Comic Book Mini-Reviews: My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf and I'm Not Okay with This by Charles Forsman

 * My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

We know Jeffrey Dahmer as a notorious cannibalistic serial killer, but Derf Backderf knew him as a weird kid in high school. Backderf drew on his own memories of high school as well as interviewed others he knew and researched Dahmer's own accounts of the time. He puts together a timeline of Dahmer's escalating behavior (from drinking more and more to killing animals and finally killing people), what was happening at home, and how it appeared to people at school.

The first thing that struck me about the novel was how different it was to go to school in the 70's. Boundaries weren't established like they are now. The administrators were a lot more permissive and students had a huge amount of freedom. It seems like a perfect storm of permissive teachers, warring parents, and not connecting with other students left Dahmer to descend into his sick fantasies. The only way he got attention was with his offensive imitation of a man with cerebral palsy (or his own mother's seizures) or with antics like inserting himself into every yearbook club photo. His home life was messy and tragic as his parents' marriage dissolved and left Dahmer essentially abandoned. Throughout the novel, Dahmer hid himself behind binge drinking and that ableist imitation. While his crimes are abhorrent, we can still have sympathy for the teen who was failed by every person in his life who saw something wrong and ignored it.

My Friend Dahmer is even better than the film version and delves into piecing together Dahmer's own accounts of his behavior. It's agonizing to think how many times Dahmer was almost caught only to be let off by police, even after his first murder.  I recommend this as a fascinating look into the formative years of a serial killer.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

* I'm Not Okay with This by Charles Forsman

Sydney is a normal 15 year old girl who lacks direction, fights with her family, listens to music with her best friend, and writes in a diary about her secrets. She struggles with her feelings for her best friend, her father's death, and her telekinesis that reveals itself at the worst moments. Her mother wants to help, but ends up pushing her away more often than not. As her support systems fall away, she doesn't know what will be there in the end.

I heard of I'm Not Okay with This because it's now a Netflix show that is apparently very different than the graphic novel. Sydney's story starts off like most coming of age fiction with pushing boundaries, skipping school, smoking pot, discovering her sexuality, and trying to find her own way. What makes this narrative different is the telekinesis. After her father's death who also had powers, no one is there to help her try to control her powers or decide when to use them and the results are tragic.

The only flaw is in the shallow relationships. The most significant one is with her friend Dina, who Syd has feelings for and wants to save from an abusive relationship. The others are paper thin. Stanley gets her pot, which helps with her telekinesis headaches. Ryan, an adult grocery clerk, has sex with her and then confronts her about not calling. Syd feels bad, but doesn't seem to realize how inappropriate their brief relationship was. Even her relationship with her mother doesn't go much beyond typical teen rebelliousness and the one with her father is seen very briefly, but the grief for his death affects each page.

I'm Not Okay with This is a pretty straight forward story drawn in a simple, cartoonish style. I expected it to be more lighthearted because of the art, but Sydney's journey is heartbreaking and dark. The narrative felt like a struggling teenage girl, but I wish some of the relationships could have been a bit more developed. However, the ending absolutely gutted me. I'm planning to watch the show, but I realize there seem to be a lot of differences.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Jude used to live a normal life with her family until her parents are killed in front of her. She and her siblings are spirited away to Elfhame, the world of beautiful and cruel faeries. Jude and her twin sister Taryn are treated by society as if they are fae, which enrages the petty youngest son of the king, Cardan. He and his cronies torment Jude because she won't back down or admit defeat. When her father makes it impossible for her to ever truly be accepted by fae society, the king's most likely heir approaches her to be his spy, entrenching her further in Court of Fae drama and the underhanded fight for the throne.

I waited years to start this series and thought the hype wouldn't live up to the book. I was totally wrong. The Cruel Prince is so different than I expected. The world of Elfhame is detailed and dark. The fae view humans as temporary lovers at best and playthings or beasts of burden at worst. Jude and Taryn would never be seen as equal in this society's eyes no matter how hard Jude tries to show her abilities. The fae can't lie, but don't hesitate to skirt around the truth or lie by omission. Each creature type is varied in anatomy, behavior, and diet. Jude's stepfather is a redcap who needs to bathe his cap in blood every so often, leading to a hot temper and a love for war. Humans are fooled quite easily into slavery or being playthings until the inhuman creatures get bored or hungry. Every interaction with them puts humans in danger, making living with them inspire constant terror at doing the wrong thing. It's even worse that Cardan has decided to torment Jude and no one will do anything to help her unless it goes too far.

The first and second halves of the book are starkly different. The first half establishes Jude and her situation, not quite fitting into either Elfhame or the human world. With the way she is cruelly treated by almost everyone around her and how she will never truly fit into fae society as a mortal, you would think she would just run back to our world. Wrong. Jude loves Elfhame for everything it is. It's her home and she can never be truly satisfied living away from it knowing it's still there. Her narrative is at times very frustrating to read because I can see how her decisions will turn out so terribly, but she does what she thinks is right. Jude wants to prove that she is equal to if not better than the fae. Taryn, her twin, is perfectly happy taking whatever the fae will give her, tries to fit in wherever she can, and taking it with a smile. She will turn her back on literally anything to just keep them from tormenting her. While she is also frustrating to read, the constant torment would be hard to live with and I don't blame her for doing what she has to for survival. I thought this book would stay as a conflict between Jude and various fae, but the rest is very different.

The second half of the book is much more about the inner workings of royalty and who is going to be crowned prince. Jude has plans, but multiple other parties have their own who are more powerful, well connected, and older than her not to mention essentially immortal. I didn't expect the book to delve so deep into the politics side. This twist upends the status quo of the first half and redeems Cardan somewhat which I thought was impossible. The end is an insane series of twists and turns that I never saw coming. The Cruel Prince proves to be deeper and darker than I expected. While there is a romance (as is annoyingly required in YA), it doesn't take away from the story and adds another complication to an already touchy situation. I can't wait to read the next in the series plus the Cardan novella was just announced.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Elisabeth is a library apprentice in a world where grimoires hold great power, even have their own personalities and agency, and the potentional to turn into giant, rampaging monsters. She's been told all her life that sorcerers, the only ones who have use of grimoires, are completely monstrous and evil. Her whole life is turned upside down when the Great Library where she lives is sabotaged and her only mother figure murdered. Despite having saved hundreds of people and her lifelong role working at the library, she is blamed for the attack and is set to be questioned by the sorcerer's council. Nathaniel and his servant Silas escort her and challenged everything she thinks she knows about sorcerers. She becomes entrenched in a centuries old plan to destroy the fabric between worlds and desperately tries to stop it with every ounce of her strength.

Sorcery of Thorns is a book that immersed me in such a fully realized, magical world through Elisabeth's eyes. First, we are introduced to the world of the Great Library with sentient books, giant book lice, and dedication to protecting it all. Elisabeth has lived there her whole life, abandoned as a small child there, and hasn't seen much of society outside of it. She accepts what the leaders say as law and hasn't seen much of the outside world to contradict it.Her experience with the grimoires is unlike anyone else. They all have their own sort of sentience and personality that she can recognize and commincate with. Of course she loves to read and wants to be a warden, one who protects their society against maleficts, hulking monsters grimoires become when awakened. I could have stayed in this library world for the rest of the novel, but the rest of the world is just as fascinating.

Elisabeth gets to know Nathianel and his demon servant Silas as they traverse the countryside and fight against minion demon attacks. She finds her worldview is flawed and sees good in both Nathianel and Silas. The upper crust of society is full of riches, gossip, and sorcerers. Elisabeth doesn't quite fit in as one unaccustomed to social niceties, rich clothes, and surrounded by those she thought were evil. Unfortunately, not a lot is different at its core because powerful men, such as the new Great Library director who condemned her with no evidence, abuse their position to dismiss her, keep her quiet, and prevent her from telling the truth in insidious ways. Elisabeth is such a force and does so much completely on her own. Her joining up with Nathaniel (and motivating him quite a bit) only makes both of them stronger. Silas proved to be invaluable and an incredible being. He's a demon and has two sides: the completely monstrous pure demon side and the much more human servant Nathianel and Elisabeth are friends with. His character arc is kind of like Spike's from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shows that the way you were born doesn't determine your fate, your actions do. The ending didn't come easily with some losses and lots of my tears.

Sorcery of Thorns is good on so many levels. The romance is sweet with a nice build up without superceding the main plot. Elisabeth struggles with her entire worldview being challenged and Nathanial is incredibly conflicted about his family legacy and drawing other people into it. The main villain threatens the very fabric of their world and these two misfits plus Silas do what they can to save it. There are lot of horror elements from the maleficts to the demons entwined into this fantas. The story shattered my expectations at every turn in a very good way and I would love to see more books in this world.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynne Herman

After the sudden death of her sister, Violet Saunders is dragged to live in Four Paths, a small town that seems as dull as dirt, to help her aunt. She expects boredom and small town people, but there's so much more. Justin Hawthorne is the de facto leader of four supernatural families, including the Saunder's, who work together to protect the city from the Gray, a dimension that traps a dangerous, monstrous creature that usually consumes a person every few years. This year alone, it has killed 3 people and more are expected to follow, threatening the whole town. In addition to this crisis, the Hawthorne's are trying to maintain a web of lies that put the town in further danger and a growing number of former followers are planning to rebel against them. When Violet accidentally releases the creature, the teen founders must unite to save their town.

The Devouring Gray is a book I didn't know I needed. I expected a fun, fantasy adventure and I got something more. I love the way the book is structured. It's like I was given a rough sketch of the town, its workings, and its residents at first and then had things filled in through Violet's experience as a newcomer. Exposition felt completely natural and reveals felt like they meant more. Violet has a lot on her plate: grieving her sister, being shut out by her distant mother, and moving to a new town in a dilapidated house with her aunt who has dementia. She feels isolated in her grief since her mother would rather portray a strong mask than be vulnerable. The way grief is portrayed felt so real to me. My favorite scene in the whole book is when she and Isaac, a boy who lost his whole family in one way or another, have an honest conversation about their grief and pain while acknowledging and understand each other's experience. It was an incredibly beautiful moment between people who had walls built up and hadn't really shown their real selves up to that point. The beauty of the novel is in its characters.

Every main character has an understandable point of view that makes it hard to demonize or truly hate any of them. Violet is in the dark and stumbling around with no one to guide her. Justin has been indoctrinated by his family to keep the status quo even if  it doesn't serve anyone but his own family. Isaac has been abandoned and abused by his own family and contains pain and rage that hides the sweet person he is inside. Harper has been rejected by the whole town as a failure, but she keeps fighting and working towards her revenge and a way to finally prove herself worthy. These characters are so well drawn and multifaceted that I find myself torn when they fight because all of them have reasonable motivations and feelings. I have my favorites, but there was something to relate to and admire in each and every one.

Four Paths lies in a weird liminal space between the conventional world and the Gray where the only revered people have supernatural powers. The Hawthorne family holds dominion over the town and portrays white privilege, nepotism, and revisionist history through their absolute control of information, history, and power in the town. Justin has no supernatural power, but pretends he does to keep the status quo. He did nothing to deserve it and everyone treats him like a celebrity due to his connections and lies. Others are discarded and ostracized if they threaten his family. This toxic way of doing things has led to the Gray encroaching more and more on the town. The younger generation band together to fix what their ancestors have done and what their parents perpetuate. This felt especially apt in the current political regime that has similar tactics.

The Devouring Gray surprised me and kept me hooked on each character and revelation. I felt so deeply for these characters and I can't wait to see them in the next installment. On top of everything else, the sheer number of queer people (with wonderful representation) in this tiny town made me so happy. This is the book I wish my teen self could have read for so many different reasons and I'm totally jealous of teens who get to read such good representation today.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

Okiku died 300 hundred years ago and roams the earth killing men who murder children. She travels all over the world, largely unnoticed, ignoring everyone except her targets until she sees a boy with moving tattoos. His name is Tark and she finds herself drawn to him. For the first time in centuries, she becomes embroiled in his life and cares about protecting him from another spirit who follows him wherever her goes.

The Girl in the Well takes a trope, changes the perspective, and makes it feel fresh and new. Okiku, a vengeful spirit, tells this story directly from her own point of view. She travels as she likes around the earth, not always truly conscious, and kills murderous men. The spirits of those he has killed are tethered to him and unable to escape for the duration of his life. It's a truly chilling prospect for those poor spirits to not only die horribly, but to be forced to witness others dying the same way and following around their own killer for decades. When Okiku kills the men, the spirits are freed while she is still stuck on earth, looking for more spirits to free. Her descriptions feel a bit detached because she's lost much of herself in death and views most things with little emotion. My favorite part of her narration is the dramatic page breaks that both slow the tempo of reading and accompany a rare glimpse of intense emotion within her (usually followed by her attacking or scaring someone).

The legend of Okiku, or at least her image, is familiar because of Japanese films and American remakes like The Grudge and The Ring. She has long black hair, usually obscuring her face, and wears a white dress. In life, she was a servant who tried to serve her king well by warning him of treachery by a trusted advisor. The traitor broke one precious plate in a set of ten and in turn accuses Okiku of breaking it. The king believed him and allowed her to be tortured and killed, thrown down a well to drown. There are a few variations on this story, but she always ends up in the well in the end. Because of her background, she targets murderous men and continually counts everything: people, cars, dolls, ceiling tiles, anything in any given place. If she ever counts only nine, she has a violent outburst to destroy one of the objects to change the offending number. This trauma from her past hundreds of years ago persists to this day.

Even Okiku is surprised when she's drawn to Tark and the ghost woman in black tethered to him. She forms a sort of friendship with him as she becomes entrenched in his life. Callie, his older cousin, doesn't quite warm up to her and set to remind the audience that Okiku is still dangerous, not quite human. The plot involving Tark takes a lot of surprising turns, subverting the tropes of Okiku type stories. My favorite development was looking into his mother's background as a shaman. She gave up a life of protecting people and capturing evil spirits to be with Tark's father. She came from a powerful collective of women that served their community for the greater good that Tark later returns to for help with the spirit bound to him. The conflict between Okiku and the masked woman is pretty epic and leads to inner growth in Okiku.

The Girl from the Well definitely surprised me with its change in perspective and complex view of Okiku. On one hand, she's an avenging death angel who kills murderers without remorse and on the other, she's rediscovering her humanity and connecting with living humans. Her point of view is refreshing because this figure seems to always be painted as a malevolent presence when she was wronged in life and didn't start out that way. Her journey and narrative in the novel are fascinating and it took me almost no time at all to read. There is a sequel called The Suffering that I immediately bought and I can't wait to get to.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Marion is trying to keep it together for her family and take care of everyone as her mother can't. Her father was killed in a hit and run accident and now their whole lives are being uprooted to Sawkill Island, where girls go missing in increasing frequency. Rumors of a supernatural creature called the Collector swirl around the town, but no concrete answers are found. Zoey was friends with the last girl who disappeared and fights to find out what happened to her while the rest seem happy to not think about it. Val knows exactly what's happening, but doesn't know if the path her mother laid out for her and wants her to follow is what she wants anymore. All three girls can choose to unite and be more powerful together despite their differences or fight against each other instead of the evil that plagues their town.

Sawkill Girls is an amazing novel all about girls: their friendship, romance, anger, grief, conflicts, self discovery, and the way others try to exploit them. The world feels a bit like our world with things hidden underneath that people explain away like Sunnydale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Most on Sawkill Island see the Mortimer horse farm, the scenic cliffs, and the run of the mill inhabitants, but the decades of unsolved missing girls cases with no evidence pointing to what really happened to them, the increasing number of these incidents, and an urban legend about a creature known as The Collector points to something deeply wrong about the town under its facade.

The three main characters all occupy a different space in the town and seem like unlikely choices for teaming up in any way. Marion is the new girl in town who hasn't quite found her place yet. The death of her father still feels raw and she's filled with anger and self doubt, which she pushes away to be the pillar of support her family's needs, especially alleviating pressure from her mom. When Charlotte disappears, it's another huge blow to the remainder of her family. I feel the most for Marion because I also lost my father and her feelings and actions all ring true to me. Trying to act normal while your own life feels like it's falling apart is incredibly hard and draining. Later in the book, her budding relationship with Val felt wrong because of Val's secret life, but it's the one thing she has for herself only and not anyone else. The romance is so sweet and wonderful, but also throws a bit of a wrench in what was previously a straight forward good vs. evil story.

Zoey is a pariah in her community because of rumors around her breaking up with her boyfriend Grayson and as one of few African American people on the island. After being intimate with him, she finds that she's asexual and uninterested in repeating the act. She doesn't want to hold him back or make him regret their relationship, so she decides to end it without discussion. I haven't ready many books with asexual protagonists and it was eye opening to see society's view of sexuality making her question if she's broken in some way. On top of that, her best friend Thora is missing and presumed dead. Everyone seems to have moved on and given up but Zoey, who does everything she can including snooping through her cop dad's things to find answers. She suspects Val had something to do with it and rightfully doesn't want to work with her later in the book.

Val rules as the queen bee of the island, always the center of social situations, throwing parties, and living in luxury. Underneath it all, she and her mother are enslaved by the creature known as the Collector and have to do what it says as it grows in strength or it will hurt them. Growing up this way had Val accept that this is just her way life. Her mother is bonded with the creature while she is being groomed to take over, like a sick arranged marriage. Looking at the history, her grandmother bonded with it in order to escape abuse in a time when women had status equal to property. Now, the same traditions are expected to continue through three generations when it's not really needed anymore due to physical and emotional threats from the Collector. Meeting Marion makes Val reject this future and forge her own path instead of repeating her mother's mistakes. Val started out being my most hated character and by the end she changed to my favorite because of the way she worked through pain and suffering in order to find her own way.

* spoilers*

All three girls have powers emerge that will equip them to defeat the Collector. Together, they perform a sort of exorcism on Val to release her from its influence. Instead of a patriarchal figure like a priest, the three girls accomplish this on their own. Unfortunately, a cult called the Hand of Light thinks the three girls need to kill each other in order for the creature to be temporarily defeated. They are straight up misogynists that believe the girls' gender makes them inherently weak even though they have incredible powers never given to men. Like a way worse version of the Watcher's Council in Buffy, these men have decided that extraordinary girls are disposable and merely objects to break for a goal. The girls prove them wrong in the end and I've never been so pumped for a book's ending like this one.

Sawkill Girls is a novel I want to push into everyone's hands. It's dark, twisty, and twisted with fully fleshed out girls and their journeys at the center of it all. The mythology, relationships, and background are all well built. At its core, the messages are about girls having power over the trajectory of their lives whether or not it's deemed acceptable by society. My only tiny criticism is that parts of it were a bit heavy handed, but it makes sense with the target audience. I want to devour every book by Claire Legrand like right now and then impatiently wait for more.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer

Nita dissects supernatural creatures when her mother brings their bodies home to sell on the black market. She never asks where the bodies come from, how they were killed, or who they used to be. It's easier to go into her comfort zone when dissecting if she doesn't think of them as people. This all goes out the window when her mother brings a living boy home with the intent to cut off pieces of him to sell while he's still alive. Nita is faced with the worst part of her life and has to decide what she's going to do about it: follow her mom's lead and torture the boy or release him and face her mother's wrath. She decides to save him and, while hiding in a hotel room, she is abducted. Nita is imprisoned and put in the boy's place, a supernatural being about to be carved up for money.

Not Even Bones tackles relevant themes through a fantastical lens. The world building sucked me in. Different types of fantasticaly creatures are real and range from being rather innocuous and unrecognizable as different to extremely dangerous, feeding directly on humans. The International Non-Human Police controls information disseminated about these beings that on one hand leads to the protection of these people and on the other leads to misinformation and ignorance in the general public. The existence of supernaturals is common knowledge, but they typically choose to stay hidden due to fear and prejudice. They are legally treated as humans except if the being is on a list that has to feed on humans to survive. The black market is booming with supernatural byproducts with both legitimate and fraudulent, a reflection of the poaching of endangered animals for unfounded traditional uses. This world rings true on all levels due to how humanity acts towards people outside of societal norms and the treatment of people and animals on the black market.

Nita and her parents directly profit off of the exploitation and killing of supernatural beings, selling their wares on the black market. While her parents are enthusiastic participants in this, Nita is forced by circumstance and the cruel retaliation of her mother to work with them. She undeniably loves the dissections and would love to go to school to become a scientist in this field, which her parents would never allow. The one time she sabotaged their work, her mother retaliated in the most cruel way possible until it cost her money to continue due to Nita being unable to work. The living boy to be tortured makes Nita face all the things about her mom and her life she avoids by throwing herself into her work and by not seeing the dead she works on as people. To make matters more complicated, Nita and her mother are supernatural beings themselves who could suffer the same fate as the people they victimize. I feel for Nita since she essentially has no choice as a teen exploited by her parents, but she can't ignore that she is also complicit in exploiting others.

When the tables are turned and she is behind bars, Nita is faced with the reality of how she and her parents live. She is literally in the shoes of those she has carved up and how their bank account stays full. Nita regenerates and has the ability to manipulate her body chemistry, tissues, and organs. Whether it's true or not, people believe if they eat her flesh, they will become younger or live forever plus she has been actively supporting ideas like these with her work. Many of her preconceived notions are challenged through this experience, namely her hatred of zannies, people who feed off of pain. Is someone who commits immoral acts for survival more or less evil than someone who commits them because they choose to? Kovit, the zannie, befriends her and shows himself to be a normal person also capable of torturing someone to feed. She is also faced with more moral decisions that force her to see how far she will go to survive. Are her morals worth dying for?

Not Even Bones is a trip through the dark, seedy underbelly of a fantastical world. I loved every second of it. The world was so similar to our own with small but significant changes and deals with many of the same problems. It was unpredictable and full of moral ambiguity. In Nita's world, you can't think in absolutist black and white. There is too much nuance, too many exceptions, and too much at risk. I eagerly await the next in the series.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Tales from a Talking Board edited by Ross E. Lockhart

Tales from a Talking Board compiles stories about various methods of divination and the occult. The introduction details the spiritualism movement, remarkable in both its popularity and lack of unifying text, belief, or rules. The talking board was used as a spiritualist tooll until it became a parlor game. It became creepy when The Exorcist used it as a vehicle for demonic possession. Lockhart also adds a personal touch with a hilarious story of a lying parochial school teacher trying to scare their class with the oujia board.

* Yesnogoodbye by Krist Demeester

Cassandra lives with her abusive father and her best friend is in love with her, but afraid to say anything. Together, the girls call something from the Ouija board with surprising results. This one dealt with everyday troubles like coming to terms with oneself, abuse, and the will to escape your situation as a helpless teen. The supernatural elements brought in power than teens wouldn't usually have. This story had disturbing elements, but had a bittersweet ending. I would love to read Demeester's full length books.

* Weegee, Weegee, Tell Me Do by Anya Martin

An abused wife named Orlaugh goes to vaudeville shows as a release and meets her idol Great Marie Cahill. Marie insists Orlaugh has talent to become a performer and offers her lessons. This story had the most realistic characters. Orlaugh wanted so much more than serving an abusive husband. Marie is aging and sees the end of her career, but she's riding it out as much as she can. Daisy, Orlaugh's best friend, can talk her way out of or into anything and wants the best for her friend. All of them felt like people I knew without being too detailed or wordy. The story is also surprisingly sweet despite the dark subject matter.

* Grief by Tiffany Scandal

A man and woman lose their son and seek out a way to speak to him again. This story was one of the most heartbreaking. Their son unexpectedly lost his battle with cancer. The events leading up to it are so sad. The mother knew something was wrong and kept checking in on him, but when she left for a short time, he died. The parents blamed each other and themselves, isolating each from the other. The depiction of grief feels real and they just want to see their son even one more time. This is a be careful what you wish for plot and the real emotion balanced with the dark supernatural element makes a satisfying short story.

* Deep Into the Skin by Matthew M. Bartlett

A tattoo artist is forced to tattoo a Oujia board on a young girl who was brought by clearly dangerous members of a cult. It's his best work, despite the coerced nature, and he figures the whole thing is over until he receives an invitation to the ritual to follow. This was my favorite story of the bunch. The main character uses his beard, tattoos, and scars as armor against a world that hurt him when he was a nerdy kid. He lives in a seedy town with corruption, black magic, and cults but always held himself apart from all that even though he isn't the most moral person. This event shatters that illusion and plunges him headfirst into that world. The ritual leads to a horrific scene of body horror and unexpected revenge. This story balanced horror and character development the best.

* Haruspicate or Scry by Orrin Gray

A woman has a professor that she forms a bond with and he becomes her father figure. She gets married where the professor gives her away. About the same time she gets pregnant, the professor dies. To honor his last wishes, she does some sort of seance or divination every week to see if he can communicate a line of text previously chosen. This story is well written and unexpected. What I especially liked was the portrayal of the woman. She never really wanted kids and chose to kept her pregnancy because of pressure from her husband and his family. The pregnancy made her miserable and the following birth did nothing to improve it. She doesn't feel much for her baby and struggles to do anything to care for it. I appreciate this portrayal especially since the media pushes this magical bonding that's supposed to make everything perfect. That doesn't happen for everyone and it's nice to see the other side of things that doesn't get acknowledged. The supernatural part sneaks up on you and is deeply unsettling.

While I loved these stories, other stories in the anthology seemed incomplete, like I missed a page. Others didn't feel scary or supernatural enough to merit being part of the collection. I highly recommend the above stories and I wouldn't read most of the other stories again.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Cass sees ghosts after she had a brush with death herself. The world beyond the Veil calls to her. She finds herself entering it, reliving ghosts' memories of their deaths, and attempting to take pictures of ghosts. Even her best friend is a ghost and stays with her most of the time. His name is Jacob and he saved her from drowning. When her parents whisk her away to Scotland so they can host a haunted places show, Cass learns much more than Jacob revealed to her about the Veil and her own power.

City of Ghosts is the perfect Halloween read. It's spooky, heartwarming, and suspenseful. Everything from the characters to the world building sucked me right in. Cass and Jacob are wonderful characters that have their own flaws and quirks. Cass is a lovely girl. I love her embracing being unpopular because being popular has loads of expectations and rules that she simply doesn't want. She has the power to speak to the dead and enter the Veil. She feels a scratching when a ghost is near and watches the memories they are trapped in. Jacob is an anomaly as a ghost who is aware of the world and interacts with the living in Cass. He has a sharp wit and makes funny comments no one else can hear. Together, they have rules like not entering the Veil alone, avoiding certain subjects, and respecting each other's needs and privacy. Their friendship is so lovely that it's rather heartbreaking when they have doubts because Jacob kept things from Cass.

The world building is awesome and detailed. Ghosts have the ability to read minds and be invisible to the living. Jacob doesn't have much power to interact with the living world, but others do. Ghosts who draw power from negative emotions like pain, anger, and regret can be very destructive, moving things and hurting people. The Veil isn't laid out as the real world is, but as a series of time capsules of varying size for each ghost trapped in it. There, Cass becomes less than alive and Jacob becomes more than dead. She thinks she knows what to expect from the Veil in Scotland, but ti's so oppressive with the dead that it sucks her in involuntarily. Almost everything she's learned is called into question especially when a ghost woman in a vibrant red cloak lures children to her. She also meets a ghost hunter whose goal is to release ghosts from the Veil, calling into question Cass's reason for having abilities. The whole thing is so well constructed and interesting that I wish the book was twice as long.

City of Ghosts put me nicely into the Halloween spirit. It has everything: creepy ghosts, lush Scottish landscapes, and beautiful friendships. Victoria Schwab has singular descriptions and metaphors that make her world come alive. This is a middle grade book that would blend in will with Holly Black's Doll Bones and Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. I hope it's the start of a series since there are things left open and of course a whole word of ghosts to explore.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson

Mila Flores is alone. She used to have a best friend name Riley and it was always them against the world, being weird and doing magic together. Riley was very recently found drowned in the local creek, ruled as a suicide. Mila doesn't believe it and, after every adult alienates her, she decides to use magic to solve the crime. Her plan was to raise Riley from the dead for a week, but ends up raising two more girls, June and Dayton. They also supposedly killed themselves, but they insist they would never. Now Mila has three zombie teenage girls to hide from the public, provide for, and solve their murders before their week is up.

Undead Girl Gang is a surprisingly heartwarming read that also exposes the reality beneath high school cliques and stereotypes. Mila Flores is out of place in her town as a fat, Mexican witch (of sorts). She embraced her otherness with Riley, a kindred spirit rejected because her parents own and live in a funeral home. Popular girls used that to isolate and bully Riley since elementary school. Together, they dabbled in wicca and found true friendship within each other. Since Riley's death, Mila is alone, mistreated by every adult and student around her (except Riley's brother Xander). The other students never accepted her, but the adults truly failed her. The school psychologist is literally no help and her parents force her to return to school two days after her best friend died as punishment for walking out of the sham funeral. She's the only one who doesn't believe that Riley killed herself and rages at all the crocodile tears, fake hand wringing, and cringy show choir tributes that Riley wouldn't like or want. I felt for Mila and admired how as a teen she was able to push through all that to do what she thought was right.

The zombies are produced by an elaborate magic ritual from a tome shipped to the abandoned house they practice magic and keep all their supplies in. Three girls are raised from the dead, Riley, June, and Dayton, because of the wiccan rule of three. They look normal while they are within 100 steps of Mila, but revert to their rotted state with whatever injuries they had. As time moves closer to the 7 day deadline, the regenerative powers work less and less. These zombie aren't flesh eating, opting for junk food. They don't really have any special powers and they don't remember much leading up to their deaths, so things aren't going as well as Riley hoped. There's also the huge issue that she can't keep an eye on them at all times. They stole disguises, but they aren't exactly being super secretive as they walk all over the school campus and even yell at their insincere friends. This time together for all of them makes them lower their guard and truly see the other people beneath the clique they belong to. Over time, June and Dayton where no longer just popular and cruel shells. Through a lot of conflict and some good times, Riley, Dayton, June, and Mila all became friends while trying to figure out the murder.

Undead Girl Gang shows that even the bully or the loner at school are real people underneath the social expectations and cliques. I found this book incredibly progressive with its sensitive discussion of suicide, the smashing of expectations, and the emphasis on female friendship. This book warmed my heart and impressed me with its different view of magical lore. I would love to see a sequel or really anything else from Lily Anderson.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

They Came Back (2003)

One day, the dead walk among the living, totaling over 70 million people world wide and at least 13,000 in the town alone. A town council comes together to study the returned people and find a way to reintegrate them into society. Some people choose to accept their returned family members while others choose to leave them at a refugee camp made up of warehouses. Is it possible for these returned to reintegrate into society or will their true nature leave them rejected?

They Came Back is a slow moving, melancholy film with unconventional zombies. These zombies look like anyone else and don't realize any time has passed from their deaths, which all occured 10 years ago or less. Most of the returned (65%) are over 60 years old and only 10% are under 40.  All are unharmed and physically healthy, but run about 5 degrees cooler than the average human. Their behavior is similar to one with post-traumatic aphasia or a sever concussion. They have sluggish speech, are absent mentally, and are out of synch with reality. Seeing the baby in the refugee camp hit hard because of the emotion of the parents who lost him and then regain a version of him again. As the film goes on, they are revealed to have an urge to walk around at least 15km a day, congregate at night, and get agitated. Then, people realize that they are not quite like how they were before.

These returned people have brought some problems to the society they have come back to. Should families be forced to collect loved ones or can they stay at the refugee camp? How is the economy going to be affected now that so many elderly who were previously dead will now start collecting pensions and government assistance again? How should these people be allowed to reintegrate to society? It's decided that three to six months will be spent at the camp and then they will be allowed to return home. Some return to jobs, but it's clear later that they can't do higher up or creative positions any longer. Then, they are relegated to low skill, low responsibility positions. Eventually, they are also drugged to keep them docile and sleeping at night because of their tendency to wander around and escape their homes.

The film focuses on a few families to show the personal effect of this event. Rachel's husband Mathieu returns and she finds herself avoiding him at first and then continuing their relationship as normal. She is the only one who sees the ultimate plan of the returned. Their initial encounter when they rekindle their relationship truly shows the tension, fear, and awkwardness they feel. Sylvain returns to his parents and while his father tries hard to pretend he is a normal child, his mother sees that something is missing. I was surprised at how nuanced this was. It could have easily been from a place of fear and hatred, but it seemed to come from a deep understanding that her son just wasn't who he used to be anymore on a fundamental level. This human element grounds the film and shows the effects on realistic families.

They Came Back is a slow, emotional film that focuses on zombies' affect on society and their loved ones. The only problems with it are the dated nature of the technology and the ending. The government method of monitoring the returned are low resolution infrared cameras on balloons. It looks silly and is one of the only thing that dates the film. The ending just seems so abrupt and tacked on when everything else was so well crafted. Other than these two points, the film captures the realism of such a supernatural event and has one of the creepiest opening sequences I've seen.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Come to Dust by Bracken Macleod

Mitch never really wanted to be a parent after his trouble childhood, but his sister Violette simply dropped little Sophie in his lap and left with her band. He takes the responsibility seriously and doesn't tell any government entities to keep getting Violette's benefits. A year later, Lianna finally asks Mitch out and he has a very rare night without Sophie to go on a date. A neighbor acts as a last minute babysitter, but she's obviously drunk when he comes home. Mitch spends the night with Lianna and doesn't realize until the next day that Sophie died. This event happens to coincide with some dead children rising from the grave, which includes Sophie. She's changed, but he cares for her like the same girl. Most others fear the returned children, their deathly pallor, and strange powers.

Come to Dust is a different zombie story than most. It starts with Mitch (real name Michel), who is an ex-con getting his life back together. He spent years in jail figuring out how to better cope with his anger. I enjoyed reading from his perspective because he was genuinely happy taking care of Sophie even though he wouldn't have chosen that path. He also has perfectly natural thoughts like thinking daycare worker Khadija looks like a model or Liana wears too much makeup, but then he follows up those thoughts with realizations like Khadija wears a hijab to be modest and Liana can wear as much makeup as she likes. Mitch is also good at sizing people up and assessing how dangerous they really are from a guy who wants to talk a big game but won't follow through to another who would shoot someone out of fear. Outwardly, his demeanor is a bit awkward, nervous, and fairly passive but still charming. Sophie's death breaks him because she was his fresh start and gave him motivation to move forward. They didn't have a lot of money or anything, but they had each other. I found him sympathetic and a good vehicle for the story.

This zombie book that many (especially parents) might find it hard to read. Child death in fiction holds a taboo more than any other type because they are the most vulnerable and innocent of humanity and in our lives. When four year old Sophie is found dead, the discovery is harrowing. The culprits leave town and lie through their teeth when found. Mitch's life falls apart around him from losing his job due to absence to losing all of Violette's government assistance. His whole life melts around him, but he and Liana have grown to love and support each other. The grief is accurately portrayed with moments of happiness and then guilt at being happy along with the waxing and waning pain of loss. Liana herself is also a pretty awesome character. She is much more assertive and sure of herself. In their relationship, she is an equal partner, not someone to be commanded. When Sophie came back, Liana was understandably disturbed and uncomfortable, eventually deciding to end their relationship when Sophie steals some her lifeforce and ages her. Apparently, an alternate effect of that power is affection and love? I found it disturbing that the only main female character has her agency taken away from her and has her making decisions against her own interest to help the male protagonist.

These zombies are a bit different than usual. These are all children and their condition when they come back is how they looked in the grave. Sophie was not very decomposed, but she comes back with a deathly pale skin, grey hair, dark veins, a slowly beating heart, no appetite, a muted personality, and eyes with white cataracts. She's obviously not a living child and everyone who helped them before rejects them now from the day care to the library. Between forward moving chapters are vignettes of other resurrections such as three boys walking out of an apparent child murderer's porch. These gave me a chill down my spine and showed what is happening outside of Mitch's story. As the story moves forward, more zombie abilities are revealed. They can weaponize rot, which in turn rots themselves, and alternatively, they can consume other's lifeforce to make themselves appear more human. If they consume enough, no one would know the difference between them and another child in any way. The different zombie abilities are interesting and mostly make sense except for the forcing some sort of emotion (examples in the book include positive and negative). It just doesn't make sense to me and has problematic implications.

The real villains of this piece are a religious extremist group. They view these children as demons from hell, sent by the devil to destroy people. The group operates as a cult, taking in those down on their luck, changing their lives, and then forcing them to commit atrocities in god's name, including imprisoning or killing anyone that gets in their way and setting fire to returned children. Mitch gets all mixed up in this because his sister comes back born again with this cult and her equally trouble boyfriend to collect Sophie. When they find out Sophie returned, the boyfriend shoves them in his truck and forces them to go to the cult compound. Mitch and other parents forced there break out and attempt to rescue their children, resulting in cars crashed into buildings and many dead and injured. The church disgustingly spins it as violence against them and uses the widespread media coverage to their advantage while the actual good people have to stay silent or risk being painted as terrorists. This is particularly relevant now where people prop up their religious beliefs as reasons to justify hatred, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, assault, murder, and child molestation just to name a few and cry discrimination or intolerance the minute anyone is against them.

Come to Dust took me almost no time to read because I was so sucked into the story. The characters are all compelling in some way and the lore is unique compared the rest of the genre. There were also small Lovecraftian references like Miskatonic University and the city of Dunwich. I thought this might play into the story a bit more, but I think it was included just to add some little easter eggs. Overall, the book moves quickly, packs an emotional punch, and features relatable and realistic characters even if the ending stretches the logic of the world.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Song of the Dead by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Karthia is almost unrecognizable. Change is allowed, people can travel, science can move forward. Valoria, the newly crowned queen, is met with resistance from subjects used to being ruled by a king that forbids any change at all. Odessa, master necromancer with no job anymore with the laws against resurrecting the dead, chooses to leave without a word and travel with her friend Kasmira and Meredy, the girl she has feelings for. She wants to see the world and experience something untouched by her grief and the events that led to Valoria's reign. Unfortunately, now that Karthia is in contact with the world, the world is more aware of Karthia and the weakness of the current reign. Odessa goes back to serve her queen and hopes it isn't too late.

Song of the Dead is the sequel to Reign of the Fallen in which the world has a few different types of magic particular to certain eye colors. This installment expands the world from Karthia and shows how unaware of the rest of the world they were. Other lands ban necromacers altogether while other lands breed dragons and still others travel around, pillaging and stealing along the way. There are marvels and dangers Karthia was completely unaware of, which is creating issues for them now. Different abilities are also shown with people of unique eyecolors than the usual such as power over plants, shapeshifting, and a different type of necromancy. The young adults with these unique powers were forced to hide them due to the shame and mistreatment of those around them. Since they are viewed outside the norm, it feels akin to LGBT or nonbinary or those with different beliefs than their intolerant parents are treated.

The main conflict of the novel comes from people attacking Karthia from the inside, their own subjects resistent to change, and those outside, possibly trying to conquer or take their resources. The internal conflict is populated by very different people, violent and peaceful alike. Although she is constantly in danger from terrorist attacks, Valoria still tries to debate and negoatiate with the group in order to work towards peace. She is a powerhouse ruler who does what's needed sometimes at the expense of herself. The outward conflict is dealt with brilliantly because it shows how rumors and offensive stereotypes can spread and affect how people in far lands can view them. I wish these issues had come up sooner. While I like the romance between Meredy and Odessa, I felt it the conflict and angst around it took up too much time and made the ending feel quite rushed. I did, however, appreciate that Odessa was able to put her romantic troubles aside when more important things need her attention.

The undead are not seen much in this installment, much to my disappointment, but there are new ways for the dead to enter the mortal realm. One specific zombie proves to be much more dangerous than he seems and makes up for the lack of undead everywhere else. This aspect surprised me and came out of nowhere. I hope further installments have more zombies, but not if Valoria still bans the resurrection of the dead. I found these particular zombies fascinating with their urge to eat but never becoming satiated and their transformation to shades if the living see any part of them. Their absence in Karthia leaves a hole in their society that people miss. Many aren't used to not spending time with dead loved ones. There was no need to mourn or miss them. Life went on as usual with generations of relatives around. Now, the living remain with new people holding power in families, another aspect of change that's widely hated.

Song of the Dead is enjoyable and widens the scope of the world, revealing modern marvels and unknown dangers. The pacing is a little off and the relationship between Meredy and Odessa (with their dramatic breakups and makeups) took more precedence in terms of time. I also felt that Meredy's struggles with addiction mirrored Odessa's too much and Odessa's response to some of Meredy's behavior felt off to me. Other than that, the novel is a worthy continuation and has me eager for more (hopefully with more zombies).

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines

Superheroes of all kinds are cropping up with a wide variety of abilities from superhuman strength to flight, fire breathing to magic. These people have chosen to save those in need and keep their true identities secret. When people start turning into zombies, the heroes mobilize, but the zombies are too widespread and numerous to defeat. They set up a living situation in a movie studio in Hollywood they call The Mount. Everyone contributes and the heroes enforce their laws in addition to scavenging for resources and protecting the people from zombie and human foes alike. A gang called the Seventeens have their own living space and have been largely left alone until they launch an assault on the heroes during a scavenging mission. A new enemy has taken over and is hellbent on making the heroes pay.

Ex-Heroes melds two disparate genres, superhero and zombie apocalypse, and makes them work together in an oddly harmonious way. The superheroes are created by a variety of things like toxic spills or magic with abilities like super strength, breathing fire, speedy healing, and/or flight. These characters follow the same archetypes of famous heroes. For instance, St. George is clearly the overpowered boyscout Superman with slightly different abilities (breathing fire instead of laser eyes). Stealth is similar to Batman with her abilities and more cynical worldview. Chapters are labeled Then from before the apocalypse and Now. St. George is the main character, but each hero gets their own chapter Then chapter and, if still alive, a Now chapter. Then, each hero is fighting crime on a fairly small scale and Now, they are maintaining The Mount and merely surviving.

The zombies (or exes) are pretty standard fare. They are the animated unded. The disease is a bit different. It's a virus that mimics white blood cells thus replicating quickly in the body. It's highly infectious through bodily fluids and survives a long time outside of its host, making dead exes and even smears of blood just as dangerous. This disease isn't fatal and only takes hold after death. The reason why people usually die after a bite is that other diseases piggyback on the zombie disease, making it a toxic mix of every other disease every other person in the line of infection had. I'm not honestly sure how sound the science is, but the concept is intriguing. Further, zombified heroes retain their abilities and create havoc when an uber-zombie with the ability to control other exes has a grudge against the heroes.

Ex-Heroes has a fast pace and interesting stories in the past and present to get to know each hero a little bit along the way. The beginning just throws you into the world and you start to tread water a couple chapters in. My only criticism is in some of the heroes' narratives. Stealth is a beautiful woman in a revealing outfit and she's disgustingly objectified by quite a few of the male heroes. Once is showing a perspective and doing it multiple times just seems immature of the author and the characters. Stealth herself seems more like a robot than a person as if she had to be so different than her appearance to be seen as a legitimate hero. Other than that, I enjoyed the twists and turns. I'm planning to continue the series and I hope the problems I have resolve as the characters get more developed.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Zombie AKA Zombie 2: The Dead are Among Us (1979)

An abandoned ship is found in a New York City port with two zombies and no answers. The boat owner was a scientist and his daughter goes to the Caribbean island where he worked to find out if he's still alive and why the dead are walking.

Zombie 2 is the Italian sequel to Dawn of the Dead, released as Zombie in Italy. I've heard about it as a cult classic and finally decided to give it a try. It's definitely memorable in a cheesy 70's way. The zombies featured are the product of a doctor in the Caribbean messing around with voodoo rites and trying to understand their effect on people. Of course his experiments go out of control, causing an outbreak. As with the Romero movies, these zombies are slow, eat people, and can transmit their infection to others. The makeup effects are oretty decent. The blue skintone of Dawn of the Dead is gone for a more realistic brown and gray rotted look. Some have maggots wriggling around on their faces and it's a disgusting, memorable look.

I barely remember any of the characters in the movie because they are incidental. None of them are particularly interesting, well written, or well acted. There's a reporter Peter West who sleeps with the missing scientist's daughter Anne Bowles and travels with her and their newfound friends Brian and Susan. The missing scientist is Dr. David Menard who shames, abuses, and ridicules his wife Paola, who wants to leave the godforsaken island. (I don't blame her.) Most of them die in horrific, gory ways that don't always make sense. The most memorable death is Paola's. After a ridiculous struggle  the zombie impales her eye with part of a smashed door practically in slow motion and in extreme closeup. While the scene is iconic and very well done, this type of attack is too precise for a zombie to accomplish. With that logic, it fits right in to this wacky movie.

The most memorable scene to me for many reasons is the shark scene. Susan is swimming nude in the ocean and freaks out over a shark that's nowhere near her and not bothering her at all. While "avoiding" the already disinterested shark, she is attacked by an underwater zombie. Susan escapes, leaving the shark and zombie to duke it out. The fight between them is so awkward and weird. The shark is rather small in comparison to other malicious sharks in film. The zombie manhandles the poor thing, but it escapes and rams the boat hard enough to disable it despite its size. This entire scene is so weird and really stretches the logic of this already ridiculous film.

Zombie 2 is a very strange film that earns its titles as a video nasty and a cult classic. It's enjoyable if all you care about is zombie carnage. The ending has it in spades with some surprising kills, zombies popping out of the ground, a full on zombie assault, and a gut punch when they return to civilization. There are ridiculous elements like the tiny but powerful shark, gratuitous nudity, the lapses in logic, and the awful dubbing over of voices. The positives outweigh these things and I found myself enjoying the ride and the impressive gore effects. Do yourself a favor and watch this crazy cult classic.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

Lazlo and Sarai are reeling from recent events where he was revealed to be a god and she became a ghost. Minya holds Sarai's soul and threatens to let it go if Lazlo doesn't comply with her commands, which includes taking the citadel to the city so Minya can murder everyone. It's an impossible decision for Lazlo and Sarai finds that he powers have changed as a ghost. A separate enemy arrives, throwing everything into chaos, making everyone reasses their alliances, and revealing the secrets of the dead gods.

Muse of Nightmares is one of my top anticipated reads of last year after reading Strange the Dreamer early. Every aspect of the story from the lore to the romance is detailed, fleshed out, and thoughtful. Lazlo and Sarai are the cutest couple ever. I wish more YA books could be written without romance because it seems expected, but this is such a sweet relationship. Now that Minya can make Sarai evanesce or control her absolutely at will, their angst is understandable and heartbreaking. Sarai doesn't expect Lazlo to commit atrocities just to keep her alive and Lazlo puts himself in danger to save even Minya because Sarai loves her even through her evil actions. These two are the best and I just want the best for them.

More information is discovered about why the gods produced so many godspawn (by kidnapping, raping, and removing memories from hundreds of human women) and what happened to them. The original gods aren't seen very much, but their actions have far-reaching consequences. The new antagonist isn't a true villain and proves to be yet another person harmed by the gods' imperialist ways. She and her sister were essentially enslaved by their partiarchal society and saw the floating citadels as a way to freedom. They discover that the gods are a more powerful enslaving force that blackmails one sister into using her power for them and threatens the life of the other to ensure her cooperation. Their place of origin is impossible far from Weep and shows the true breadth of the gods' devastation.

More locally, both Minya and Erik-Fane are completely changed, angry, and traumatized. She wants to perpetuate the cycle of violence and intolerance because he was treated the same way and continued it. For something else to happen, either side has to decide to do something different. The way both feel is understandable, but the impulse for violence never ends well. The connection between these two very different characters plus the antagonist is well drawn and makes sense with their similar experiences from either side of this war.

One of my favorite more light hearted aspects of the story is the transformation of Thyon Nero. At first, he's shocked that Lazlo is the one flying citadels and discovering his remarkable origins. He bonds with the common people he works with and has to work against his high class upbringing to just be a person with them. They open up to him over time as they see him do manual labor with them and the change in his usual snooty responses. I didn't like him in the last book even though I understood his reasons, but he sees the errors of his ways now. It just warmed my heart.

Muse of Nightmares is everything I wanted it to be. As usual, Taylor's words transport me into her world from the first sentence. Sarai, even though she is a ghost, plays a huge part in the story. I feared she would be in the periphery despite the title, but Taylor handled the story well. This book played with my emotions and had some huge, earth shattering revelations. While I would love to see a longer series in this world, the two book series is perfect.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

The Bright Sessions Season 3

Dr. Bright's plan to save her brother fell apart because of Damien, who kidnapped Mark, used his manipulative power, and lied to him about everything. Joan and Sam are distraught and have no way to find Mark. The AM is all over Joan and her patients, making sure she won't step out of line again. Caleb and Adam are back together. Chloe continues to help Frank and struggles with Joan's hypocrisy. Unresolved issues between many are brewing beneath the surface and threatening to explode.

The Bright Sessions becomes more complex as it goes on. The characters continue to develop, grow, and create new relationships. Joan is worried for her brother since he was kidnapped by Damien. She also struggles with her ties with the AM that simultaneously allows her to help Atypicals live normal lives and puts her patients in danger if their abilities prove too interesting for the AM to ignore. The AM also forces her to work with Wadsworth, her former friend and colleague, who she still finds herself admiring and achieving breakthroughs with. Chloe criticizes Joan for chastising her for being unable to give people privacy with her ability to read minds while Joan records people without their knowledge and feeds information to the AM. This situation isn't black and white, so there's debate on all sides with good points.

The AM is seen in more detail this season. It's always loomed in the background but now we get to see how it operates on an everyday level and its deeper recesses. Every day, they take in Atypicals to test them and assess if they need help on a more intense level to control their ability and blend into normal society. On the surface, this seems normal and even altruistic to help people. If you probe deeper, they are conducting unethical experiments and trying to find people with specific, rare abilities to exploit. Mark fills in many of these gaps with the abhorrent way he was treated while confined to the AM that includes mental torture, physical torture, and threats to his family to comply. Each season, the veil gets pushed back a bit further on this organization and it's not pretty.

The character who grows the most is Frank. He's always been in the periphery of the show and only appeared in person last season. Joan talks through some things with him and it's truly heartbreaking. He reveals details about his military service and the experiment his unit consented to. They all had an artificial empathic connection to one another that lost focus over time. Their shared decision to not tell anyone about the complication so they could stay together had devastating consequences, but was understandable in the situation. The fact that a huge revelation about Mark's story line happened the episode right before took away a bit from this emotional episode.

The last few episodes of this season went places I didn't think the show would go. It was surprising, devastating, and hopeful all at the same time. Damian goes from fairly harmless to dangerous through his rocky journey. The ending is explosive in a variety of ways. Many characters who have kept their feelings hidden have meaningful conversations with others to hash out feelings, articulate what has been unspoken, and get issues out into the open. It's also the most violent episode from an unexpected source. I'm hyped to see what happens next season both in the relationships and in the main action of the show.

The scope and cast of the show continues to grow. It's wonderful to see representation in so many different spheres. A glimpse of a new Atypical is seen. Rose travels through dreams and doesn't know whether to be honest with her girlfriend about her ability. I'm interested to see how she will fit in with the group and how the group will move forward in the face of the traumatic events of the last episode. The next season is ongoing so I'm excited to listen as it's being produced.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Dance of Thieves by Mary Pearson

The Remnant Chronicles continues with Jase, the new leader of a fearsome outlaw family, and Kazi, a former thief and current guard of the queen. The queen has set out to overthrow Jase's family, but they must join forces to survive despite their conflicts.

Dance of Thieves takes place in an already established world that I was unfamiliar with. I never read the Remnant Chronicles and I expected this book to be part of an all new series. Establishing the characters, setting, and current politics felt choppy and stilted. The author seemed to assume that the reader already knows the world and didn't fill in many gaps besides the backgrounds of a few characters. The prose completely changes to being fluid and easier when the plot finally moves forward, but I didn't feel much of a connection to the characters. I didn't finish this book. Sixty pages felt like it took forever and I decided not to invest the time in the rest of the four hundred plus additional pages.

What I read had some good aspects. Kazi AKA Ten is an interesting character. She's a legendary thief because she worked for a long time and kept her ten fingers, meaning she wasn't caught stealing. When the queen went by, Kazi spit on her and the queen responded by training her. Kazi pushed back and kept defiant for a while until the others earned her trust. The only trouble after that was when she had a traumatic flashback and attacked someone violently. I felt for her, but Jase was only introduced a few pages before they met. We only saw him being generally drunk and arrogant before the two characters on opposing sides are thrown together, presumably to become attracted despite their best efforts.

Dance of Thieves had some good aspects, but I couldn't connect with it. Maybe I'll read the previous series and get on board, but the way it's written doesn't seem to account of unfamiliar readers.

My rating: 1/5 fishmuffins

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

Sallot Leon earns their living as a thief, beholden to a cruel boss who will take fingers for insubordination. When they take a flyer from a rich woman that advertises a competition of sorts for the role of Opal, one of the Queen's loyal assassins. Sal gets there with proof of a kill (messy and traumatic, but necessary) and is one of 23 people to get past the screening. They are all numbered, masked, and given rules for each stage of the competition. Underneath it all, Sal burns for revenge for her dead people and ravaged land. Will their ulterior motive get in the way of the competition or will Sal be ruthless enough to succeed?

Mask of Shadows is a high fantasy novel that had some unique elements and kept me reading. Sal is a genderfluid person who goes by he, she, or they depending on how they feel and indicated by their clothing. This is established and then not highlighted until people misgender them. It's treated as any other gender and fully integrated into the character. Sal is a competent thief, skilled in weapons, but lacking in other areas. Some of the applicants are wealthy, educated, and well fed while Sal learned on the street while their boss kept them poor and hungry. They are unfamiliar with advanced medicine, herbs and poisons, etiquette, and archery. It was satisfying to see them succeed in some places and struggle in others instead of being good at everything. The most unrealistic aspect of them is getting over the horror of killing people way too quickly. Sal has an affable nature most of the time with some sarcasm thrown in, but the thing that makes them the most angry is the fate of their homeland and the people who destroyed it running free and being prosperous.

The world is interesting and told in small bits throughout the book. Sal came from Nacea, a place that no longer exists. It and all its people except Sal were destroyed by shadows, magical creatures who flay people alive. Nacea was caught in the middle in the war between Erland and Alona. Erland knew about the shadows, but only cleared out their own people and hoped the shadows would be slowed down by Nacean lives. Alona and the Queen only won because she took away all magic. Magic users have no other skills and take over many jobs that would have gone to less qualified people. Now, the Erland nobles are needed to keep their land as it merged with Alone in line even though they are all pretty much biding their time before they can overthrow the Queen. The court intrigue is well done and layered. So many people are plotting against each other, being nice to each other's faces, and biding their time.

The competition has a similar vibe to court intrigue, but with defined rules for each stage and the knowledge that your competition will kill you when given the chance. Some spaces are safe while others are fair game, but no kill is successful unless there is no evidence tying the assassin to it. They are offered training and classes that they have the option to take with the risk that their enemies will know their routine. Sal and the other contestants have to be on guard constantly and think of ways to kill their opponents. Even though they are all assassins, the good and bad are differentiated. Which ones enjoy the kill and even torture as opposed to those who kill only when necessary. Even though they are addressed exclusively by their numbers, I found them memorable and easy to tell apart by their actions.

Mask of Shadows exceeded my expectations and had me reading it in long stretches. It has intrigue, magic, assassins, acrobats, romance, and a relatable main character. The only real flaw of the book is how Sal broke several social rules and never really experienced consequences for it. As someone with very little social clout, this should have been a bigger deal. This is a pretty small detail in the bigger picture of the book. Other than that, the novel is such a fast read that kept me guessing what would happen.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

The Passion of Cleopatra by Anne Rice

Ramses the Great, now known as Reginald Ramsey, has turned his beloved Julie Stratford and his best friend Elliot Savarell into immortals with his elixir. Ramses and Julie prepare to marry while Elliot goes on an extended vacation to make money and live how he's always wanted to live. In the meantime, Cleopatra still lives and plans revenge on Ramses and Julie. Bektaten, an ancient and enigmatic empress, fights against Saqnos, her equally ancient rival who seeks out the true elixir and his attention draws to Ramses to get it. Will Ramses and Julie get their happily ever after or will one of their foes succeed in destroying their happiness?

The Passion of Cleopatra is the long awaited sequel of The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, published in 1989. I loved this book and never dreamed there would be another. I read the first book years ago and didn't have time to reread it before starting this book. The narrative does a good job of filling in pertinent details of the first book and moving forward from there. The beginning is extremely slow and plodding, reminding about old characters and introducing all the new characters. It takes quite a while to establish everything before the story moves forward. It also has the problem that most vampire shows or films have. They are said to be so rare, but they also seem to be everywhere! This elixir has a specific composition that almost no one knows, but now there are two immortals in addition to the 3 Ramses has created and the dozens of corrupted immortals that follow Saqnos. There are 3 ancient grudges between them, 2 romances, and a lot of drama.

The elixir and its effects are interesting in addition to the newer magic. Immortals obviously live forever as young as they were when they took it. Their bodies beocme stronger and heal from any chronic problems or ailments they previously had. Their stamina is limitless and they never tire. After years, they don't require sleep anymore. The drawbacks are few. They always feel hunger, never being truly satisfied by any food. Drinks and drugs have little effect on them. And of course all the general drawbacks of immortality like outliving one's family and having to hide and change identities. We get to see people go from human to immortal. Julie and Elliot in particular no longer care about what society thinks of them. Julie is free to wear out of fashion clothes and be with Ramses. Elliot, on the other hand, lives the lifestyle he wants, taking men as lovers more freely and gambling his way to wealth across continents. He no longer has to pretend to be straight as Edwardian society expects.

Once I waded through the drama and got used to the many characters, subplots, and romances, I started to truly enjoy the story. I remembered why I liked the first book and grew to like a few of the new characters. Sibyl is the human caught up in this whole thing and with a connection to Cleopatra. It was a bit of relief to read about a normal human instead of a supernatural creature plus I liked her kind nature and confidence at the end.. Bektaten was the best character, set up to be sort of a villain and proves to be so much more. She thought more about the world as a whole and made decisions to preserve it instead of doing whatever selfish, arrogant thing she wants like Ramses. I expected the end to be a huge fight or battle, but because of Bektaten, it was much different and unexpected.

The Passion of Cleopatra isn't a perfect book, but I found it enjoyable after the awkward beginning. I did find it odd that Cleopatra was more of a peripheral character than anything despite the title. There are tropes galore and melodrama along with some surprising elements I didn't expect to find. It's a good follow up to the first story and it makes me want to reread the first book to compare the stories so many years apart. I recommend this if you liked the first one.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins