I Just Can't Walk Away

Got my copy of the new SVT graphic novel, Sneaking Out and I have thoughts. Not good thoughts, but I'm not sure it would be fair to dump this on GR since most of them are on me and not the book itself, so let's sort through the chaos of my mind first and then we'll see what we've got.

1) Forever and always, 80's blond bully Bruce Patman will NEVER be my Bruce Patman. Seriously, he's so fucking wrong that even though I know he's got to be the guy all the Unicorns are swooning over when he sorta asks Jessica out, my brain is still like, "who the fuck is that guy?"

2) I spent the whole, and I do mean the WHOLE time bitching to myself that we had the original artist back and thought when I looked at the preview cover for the next book that she was also doing that one, which would've meant we changed artists just for Nora. This is untrue, venivididolli pointed out that we get Nora's artist for the next book too. Why are we giving them all the new rando girl at school stories? Also, if I don't get cute!Nora done in the next book original artist does for the series, I will riot.
But yes, I really did spend the whole damn book bitching to myself about something that wasn't even true/accurate. D'oh. That's why we vent here and not on GR.

3) It's a damn good thing we did get the original artist back (self, why are you so lazy, just look it up!) because that's the only good damn thing about this one. I have no real connection with the original book beyond digging the cover, so I'm not here to say it is not an accurate adaptation. It could be 100% faithful in everything but the artistic character choices and it still would not make me like this any better. Jessica spends 99% of the book being the ABSOLUTE WORST. There are only so many times you can see her blowing Liz off when Liz is asking for fucking fashion advice of all things before you just want to throttle Jessica. I cannot begin to count how many times she does this, btw. It happened pretty much every time Liz was in a scene, I can tell you that much.
It will never not be weird to me to have Jessica afraid of dogs since in SVH, Prince is HER dog. Hell, is she afraid of Sally in the original book or is it just she doesn't want to do the work? In any case, her over the top theatrics to get out of doing anything at all for HER dog sitting? Vexing to say the least.
Basically, I hated the story but at least the art was good and I do love Sally's sweet design. So cute.

4) Yeah, actually, no, I think the choice to make Alice look like... *gestures* is weird. She looks considerably older than Ned and always looks far too harried. I'm all for her not looking picture perfect, gliding through life with tweens and a teenage boy like it's no big deal, particularly while trying to get/keep her design business going, but Jesus, I can't.


Someone needs to point out that it's totally okay to have the visual cast of characters change according to who is in the book. There's no need for their ballet teacher to be shown when she's not IN the book. I get not wanting to put in the effort for one-off characters, but maybe throwing Bruce in instead would've been an idea? Think of this as less of a complaint and more a suggestion, since I'm still just happy we do have that cast of characters finally.

I did like that the Wakefield parents didn't just take Jessica's suggestion to tag along with Steven and his date, realizing he'd probably want to actually spend time with said date.

But any book where Janet isn't the absolute worst character is not gonna be my fave.

Cautiously optimistic for the next one, though I do hope the artist has improved or my expectations are properly set since I don't feel the same way about Brooke that I do about Nora.

Sooooooo... when I'm playing various mindless games or painting my nails I watch YT videos. Sometimes we watch our queen Alexandria Ryan as she unboxes stuff and rants (she's adorable and we love her), sometimes we watch Megan True Crime because I'm a sucker for an accent, and sometimes we watch Jess Owens because apparently I like hearing about book drama without having to seek it out. And sometimes you need a shorter video so you watch the non-book drama vids and wind up with a tag and I'm bored and headachey and trying not to have every day this week be identical in terms of when I'm awake SO. Let's stay awake a little longer and answer these questions no one asked for.

With my GR list o books ready for cheating, let's begin.

1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2022
Ah, crap. I think I agree with Ms. Owens in that this year's reading crop hasn't wowed me a ton but it's not like everything has been bad. I did really wind up loving She Gets The Girl way more than I anticipated. Oh, and The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling lived up to the hype.
2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2022
If one ignores the Heartstopper series, since I essentially read them all in one go, probably Four Aunties and a Wedding because even though it relies heavily on the "couple does not communicate" trope, the characters and writing still brought me joy. I did also really enjoy All The Feels by Olivia Dade which managed to actually be better than the first book in the series, so that's fun.
3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to
Uhhhh...there's a new Kim Harrison Hollows book. One of my mystery series (one of the Maine ones, how do I have multiple Maine books?) just released one and I'm really tempted to buy it. Muddled Through by Barbara Ross and Trouble With the Cursed by Kim Harrison. Gotta admit, I'm still behind on the Kim Harrison books. Bought but haven't read the previous two.
4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year
Jim Butcher's son has a book coming out and I'm curious to see whether this is going to coast entirely on Dad's name or if the kid's got talent. Not sure I'm actually looking forward to that so much as I just am really curious as to how it'll pan out. That's Dead Man's Hand by James J. Butcher (and dude, the marketing is leaning hard on people just thinking this is another Jim Butcher book given how the cover is done.)
5. Biggest disappointment
Overall? The Cabin at the End of the World was hyped as this AMAZING book and it's just... not. The characters are basically cardboard, there's very little explanation given despite all the cryptic crap (it takes multiple chapters to even get to the bit spelled out in the blurb) and the ending thinks it's deeper than it is. I enjoyed the author's notes more than the book.
Also, really disappointed that The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman went and retconned stuff and I don't even think it's acknowledged as a retcon. :/
OH. Wait. No. The Camelot Rising series by Kiersten White goes and makes Lancelot a woman and you spend the whole goddamn series waiting for Gwen (not that she goes by that but dude you get the idea) and Lancelot to hook up or for something more to be done with Lancelot and it NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS because we spend all that time on fucking Modred instead. This fantastic change is squandered and it drove me to distraction.

6. Biggest surprise
Is this meant to be like "wow, this book sucked/was amazing and I didn't expect that at all?" or "this one moment was like a big surprise" or... I'm going with a two-fer as that's my theme, apparently. In general, Always in December by Emily Stone looks like your standard holiday fluff. It's not. I'm not saying it's not worth a read (I think it is) but I was not expecting to hurt like that. And random surprise was The Chain by Adrian McKinty owing the title just as much to the BSC as it does Fleetwood Mac. :p

7. Favorite new author (debut or new to you)
Alice Oseman and Erin Steling.

8. Newest fictional crush
Listen, books. I love you, but you're not going to catch up with my TV crushes at the moment. HOWEVER since this isn't the time to be all hearteyes over them, let's see. Alex from All the Feels. Alex and Molly from She Gets the Girl. Lancelot.

9. Newest favourite character
Uhh... see above?
10. Book that made you cry
How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr had me cry in so many unexpected places. I was bawling at work because the damn thing really did just know where to poke grief for the most realistic portrayal at times.

11. Book that made you happy
The Ex Hex and She Gets The Girl both made me grin stupidly throughout a good chunk of the read.

12. Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year (or received)
Uhhhhhhhhh...I think the only books I've gotten this year are the kids AG books and Goodnight Girls, the Golden Girls kids book. Neither of which really feels like a good answer to this but here:

My Jellycat from Lori (thank you!) reading some GG goodies to Boa. Yes. I read the book aloud to my cat. What?
13. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
I don't think I *need* to read anything other than this ARC of Dangerous Beauty by Melissa Koslin. I want to read the books I mentioned before and I'm sure if one let me loose in a bookstore I'd do some serious damage and intend to read all of those so... eh.

You know what we need? Book drama. That is a link to the Buzzfeed News ...thing... about Kathleen Hale where she's sorta (kinda) interviewed about her new book, which starts with her Guardian article in which she stalks a blogger and reveals that she doesn't understand the concept of catfishing. When people heard about that book, they wanted to know who the fuck would green-light it and also had Hale learned anything in the years since. The answers to those questions: Grove and of course no.

Anyway, the article is very, very long. Or maybe it just felt like it was very, very long because the author does some impressive back bends in trying not to say anything that might set Hale off or offend anyone and yet still keeps repeating that Hale didn't kill anyone, she just wrote one bad article. Which isn't remotely true beyond the lack of murder thing. People weren't so much mad about the article as they were about the fact that she admitted to some hardcore stalking and then could not understand why people were not joining her in "tee hee, so funny and relatable right" laughter. She STILL does not get this, btw. She's not sorry and is instead sure that the fallout from her Guardian article is some misogynistic takedown or something instead of people being fucking horrified at her actions and then her inability to see what she'd done wrong.

I have so many thoughts about this, and I know I've ranted about the initial story and even about her being able to publish this essay collection in the first place so we'll skip to the new part. Which is that when reading the Buzzfeed article, I had to keep scrolling down to the comments even though I know I shouldn't have, because I kept feeling like I was losing my mind the way certain things were being downplayed. And while in comment HELL, people kept having a very strange takeaway from the article:

They were outraged that you can leave reviews for books you haven't finished. Some kept going on about books that weren't even out yet but never (that I saw) clarified whether they realized that ARCs are a thing or not. Because if you mean reviewing a book before it's published but ARCs are circulating then you're a GD idiot. If you mean reviewing a book that might not even be written yet (where are you, Dresden novel) then yeah, I get that's stupid as hell.

But back to the thinking that one can't review a book one hasn't finished: Bitch, are you kidding me? If a book makes it to my DNF shelf (called "I just can't do it, Captain!" because why use normal tags) that is a fucking review right there. I rarely intentionally DNF a book so if it's bad enough that I have to walk away, you're damn right I'm going to say something. My inability to finish your work means I think it's so horrible that it's not worth my time. That's a review, dammit.

Sadly, Mums and I do not fully see eye-to-eye on this which is weird. She seems okay with the general idea but wants a notation at the start of the review that the reviewer did not finish the book. I don't care if it comes at the end or you rely on me to read your (hopefully festively fun) tags, just mention it somewhere. Which isn't usually a problem because people generally mention the fact that they just couldn't power through any more of a terrible book.

But really, you read a story about a woman who stalks another and then shows no remorse even years later (to say nothing of the obvious ploys for sympathy deployed throughout) and your takeaway is that people shouldn't leave reviews for books they haven't finished?

Head, meet desk.

I'm not sure how it happened that the only book I have left from the library is The Hate U Give but there we are. I cracked into it a few days ago and have been reading it at work ever since. Today I decided to treat myself to reading a bit more... and I finished the whole thing. I'll probably babble more about it later but it definitely earns its hype and consideration as a modern classic.

And as you do, particularly when the acknowledgement section for the book specifically reminds you that there is going to be a movie, you watch the trailer. Or re-watch it, as I'm pretty sure I at least saw the teaser.

I... have issues? One is simply that I'm not sure that's how I pictured Starr but y'know, that's a general book to movie issue and I'll deal. (It's also why I tend to watch the movie first these days.)

Nope, my big issue is with the hair brushing. That sounds so weird out of context, right? But in the book, it's a huge thing that Khalil was simply leaning into his car to check on Starr as he was shot. It's not until much, much later that Starr even finds out that the 'gun' the cop allegedly saw was his hairbrush in the driver side door. He sure as hell did not have it in hand. It's a callback to the shooting and trusts that the reader remembers that it was there in the first place and also shakes Starr because it's such a fucking stupid reason to die that she'd never even thought it.

It's one of those very small changes that is very, very big and I really hope it turns out that this is either a dream/what-if kind of scenario OR it's a case of the trailer showing one thing and the movie edit being completely different. Because it changes things so needlessly. And based on a very quick peek into the comments, it appears that it's the second biggest complaint people have with the trailer. Also, things get ugly really quick as comments tend to do so read at your own risk.

Thanks to the ever lovely luxken27, I picked up My Best Friend's Exorcism from the library and pretty much devoured it over my weekend. I mean, the title alone tells you what you're getting (it's funny and there's a horror element!) but then I get the book and the back tells me it's set in Charleston and um, yes. Yes, please, sign me up. Oh, and it's set in the 80's.

I finished it and immediately recommended it to Cass who has yet to get back to me on the likelihood of that happening. Rude. Once upon a time I would've also smacked Ari with it but that's probably not a good idea these days.

Anyway, I have thoughts and they're spoilery, so ( so under a cut we go. )

Sigh. And now we begin my should've been a vacation but isn't week.