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Apr. 25th, 2022 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyCut my hair. Waiting on it to dry to see how it came out, but I think it went okay. Might need to trim the longest layer but I did things a bit differently this time so we'll see.
Still doing pretty well on keeping track of my books read/reviewing them even if it's just a little blurb and also keeping track of the nail polishes I've used thus far. Kinda bummed the last one I finished was just not one I enjoyed. I don't ask for my main character to be super likable. I can exist on just one side character being my favorite so long as we see them enough or keep me guessing about whodunnit/why. I can also make it through a book where my favorite is the person killed off in flashbacks, but I need something, anything, to keep me going. These Deadly Games gave me nothin'.
I've had other books fall flat for me this year and I've been more forgiving because with YA I figure the audience is, y'know, the Y part of YA and I try and factor in how I would've felt when I was the target age or factor in the fact that I'm just not. I grade on a curve is what I'm saying.
Crystal is hard to like and I cut her a LOT of slack, but once her friends start dying and she doesn't actually seem to grasp that it's hard to care much about her. I don't know if I'm more sensitive to the whole "best friend winds up in the hospital and might not make it" thing or if it's just this book and this character didn't seem to get it. Or maybe I'm supposed to just handwave it away because grief is strange and Crystal is also trying desperately to save her little sister but she causes another friend's father to have a massive heart attack and never once thinks to go see how that friend is faring, even though she thinks to herself that losing both his father and their mutual BFF would crush this friend. Too much hinges on just excusing Crystal's behavior with the little sister being kidnapped and being unable to tell anyone for fear of her dying.
Later in the book Crystal ties another friend up, cuts them (by accident) with a knife, after accusing them of being the bad guy, and is basically just nutterbutters at this point. At this point she's:
-gotten one friend suspended/probably killed their college dreams
-gotten one killed (confirmed dead)
-given one friend's father a heart attack by being SUCH a shitty friend that she doesn't remember his address (bad guy has her SWAT his house)
-gotten one friend to fall off a goddamn cliff (this is after bad guy tries to get her to leave a car running in the attached garage right under friend's bedroom)
Crystal. Honey. Baby. You should've stopped the stupid fucking game as soon as Matty died. But she doesn't, not just because of her sister, but because she loves playing games and wants to fucking win. Which is fucked up but I can admire her realizing this about herself... right up until the bodies start piling up.
Thing is, none of her friends are on screen long enough to be likable or for me to root for them actively. The two who are around long enough are both there to seem like the bad guys, and since one is EXTREMELY unlikable, you know it's the other one. Seriously, new guy to a group that's got a shared secret and who is impossible to read? Of course he's the bad guy!
And also of course he's fucking related to the backstory secret. FFS, it's not even that difficult to figure out.
And again, on its own, that wouldn't be a deal breaker. I'm ancient and this isn't my first rodeo. Had Crystal, Zoey, or hell, even Dylan been someone I gave a shit about, this still could've worked. But they weren't so it didn't.
Basically, I would've been better off re-reading Slumber Party by Christopher Pike.
Oh, Moon Knight got interesting by finally leaning allllllllll the way in on The Mummy vibe for episode 4.
Still doing pretty well on keeping track of my books read/reviewing them even if it's just a little blurb and also keeping track of the nail polishes I've used thus far. Kinda bummed the last one I finished was just not one I enjoyed. I don't ask for my main character to be super likable. I can exist on just one side character being my favorite so long as we see them enough or keep me guessing about whodunnit/why. I can also make it through a book where my favorite is the person killed off in flashbacks, but I need something, anything, to keep me going. These Deadly Games gave me nothin'.
I've had other books fall flat for me this year and I've been more forgiving because with YA I figure the audience is, y'know, the Y part of YA and I try and factor in how I would've felt when I was the target age or factor in the fact that I'm just not. I grade on a curve is what I'm saying.
Crystal is hard to like and I cut her a LOT of slack, but once her friends start dying and she doesn't actually seem to grasp that it's hard to care much about her. I don't know if I'm more sensitive to the whole "best friend winds up in the hospital and might not make it" thing or if it's just this book and this character didn't seem to get it. Or maybe I'm supposed to just handwave it away because grief is strange and Crystal is also trying desperately to save her little sister but she causes another friend's father to have a massive heart attack and never once thinks to go see how that friend is faring, even though she thinks to herself that losing both his father and their mutual BFF would crush this friend. Too much hinges on just excusing Crystal's behavior with the little sister being kidnapped and being unable to tell anyone for fear of her dying.
Later in the book Crystal ties another friend up, cuts them (by accident) with a knife, after accusing them of being the bad guy, and is basically just nutterbutters at this point. At this point she's:
-gotten one friend suspended/probably killed their college dreams
-gotten one killed (confirmed dead)
-given one friend's father a heart attack by being SUCH a shitty friend that she doesn't remember his address (bad guy has her SWAT his house)
-gotten one friend to fall off a goddamn cliff (this is after bad guy tries to get her to leave a car running in the attached garage right under friend's bedroom)
Crystal. Honey. Baby. You should've stopped the stupid fucking game as soon as Matty died. But she doesn't, not just because of her sister, but because she loves playing games and wants to fucking win. Which is fucked up but I can admire her realizing this about herself... right up until the bodies start piling up.
Thing is, none of her friends are on screen long enough to be likable or for me to root for them actively. The two who are around long enough are both there to seem like the bad guys, and since one is EXTREMELY unlikable, you know it's the other one. Seriously, new guy to a group that's got a shared secret and who is impossible to read? Of course he's the bad guy!
And also of course he's fucking related to the backstory secret. FFS, it's not even that difficult to figure out.
And again, on its own, that wouldn't be a deal breaker. I'm ancient and this isn't my first rodeo. Had Crystal, Zoey, or hell, even Dylan been someone I gave a shit about, this still could've worked. But they weren't so it didn't.
Basically, I would've been better off re-reading Slumber Party by Christopher Pike.
Oh, Moon Knight got interesting by finally leaning allllllllll the way in on The Mummy vibe for episode 4.