioned the scene in the stacks with the girl who doesn't realize Cath is famous on the internet. But I found it really weird that "Magicath" is a BNF with legions of fans, but she doesn't seem to have any actual online friends. I mean she says, "There are other people on the Internet. It's awesome. You get all the benefits of 'other people' without the body odor and the eye contact" -- but there aren't any actual relationships that she has with anyone online. I understand that her having actual full-fledged relationships online would deteract from the growth arc of real-life friendship that this book is about, but it's so different from my own experience of fandom, which is all about fannishness leading to real friendships (even if they're with people I don't get to meet in RL) that I kept feeling the lack. And, like, to make that work, fandom in this world seems to be limited to a FFN/AO3 analogue, because apparently LJ doesn't exist...
Oh, and, not fanfic but having to do with the canon of Simon Snow instead: I liked the way the volume names are set up so it's easy to map them (more or less) to the HP books/Simon's years at school, with the number-contained-in-the-title names. On the whole, though, I've got to say the magic/worldbuilding in the Simon Snow canon sounds INCREDIBLY silly... But Levi the Penelope (=Hermione) stan was really cute.
I also liked the various references in casual dialogue, Twilight ("Have you been watching me sleep?"/"Yes, Bella."), Junie B. Jones, Flowers in the Attic, etc.
Things that didn't work so well for me:
The ending was the big one. I was hoping for more, and it felt kind of rushed. I really didn't think much of Cath's Fiction-Writing story, and having it win the whatever prize just felt gimmicky to me -- especially since that wasn't even what she'd WANTED. I feel like it undermines the argument she was making throughout the book, that FANFIC was the thing that she loved. And I'm not sure if that's meant to show that she's outgrowing/transcending fanfic -- I don't think it is, but it feels WEIRD to end on that note, rather than, say, a glowing review of the completed "Carry On", or Cath starting to write Outsiders fic, or something else, well, fannish. I mean, I suppose the Simon Snow series is finished, but it doesn't mean the FANDOM is over, and that just left a weird taste in my mouth, just sort of jarring-like. And I would have liked to simply know more, too -- is Cath planning to take Professor Piper's advanced class? What sort of arrangement will she and Levi come to over the summer? Another scene with Cath and Wren's father would've been nice, too, because it feels like the family line is kind of dropped in the last several chapters. And I've already talked about how the resolution with Nick didn't work for me.
The whole "Cath thinks Levi is Reagan's boyfriend" thing dragging on for as long as it did. It really stretched my credulity that Reagan and ESPECIALLY Levi, who rambles about everything else, would not set Cath straight on this the various times she referred to Levi as Reagan's boyfriend, like ACTUALLY telling her they were high school bf/gf but hadn't been together for years, instead of just vaguely snapping "You don't understand!". It just seemed so artificail! And for not much payoff, either -- while I liked the way Cath and Reagan talked it out, much of it could've still been accomplished without the silly, suspension-of-disbelief-stretching charade.
"Cather" and "Wren". I get that them being literally two parts of the one name Laura made up for them is symbolic both of her lack of interest in being a mother at that point and in Cath and Wren being two incomplete halves at that point, something they're trying to outgrow throughout the book. But I just have such a hard time believing that a) anybody would actually do this, as a parent (especially anybody planning to earn a living in advertizing), and b) other people would let her get away with it. (And, like, she knew she was having a girl but not that she was having twins? Or she literally just had one baby name in mind, and if it had been a boy would she have named him Catherin or something?)
The Harry Potter mention. This is such an odd choice! It's very clear that Simon Snow, the global phenomenon with movies and fanfiction and all that -- is the Harry Potter Expy in this universe. So... how does the actual Harry Potter fit into it, then? The Simon Snow publication dates are later than the real-world HP ones (shifted by about 4 years), and Harry Potter seems to be in the "beloved childhood character" territory in this world as well, since he gets mentioned on par with Encyclopedia Brown. And yet the Simon Snow story is REALLY PRETTY SIMILAR to HP -- magicians, magic school, kid nemesis, swotty friend (I'm kinda annoyed that Ron has been deleted apparently and a love triangle added, though), the final boss and hero being linked and having to be defeated through something other than fighting. I'm just... how does the real Harry Potter and the Harry Potter stand-in coexist in the same universe? I get that this is a throwaway line, but it's one that seriously hurts my brain.
Random note: is "Wikipedia" the term copyrighted or something? First there was John Green with his Omnictionary, now there's "Encyclowikia" here... Or is it just the matter of not being able to make up fake quotes from a real 'document'?
Overall, though, I definitely enjoyed the book and really enjoyed the writing, thus, rather a lot of quotes below:
Reagan, to Cath, immediately upon meeting her: "If you've got feng shui issues, feel free to move my shit."
Levi: "Are you meeting people?"
Cath: "Not intentionally."
"On the one hand, Reagan didn't seem interested in staying up all night, braiding each other's hair, and becoming best friends forever. That was a relief. || On the other hand, Reagan didn't seem interested in Cath at all. Actually that was a bit of a relief, too -- Reagan was scary."
"The squirrels on campus were beyond domestic; they were practically domestically abusive." -- which is a great way to describe campus squirrels and made me think of the Berkeley ones instantly.
Reagan: Are you on drugs?
Cath: No.
Reagan: Maybe you should be. [...] Seriously, why aren't you on drugs?
Cath: Are you a licensed psychiatrist? Or do you just play one on TV?
Reagan: I'm on drugs. They're a beautiful thing.
Reagan: I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend.
Cath: I don't want to be your friend. I like that we're not friends.
Reagan: Me too. I'm sorry you ruined it by being pathetic.
Drunk!Wren: "Boy stuff? Is Simon coming out to Agatha again? Did Baz make him a vampire? Again? Are their fingers helplessly caught in each other's hair?"
"When Cath saw Abel's name pop up on her phone, she thought at first that it was a text, even though the phone was obviously ringing."
Nick, to Cath: "Will you read this? I think maybe it sucks. Or maybe it's awesome. It's probably awesome. Tell me it's awesome, okay? Unless it sucks."
Cath: "I can't believe Abel told me this girl's aCT score. What am I supposed to do with that? Offer her a scholarship?"
Wren: "Five cousins. And a string of ill-fated hamsters, all named Simon."
Cath: "I write laps. Every morning, just to stay loose."
"A little manic was okay. [...] A little manic was what their house ran on. The goblin spinning gold in the basement."
"Nick [...] was wearing a thick navy blue turtleneck sweater that made him look like he was serving on a Soviet battleship. Like, even more so than usual."
"Did the bearded lady get excited when cute guys came to her freak show?"
Cath's paean to the internet: "How do you not like the Internet? That's like saying, 'i don't like things that are convenient. And easy. I don't like having access to all of mankind's recorded discoveries at my fingertips. I don't like light. And knowledge."
Levi to Reagan: "I brought you an eggnog latte. And I've been keeping it warm in my mouth."
Reagan: "Don't be an idiot, Cather. I mean, I know that you are. About this. But try not to be an idiot right this moment."
"Switching from her Fiction Writing homework to Simon and Baz was like realizing she'd been driving in the wrong gear."
Nick: "But it's like John Lennon writing with... Taylor Swift instead of Paul McCartney."
Cath: "Get over yourself. You're not half so pretty as Taylor Swift."
"She cared about the writing. About the magic third thing that lived between them when they were working together. She would have met Nick at the library to write obituaries. Or shampoo packaging."
"It was Nick's story. He'd just tricked her into writing it."
"If it [the crazy] tried to take you," Wren said, "I won't let go."
A few months later, Cath gave that line to Simon in a scene about Baz's bloodlust. Wren was still writing with Cath back then, and when she got to the line, she snorted.
"I'm here for you if you go manic," Wren said. "But you're on your own if you become a vampire."
"What good are you anyway," Cath said. [...]
"Apparently, I'm good for something," Wren said. "You keep stealing all my best lines."
Cath: "Do you think I absorbed all the impact? That when Mom left, it hit my side of the car? Fuck that, Wren. She left you, too."
"When their mom left without either of them, in a way it was a relief. If Cath had to choose between everyone, she'd choose Wren."
"Cath!" her dad shouted from downstairs. "Phone."
Cath picked up her cell phone and looked at it.
"He must mean the house phone," Wren said.
"Who calls the house phone?"
"Probably 2005. I think it wants its shirt back."
Arthur: "I just flashed back to your first day of kindergarten. You cried. An your mom cried. It felt like we were never gonna see you guys again."
Cath: "Where was Wren?"
Arthur: "God, I don't know, probably anointing her first boyfriend."
Cath thinking about changing her major to Renaissance Lit made me laugh ("a head full of sonnets and Christ imagery. If you study something that nobody cares about, does that mean everyone will leave you alone?") because I have a minor in it.
Cath, on writing fiction that's not fanfic: "Or... falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall."
"Her dad was wrong about worrying. Cath liked to worry. it made her feel proactive, even when she was totally helpless."
Cath: "And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they're going to get tired of me and take off."
Levi: "That's crazy."
Cath: "I know. Exactly. I'm crazy."
[...]
Levi: "It's okay if you're crazy."
Cath: "You don't even know--"
Levi: "I don't have to know. I'm rooting for you."
Cath, thinking about her dates with Abel: "Math contests. Those probably weren't dates, come to think of it. She wasn't going to tell Levi that her last date had been at a math contest."
"In no circumstances would Cath ever run squealing down the hall into his arms. But she did her version of that -- she smiled tensely and looked away."
"Cath had a weird thing about sharing drinks, but she decided it would be stupid to say anything. She'd already kissed him."
Wren: "Will you forgive me?"
"No," Cath said.
Wren looked up pathetically.
"I don't have to forgive you," Cath said. "It's not like that with you. You're just in with me. Always. No matter what happens."
Arthur: And you start attending AA meetings.
Wren: Dad, I'm not an alcoholic.
Arthur: Good, it's not contagious. You're going to meetings.
About double-dating with Wren and Jandro:
Cath: "and then we can get married on the same day in a double ceremony, in matching dresses, and the four of us will light the unity candle all at the same time."
"Pfft," Levi said, "I'm picking out my own dress."
Cath and Wren talking about having sex:
Wren: You're not going to screw it up.
Cath: Well, I'm not going to nail it either, am I? Remember how long it took me to learn how to drive? And I still can't backwards skate--
[...]
Wren: "You'll be fine. The first few times you do it, you only get graded on attendance.
Cath: Wait... Are you saing you want to live with me again?
Reagan: Eff yeah, you're never even home. It's like I've finally got a room to myself.
Cath: Well... I'll think about it. Do you have any more hot ex-boyfriends?
Currently reading: continuing on with the fluffy-curtain-ficcy Dreamhealers book, slowly reading Karen Memory, and also just started Watchmaker of Filigree Street.
The protagonist, Laura's internal monologue is pretty hilarious (especially around Baal, on whom she has a huge crush), as are things as her impression of a Google search for Ananke "sit with no relevance blah blah blah another site with no relevance, yet more blah, and I going to have to go onto the second page of search results? oh god. no. this is turning into homework."
Predictably, I like Luci(fer) a lot. Making Beatles and Larkin references (Laura: "I'd appreciate it if you could at least be creepy in a way I could understand." Actually, there are a lot of unexplained references, including Cassandra saying "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" (about Luci) while standing under a portrait of Lord Byron.) Some of my favorite Lucifer lines: "Did you magically guess my name?" "Yes, with mystical going-through-your-wallet powers.""Do you have a cigarette? Or cocaine? Ideally cocaine? [...] Not even a little bit of cocaine?[...] What kind of teenager are you that you don't have class A drugs to hand? Hmm? Has The Daily Mail been lying to me?" Spoilers! I'm definitely sad she's exited the story, as she was my favorite of the gods by far.
My actual favorite, I think, is Cassandra, the skeptical journalist who gets some of the best lines: "Do you know what I see? Kids posturing with a Wikipedia summary's understanding of myth. [...] I see a provincial girl who doesn't understand how cosplaying a shinto god is problematic at best and offensive at worst." and later, talking to Laura, "You don't, Little Miss My-First-Search-Engine. I have a student loan's worth of this crap rolling around in here." I also like the way her being trans is handled. She's quite androgynous visually -- I thought "guy" in the first "wide-angle" shot from the top where we first see her in the interview, then "no, short-haired girl" in the close-ups on the next page, and it didn't even occur to me that Luci's crack ("Are you actually called 'Cassandra', or are you just another hypocritical little parasite?" -- for which Cassandra never forgives her) could be in reference to Cassandra having changed her name along with her gender, until the scene almost at the end, when Luci says, "For 'Cassandra' with the fuck-you quotations marks. Sorry. I knew you were trans. I wanted to hurt you." and Cassandra replies, "You did. Well done. Fuck you and your 'apology.'")
The Morrigan section was very confusing (both L and I found it so), and generally finding the gods hard to keep track of. What is up with Woden and the mask? I could kind of get where the others' symbols and pop-star incarnations were coming from, but him? Sekhmet playing with the "red dot" was both funny (I think this was L's favorite part) and tragic as it becomes clear what the red dot is (sniper rifle's scope) and kicks off the main plot.
I liked the art on the whole. The head-exploding art is kind of yuck. The cover pages with the symbols of the pantheon are neat, though I still haven't figured out all of them. The splash page of Luci's transformation, in flashback, is really awesome (falling flaming down the page as her mortal teenager form becomes her current godlike form). I also liked Luci's fingerguards in prison so she can't click her fingers, which is how gods use their head-explodey magic in this universe (which is kind of silly, but I guess it had to be something with visual build-up...)
21. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, The Wicked + The Divine, volume 2 -- this one I liked a bit less than the first one... The novelty of the setting is lessened just by virtue of being a sequel, but in general the main things about this one are the shocking twists and, honestly, I'm not a fan of either of them, though both definitely have good shock value. Spoilers! I'd actually managed to spoil myself for both, though not the specifics or when they happened, by reading TV Tropes, and Awesome Friend Allie had warned L that she didn't have book 3 on hand and that L would hate her for it, which warning L passed on to me after reading this book herself, so I knew there was a cliffhangery ending. But, yeah... killing off Laura, who started out as the protagonist/reader POV is an interesting move, narratively, but a) I'm so, SO confused by Ananke's motivations there, and in general what's going on... was Laura/Persephone meant to be the real twelvth god, whose space in the pantheon Baphomet has somehow usurped?? and b) I'd *liked* Laura, fangirl trying to play it cool, mourning Luci, getting into fights with her too-understanding parents (whose deaths I'm also sad about). And the second twist, Cassandra being one of the pantheon... Cassandra was my favorite character out of book 1 (probably my favorite overall, but definitely my favorite remaining character after Luci died). And I like the idea, intellectually, of the cynic becoming one of the gods and continuing to be a cynic (an interesting take on the Doubting Thomas), but I really preferred Cassandra as a normal, both from a visual design perspective and from a narrative perspective. But she still gets the best lines: (to Ananke) "You know, the answer to most of my questions seems to be 'a wizard did it'." and "It's still bullshit. Even if everything is true."
Those two twists aside, not all that much happens. I really enjoyed meeting Inanna, who is ADORABLE, dispensing hugs and apologizing for not asking permission first. So of course he was bound to be the next to die, as my post-Luci favorite, but I enjoyed his very shiny purpleness while it lasted. The Dionisys interlude I found fairly dull (and Delirium did psychedelic speech bubbled waaaay better; actually, this volume sprouted ALL the weird speech bubbles, but Inanna's were the only ones that really worked for me); I do like his YOLO + infinity shirt, though. I am still totally puzzled by Woden and his whole deal in this pantheon, as of the lot of them, he's the one that feels least relevant to the god-persona he inhabits (Woden isn't even a maker god, from what I recall? This one feels much more like a Hephaestus, if anything -- the god who makes stuff for other people and gets no respect for it, plus apparent physical deformity -- but I suppose the point is the Valkyries and Ragnarock and all that. But I love mythological Odin/Woden, and am annoyed by this slandererous take on him...) I'm also confused by what's going on with Baphomet and the Morrigan, although it looks like the two of them knew each other from pre-pantheon days, and, like, did she make him into a god somehow to keep her company even though he's not a real god? But at least that's an interesting mystery.
I usually don't pay much attention to the art in graphic novels, beyond pretty/not pretty and transparent/distracting, but this one has some interesting layouts, like the diagram of Laura's room and the Fantheon. I wasn't as impressed by Laura and Cassandra's transformation sequences as by Luci's, though, and Dionisys's party layout thing just plain didn't work for me. Graphic novels are confusing enough for me as it is!
20. Jordan L. Hawk, Summoner of Storms (SPECTR series 1, volume 6) -- OK, so that's the first series done. I actually don't have a whole lot to say about the last book as its own thing. Or at least I didn't think so, until I started writing stuff down. Lots of fun quotes in this one, though, and some general observations on the series, and the way it echoes Whyborne & Griffin at times. Spoilers from here! (including specially marked spoilers for the W&G books)
I'd heard that Kaniyar and Tiffany are both not active players in series 2, so was worried they might get killed, and was happy that was not the case -- promotion is better than death, and more likely to lead to cameos. I don't really care about the reveal of Gray's god-on-earth type status. Really, my main thought during that whole scene was that it was quite strongly a mirror of the one I'd just read in spoilers for Whyborne and Griffin books Stormhaven, where Whyborne is being ridden by the sea-dweller god-thing, the person subsumed within the awful power of the god, and Griffin has to recall him to himself by reminding him of the promise of their love. Different circumstances, slightly difference promise (Gray had promised to never hurt John, Whyborne had promised to stay with Griffin forever) but a very similar scene. I don't find it similar enough to be bothersome, but it's also a "here we go again" sort of feeling for what should be a tense scene. /W&G spoilers
Actually, there are lots of parallels between the two series in general -- again, not enough to bug me, but it is pretty noticeable. John // Griffin, both 'action' men who were abandoned by their families (for different reasons (though I doubt John's very religious parents would've been happy about the gay thing, either) and to various degrees; Griffin's parents do seem more loving, if misguided) and found identities in police-like organizations (SPECTR, the Pinkertons) which also betrayed them to various degrees (SPECTR through corruption, the Pinkertons by abandoning Griffin to an asylum). Caleb and Whyborne are a lot less alike, which is, frankly, a relief when it comes to the SPECTR books, as I've been getting increasingly annoyed by Whyborne.
Another general observation: I like the way John's faith and loyalty are done throughout the series. He is someone who obviously grew up with religion (Christianity) as a very important aspect, then turned his back on it (understandably) after the experience of the "pray the mal out" rehab facility. But he does seem to have genuine faith in his chosen goddess, Sekhmet, and the institution that replaced the church for him, SPECTR. And not just institutions, people, too: he gives his loyalty fast and for good, but when that loyalty is betrayed, as it is by Sean, he is shattered and very slow to forgive. I liked the way it was handled in this book, with Caleb, Gray, and Tiffany having to argue John around to working with Sean. And I liked that they cooperated, too. I had been expecting a heroic sacrifice for Sean best case (especially after spoilers for Whyborne and Griffin book 2 Elliot in the W&G books/W&G spoilers), and was happy to see that this didn't happen. It still might, I suppose, but I actually want to see John and Sean rebuild their relationship, and Sean get an actual non-fatal redemption arc.
I also liked that this book gave a chance for Sean and Caleb to talk, and that Caleb doesn't forgive him, so much, but realizes that John needs to come to terms with this, for his own sake. I also liked their conversation about eternal youth: "You think I should break up with him, if it turned out I'm living the eternal youth vampire stereotype. But if we've learned one thing in the last week, it's you have to talk shit out. So instead of making John's decisions for him, I'd ask him how he felt. Because guess what? The three of us are partners."
John feels a lot of random guilt in this book -- overt the NHEs he exoercised who were not humanely euthenized but kept in the spirit bottles, over the fact that those NHEs would be used to power Forsythe's summoned drakul ("as if he'd helped refine the ore for a nuclear bomb"), that SPECTR, whose ideology he bought into, was corrupt all the way to the top. I'm glad he comes to terms with all of this stuff, though, because the angst was not very interesting to me, though it does feel like a natural facet of John's character, sort of the flip side to the "Boy Scout" thing we'd seen throughout.
The revelation that having sex with Gray gives John enhanced exorcism abilities made me immediately think of the Magpie Lord books, but mostly it was just reason for a lot of hilarious dialogue: "Etheric energy doesn't work by fucking osmosis" (Tiffany; also LOL); "Etheric spunk. Now I've heard everything." (also Tiffany), "You're the one who asked." "That was before I realized the answer would involve so many horrifying mental images. Every time Starkweather does his new trick from now on, I'm going to have3 to scrub my brain all over again." and John: "Best mission prep ever."
Also, John intentionally comes up with different pet names for Caleb ("babe") and Gray ("darling"), which even Gray notices. And they have a conversation about this. (This reminded me about the whole "Ival" conversation between Griffin and Whyborne. What people call each other is definitely a thing of interest for this author; good thing that it is for me, too.)
The whole thing with the summoning NHEs into a human and them (when it's done for the first time to them) taking on the aspects of the human's (usually distrubed, because desparate circumstances are what leads to summoning) mental state and becoming corrupted. And the idea that Gray is not like that because his first "host" was "pure of purpose", a willing sacrifice (and female, which surprises John, leading Gray to remind him, "I have no inherent gender. Also, Caleb wishes me to thank you for reinforcing outdated binary notions. I do not believe he is sincere in his thanks, however." XP)
Random thoughts about this book specirfically: It was neat that it turned out the Gray knew Papillon, the founder of the Vigilant/moth sign people (that Papillon was Tiffany's ancestor I guessed pretty early on). There is another drakul in North American (presumably hopping merrily between dead bodies). I was amused by Caleb having to put on a suit and tie as disguise, and cut his hair (though Gray grows it all back first thing). Also, Caleb and Gray wondering about dolphins summoning NHEs was weridly adorable.
Quotes:
Caleb, to Tiffany's mother, la capitaine: "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, lady, but it's none of your business what two--three--whatever-- consenting adults get up to in their spare time."
Tiffany, on pinpointing the first drakul summoning into a living body: "And human lives don't become disposable enough for mass sacrifices to occur until you get city states."
John: Gray can't get nourishment from ordinary blood. Just the possessed.
Tiffany: Yeah, well I don't see a spot for heroin on the fucking food pyramid, but that never stopped anybody getting addicted.
When Gray smiles:
Caleb: That is the creepiest thing I've ever seen. And John is turned on by us?
John: I have to say, before last night, I never imagined you smiling. I like it.
Gray: Caleb says it is creepy.
John: Don't let Caleb give you a complex.
Tiffany, explaining the lwa ghede: "It's like a family dinner, except I might get some advice from my great-grandmother who's been dead for fifty years." And later, to John: "You don't know a damn thing about voodoo besides racist Hollywood bullshit, do you?"
"Christ," Caleb said, once they were past [security]. "Not that I wanted to get caught, but I'd expected more from my tax dollars."
22. Jordan L. Hawk, Necropolis (Whyborne & Griffin #4) - I liked this book on the whole. Up until the last two chapters, it was actually my favorite in the series, but I did find the overall impression somewhat spoiled by the climax, which just didn't work for me Spoilers from here! -- it felt like there were these insurmountable odds set up, an ascended goddess and an indestructible demon, and the author couldn't think of how to really defeat them, so she just wrapped up both enemies in one fell swoop (quite literally) and faded to black. The action scenes never work particularly well for me in this series (which is a little weird, considering that I have no such complaints in the SPECTR books -- I think maybe Whyborne's just not a great POV for action scenes), but in this case it was just kind of... perfunctory, especially then skipping forward several weeks -- which, of course, the book had to do because Whyborne had passed out and, once again, the series is (currently, anyway) limited to his POV.
Up until then, I'd been enjoying the plot: getting to see Christine in her element, learning more about her family (though it was all very sad; but I really liked the revelation that Christine's mother was a Civil War Polly Oliver who taught her to shoot and drink whisky; I wonder if we'll get to meet her in the next book), getting to laugh at Whyborne's camel/hat problems (and aww, Daisy!). I also liked the fact that Whyborne finally accepted the fact that he's doing more than studying the Arcanorum or dabbling in magic, and also the fact that the first thing he did was teach his mother some spells -- I agree with his logic, and with the refreshing approach of NOT keeping magic a secret from those closest to you, which frequently bugs me about protagonists. But I do also think Griffin has a good point about magic being dangerous and Whyborne minimizing that danger; I also liked that Christine took Whyborne's side in this as soon as he told her, "And do you enjoy it when others express concern over your chosen field of study, and suggest you'd be better off staying at home for your own safety?" It's not the same thing, since Christine (presumably) actually went to school for this stuff and knows what she's doing, but nicely played anyway. I also liked the way the incident with Daphne kissing Whyborne was handled between them -- no harm, no foul, basically, with Griffin acknowledging that (and Christine's very helpful suggestions of claiming impotence and being a eunuch as an excuse), Daphne's apology, and Whyborne's acceptance thereof: "It's only I'm unused to receiving such, er, compliments. And I fear I'm not at liberty to return them.") Oh, and I also really liked that Griffin's pragmatic suggestion about the waystation is just to dynamite it so nobody can find the map to the fane, and Whyborne and Christine are identically horrified at this suggestion.
Whyborne himself is still too whiny for my taste. I found it charming in the first book, in an adorkable way, but increasingly irritating since -- I'm not sure if it's that he's becoming flanderized like this, or if it's just repeated exposure, since I'm reading straight through them, but he still feels like a burden to Griffin, and not good enough for him, and like Griffin couldn't possibly find him desirable, and that his father can't possibly be genuinely coming around and trying to rebuild a relationship with him (I did like Griffin speaking up for Niles). I get that years of self-esteem issues are not that easy to shrug off, and that Whyborne is a very anxious person in general, but it gets old reading about it, and also characters who ignore mounting evidence annoy me, and I really do feel like any reasonably observant and intelligent person would've drawn some conclusions at this point instead of angsting about it continuously. (And yes, I know anxiety isn't rational, and there are RL people whose logic along these lines I find baffling -- surely they should know how awesome and loved they are! -- so it's probably quite realistic! But I don't have to spend books at a time in those people's heads, so...)
Speaking of mounting evidence, I guessed pretty early that Daphne was the bad guy/Nitocris -- like with Iskander, the amulet burning her tipped me off to what sort of threat she was specifically, but even before that, the way she had been introduced was suspicious. I was sad they didn't manage to exorcise her, because Christine and survivor!Daphne trying to build a real relationship would've been nice to see, and some family for Christine -- not everybody needs to have family issues! -- but the conclusion made sense. And I liked Iskander, and that he was both not an antagonist and that Griffin was right to be suspicious of him -- that part, actually, I thought played out fairly well.
(Also, Whyborne sure does pay a lot of attention to Iskander's looks. XP I could kind of see my way around to a Whyborne/Iskander exploratory one-night-thing, after Griffin convinces Whyborne that he really needs more experience, but of course he's not going to go to some random stranger in a bathhouse, and Christine pragmatically suggests Iskander's candidacy, since Kander already knows about Whyborne and Griffin being a couple, and Iskander is happy to help out because he's a helpful guy, and he still feels kind of bad about being jealous of Whyborne all that time when he thought him a rival for Christine's affections. Kander can wear Bedouin dress, since that seems to be a turn-on for Whyborne XD ...Yeah, I don't know where all that came from; probably an excess of Whyborne/Griffin shmoopiness :P)
And, actually, while I'm talking about shippy things, it occurred to me as I was reading this one -- I think I've reached some kind of critical mass with both SPECTR and W&G is why -- that the smutty parts work a lot better for me in the SPECTR books than here. It's not just that I find the situation with Gray interesting, although it is that too, but I think it's just the writing, also. And in this case I think it's the limitation of first-person-POV smut. I love first person narratives in general, but I don't think they lend themselves nearly so well to porn, frankly -- first-person porn just sounds faintly ridiculous to me, I guess.
I liked the supernatural aspect of this book probably the best of all four, because it's more mythology than horror, even though the ghouls and bridges of human limbs were gross. Wasn't expecting Whyborne's newfound magic wand to get destroyed as part of the action, but am curious if he's going to get/make himself a new one, somehow...
Randomly, I was amused that Whyborne and Griffin had in fact installed electric lights in their apartment, after all that stuff in the first book, and that Whyborne has come around to them, and I continue to laugh every time Whyborne decries Griffin's taste for dime novels. Also amused that even in a telegraph Christine insists on "Dr" before her name :D
23. Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl -- so, first of all, it was definitely the right decision to read this ahead of Carry On, because I found myself wanting to skim the Simon and Baz passages in this book (though I did peek ahead to Carry On now that I'm done, and that's in alternating first person, apparently, so maybe I'll like it better than the third-person in-universe canon or fic). Second, I read it in like two days, and I really liked it. The ending was weaker than I'd hoped, but on the whole, I found it funny and moving and relatable, and I wish there was more about these characters specifically (hey, maybe there's fic? :) (*googles it* there is fic, but of the 540 works on AO3, looks like only 35 or so are about the actual characters, and the rest are Simon Snow related). Spoilers from here!
I didn't know almost anything going in, so a number of things caught me by (pleasant) surprise. My favorite thing about the book, I think, ended up being Cath's relationship with her father, which I had not anticipated at all. Although maybe I should have, since I keep pointing out that, as much as I've loved set-at-college stories ever since graduating myself, at this point my CHILDREN are way closer to college than I am, so maybe it's inevitable that it's the parent/child relationships I would fixate on. But anyway, I really like what we see of Cath and Arthur, both damaged, both, as they each acknowledge, "crazy" (and a bit more on that below), leaning on each other and trying to do the best by each other, and just knowing each other so well. A lot of my favorite moments, the quotes I noted down, had to do with the dialogue between these two: "What's wrong, did you get an eyelid?" (after the Soylent Green reference), "I still wish you'd get a dog." "I'd never remember to feed it." "Maybe we could train it to feed you." and the serious conversation that starts off "Are you pregnant? Are you gay? I'd rather you were gay than pregnant. Unless you're pregnant. Then we'll deal. Whatever it is, we'll deal. Are you pregnant?", and the whole "Why couldn't santa get out of bed on Christmas?"/"Because he's North bi-Polar" parade of jokes.
And speaking of "crazy", I do like that Cath uses that word about herself BUT at the same time the way the real issues that she and her father have are contrasted to normal people acting 'crazy' / the colloquial way the word is used. There's Cath's whole monologue: "And I'm crazy. Like maybe you think I'm a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I'm a complete disaster." And: "Professor Piper regarded Cath thoughtfully, tapping the edge of the desk. This is what it looks like when a sane person taps her fingers."
And speaking of parent/child, I liked the way the whole thing with Laura was handled -- that it's shown to be OK to want to have some sort of relationship with the woman who walked out on them (Wren) and also shown to be OK never to want any of that, to be angry and demanding that she earn that right if she really wants that (Cath). I was worried we might end up with Cath reconciling with her, as some kind of Very Special Lesson, and I'm glad that they don't, even when they do meet. And the scene where Cath sees her was a bit overwritten for my taste, but also nicely complex. The childhood memory of her as "Her hair was dark, and she tucked Sharpies into her ponytail, and she could draw anything. A flower. A seahorse. A unicorn." was really touching (I remember how impressed I was as a little kid with my mother's ability to draw things for me, and how I used to enjoy showing off the same for the rodents, even though neither of us is actually an artist).
Cath's relationship with Wren for most of the book wasn't something I was enjoying very much, but I figured that was the point and we would get to a place I liked, and we did. I wish Wren had been a bit more than an object lesson, than a foil for Cath, but I also realize that is not the point of this book at all. And I did like seeing them at the end, the revelation that Wren was still reading Cath's fic, that Wren was still every bit as invested in the canon as Cath, for all her earlier snark, and that she got a (background) love story of her own, even though Jandro is an unbeliever who thinks girls writing slash is "deviant". He seemed like a nice guy.
Which brings me to Levi, who was adorable. He is actually a really nice mix of traits for Cath -- a genuinely good, decent guy, but also not perfect and genuinely really different: older, outdoorsy, small-town, not bookish or a good student (though smart, which both Cath and Reagan adamantly aver), not a reader, though he loves stories -- and I do love that those two things end up being shows as markedly different, and that Levi can be just as much of a nerd as Cath and Wren). I like that Levi screws up on occasion -- and screws up in the believably people-pleaser, joking-around-to-keep-things-light ways -- but apologizes and learns to really ASK Cath things instead of trying to guess/waiting for her to tell him. I liked him a lot, and could see the relationship between him and Cath because he would WORK so hard at it and tend it. Completely agreed with Reagan, basically, that it's "Good for you. Good for Levi. Better for you, I think." I also really liked the way the two of them used humour to negotiate Cath's multitude of issues:
Cath: We'll walk in [to your bedroom], and all that will be in there is a bed. And I'll throw up from nerves.
Levi: And desire?
Cath: Mostly nerves.
Levi: "Do you think you could relax and just... let me touch you?
Cath: What kind of touching?
Levi: Do you want me to show you on a doll?
[and later]
Levi: What kind of touching?
Cath: Did you already give the operator your credit card number?
Speaking of Reagan, she was really fun! I liked the way Cath thinks about her, and the way their friendship develops, from charity to genuine (if brusque) affection. (As a side note, I can see the Levi and Reagan relationship, too -- he is such an accommodating person, as well as a caretaker, and Reagan and Cath would bring out different sides of him, but I could see how it worked for three years, even if they hadn't been the only date-able people in Arnold.)
Let's get Nick out of the way before I get to Cath herself. He is, of course, mostly there to be a foil. A foil for Levi, the red herring love interest, the person who is superficially similar to Cath and shares her interests but who, at heart, is not at all what she needs (they both 'exploit' her to some degree, too, but Cath's assistance to Levi is freely offered and really appreciated and not the ONLY thing they have, while Nick, she feels, robbed her of her contribution in service of a story she didn't even care about.) It's interesting, also, that when it comes to writing, Nick gets the 'pro-fic' side of Cath, the mechanics and style, the side she decides she doesn't want, and Levi gets the fanfiction, the story. But Nick is also a foil for Cath, the pretensious "hipster Hemingway" what is trying to be edgy and slick and do the Real Writer thing while Cath doesn't care about that -- she just wants to spend time with the characters she loves. I didn't particularly like the resolution with Nick -- while I can't fault Cath for not wanting to attach her namein print to a story that never mattered to her, denying Nick the publication actually seems pretty petty to me. It's a neatly wrapped-up revenge, more authorial than character-perpetrated, but it just seemed TOO pat, in a book that otherwise dealt pretty well with ragged edges. I guess... given that Cath's whole thing as a fanfiction author is redeeming the Draco character, it felt like an off note to have Nick simply punished (stripped of his TA role and denied the publication) and pushed offstage.
Oh, fine, and since I'm running through the entire male population of the novel, let's talk a moment about Abel the end-table boyfriend, too. I know he wasn't actually in the novel, but I liked that there was... very little judgement about Cath's relationship with him. Like, obviously Wren was right and it wasn't a real relationship, and they both came to realize that, and the break-up phone conversation was ridiculous and awkward, but even in retrospect it was all quite cozy and family-like. Oh, and I found it a funny character detail that Abel (an engineering student who got a perfect score on the math section of the SATs) "had limped through Spanish" (funny because his family is Mexican). And totally endearing that Abel and his new girlfriend are planning to continue reading Cath's fic. Oh, and the laptop power cord gift that keeps on giving.
OK, Cath! Given how quickly I read it, obviously Cath's narration worked pretty well for me, although I found it frustrting, too, especially at first, while she's completely miserable and friendless at college. I share enough of her... I'm just going to use the Russian word, bzyki, because there isn't anyting better in English -- it means something similar to what 'brain weasels' connotes, but without the distracting imagery -- anyway, I share enough of Cath's bzyki, in far milder form, of course, to find myself nodding/cringing along with a lot of her 'crazy' thoughts. I hate being in new situations without a pattern or a person to follow (though I've gotten better about it with age, probably thanks to not having a twin sister to always coattail on); I tend to overthink things that I haven't dealt with before (Ravenclaw brain cycling idle/v holostuyu with not enough data). I've done the thing with building myself up to talking to a professor by walking past their office several times, and have dealt with having to talk to people before I've nerved myself up for it ("This was too much progress; she hadn't planned for this eventuality -- for actually accomplishing what she came here to do."). I like routine and am resistant to change, so I could empathize with those things, too. Obviously, I'm nowhere near so pathological, and wasn't when I was 18, either -- and while I lived at home while going to college, I did have my summer in Oxford right after high school, when I was completely alone in a new place, much farther from home than Cath, and it was actually kind of liberating -- but I guess it would be fair to say that I'm actually quite good at COPING with change, while hating it a lot. So I felt both sympathetic to and frustrated by Cath at once. Kind of a parental feeling, actually, which may also be why I liked her relationship with her father so much.
The fiction-writing stuff also spoke to me. I've never been a fanfic BNF, of course (and btw, the scene with Cath metting that Magicath fan who has no idea who she is on the internet in the library stacks was really fun!), but a lot of the other stuff felt really relatable. Having fic, and a fandom, be a fundamental constant in my life (LotR being the One True Fandom in my case), and the fic something shared with a person super-close to me, who seems to have outgrown it while it's still the most important thing for me (my friend R, in our college years). Coming to the realization that I really don't want to be a professional author, certainly not if it entails writing to the expectations of what 'real literature' is like, because I really don't care about any of that stuff. The way affected character words, like "bloody" become part of your own vocabulary, and it's at once perfectly natural and really noticeable to other people. The way you 'mine' your own experiences for fic (first with Wren, then with Levi - "Cath wanted to go back and rewrite every scene she'd ever written about Baz or Simon's chests."). It was all really, really familiar and tinged with nostalgia, since my own prose-writing days seem to be firmly behind me.
In general, I thought the fanfic thing was really well done. I liked being able to see Magicath develop as an author between the early excerpts and her mature work (going from "Simon curled on his bed like a wounded unicorn foal, holding the torn piece of green velvet to his tear-stained face" to, well, fic that's actually good). Using book words like "guffawed" to describe things around her and having a mental editor question her word choice. And all the fandom stuff: the fanfests with funny names, the fannish Etsy T-shirts, Cath's sense (supported by her fans) that the author of the books doesn't know/care about Baz as much as she does. I also really liked the argument Cath had with Professor Piper about turning in a fanfic story as her assignment: on the one hand, the professor is wrong that this is plagiarism; it's not. On the other hand, it is absolutely an immature mistake to treat fanfic as a wholly original assignment, which is what was required (i.e. the point Levi makes later). And I like that Cath doesn't manage to convince Piper that fic is worthwhile -- they just agree to not talk about it anymore. (I also like the way Cath's not-really-plagiarism and Nick's borderline-plagiarism mirror each other -- it's his idea but a lot of his words, and he does, ultimately, suffer consequences for this, while Cath gets another chance despite the F.)
I already mentioned the scene in the stacks with the girl who doesn't realize Cath is famous on the internet. But I found it really weird that "Magicath" is a BNF with legions of fans, but she doesn't seem to have any actual online friends. I mean she says, "There are other people on the Internet. It's awesome. You get all the benefits of 'other people' without the body odor and the eye contact" -- but there aren't any actual relationships that she has with anyone online. I understand that her having actual full-fledged relationships online would deteract from the growth arc of real-life friendship that this book is about, but it's so different from my own experience of fandom, which is all about fannishness leading to real friendships (even if they're with people I don't get to meet in RL) that I kept feeling the lack. And, like, to make that work, fandom in this world seems to be limited to a FFN/AO3 analogue, because apparently LJ doesn't exist...
Oh, and, not fanfic but having to do with the canon of Simon Snow instead: I liked the way the volume names are set up so it's easy to map them (more or less) to the HP books/Simon's years at school, with the number-contained-in-the-title names. On the whole, though, I've got to say the magic/worldbuilding in the Simon Snow canon sounds INCREDIBLY silly... But Levi the Penelope (=Hermione) stan was really cute.
I also liked the various references in casual dialogue, Twilight ("Have you been watching me sleep?"/"Yes, Bella."), Junie B. Jones, Flowers in the Attic, etc.
Things that didn't work so well for me:
The ending was the big one. I was hoping for more, and it felt kind of rushed. I really didn't think much of Cath's Fiction-Writing story, and having it win the whatever prize just felt gimmicky to me -- especially since that wasn't even what she'd WANTED. I feel like it undermines the argument she was making throughout the book, that FANFIC was the thing that she loved. And I'm not sure if that's meant to show that she's outgrowing/transcending fanfic -- I don't think it is, but it feels WEIRD to end on that note, rather than, say, a glowing review of the completed "Carry On", or Cath starting to write Outsiders fic, or something else, well, fannish. I mean, I suppose the Simon Snow series is finished, but it doesn't mean the FANDOM is over, and that just left a weird taste in my mouth, just sort of jarring-like. And I would have liked to simply know more, too -- is Cath planning to take Professor Piper's advanced class? What sort of arrangement will she and Levi come to over the summer? Another scene with Cath and Wren's father would've been nice, too, because it feels like the family line is kind of dropped in the last several chapters. And I've already talked about how the resolution with Nick didn't work for me.
The whole "Cath thinks Levi is Reagan's boyfriend" thing dragging on for as long as it did. It really stretched my credulity that Reagan and ESPECIALLY Levi, who rambles about everything else, would not set Cath straight on this the various times she referred to Levi as Reagan's boyfriend, like ACTUALLY telling her they were high school bf/gf but hadn't been together for years, instead of just vaguely snapping "You don't understand!". It just seemed so artificail! And for not much payoff, either -- while I liked the way Cath and Reagan talked it out, much of it could've still been accomplished without the silly, suspension-of-disbelief-stretching charade.
"Cather" and "Wren". I get that them being literally two parts of the one name Laura made up for them is symbolic both of her lack of interest in being a mother at that point and in Cath and Wren being two incomplete halves at that point, something they're trying to outgrow throughout the book. But I just have such a hard time believing that a) anybody would actually do this, as a parent (especially anybody planning to earn a living in advertizing), and b) other people would let her get away with it. (And, like, she knew she was having a girl but not that she was having twins? Or she literally just had one baby name in mind, and if it had been a boy would she have named him Catherin or something?)
The Harry Potter mention. This is such an odd choice! It's very clear that Simon Snow, the global phenomenon with movies and fanfiction and all that -- is the Harry Potter Expy in this universe. So... how does the actual Harry Potter fit into it, then? The Simon Snow publication dates are later than the real-world HP ones (shifted by about 4 years), and Harry Potter seems to be in the "beloved childhood character" territory in this world as well, since he gets mentioned on par with Encyclopedia Brown. And yet the Simon Snow story is REALLY PRETTY SIMILAR to HP -- magicians, magic school, kid nemesis, swotty friend (I'm kinda annoyed that Ron has been deleted apparently and a love triangle added, though), the final boss and hero being linked and having to be defeated through something other than fighting. I'm just... how does the real Harry Potter and the Harry Potter stand-in coexist in the same universe? I get that this is a throwaway line, but it's one that seriously hurts my brain.
Random note: is "Wikipedia" the term copyrighted or something? First there was John Green with his Omnictionary, now there's "Encyclowikia" here... Or is it just the matter of not being able to make up fake quotes from a real 'document'?
Overall, though, I definitely enjoyed the book and really enjoyed the writing, thus, rather a lot of quotes below:
Reagan, to Cath, immediately upon meeting her: "If you've got feng shui issues, feel free to move my shit."
Levi: "Are you meeting people?"
Cath: "Not intentionally."
"On the one hand, Reagan didn't seem interested in staying up all night, braiding each other's hair, and becoming best friends forever. That was a relief. || On the other hand, Reagan didn't seem interested in Cath at all. Actually that was a bit of a relief, too -- Reagan was scary."
"The squirrels on campus were beyond domestic; they were practically domestically abusive." -- which is a great way to describe campus squirrels and made me think of the Berkeley ones instantly.
Reagan: Are you on drugs?
Cath: No.
Reagan: Maybe you should be. [...] Seriously, why aren't you on drugs?
Cath: Are you a licensed psychiatrist? Or do you just play one on TV?
Reagan: I'm on drugs. They're a beautiful thing.
Reagan: I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend.
Cath: I don't want to be your friend. I like that we're not friends.
Reagan: Me too. I'm sorry you ruined it by being pathetic.
Drunk!Wren: "Boy stuff? Is Simon coming out to Agatha again? Did Baz make him a vampire? Again? Are their fingers helplessly caught in each other's hair?"
"When Cath saw Abel's name pop up on her phone, she thought at first that it was a text, even though the phone was obviously ringing."
Nick, to Cath: "Will you read this? I think maybe it sucks. Or maybe it's awesome. It's probably awesome. Tell me it's awesome, okay? Unless it sucks."
Cath: "I can't believe Abel told me this girl's aCT score. What am I supposed to do with that? Offer her a scholarship?"
Wren: "Five cousins. And a string of ill-fated hamsters, all named Simon."
Cath: "I write laps. Every morning, just to stay loose."
"A little manic was okay. [...] A little manic was what their house ran on. The goblin spinning gold in the basement."
"Nick [...] was wearing a thick navy blue turtleneck sweater that made him look like he was serving on a Soviet battleship. Like, even more so than usual."
"Did the bearded lady get excited when cute guys came to her freak show?"
Cath's paean to the internet: "How do you not like the Internet? That's like saying, 'i don't like things that are convenient. And easy. I don't like having access to all of mankind's recorded discoveries at my fingertips. I don't like light. And knowledge."
Levi to Reagan: "I brought you an eggnog latte. And I've been keeping it warm in my mouth."
Reagan: "Don't be an idiot, Cather. I mean, I know that you are. About this. But try not to be an idiot right this moment."
"Switching from her Fiction Writing homework to Simon and Baz was like realizing she'd been driving in the wrong gear."
Nick: "But it's like John Lennon writing with... Taylor Swift instead of Paul McCartney."
Cath: "Get over yourself. You're not half so pretty as Taylor Swift."
"She cared about the writing. About the magic third thing that lived between them when they were working together. She would have met Nick at the library to write obituaries. Or shampoo packaging."
"It was Nick's story. He'd just tricked her into writing it."
"If it [the crazy] tried to take you," Wren said, "I won't let go."
A few months later, Cath gave that line to Simon in a scene about Baz's bloodlust. Wren was still writing with Cath back then, and when she got to the line, she snorted.
"I'm here for you if you go manic," Wren said. "But you're on your own if you become a vampire."
"What good are you anyway," Cath said. [...]
"Apparently, I'm good for something," Wren said. "You keep stealing all my best lines."
Cath: "Do you think I absorbed all the impact? That when Mom left, it hit my side of the car? Fuck that, Wren. She left you, too."
"When their mom left without either of them, in a way it was a relief. If Cath had to choose between everyone, she'd choose Wren."
"Cath!" her dad shouted from downstairs. "Phone."
Cath picked up her cell phone and looked at it.
"He must mean the house phone," Wren said.
"Who calls the house phone?"
"Probably 2005. I think it wants its shirt back."
Arthur: "I just flashed back to your first day of kindergarten. You cried. An your mom cried. It felt like we were never gonna see you guys again."
Cath: "Where was Wren?"
Arthur: "God, I don't know, probably anointing her first boyfriend."
Cath thinking about changing her major to Renaissance Lit made me laugh ("a head full of sonnets and Christ imagery. If you study something that nobody cares about, does that mean everyone will leave you alone?") because I have a minor in it.
Cath, on writing fiction that's not fanfic: "Or... falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall."
"Her dad was wrong about worrying. Cath liked to worry. it made her feel proactive, even when she was totally helpless."
Cath: "And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they're going to get tired of me and take off."
Levi: "That's crazy."
Cath: "I know. Exactly. I'm crazy."
[...]
Levi: "It's okay if you're crazy."
Cath: "You don't even know--"
Levi: "I don't have to know. I'm rooting for you."
Cath, thinking about her dates with Abel: "Math contests. Those probably weren't dates, come to think of it. She wasn't going to tell Levi that her last date had been at a math contest."
"In no circumstances would Cath ever run squealing down the hall into his arms. But she did her version of that -- she smiled tensely and looked away."
"Cath had a weird thing about sharing drinks, but she decided it would be stupid to say anything. She'd already kissed him."
Wren: "Will you forgive me?"
"No," Cath said.
Wren looked up pathetically.
"I don't have to forgive you," Cath said. "It's not like that with you. You're just in with me. Always. No matter what happens."
Arthur: And you start attending AA meetings.
Wren: Dad, I'm not an alcoholic.
Arthur: Good, it's not contagious. You're going to meetings.
About double-dating with Wren and Jandro:
Cath: "and then we can get married on the same day in a double ceremony, in matching dresses, and the four of us will light the unity candle all at the same time."
"Pfft," Levi said, "I'm picking out my own dress."
Cath and Wren talking about having sex:
Wren: You're not going to screw it up.
Cath: Well, I'm not going to nail it either, am I? Remember how long it took me to learn how to drive? And I still can't backwards skate--
[...]
Wren: "You'll be fine. The first few times you do it, you only get graded on attendance.
Cath: Wait... Are you saing you want to live with me again?
Reagan: Eff yeah, you're never even home. It's like I've finally got a room to myself.
Cath: Well... I'll think about it. Do you have any more hot ex-boyfriends?
Currently reading: continuing on with the fluffy-curtain-ficcy Dreamhealers book, slowly reading Karen Memory, and also just started Watchmaker of Filigree Street.