Week 11- HOW DARE YOU, SIR

I know we didn't need to do a blog this week, but I finished The Raven Boys and I need to rant to you for a sec. So I was right about the “getting sucked into a spiral” thing, because I need to finish this story. Also, I had a sneaking suspicion, but NOAH IS A FREAKING GHOST. Yeah, hi. I love you, now stop being dead. Oh, and plot twist, Noah was the one who got sacrificed by Whelk. Cool, good to know. I'll just come over here and sob.

And then there's the reason I decided to write this in the first place. You remember how much I love Adam, the precious, adorable, sweet, quiet, marshmallow of a boy? HIS DAD HIT HIM. REPEATEDLY. His dad was BEATING him. NO! IT'S TIME TO STOP! PLEASE, JUST STOP! His dad hit him so hard, he fell onto some stairs and LOST THE HEARING IN HIS LEFT EAR. Adam's dad, you know what? You are dead. Get down before I force you down. I am going to murder you. I AM GOING TO STRAIGHT UP MURDER YOU. HOW DARE YOU, SIR. You have the sweetest son in the history of the world and you MAIM HIM WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, excuse my French, but STOP. And then dear, dear Ronan came in and PUNCHED ADAM'S DAD RIGHT BACK YOU GO BABY BOY YEAH! BEAT HIM UP! RIGHT HOOK! UPPERCUT! Sorry, I'm just excited he did exactly what I wanted to do in that moment. My poor baby is deaf in one ear now because of that man and I will NEVER FORGIVE HIM.

Anyways, Adam kinda sacrificed himself to wake the ley line, only he didn't actually die, and he went crazy for a few minutes and killed Whelk, but honestly who cares? Whelk killed Noah, who is also pretty precious and sweet, so I'm gonna let our marshmallow off the hook for this one. Plus, he didn't technically kill Whelk, he just didn't save him from getting trampled. So does it really count? Not if Adam did it, that's for sure.

And I have a confession to make… I did some rough sketchy fan art. Whoops. That's how you know I enjoyed the book: not only did I want to draw the characters, I came up with basic designs for them. And can you see HOW CUTE ADAM IS? I wasn't even trying and he just came out that way. And his ear is shaded because they mentioned his ear is slightly red now because of the BASHING HIS FATHER GAVE HIM and because he's now DEAF IN THAT EAR. Just wanted to be accurate, which is why I redrew Ronan when I read that he had a shaved head after I'd finished drawing him with hair. Anyways, here it is! Have fun with these.

Week 10- Smoke Weed Every Day?

Hi again! I forgot to mention something last week. The point of view actually switches between three people, not two. The third is a teacher at the rich kids' school. Hiss name is Barrington Whelk. I know. Blech.

His parents must hate him. It's probably why he's such a sneaky creep. He basically wants to take over the world using the ley lines that Gansey is looking for. He had this whole flashback where he explained how at first he just wanted to find them to be cool and ~adventurous~ as seems to be the norm in the books I read, but then he and his friend did some kind of demonic ritual to find the ley lines and his friend died? And also it drove him insane basically. Yay for demons.

So, Gansey went to Blue's psychic family and they met and Blue actually knows it's him. Blue, Gansey, and Gansey's friends Ronan, Adam and Noah, are on an… say it with me now… ~ADVENTURE!~ They're looking for the ley lines, which Blue has seen because that's where she saw Gansey's spirit, so she leads them to it. And then… some super weird stuff happened. Gansey made some fish show up with his mind, Adam saw something he won't talk about, Blue saw a vision of her about to kiss Gansey, and Gansey saw Glendower, the king dude he wants to wake up. It was pretty surreal. Also, time stopped. I'm guessing all of this is going to lead up to something later, but for right now it just seems like they all got high together or something.

One thing that's bothering me is the whole “Gansey is either my true love or I killed him or both” thing. Or, well, it's not that concept that bothers me. It's that Gansey is the one Blue saw when, right now, she is hard core into Adam. I would yell at them to kiss, but a) They're not real and b) Blue might kill the precious marshmallow. So if Blue is into Adam, how can Gansey be her true love? None of it makes sense. There'll be some kind of plot twist, obviously, but what kind of plot twist is hard for me to picture without it being something boring and unsatisfying. But this is only the first book in the series, so maybe it goes deeper than I think. I would love it if I could move on to other things I want to read after this book, but if the story isn't resolved at the end, I can tell I'm going to get sucked into a never ending spiral of psychics and possible ley line weed. We'll just have to see. I'm guessing I'll finish the book by the end of Thanksgiving Break. If not, I'll catch you up on all the deets. Have a great break!

Week 9- Can I Change my Name to Magenta?

This week I started the first book of a series, The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater. I don't know if I'll read the whole series, but so far I'm definitely enjoying it more than Uglies. It's a little confusing for the first few chapters for a couple of reasons. First, even though it's written in third person, it focuses on the thoughts and feelings of one character in one chapter, and another the next. It only switches between two, but it switches after a random number of chapters without warning. It could be one chapter before it switches, or it could be three.

Second, a bunch of characters got introduced in a jumble. The first chapter, the female lead and literally her entire family got introduced. Then maybe two or three chapters later, we're getting introduced to the male lead, his three best friends, and one of the best friends' brother. What? Too much at once. And the third thing is that everyone has really weird names that no one actually seems to think are weird. The female ls named “Blue.” Like the color. The male lead is technically Dick Gansey, but he goes by Gansey. I would be fine with him going by Dick. Some people might laugh, but it's actually a name, unlike GANSEY. Also, I'm in love with Dick Grayson (the first Robin from the Batman timeline) so I've become desensitized to the name.

Anyways, TL;DR the point of view switches too suddenly, there's too many characters getting introduced all at once, and all of those characters have names I didn't think were names. Except for Ronan, which I heard when I went into a two-day Irish phase, and Adam, who is a precious smol bean and I want to protect. He's adorable and I don't even know what he looks like.

I haven't actually told you anything about this book, have I? Wow, I'm great at this. So, basically, Blue (because that’s a name that no one provides an explanation for and just is) is the only one in a family of real-life psychics who doesn't have prophetic powers. But every psychic she's seen has told her she'll kill her true love if she kisses them. Yay, exactly what every little girl wants to hear.

Anyways, apparently there's this there’s this thing where on a certain day psychics can see people who will die in the next year, but Blue isn't psychic, so she can't see them. But this year, she sees a boy and talks to him. (Spoiler alert, it's Gansey!) And she's like, ‘wow, that was weird. What just happened?’ and her crazy aunt tells her that either he's her true love or she killed him. Apparently, if we believe the previous psychics, it's both. And then we go see inside of Gansey's head. He's looking for some magic stuff, I guess, because he… wants to wake up a king or something? I don't even know. But he and his friends go to this rich-kids' school that Blue hates because all the guys there are mean. And they just happen to go to the restaurant where Blue works, and Gansey and Blue HAVE A CONVERSATION but Blue doesn't know it's him WHY oh my God Blue you're so stupid (that's a lie, you couldn't have known).
So yeah. That's what happened. Also Ronan and his brother got into a fistfight, but you know. No one died or anything, so it's fine. Probably. Byyye!

Week 8- Tally ex machina

So... I finished Uglies. Whoo-hoo. Here we go.

Like I said, Marian Susan all the way. And... random love story in the middle of it. I was so confused and underwhelmed by Tally's sudden feelings for David. When she first met him, she noticed how Shay felt about him and saw David as a friend. In fact, when Shay started accusing Tally of trying to take David from her, she insisted that it wasn't like that. But as soon as Tally finds out about the brainwashing, suddenly she goes, "Oh, David~, you're so handsome, you showed me that people can be pretty without the operation! I love you now!" And of course David likes her, not Shay, even though he actually knew Shay for months and only met Tally a few days ago. And so of course they kiss and are happy and then they go on another ~ADVENTURE~ which again lasts only a few chapters. Great.

So, this thing happens where Tally, always perfect and not at fault like the Mary Sue she is, accidentally calls the government to the Smoke and they attack and capture everyone there. But of course, since she's a spy, they let her go, which lets her get away and find David. And they come up with this foolproof plan to save everyone else, and even though she said it took them two weeks to get there, only Shay has been turned pretty. Because... Tally ex machina, I guess.

And Shay's mind has been changed because brainwashing, but they "rescue" her anyways, and she's complaining literally the entire time. I get that it's because she's brainwashed, but she's so annoying and shallow. I would let her fall off the hoverboard.

And then, Tally ex machina, David's mom magically finds the instructions to fix the brainwashing. Why wouldn't she? Oh, and by the way, David's dad died, but no one really cares for more than five minutes max. So David's mom uses these instructions to make a cure, but because she wants to be nice she doesn't force Shay to take them, and the book ends with Tally giving herself up as a test subject for the pills by letting herself become pretty, because she hasn't done enough heroic, selfless things in this book. Of course, there's a 99% chance that she'll not only be pretty like she wanted from the start but also retain her brain, so really it's pretty much guaranteed that everything will go perfectly for her, which means that there's not actually any tension in this "cliff hanger."

If the story was less predictable and Tally was less flat, I might actually read the rest of the series, because the ideas behind the world are really interesting, but... no. Just no. I'm sorry if you like this book, but I don't.