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thegeminisage · 5 years

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5 headcanons for Arthur, Merlin, Morgana, and Gwen

ANON I LOVE YOU thank u

im doing these in reverse order bc i wanna save the best 4 last

GWEN:

i think she genuinely enjoys taking care of people. it’s a role she’s forced into a lot - she takes care of her dad, elyan, morgana, uther, even merlin and arthur once in awhile, even HUNITH - but i think she’s the kind of person who finds genuine fulfillment in doing that kind of thing (she picked FLOWERS for morgana just because), and if she hadn’t been the blacksmith’s daughter she would have made a fine apprentice to gaius herself

she’s a better rider than you. and arthur. and elyan. and morgana. and everybody

we never hear word one about gwen’s mom but i like to imagine she died just before gwen and morgana met (which i’m assuming happened shortly after morgana came to camelot) - and gwen, who had just lost a mother, could easily sympathize with morgana, who had just lost a father and was somewhere new and unfamiliar - and that’s why they became such fast friends

gwen is probably a few years older than morgana - i like to think she was morgana’s maidservant from the start, but i don’t think they would have let her be a maidservant to the king’s ward at age 10, so maybe she’s 3ish years older - not so much older she strays into big sister territory, but old enough to do the job required of her

nobody among the knights/guards really knew what to make of gwen or arthur’s feelings for gwen because she’s ??? just a serving girl ??? like they didn’t dislike her exactly and they respected arthur’s choice for the most part but they also didn’t know anything about her and couldn’t see why the fuck arthur would make such a stir over her when it would be so much easier not to. this changes 100% after gwen’s shenanigans with smuggling leon out of camelot; leon comes back singing her praises like ok ok i GET HER now y’all ain’t gonna believe how she got me outta that cell and on leon’s word (and because she’s elyan’s brother and he’s a knight now too) everybody else warms up to her too

MORGANA:

this is practically canon but she’s a lesbian, obviously. gwen was the first girl she had a crush on

this isn’t a headcanon exactly but i wish bbc merlin had had a better budget because you know who deserved a black cat familiar? morgana. like, aithusa made a wonderful foil to merlin’s relationship w/ kilgarrah and i would not wish aithusa’s fate on any creature let alone some poor innocent cat, but also, the IMAGERY...it could have been so good

this is also sort of canon but i think she dresses expressively, hence the goth look after she goes evil. @dellesayah & i joke about her “evil girl eyeliner” in season 3 but honestly look the way the girl wears 100% black in s4 and s5 i think the eyeliner was her own private expression of her inner angry goth post-poisoning when she still had to be wearing those colorful dresses to fool everybody into thinking she was the same good girl morgana in s3

same age as arthur. idk why most fics have her being older - tho i admit her being older but still not being able to inherit the crown is a VALID source of her rage - but if she was born w/ magic is makes the most sense for her to have been born after the purge started, aka after arthur. i guess it depends on when you think uther cheated on his wife lol. but i never really thought of morgana and arthur as having like an older/younger sibling thing - to me they were more like twins, so definitely within a year of his age, whether it’s slightly older or younger depends on how you feel that day i guess

wintertime birthday. i think arthur has a summertime birthday (more on that below) so it makes her a nice balance to him in that way

MERLIN:

the Most doting son ever. i imagine he had a few difficult teenage years (being a warlock and all) and that he still gets himself into trouble out of sheer stupidity sometimes but aside from that he was probably really well-behaved for the most part just because he didn’t wanna make his mama sad

autumn birthday, since we went there with morgana (to complete the quad in Balance, gwen’s would definitely have to be in the spring)

ok i know colin morgan had to like put on a nice “proper” english accent for the show because katie mcgrath didn’t have one but in my heart merlin sounds like a HICK (whatever the ye olde englishe/modern british version of hick sounds like, he’s it) and his accent only gets worse for all the time they’re at ealdor. like arthur THOUGHT it was bad he probably picked on merlin about it all the time but he had NO IDEA how bad it gets! none! and EVERYBODY in ealdor sounds like that except somehow EVEN WORSE! gwen and morgana think it’s UTTERLY charming but arthur is SO GLAD to get back to camelot and away from all that nonsense! and so then ok when they meet balinor in s2 (who speaks like a normal human being) he listens to merlin talk for 5 minutes and IMMEDIATELY knows exactly where the fuck he’s from. #hicksrepresent

merlin SAYS and BELIEVES he understands magic should only be used for great deeds blah blah blah but when he gets overworked and short on time, yeah, that armor’s gonna be polishing itself while he works on 4 other things at once - he just gets better at not being caught. it’s a great deed to keep arthur’s armor in peak condition, right? arthur says he’s a terrible servant but actually being magically aided he winds up being like...really good at his job, once he gets into the swing of it. he’s just fucking insubordinate always 24/7

*** ****** no i will not be taking constructive criticism

ARTHUR:

he knew they lied to him in 2.08. he always knew. canon evidence supports this in 4.03 he says “i lost both my parents to magic” listen to me he ALWAYS KNEW!!!

canon also semi-supports a summertime birthday - i read somewhere once that they made it a point to only show camelot in spring thru early fall so they didn’t have to explain why there wasn’t snow on the ground. arthur’s coming of age ceremony (which i assumed either followed or preceeded his birthday) was in the middle of season 1, which would have been mid or late summer, hence: arthur is a summer baby.

i really like the gay!arthur headcanon but i also think he and gwen have incredible chemistry and i really like their relationship so like...maybe gay with one genuine exception. also that boy EMBODIES internalized homophobia :( poor lad

fond of DOGS and sometimes HORSES but refuses to show it because that’s not very manly of him. he’s too into hunting to truly be an Animal Person but since you don’t hunt dogs or horses generally he has a very very secret soft spot

the writers didnt do this on purpose but in my heart i believe the reason he was willing to risk SO much to save mordred in 1.08 was because of what he did to that druid camp from 4.10......like at first yeah he tries to be hard-hearted about it & just do his fuckin job but i think once his conscience was tripped he couldn’t stand to see a druid kid die again under his watch for no good reason. he’d’ve never agreed otherwise, not even for a kid. he wouldn’t have ratted morgana out but he wouldn’t have helped her either

(send me a character & i’ll give you 5 headcanons)

#personal #liz answers asks #ask memes #merlin blogging #bbc merlin #long post

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years

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Skam Italia episode 10 reaction

so nice of Alice to ask Eva on a date!

Episode 10

Clip 1 - Eva coming for Martino

I feel it’s so fitting for this marshmallow sweetheart Eva to start off leaving comparatively non-confrontational messages for Martino that only escalate when he doesn’t answer, instead of jumping straight to “ISAK PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE NOW” (RUN BOY RUN)

So Eva and Gio seem to be pretty relaxed and comfortable during this conversation about Martino considering their precarious relationship status - like they actually go somewhere else together and sit down, and there’s not a ton of space between them. His body language is pointed toward her. That’s nice that it’s not awkward, but I don’t know how I feel about it narratively, considering there probably should be some tension?

It makes some sense in that Gio seemed like he still wanted to be with Eva when talking to her at the skate park - he put it more on her shoulders, did she still want to be with him? With Jonas there was that “come find me when you find out” but overall it felt more frayed on his end even if he loved her.

But I loved that awkward goodbye kiss! That little customary gesture that’s suddenly got a lot more weight to it as they’re navigating this in-between stage. They’re kinda still dating but they’re kinda not, you know?

Clip 2 - Silvia and Eva in the bathroom

Note that this clip takes place later than the original version, which was paired with the period blood letter and took place right after the Jonas conversation where he asks who Eva is - Vilde asks her the same thing (theeeeme) and Eva bursts out in frustration at the question later talking to Isak. It was overall a more fraught time for Eva, since it was before her reconciliation with Ingrid and smoothing things over with Iben, was thinking she might have to switch schools and had some tension with her new friends after Vilde turned her past into a group presentation. This scene here happens after almost all of those problems have been smoothed over except for her relationship with Gio (which is less awkward than Eva’s with Jonas) and with Silvia (who apologizes during this clip). With that in mind, it’s more comfortable and less fragile.

It also takes the place of the scene where Vilde puts on a fake happy face in the cafeteria and lies to the girls about being with Pepsi Max.

Awww, it’s really nice that Silvia apologized to Eva. And the comment about how she gets used to people hating her is spot-on. it’s worth noting that this is the second time in a short period that Silvia has botched things with a group of girls, and who knows how many times before that.

But again, where does this leave us in terms of a firm arc for Eva? Once more they’ve cut out the thread/theme of who-is-Eva by not having Silvia ask it. Which I don’t inherently mind but I would like there to be a solid line of her character going from point A to point B, like I want there to be, for lack of a better term, a thesis statement about what this season was really about, since that was a strong point of the original S1. But I feel like we won’t know for sure until that final scene with Giovanni.

The original scene lands the point about Eva’s identity, this scene is more about setting up the group reconciliation with Silvia.

Clip 3- Awkwaaaaard

Similar to the first clip of the episode, Eva and Gio’s relationship here feels much less awkward than Eva and Jonas at this stage

Gio intentionally approaches her and makes conversation instead of literally bumping into her as Jonas did to Eva. It’s neutral small talk for the most party, and slight inquiries about Martino, it’s not digging deeper, but it still feels like they’re pretty chill.

That made the fight seem more out of nowhere, though? Like with Eva and Jonas (and other versions) they were walking this fragile ground where they were being polite, and there was that rush of seeing each other and being like, oh, you make me so happy, but you could also sense how fragile and delicate it was through their body language and expressions and pauses, and so when P-Chris comes around, it’s easy for it to break. With this scene, they feel so comfortable that Gio suddenly shoving Fede didn’t feel right, they were on more stable ground. Like I would’ve bought his appearance suddenly creating the awkwardness between Gio and Eva, and Gio having to excuse himself, but not the 0 to 100 in two seconds here.

It doesn’t help that we didn’t see Gio react until he shoved Fede, like the way it was shot was a little weird. At first I couldn’t tell when Gio saw Fede coming down the hall and if Fede made the comment within earshot of them, since we didn’t get a good reaction shot of Gio to Fede’s presence. Plus having Jonas notice P-Chris and get tense was what prompted the “awkward” comment in the first place. Fede just seems like a shit-stirrer, lol.

Lmao, Edoardo did nothing to break up this fight. He redirected Fede with one hand to keep walking, that was it. On the one hand William gradually descending the stairs to halfheartedly remove Chris from Jonas was the best thing he ever did, but on the other hand, Edoardo not giving a shit at all is funny in itself.

Clip 4 - Not a Meet Cute ... a Start-Over Cute?

Good job, Alice! Federico is not worth the private transportation.

The way they shot this makes it look like the beginning of an Eva/Alice hate-to-love romance, more than any other version of this scene. Right now they have moved past “hate” and are in “tentative friendship” mode.

Lol, so I guess people had some beef with the comment about feminism? I get it, obviously feminism is not about man-hating, probably not the best message to send. But I also thought Alice was clearly making a joke and not being serious about it, so unless there’s some nuance in the wording that doesn’t come through in translation, it didn’t really bother me.

Also, not to go on a personal tangent, but I’m at the point of my life/feminist journey/whatever-you-want-to-call-it where IDGAF about defending feminism against accusations of man-hating, because misogynists will think feminists hate men no matter what you say. You can preface every feminist discussion with 10 paragraphs of clarifying that you don’t hate men and they still won’t care and you’ll just have wasted time and energy coddling anti-feminists that could have been spent on the important issues. For real, don’t bother.

Eva suggesting that the party sounds like a Sapphic shindig and Alice being like “Who said that isn’t the solution?” just ramped up the flirtiness, wowza. Although the line about “sounds like [lesbian night]” was translated a few different ways, using language that was, uhhh, not as neutral as lesbian. I can’t speak to whether it was as offensive in Italian, though.

I forgot, did they say that Alice wrote the message in the bathroom stall? It’s not super important since any gossipy person at school could have written it, but since it substituted for the period blood letter, I’m just curious.

Clip 5 - Party in the streets, puking in the sheets

Is this party taking place on the street? Like are they pre-gaming before they go somewhere? Pre-caking? Street parties seem like a good time.

Lol, Sana is pretty warm and receptive toward inviting Silvia, while Eleonora is like eh, whatever. I feel like Eleonora is the one with the pricklier attitude toward Silvia, which could be interesting to see play out next season since S2 definitely has a focus on that relationship.

“She read it but she didn’t reply” I mean you literally just sent the text five seconds ago, give her a minute.

Making the video for Silvia and asking her to come over is the sweetest thing, damn. Like if I were Silvia, my heart would get so warm. You know, if I wasn’t wasted and two steps from passing out.

So Martino wasn’t invited to this party, he just randomly happened to be in the street hanging out with some pals?

Time for the much-awaited snake roasting scene!

“Did your tits get bigger?” You aren’t fooling anyone, Martino.

Martino’s disappointment at thinking Eva and Gio are back together is super obvious, like he can barely manage to conjure up any fake enthusiasm.

Oh geez. So in the original, Isak lets Eva guess why he ratted her out. There has been a lot of meta and discussion as to whether he wanted Eva to guess the truth, take it off his hands, get it all out. It’s when she guesses that he likes her that he runs with the lie. Here, Martino is the one to say he has feelings for her. He creates the lie. There’s no ambiguity as to whether he wants the truth to come out.

I mean, honestly? I could believe that they changed to the plot to be about Martino having feelings for Eva. I don’t think they will, but I could buy it. Because Martino doesn’t seem like he’s lying, it’s like he’s getting things off his chest. With Isak, he wasn’t being too obvious that he was making stuff up, but on a rewatch you can tell that he’s fabricating this story, especially due to the nuance of Tarjei’s acting. Isak is a liar but he’s not necessarily good at it. He’s human. What he gives is an imitation of swagger and Nice Guy-ism. I don’t get much self-doubt in Martino’s performance.

That’s not to say he’s a bad actor, actually I think he’s one of the better performers on this show, but I did think this conversation was underwhelming compared to the original. There’s such great subtext and especially vulnerability in that scene - they cut out some great moments, such as Eva asking how things were going with his mom before confronting him and us getting to see Isak faking his confidence that everything will work out with his parents. Or Isak saying Eva can’t tell Jonas. Or just the extended explanation of why he did it.

Plus you can really see Isak squirm as Eva pretends she’s gotten back with Jonas, like she’s playing with her food, and this scene didn’t have that delicious build-up.

Was there a reason why Eleonora couldn’t host Silvia at her place? Like logically I know it’s because they wouldn’t introduce the collective yet, if they’re keeping that, but surely it would be OK to bring Silvia back to a residence with no parents, just two quirky university students? Is Eleonora’s living situation going to be the same?

Sana had a very clear game plan on how to handle the situation, good for her.

Lol, I think this scene inherently loses something without the ironic Christmas music but it was funny to have “I wanna be a bottom feeder” right before Silvia barfs on Sana. Sana’s reactions were pretty good.

When the puking started, I wondered whether they would show Sana without her hijab, and then they did.

OK ... I’m not a Muslim so I don’t want to get too much into this, but:

Sana taking off her headscarf as a mark of her comfort around the girls is a sweet gesture, and from what I understand from reading Muslims’ thoughts, this is OK to do and it’s likely that she wouldn’t get in the bed and fall asleep in her hijab. So that’s fine.

But in a meta sense, I did think oh right ... we’re getting this moment because the actress is not Muslim, and this is a costume for her and she can take it off. Whereas with someone like Iman Meskini, it’s not (according to her personal religious beliefs). There was a few (just a few, not many) comments I saw that were like “Sana’s hair is so pretty, she shouldn’t cover it up” which made me go :/ :/ :/

Eleonora giving Silvia a little kiss on the forehead as they tuck her into bed = awwwww.

“I was just trying to kill Edoardo’s son” uhhhh is that an accurate translation? Because that’s kinda different from “I think I killed William’s baby,” there’s way more intent with the Italian one and it changes how I view Silvia’s opinion on the matter. Like I sort of thought a part of Vilde wanted that baby, for not so great reasons, and that’s why she was insistent with the nurse that she had all the pregnancy symptoms. But you know, maybe not!

Also, “I tried to kill Edoardo’s son” and the scene ending abruptly with a BAM could be like, a cliffhanger for a crime show if we want to make Skam a much grittier and bleaker show.

General Comments:

I’m wondering about how they’ll handle S3. I think S2 has the potential to be better than the original, but so far the portrayal of Martino has been lacking a lot of that vulnerability that Isak had and the conversation with Eva in this episode reinforced that. Again, I’m not placing the fault on the actor, and obviously we’re just getting started with the character, I just hope they can dig deep into his self-doubt when they come to it.

I’m trying not to get into the debate about this since it’s not my culture, but because I keep seeing comments in the Sana casting debate about the potential lack of Muslim actors in Italy, for comparison:

Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Norway with about 2.9% of the population officially (about 153,000 people in 2016) and has increased by 26.6% since 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway#Islam)

According to the latest Italian official statistics, there are 1.400.000 Muslims in Italy (2.3% of the Italian population), almost one third of Italy's foreign population (250.000 have acquired italian citizenship). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Italy#Present_day)

Wikipedia, I know, but here’s the Pew Research Center, a very reliable source, putting the 2016 estimate of Muslims in Italy at 4.8% of the population with 2,870,000 Muslims (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/29/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/)

I haven’t mentioned this much but the Skam Italia social media team is doing a nice job, some of the texts have been really funny and cute. Shout-out to Martino telling Eva to move to California to work as a waitress in one of those restaurants “where they give you coffee nonstop” because, yeah, that is one good thing you can say about the US. We’re politically a mess but at least our diners will keep your cups overflowing.

I’m not Italian so if I missed some context, feel free to correct me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#skamit reactions #skam italia reactions

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mermaidsirennikita · 7 years

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May 2017 Book Roundup

This month was so-so; some releases were good, some weren’t. But Renee Ahdieh dropped a new book and that’s always a good thing! I do feel like I read a few books that I normally wouldn’t have (The Love Interest, because I never read male protagonist books) for better or for worse. Right now I’m working on Angie Thomas’s “The Hate U Give”, so that’ll get reviewed at the end of the month!

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan. 4/5. This sequel to “Crazy Rich Asians” is set two years after the events of the first book, kicking off with the preparations for Rachel’s wedding to Nick. Of course, her future mother-in-law isn’t to be kept out of the process despite Nick cutting her out of his life, and swoops in at the last minute with the identity of Rachel’s long-lost father. Meanwhile, Nick’s cousin Astrid is struggling with her marriage still (and her friendship with ex-fiance Charlie), actress-turned-billionaire’s-wife Kitty Pong is trying to fit in to Hong Kong society, and... lots of other drama. “China Rich Girlfriend” is similarly fun and super gossipy, in the same way that “Crazy Rich Asians” was. I enjoyed the antics of Kitty, and loved seeing Rachel get to know her family, especially her brother. Plus, it was refreshingly clear once again that Nick Young, while deserving a firstname lastname introduction, is not a Christian Grey type--he’s a sweet, realistically goofy guy who happens to be hot and rich. I wish he and Rachel were a *bit* more interesting, but they’re very likable. What took this book back a bit is that while I appreciate Kwan not wanting to duplicate his first book is the lack of Singapore high society adventures. I miss Nick’s crazy family, especially his mother Eleanor, whose appearances in this novel were woefully short. Eleanor is the BOMB DOT COM. The mainland stuff just wasn’t as fun. With that being said, I was super invested in Astrid’s storyline, which aside from whatever Eleanor is doing is my favorite part of these books. So frustrating. So romantic. While I didn’t love this quite as much as “Crazy Rich Asians”, I’m still left waiting excitedly for the next book.

The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King. 3/5. This fantasy novel takes place in a world in which the rajahs are each allowed a maximum of one hundredth ranis (queens), which they pick from these convent-like places in which young girls are reared to be both wives and warriors. Kalinda, or Kali, is chosen as Rajah Tarek’s hundredth and final queen, which means that she’s obligated to fight his courtesans, many of which hope to kill her in a chance to take her place as the last queen. Complicating an already difficult situation are the motives of Kali’s future husband and her desire for a captain in his service. Among other things, of course. This book had an interesting premise, but a lot of things became a lot more predictable than they should have been. I liked moments of women supporting each other, but they were dragged down by stereotypes--like the older queen envying the younger one and being basically all-around kind of evil. The villains in general were fairly flat, and Kali’s relationship with Deven, the captain in question, just kind of happened out of nowhere. It’s unfortunate because I don’t mind a forbidden romance cliche if it’s done well, in fact I tend to love it--but Deven and Kali seemed really fucking stupid the entire time. With that being said, it was an entertaining read when I didn’t think about things, and the concept was interesting. That being said, I feel like the fact that the author used Hindi words versus making up shit for her fantasy world was distracted as fuck--this book isn’t set in India, but it still refers to saris and ranis and much more. Why?

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins. 2/5. Single mom Nel shows up dead in the nearby river, living behind her teenage daughter and a sister she hadn’t spoken to for years. Nel had been obsessed with the pool in which her body was found--a pool with a history of suicides, including that of Katie, her daughter’s best friend. At first, Nel’s death is brushed off as a suicide--but as time passes, it becomes clear that she knew much more than it initially seemed. Ugh, I wanted to like this so badly because I did enjoy “The Girl on the Train”. But... what? I didn’t so much mind that the mystery here was much more obvious than that of TGOTT--or that the themes were just... less about human flaws and reliability, and more about very obvious domestic drama. There was a bit of a twist at the end, but not much. All of this I would have cared about more had there been fewer POVs. Who is the lead? Nel’s sister, Jules, who has a dark past we keep flashing back to? Her daughter, the troubled Lena? But there are a lot of other characters we keep flashing to, and I didn’t care about half of them, and... There was very little suspense. Not entertaining.

The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich. 3/5. Caden--a name given to him only recently--has been raised to be a Love Interest. His task? To seduce his Chosen and--for the rest of their lives, ideally--manipulate her and sell her secrets to his “owners”. The problem: a Chosen always has two people competing for his or her affections, a Good and a Bad. Caden is a Good--the boy next door--and Dylan is a Bad--the quintessential damaged bad boy. The two are sent to pair with Juliet, a super smart girl whose potential means she’s up for manipulation. Whoever she doesn’t choose will be killed; and the issue is that Caden is beginning to fall for Dylan, rather than Juliet. Look, gay prettyboy spies is on paper a great idea. And there are some charming things about this book. The conceit of the good boy being pitted against the bad is interesting, and I liked the struggle the boys had. But it was all a bit young and underdeveloped for me. Someone will love this book, I just didn’t.

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy. 4/5. Teenage Ramona has been living with her father and her sister in a FEMA trailer since Hurricane Katrina. Now her sister is pregnant, and she feels obligated to stay after high school to help with the baby--even (or especially) after their flaky mom returns. To add to all the complications, she’s in an on/off sort of thing with a girl who’s closeted, while Ramona, who has always identified as a lesbian, is not. THEN, her childhood friend Freddie returns to town. Freddie is a boy; Ramona has never liked boys. But she might like Freddie. This book got some shitty ratings by people on Goodreads without it being read; I won’t lie, years ago I once gave a book a one star rating on there because the author was (and still is) a shitty person. But now I wouldn’t--I just wouldn’t read the book. I feel like it’s super dicey to review something you haven’t read/seen, and the reason why people have been low-rating this book is because they think that Freddie is turning Ramona “straight”. No. The entire relationship is about how complex sexuality is; not all people identify as straight their whole lives until they meet someone of the same sex that they like. Some people really do identify as gay for a long time and then meet someone of the opposite sex; it happened to a close friend of mine. My close friend identifies not as straight now, but bi. There aren’t really labels put on Ramona’s sexuality as she figures it out because she is really JUST figuring it out. She might not ever like any guy besides Freddie. She certainly doesn’t stop liking girls. I feel like Murphy handled the issue really well, and at any rate Freddie and Ramona’s relationship isn’t the point of the story. The point is the poverty Ramona lives within, and her struggle between her loyalties to her family and her desire to be somewhere else and do something more. It’s a really lovely story, and I recommend it.

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh. 5/5. This Mulan retelling (a retelling in a loose sense but a retelling nonetheless) is set in Heian Japan, and centers on Hattori Mariko, a girl on her way to marry the emperor’s son. During her journey, she’s ambushed by the fearsome Black Clan, with her guards and servants murdered. Disguising herself as a boy, she finds the Black Clan and decides to infiltrate their ranks to figure out why she was targeted--and perhaps put off her marriage for a bit longer. As Mariko is drawn into the world of the Black Clan--and becomes entangled with the mysterious Okami--her twin brother, Kenshin, pursues her relentlessly. I really love Renee Ahdieh, and I especially appreciate the fact that she writes historical fantasy that isn’t given a European setting. At first, I sort of doubted the Japanese angle for a retelling of a Chinese story, but it worked here. Mariko is a strong, unyielding, an flawed heroine who certainly spends a lot of time lying to herself, which I appreciated. One of the things I loved about this book was how much Mariko learned about her own privilege as a noblewoman, and the reality of the world versus what she’d been brought up in. (Also, she gets a great callout from another woman in a scene, and it’s just fantastic.) There is definitely a romance present, but it’s a slowburn in the best way. Okami is super hot, and Mariko is definitely physically drawn to him before emotions get in the way, which I love. There are fantastical elements as well, but they’re well-done and honestly, a lot of the story read as a historical adventure to me. I loved it.

Hold Back the Stars by Katie Khan. 1/5. (Wow, what a drop.) Carys and Max are trapped in space with ninety minutes of oxygen left, after which they’ll die. As they desperately try to find a way out of their situation, they relive their love story and all that went wrong (and right) with it. I feel like this is one of those “quirky” books where the protagonists are in an outlandish situation but you fall in love with their very real romance. And I’m not totally against this when it’s done right, but Carys and Max were insufferable, their world didn’t make sense, and I zoned out very quickly.

The Girl in 6E by A.R. Torre. 4/5. Deanna Madden makes her living as a cam girl, having cyber-sex with men and women for money; she also hasn’t left her apartment in three years, due to her intense need to kill. Lately, she’s been more tempted to interact with other human beings than ever, in part due to her attraction to UPS guy Jeremy--but she knows exactly how much of a threat she is to society. But when a client begins showing particularly deviant behaviors, Deanna is drawn out--for better or for worse. I’m really bad at describing this book, because a good 70% of it is a creeping sense of dread, Deanna working with her clients (and shrink) and the looming threat of the antagonist. The actual antagonist is nothing amazing. The strength of the story is Deanna and her struggle between wanting to kill and wanting to protect people--along with the cam subculture. The author did their research, and you can really tell. The book is incredibly fast-paced and vivid. It’s an awesome thriller. The only reason why it doesn’t get a 4/5 is that I felt that Jeremy wasn’t super compelling, but I didn’t dislike him.

Scribe of Siena by Melanie Winawer. 2/5. Neurosurgeon Beatrice heads to Siena after the death of her brother, a historian intent on uncovering the secrets of a fourteenth century plague. There, she discovers the journals of Gabriele, a fresco painter, and upon being sent back in time falls in love with him. There were subplots, of course, but the main core of the story was Beatrice and Gabriele’s love story, and it was super weak. He just wasn’t my type of guy--and honestly, he was so ridiculously idealized that he became bland. For that matter, it didn’t feel like the author did much research about the period; I didn’t feel like Gabriele was a painter of the time, and I took issue with how easily Beatrice fit into fourteenth century society. Not a winner.

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan. 4/5. The final entry in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy has the Young clan swarming back to Singapore after matriarch Su Yi has a heart attack. Nick is left hoping that he’ll reconcile with his grandmother before she dies. At the same time, Astrid is having issues with her divorce and her relationship with Charlie; Kitty Bing, now married to an even richer billionaire, is still struggling to become accepted by upper class society while battling her stepdaughter, Colette; and the villainous Eddie is still social climbing while trying to get as much as he can from his grandmother on her deathbed. This series is so enjoyable, and while Rich People Problems still wasn’t quite as good as Crazy Rich Asians, I feel like it returned to the roots of the series: Young family drama in Singapore. I loved learning more about Su Yi, and I admire Kevin Kwan’s ability to let go of the more settled core couple a bit--Nick and Rachel--in favor of tying up the still high key drama happening in the lives of Astrid and Kitty. This is a very satisfying conclusion, and it was at turns hilarious and heartwarming.

#books #recommendations

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