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friendofcars · 4 months

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Hello! Here is data on point of view distribution across characters in The Dreamer Trilogy (which I will abbreviate as TD3) as a follow up to my TRC data from last year (viewable here). A rather long-winded discussion of the data, methods notes, and some supplemental figures and tables are under the cut. As it was not possible to include all values and stats in this post (nor in the alt text for image IDs), my spreadsheet can be viewed by clicking here,

This project quantifies and visualizes the distribution of chapters and pages in the books of TD3 across characters from whose POVs the story is told. I didn’t have much of a hypothesis going into data collection/analysis, especially not like I did for the TRC data, but I did expect to see Ronan’s POV having the most chapters and pages for the entire series, given the fact that he is the most central of the protagonists. I don’t think page time is the be-all-end-all for a character’s importance, of course, but it is still interesting to consider how spending more time from certain perspectives affects the perceived narrative. I won’t get much into that aspect of analysis in this post, but if anybody would actually like to discuss that, I’d love to!

Results (and Interpretation):

TD3 consists of 173 chapters and 1184 pages (using the U.S. hardcover editions), making the average chapter 6.84 pages. The longest chapter is 16 pages, and the shortest is 1 page.

Figure 1A: The average chapter in Mister Impossible (MI) is considerably longer (9.26 pages) than the average chapter in Call Down the Hawk (CDTH) (6.00 pages) and in Greywaren (GW) (6.40 pages), which makes sense as MI has just 38 chapters while CDTH has 80 and GW has 55 (see Fig. 2). To me, the effect of the longer chapters (and therefore extended time with the current POV character) makes the various POVs feel more temporally distant from one another- not in a narratively incoherent way, but in a way that echoes the sense of isolation experienced by dreamers and weaponized by Bryde as he tries to convince Ronan and Hennessy to abandon their loved ones.

Figure 1B: Chapter length is fairly consistent amongst POVs across the series. Matthew has the longest average chapter length (8.40 page) over a small set of chapters (5 total)- his character development (as told from his own POV) is limited to a small number of instances, which may have stretched his chapters a bit longer. The 'Other' category has the shortest average chapter length (5.13 pages) (Fig. 1B); it includes the typically short chapters from witnesses of Visionary explosions/aftermath (Mags, Dabney) as well as Nathan's manifesto excerpts. (As a side note, I've described the chapters depicting memories from the Barns as 'Mór and Niall.' These chapters do not collectively portray an equal balance of their POVs, but this was the simplest way to categorize them.)

Figure 2A-B: These graphs are representations of chapter distribution across POVs in TD3 in terms of chapter count (2A) and proportion of total chapters (2B). Some observed trends include Declan's proportion of total chapters remaining quite constant throughout the series, Ronan's decreasing, Hennessy's proportion of chapters nearly doubling from CDTH to MI (and staying at a similar proportion to MI in GW), and Jordan's proportion following an opposite trend (consistent proportion in CDTH and MI, followed by a more than 50% drop in GW). Carmen's proportion of chapters also declines after CDTH.

Figure 2C: This graph compares total chapters per character POV over the entire series. We can see that the largest proportion of the series is told from Ronan's POV (53 chapters, or 0.306 of all chapters). To put that in perspective, Hennessy has the next highest number of chapters (26, or 0.150 of all chapters), which is just under half the number of Ronan's. If all characters had an equal number of chapters from their POV (including the miscellaneous POVs as one category labeled Other), they would each have 21.6 chapters, represented by the horizontal dashed line; Declan, Jordan, Carmen, and Hennessy all have chapter counts relatively close to this number.

Figure 2D-E: These are representations of page distribution across POVs in TD3 in terms of page count (2D) and proportion of total pages (2E). Trends are similar to those depicted in 2A-B, but 2E does make Declan's increased proportion of page time in GW salient.

Figure 2F: This graph compares total pages per character POV over the entire series. The dashed line shows that if each character (plus the Other category) had equal page time in the series, readers would spend 148 pages with each POV. Again, page data is similar to chapter data, but comparing graphs 2C and 2F gives a clear visual indicator that Jordan's chapters (on average, 8.11 pages) are longer than Carmen's (on average, 6.08 pages), since Carmen has visibly more chapters in 2C yet nearly the same number of pages as Jordan in 2F.

Figure 3: Figure 3 shows distribution of chapters (3A-B) and pages (3C-D) in CDTH, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (3E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 13.3 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 80.0 per character. The 'Other' category included chapters from the perspectives of Lock, Breck Myrtle, Shawna Wells, Jason Morgenthaler (and Lin Draper, briefly, in the same chapter), Mags Harmonhouse, and Dabney Pitts. Carmen's average chapter length in CDTH (4.67 pages) is the lowest single-book average for character POVs appearing throughout the entire series. (Nathan's average chapter length is just 1.00 [Supplemental Figure 2], yet his POV only appears in GW via his manifesto excerpts, and while I have attributed these chapters to his POV, I interpret the POV as actually ambiguous. As with Kavinsky's text in TDT, it's not absolutely certain if we are reading from the writer or the reader's perspective [although in TDT, due to the lack of Kavinsky POV elsewhere, it's probably the latter]).

Figure 4: Figure 4 shows distribution of chapters (4A-B) and pages (4C-D) in MI, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (4E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 5.43 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 50.3 per character. The 'Other' category included two chapters, both with what I deemed omniscient narration. Declan had the shortest chapters in MI (8.20 pages), and Jordan had the longest (11.4 pages, the longest average for a character for a single book in this series).

Figure 5: Figure 5 shows distribution of chapters (4A-B) and pages (4C-D) in GW, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (4E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 6.88 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 44.0 per character. The 'Other' category included Nathan's manifesto excerpts (3 chapters), 1 chapter from Liliana's POV, and 3 other chapters with omniscient narration. While Ronan never has the longest chapters, his chapters are shorter relative to other POVs in Greywaren, perhaps as a result of the way his chapters are written during his time asleep/in the sweetmetal sea. I have not yet investigated whether chapters tend to be longer while characters are awake vs asleep or dreaming, but that's something that could be measured from the existing data in the spreadsheet! There is also a dramatic drop in Jordan's POV time in GW compared to the previous two books, perhaps because of her increased divergence from Hennessy and desire to establish a life that follows her own narrative.

Other findings: A major difference I noted between TRC and TD3 was the lack of split chapters in TD3. In TRC, the data analysis was made slightly complicated by having to account for the fact that a non-negligible number of chapters would make a distinct and discrete switch between POVs partway through. While I did not observe this in TD3, I did encounter more ambiguous/nebulous POVs as I previously mentioned. The increased presence of omniscience in the trilogy, for me, contributed to the increased sense of scale and stakes compared to TRC. This increased continuity amongst POV (not amongst core/recurring POV characters, but amongst groups of characters/communities depicted in the omnisciently narrated chapters) also contributed to a sense of dissolution of barriers and identities, perhaps thematically in line with Ronan's character development and increasingly holistic perspective of both his humanity and otherworldliness (although Ronan is not necessarily featured in these 'boundary-breaking' chapters). I also briefly looked at occurrences of back-to-back chapters from the same POV; this happens most frequently for Ronan in all three books, mainly in CDTH, and sometimes featuring a dreaming chapter directly before an awake chapter (or vice versa) in immediate succession. Declan (MI), Carmen (CDTH), and Jordan (CDTH) all have a pair of back-to-back chapters at some point in the series; Hennessy has 2 (MI, GW).

Conclusions: In all honesty, despite this project being quite fun and fulfilling and of course, worth doing, I do not think I have any particularly insightful conclusions about the data beyond what I've already discussed. Ronan took up the largest share of the chapters and pages as expected, although I am not sure I expected this to be true by such a large margin. I also was surprised that Declan did not have more chapter/page time, but it is possible that his notable inclusion in chapters from other characters' POVs increases his prominence in the series (and I suppose this is probably true for all characters who frequently appear in chapters outside their perspective). As with TRC, the number of POVs expands as the series develops, often with the effect of increasing the scope of the story's implications, and perhaps, more importantly, showing the story from additional angles that contextualize and/or distort narrative established by other characters' perspectives. I hope you've enjoyed exploring the data as I have, and those interested in my methodology may continue reading below!

Methods:

Data collection was straightforward in the sense that I simply counted the pages in each chapter and then assigned each chapter to a character based on the POV represented. The POV character assignment was more difficult than it was for TRC, as TD3 has more omnisciently narrated chapters, which in itself is easy to categorize, but they often zoom in on or are 'biased' towards the experience of a particular character, so I had to make some decisions as to what, for me, constituted sufficient focus on a character’s internal narration and expression vs. omniscience. In the spreadsheet, I took notes on these more subjectively driven decisions. Again, you can view it here! It also contains data on whether the chapter is from an awake or dreaming POV, and has the first lines of each chapter, among which are some fun repeating patterns.

For bar graphs with dots, each dot represents a single chapter. You may also notice that the graphs are missing p-values from statistical tests this time around! This is because, since completing the TRC data, I’ve realized that such measures of uncertainty re: significant differences are not appropriate for my dataset, which is not a sample representing a population, but rather a complete group of chapters (so parametric tests are not necessarily helpful or valid). However, I still like to run the tests for my own amusement and to see what the results would be if this were a dataset for which ANOVA and contingency tests were appropriate, so I have standard deviation bars on the graphs where calculable (but no standard deviations in the text of the results section for legibility) as well as the p-values in tables at the end of this post for anyone also curious. I did still calculate the numbers of chapters and pages that would represent an equal distribution across POV characters, which are represented by the dashed lines on the relevant figures. I think this is helpful to visually gauge 'over-representation' and 'under-representation' of character POVs.

Below are the supplemental figures showing all character POVs rather than lumping some together in an 'other' category. The MI data in figure 4 is not expanded below because the chapters designated as 'other' were omniscient and thus would have remained in the same category.

And finally, here are the omitted p-values, if you'd like to pretend along with me that all the chapters in TD3 are not a complete set but rather a representative sample of a greater population of chapters that's out there in the universe. :) When I give a p-value below the 0.05 threshold but still write 'no significant differences amongst any combination of characters, I mean that the p-values generated for the comparisons between each possible pair of characters were all above 0.05, which are distinct from the overall p-value generated from the ANOVA.

#the dreamer trilogy #call down the hawk #mister impossible #greywaren #ronan lynch #declan lynch #jordan hennessy #carmen farooq-lane #long post #rchl #now onto more qualitative/linguistic things! xoxo

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queer-book-character-tournament · 1 year

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Okay!!! So I’ll give everyone a few hours to recover from all of that and wait until tomorrow (April 1st, sorry guys no prank here just a queer battle) to post the final round Gideon Nav vs Ianthe Tridentarius vs Eric Bittle

This will last one week so everyone has plenty of time to get their votes in for the final winner and then we’ll start the bonus polls which so far consist of: The Great Gideon Face Off (a battle for the ultimate Gideon since we had like three submitted to the tournament), The Simon Showdown (same thing but for Simons), Blonde Short King Queer Jock Battle (Andrew vs Bitty, no one asked for this I just think it would be fun so I’m doing it), The Ultimate Round Four Divorcee Loser (Ronan vs Harrow), and since it doesn’t seem they will do battle in the main tournament The Ultimate Round Four Divorcee Winner (Adam vs Gideon), Crow Divorce Challenge (Jesper vs Wylan), Fox Divorce Fight (Andrew vs Neil), Bone Girl Battle (Nina vs Harrow vs Nona), Carry On My Wayward Son (Kade vs Jack vs Nancy), International Incident (Henry vs Alex), Time Traveled To Legal Marriage and Divorce (Jane vs August), Into The McQuistonverse (all submitted Casey McQuiston characters throwing down), War of Hearts (Magnus vs Alec), Ari/Arati Third Try: Divorce Addition (Ari/Arati vs Anna), Divorce Is Buy One Get One (Kieran vs Mark vs Cristina), Shadow Hunter Show Down (Helen vs Aline), Magnet Clicking OUT Of Place (Kit vs Ty), Wake Me Up Inside (Jordan vs Hennessy)

I’m open to more ideas for bonus rounds but that’s what’s slotted in the meantime!

#op speaks

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crimeronan · 2 years

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can you talk about chronic illness themes in greywaren pretty please I’m so curious what you thought about the conclusion or lack therof

i've had this in my inbox for weeks and keep thinking about it and like. on the one hand i want to answer on the other hand i don't enjoy spending a lot of time talking about things i don't like. but i think i've nailed down the broad shape of my grievances wrt chronic illness real quick, so here's this and moving on

i think the first 2/3rds of greywaren were perfectly suited in tone to what dreamer trilogy had set up and there were Really good questions raised about matthew and jordan and declan and ronan and hennessy, i also think hennessy's arc (and the ronanessy culmination) was the only one that felt like it actually followed through on the chronic illness themes that had been set up. i was very very interested in jordan's thing about the act of creation keeping her awake, there's some good metaphors about artist survival there, tho ymmv. i know a lot of people with chronic fatigue aren't fond of it bc making art is Tiring and sometimes you Cannot Do It but tbh what i didn't get from jordan i got fine from hennessy so. that's all fine. then the last few chapters of the book take a hard transition into "now i have to wrap this whole universe up prettily to avoid rude tweets" and that apparently meant not having any messiness on the page, which is a shame because complex nuanced messiness is where stiefvater's writing most thrives.

adam and ronan's resolution was boring they didn't fix any of the things that were a problem wrt ronan's chronic illness and adam's Everything, joining souls in space is stupid, they already KNEW they loved each other, the love was not the PROBLEM, the problem was that they were on fundamentally incompatible life paths and loving each other DOES NOT MAKE THOSE COMPATIBLE.

declan and matthew's resolution was nonexistent, i'm actually Very Okay with the whole "matthew walks home" plotline but i needed his POV of that journey and i needed WAY more on the page from declan at the end there and i needed WAY more than "i can be fine relying on you guys bc bryde told me i should" when declan's treatment of matthew up til then had shown NO indication that matthew can EVER trust him.

bryde is the sickest person in the series and his end was far too ambiguous for my taste, especially when up to that point he and matthew had been interrogating the EXACT themes i'd wanted to see about what it means to be a dream and to be this kind of chronically ill. like we were almost somewhere there and then we just dropped everything about.... everything.

meanwhile adam is torn apart on the astral for days and days and days but wakes up fine and then bam, we flip forward 4 years and he's normal and there's no indication of any potential issues even tho there were themes traced all the way back to cdth about him and hennessy having similar chronic illnesses (thru lace metaphor). the epilogue firmly establishes that everyone is Better and that they all have stuff Figured Out Now and while i like knowing where people end up, i don't like a resolution that boils down to "and now we never need to struggle again."

i did not like greywaren's takes (or lack thereof) on chronic illness because it felt like we can't exist in a "joyful comfort read" because chronic illness is Bad and the author wants to avoid nasty tweets about doing Bad Things to characters.

i want to know what greywaren would have been if its main purpose had been to carry thru the series themes instead of to make trc fandom shut up and feel pleased about their blorbos and move on. stief talked about how she had to do a lot of rewriting with the dreamer trilogy up through greywaren bc she was so angry about being sick and. i want the angry book. i want the drafts that weren't pared down and rearranged and cut apart and spliced together to appease every normie person who's never felt constant pain or fatigue a day in their lives. the first two books were for me and will always have been for me, they are The Most Personal Books I Have Ever Consumed, but in order for greywaren to be for me, it would have had to Not be for certain people, and. well.

greywaren is for everyone.

so. shrug emoji. i guess.

#replies #greywaren #greywaren spoilers #greywaren negativity #another post that is NOT for stief's eyes do not tweet this at her or so help me god #greywaren meta

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thetypedwriter · 1 year

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Greywaren Book Review

Greywaren Book Review by Maggie Stiefvater

This book is a fantastic disappointment.

Of course, the book is good. Of course the writing is absolutely phenomenal. It’s Maggie Stiefvater. Even when I’ve questioned her plot or character development, I have never once questioned her writing.

She is a wizard with words. Her writing floats off the page and lives rent-free in my head for months. The way she concocts her stories fills me with delight and awe.

That was never in question.

The biggest question I had going into Greywaren was: will I get what I want?

The answer is no.

I think it’s mostly safe to say that a majority of readers saw the Dreamer trilogy as Ronan’s own triage of books. It was pitched that way to us as an audience and the way the books were presented was that it would be about the Brothers Lynch.

This is a lie.

Perhaps, Call Down the Hawk could be described as such, the first book in the trilogy, but every book since has fallen further and further away from the original premise.

The second installment, Mister Impossible, was almost entirely about Declan. And now the final book, Greywaren, I would argue, is about Hennessy and Carmen Farooq-Lane.

Now. I like Hennessy. I like Farooq-Lane. They’re great characters.

However, they are not the Brothers Lynch.

I don’t understand why authors do this. They promise things and entice readers with certain characters, plot points, and relationships, and then don’t deliver.

I’m sure Maggie has her reasons for writing the trilogy this way, and I’m not pretending to know what they are or that I understand the intricacies of her writing process or the publishing world, but I am just so frustrated that she wrote the trilogy this way.

Ronan, the so-called main character, is hardly in Greywaren at all, and half of the time when he does have his own chapters, he is either asleep, dreaming, or not taking part in reality. The amount of exasperation I have that Maggie made this choice is overwhelming to me as a reader.

In the original The Raven Cycle books, Ronan and Adam were my favorites. They were many people’s favorites, including, it seems, Maggie herself. Which is why she set out on a quest to tell Ronan’s own story.

Except what started as Ronan’s narrative quickly devolved into a tale featuring so many other characters that Ronan’s part became so diluted that it is barely there at all.

Once again, I love Maggie’s characters. Jordan, Hennessy, Farooq-Lane, etc, they’re all wonderful. If Maggie had them as side characters in the Dreamer trilogy and then set out to write a spin-off series featuring them, I would not be mad. I would be super excited and pumped to read such a cool installment.

But that’s not what I wanted, what I anticipated, or what I got.

Instead, the final book about Ronan Lynch and his brothers is really about unrelated side characters who somehow took center stage despite everyone wanting the opposite.

Irksome doesn’t even scratch the surface of it.

Greywaren itself is…fine. As I said above, Maggie’s writing is undeniably beautiful. I will say, though, the plot gets convoluted and hard to follow and the ending feels rushed and shallow.

This book essentially picks up after Mister Impossible, in which Ronan is asleep, along with many other dreamers or dreamt people who need sweetmetals.

Declan is trying to save everyone, Matthew goes through a rebellious stage, Hennessy is creating, and Farooq-Lane is trying to stop her brother, Nathan, from starting the apocalypse.

Honestly, when I think about it, this book simultaneously has so much going on and nothing going on at the same time. The overarching plot could be described as: Nathan is bringing on the apocalypse and people try to stop him as well as reawaken their sleeping friends. That’s it. That’s the plot.

However, it takes 300+ pages to get to the end, which then rushes through really essential reunions and revelations, because there are so many characters we have to switch POV’s between.

Additionally, there’s a lot of abstract things happening that don’t really contribute to the plot, even if they're interesting to read about.

Overall, this means you could read 100 pages and have a very minimal amount of progress because everyone is taking one small step instead of having one character (Ronan) taking many.

Jordan is hardly in this book, and Matthew, whom I anticipated seeing a lot of, is very cruelly shafted by having a sparse amount of chapters and a character arc that feels vague and incomplete.

After running away towards the beginning of the book, no real headway comes from it and then in the end, bam! Matthew returns to the Barns like nothing happened.

We don’t see the conversation between Matthew and Declan, we don’t see the reunion between Matthew and Ronan, and we certainly don’t get a scene with all three brothers, which, if you remember, is what this whole trilogy was supposed to be about.

In the same vein, Adam and Ronan, the couple everyone was most excited to see and read about, had a few paltry scenes in this whole trilogy combined. There are more scenes with Farooq-Lane and Liliana than there are with arguably, the main couple.

The injustice of this vexes me beyond words.

Even in this book, at the very end, the reunion between Adam and Ronan that we waded through 300 pages to see, is brief and from someone else’s POV.

What on earth? Really? This is the reunion we waited years for and we didn’t even get to experience it though Ronan’s own eyes.

As I write this, I realize that I feel cheated and shafted.

At this same time, I don’t know how fair it is to feel that way. It’s not my book or my characters, so who am I to demand anything of Maggie? I understand this.

On the other hand, this was a book pitched to us and advertised as a series about the Brother’s Lynch. I would very much argue that by book three especially, this is completely unfounded and untrue.

Did I still like the book? Yes, of course I did. However, I just wanted more. I wanted what was promised at the beginning. I wanted less abstract and confusing chapters and more chapters with essential characters actually talking, meeting, and growing.

I wanted resolution, development, and conclusions.

Instead, I got a muddled, albeit gorgeously written story, where all the characters felt full with potential, but never truly reached a point of promise.

Like I said at the beginning, this book was both fantastic and a disappointment in so many ways, a fantastic disappointment that will always leave me wanting more.

Recommendation: Read it. However, you’re not going to get the development or scenes that you want. Beware of this. Use fanfiction to fill in the gap that this trilogy wasn’t able to deliver on.

Score: 6/10

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prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 1 year

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my main review of mister impossible is: wow, what a boring book.

declan continues to be an icon, the star, the hero, my babygirl, etc. literally he is such a great and endearing character who does not serve to be surrounded by this mess. put him in some other better book. matthew can come too. one of several "not bad but poorly executed" ideas in here was the idea that matthew is struggling with his dream identity but also maybe some of the stuff he's struggling with is just growing up (and being an orphan whose parents were dysfunctional, and also, what i would put in if i were writing this but also i feel like just what would be in here if it were good, being rich but discovering in himself a desire to live with dignity)

ronan: dreaming bryde was a fun reveal, no notes. i like the idea of bryde as ronan's id that he's dressed up as his superego, but i also don't want to get too attached to that because who knows what will happen in the next one. my favorite ronan content in this book is how completely fucking insane he has driven himself about his relationship with adam. a specific kind of content i am always hungry for for personal reasons is stories about teenagers or young adults in love that really zero in on how insane-making this phenomenon is when you're both very young and pretty fucked up, and there are like 12 sentences in this book that really delivered on that front. other than that, it's wild to me how someone who was such a vibrant and engaging, even if imperfectly written, character in TRC is so meh here. i think my main complaint carries over from what i said last time, which is that i think ronan's personal crisis just needed to be zeroed in on and brought out a little more. the book gestures towards it enough that you know what's going on (and the thing with adam's gloves over his or whatever was maybe the most effective image in the book), but it doesn't do enough to make you feel it. this feels related to point below.

hennessy: on paper, again, the idea that she like connected to or created the lace because of her traumatic upbringing, sure. why not. in practice, i don't understand how a character so boring exists. there is really something about her that feels 100% telling 0% showing. i also think that her relationship with ronan needed to be... i was gonna say fleshed out more but idek if that's what i mean. it just needed to be better. there needed to be more of a sense of the two of them having a relationship, a specific dynamic that was meaningful to each of them, both to make their chapters less boring and also to make hennessy's betrayal-ish at the end land better. this whole book was weird because it was like in some ways constant plot but also nothing happened, so like there was no time devoted to just character work but we also didn't get to know characters through the kinds of choices they made, because mostly, they didn't (except my babe declan).

oh we did get like ALMOST EVERY CHAPTER opening up with a weird little flashback vignette. um. i DO NOT know who told her this was a good way to write an action-heavy fantasy novel, but they are either stupid or a liar. completely slammed the breaks down on any potential momentum every time that happened, which was, again, almost every single chapter, like it was bananas. like why. all of that should have either been cut or integrated into the narrative. i've been thinking about why these books feel less alive than the raven cycle did, even though the raven cycle was also dumb and badly plotted, and i think it has to do with how much "characterization" is happening in this weird silo'd off way. i mean, ronan didn't even have POV chapters in the raven boys, but he (and noah!) still came across as real characters, because they revealed themselves through their interactions with other people. extremely little of that character work is happening here (and where it could be it feels rushed or forced - like jordan cheering matthew up about being a dream - not the worst scene but not earned, either) and i think it contributes to the sense that none of these people have personalities, even though she keeps beating us over the head with their personalities and struggles and blah blah blah.

sweetmetals are another "could be a cool idea in some other less boring book"

farooq-lane, i can't with that. no thank you. the most boring of all time. i do not want stief providing wuhluhwuh representation thanks and bye.

#the shmeamer shmilogy

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brightbeautifulthings · 1 year

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Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

"In a way, she thought, Ronan had been screaming since she'd met him. She just hadn't been able to hear it, since she'd been screaming, too."

Year Read: 2022

Rating: 4/5

About: There are spoilers ahead for Call Down the Hawk and Mister Impossible. After Hennessy shut down the ley line, all the dreamers without access to sweetmetals fell asleep, including Ronan. Hennessy is laying low with her former enemies, Jordan is painting constantly to keep herself from sleeping, Declan is scrambling to keep Matthew awake and find a sweetmetal strong enough to wake Ronan, and Ronan is trapped in the otherworld, watching while his family comes apart. Meanwhile, the real enemy orchestrating all of it is gearing up for the promised apocalypse. Trigger warnings: character death (on-page), suicide (on-page), fire, bombs/explosions, guns, violence, severe injury, self-loathing.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this a bit more than Mister Impossible. In part, I think it's that I knew what to expect, but Bryde being off the page for most of the book also did a lot for me. I never warmed to his character or to Carmen Farooq-Lane's chapters, which I still found deathly boring. There's also a problem that, for plot reasons, Ronan is basically a spectator for more than half the book, which takes a lot of the wind out of its sails. This trilogy is supposedly about him, after all, but I'd say it's really more about the Lynch brothers as a whole.

Fortunately, I find all three of them fascinating, and I love the dimensions of Declan that come to light in this series. He'll never stop breaking my heart. Matthew is less complex, despite the teenage rebellion he seems to be going through in this series, but it's interesting the way the other two sort of orbit him like a sun, both protecting and not always quite seeing him as a real person. I also loved Jordan Hennessy and their whole situation, and they're a lot like Ronan used to be-- always the most explosive thing on the page.

Plot-wise, it took a twist I wasn't anticipating, and I think that could have been built up better in previous novels. On the other hand, it's probably best that Stiefvater scaled back a bit on the dreamer apocalypse. It always felt a little too big of a plot to handle. I wouldn't say I was fully invested in most of it, partly because I had no real sense of the villain and partly because I just didn't believe some of the things that were happening, but it was a fun ride overall. I like the way the world-building on dreamers, dreams, and sweetmetals is expanded in this series, and I like spending time with these characters. It feels like a more "adult" series in its grittiness than The Raven Cycle, and it doesn't come close to matching its magic.

#book review #greywaren #maggie stiefvater #the dreamer trilogy #dreamer trilogy #ya fantasy #ya urban fantasy #4/5 #rating: 4/5 #2022

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amethystroselily · 10 months

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I’m over halfway through the second book of the dreamer’s trilogy and Hennessy is such a tragic character to me, because when all of this is done what does she have? Like, Ronan’s actually invested in their cause and wants to be there, and when he inevitably changes his mind he has the barns, and Adam, and his brothers, and Gansey and Blue. Jordan, Declan, and Matthew are making a life for themselves in Boston and they’re happy, and even if something happens they’ll fall back on eachother. Hell, Farooq-Lane and Liliana have eachother and Carmen can always go back to her job in finances even if trying to prevent Liliana from accidentally exploding people and dealing with the repercussions of leaving the moderators proves to be an issue.

But Hennessy? What does she have? Her father doesn’t seem to give a fuck whether she’s alive or dead, most of her family died, the one person she truly cares about doesn’t really want to be a part of her life anymore and the saddest part about that is that Jordan is in the right there and Hennessy knows that, she knows that she’s stifling Jordan and that she deserves to truly live, and that’s got to hurt so much. And She doesn’t even really want to be a part of whatever Bryde’s doing, she knows it’s going to end badly. And she’s probably going to end up tricked into starting the apocalypse if Bryde isn’t stopped. And if there is a happy ending, she’s what? Stuck with Ronan? Neither of them are particularly nice to eachother but he takes it further than her most of the time. He desperately wants to keep her close but in his attempts to do so he is so cruel to her, and besides that he’s also probably ruining her a life a little (you know with the potential apocalypse starting). But honestly he might be her best bet at this point. And is she just going to go back to art forgery or like live on Ronan’s farm (which honestly might be worse) or something?

Like, I’m sure Jordan will still be willing to talk to her on occasion. And maybe she’ll make some new connections, or become friends with Farooq-lane and Liliana, or Ronan will stop being a dick to her once Bryde’s not in control. And maybe preventing the apocalypse will give a new sense of purpose and confidence. So like I guess she’ll probably be ok, but it’s looking a little rough right now.

#jordan hennessy #reading the dreamers trilogy #the dreamers trilogy spoilers #mister impossible spoilers #hennessy tdt

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neurosses · 6 months

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And how was it the second time

anon, this is a thesis type question that I will attempt to answer succinctly <3

I was reading it to re-familiarize with Jordan and Hennessy primarily because I want to write them in a future fic, and it (it being the Dreamer Trilogy) is so good... when you set expectations.

Call Down the Hawk is really good book! I love all the Lynch family dynamics and learning about Hennessy's circle of clones (I love you, Jordan! Woman who wants to live her own life! Who wants a career and romance and to be great!); tons of iconic imagery, like Matthew looking over the Potomac River, or Hennessy drowning in night-wash, or Hennessy and Ronan reiterating over Hennessy's trauma in Lindenmere. Ronan's insecurity about his relationship with Adam is such a ghost in the machine, visible in all/most of the decisions he makes in the book/series. His friendship with Hennessy — two assholes who are drowning, out of hope, left behind (a fate both prescribed by the world and by themselves) — was incredible.

The worst part of it was all the rumors about Bryde; I understand that Ronan created the rumors, but they became really tedious. Also, (personal opinion) but the Liliana chapters were really, really hard to get through.

Mister Impossible is alright. I loved how it took us down the road of Hennessy and Ronan's indoctrination into a cult, and the changing settings as a cool backdrop for Hennessy and Ronan's fraught, dark friendship. Matthew's arc was incredible. Jordan and Hennessy's character development and changing relationality to each other was lovely (Hennessy's memories of her mother and the highway scene where she pushes Jordan away are easily some of the best scenes between TDT/TRC). I loved the idea of Declan, Jordan and Matthew's new lives unfolding in Boston. And Ronan's self-implosion at the end when he pushes away everyone he cares about (Declan, Adam, Hennessy, Matthew implicitly) trying to play hero to an idealized narrative he created via Bryde was iconic, even though I was screaming at him <3

However: HATED Bryde + HATED the Moderators in general. Carmen Farooq-Lane had a lot of potential (Declan Lynch brand of sister-daughter trauma FR) but she wasn't written well enough.

Greywaren is... not good, especially the second half. But it's such a lore-dump of information and some chapters were incredibly beautiful. The Numquam Solas dream. Hennessy's self-actualization as an artist and dreamer. Jordan and Declan's incredible romance. Every single Mór and Niall flashback (they were so mutually delusional — the unreliable narration! ah!!). Ronan and Adam being wanted, being wanted, being wanted. I was even charmed by the Hennessy/Farooq-Lane romance because I wanted so badly for Hennessy to try at love, even if I didn't personally care that much about Farooq-Lane.

However, the ending is very rushed. Matthew's arc was cut short IMO and there should've been more Lynch-on-Lynch confrontation in general after both that betrayal but also because of the way things ended off between the three brothers at the end of MI. A proper Ronan and Hennessy was due, also! Declan being Niall's favorite is just a lie to me and if Maggie Stiefvater was going to do it that way at all, @friendofcars suggested she ought to have leaned into the self-iterating cyclical bleakness of it — which I totally agreed with! The Visionary lore felt cluttered and wasted because the sweet-metal lore was both already there and also better. Psychics could've and should've been used to predict the apocalypse. Nathan was a dumb and ill-thought-up villain. Mór and the New Fenian living at the Barns was a hate crime against me personally. Ugh!

Overall, I would classify the series as good-bad. It's bad but also good but also bad but also good.

#trc/tdt meta #self-tagging so i can find this laters #asks #anon #thanks for asking! i love thinking abt trc/tdt

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pynchdivorce · 1 year

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my first time around i definitely was reading the (first two) dreamers books through the ptsd/dissociative lense. jordan as an alter of hennessy, with flashback like "dream episodes". as well as the lace being a literal physical manifestation of hennessy's past which she is incapable of facing. which is true to the text but also that was just where i was at and what i needed from the books at the time. but this time? this time is reads to me like a love letter to the life of an artist. the central drive of this series seems to me a deep deep love of creation... it's brimming from every page, this is a story for artists. or maybe, for people who thought they were artists and one day woke up and realised theyd been approaching art all wrong, that theres more to beauty than a perfect copy. for the artist who's had to face the reality that they will devote their whole life to this, that it's not a choice really. for people obesessed with beauty whove come out on the other side and learned to love ugliness. it's like in the raven cycle how each character's car represents a little bit of their soul; how we choose to face the human need to create reveals in us something important. when jordan makes that mistake - a paintbrush slip - she lets go of control over the direction of the paint, the direction of her fate. declan made her laugh and she choses to make that mark the centrepiece of the painting. thats art. thats love. and yes the pain and the loss and the fear and the acts of destruction are there too but what is destruction if not symbiotic with creation... to paint a portrait you have to ruin a perfectly clean white canvas.

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lovvelorrn · 2 years

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okay so i finished greywaren last night (super late and now i’m tired but oh well) and here is what i enjoyed the most (SPOILERS AHEAD OFC):

declan. just that man being at his limit. he got shot, somehow lived and he said ‘fuck me. i gotta keep living???? this is exhausting’. i love that man with my entire heart.

mor and niall’s story. i’m sorry i’m a sucker for that kind of plot twist. are you telling me NIALL LOVED DECLAN after ALL THIS TIME? he literally decided to keep ronan (to try to learn how to love such a thing) BECAUSE of his love for declan and declan (and subsequently us) spent the better part of 7 books (his entire adolescence and adulthood) thinking niall was the motherfucker that hated his sons??? wow. just wow.

carmen + hennessy. they were HOT okay. it was a good time reading them. also felt a deep connection with carmen’s way of expressing her feelings.

MATTHEW . the moment he punched declan and went on his self discovery journey (aka going to see bryde) was chef’s kiss.

adam my son my lover my wife my babygirl … i’ve missed you so much.

okay and now things i didn’t like so much:

ronan is barely on here. he feels like a secondary character (declan is faaar more interesting here than him). like he has chapters but he’s out of it for 90% of the book and he has little to no dialogue (he has monologues but they aren’t the same). his character felt a lil reduced by the end but i guess the plot was as important this time around . i just missed him as i was reading and that was a weird feeling considering this was his book and story.

the end? it felt rushed. not saying anything new here but yeah.. matthew was dead and it was like.. no search party not anything to find him/his body? like they literally gave up on him lmao

the way we got to see important scenes through the eyes of other characters??? like the ronan/adam reunion, or when they rejoined in the sweetmetal and they ‘talked and apologized” but we didn’t get to see it?? why??? that was sooo important idk idk. it all derives from ronan not having like - scenes.

jordan was so absent on this book? i missed her a lot. yeah

why did no one shoot nathan farooq lane BEFORE he went to sleep like what the fuck????? the moment they stepped foot in that house he should’ve been dead . it’s not like he was keeping jordan or adam alive? ALSO a way to make him relevant to stay alive could’ve been if carmen was somehow a dream of nathan, and killing him meant killing carmen. that would’ve sort of explained it but??? it didn’t make any sense that he was kept alive for so long.

so yeah those are my first thoughts on greywaren. at the end of the day i still loved it but it has some flaws that make me sad bc of this being the last book ever etc etc

#greywaren #greywaren spoilers

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kelliealtogether · 2 years

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We all agree that the invisible car (I forgot her name) is with Bryde now, right? He deserves it after being birthed into this world with nothing but sadness (I hope he's learning how to be happy, maybe he listened to Matthew and he's gonna be surprisingly the only character that gets therapy lmao)

I don't remember what happened to Niall's Ronan's car, tho? Did it get destroyed somewhere in td3? Did Ronan dream himself a new one after things settled down, do you think? (The silly thoughts that keep me up at night lol)

Also think Ronan (Matthew and Jordan too) were dreamt to age, so they will eventually die of old age. I feel a bit bad for Fenian because one day Mor will die and then what? He gonna hook up with Bryde??? Lol (the only one who's gonna live a looong time unless he's actually back to his Side somehow?) he's been dreamt with a lot of feelings and It's sad to think he's not gonna have anywhere to put them one day.

I know it was more about Ronan longing for love and acceptance and a bit of the time being a circle thing, but I will clutch the belief that the dream of being dead is actually Ronan and his fam fucking off to the afterlife together after they're done with this world lmao

The last sighting of Burrito, the hard-to-see-but-not-invisible car, is at the end of Mister Impossible, when Bryde and Ronan are dreaming in Connecticut. My assumption is that Bryde at least drove Burrito from there to Boston, and that he took Ronan with him and dropped Ronan off at the Medford Assistance Center, because I don't know how else Ronan would have gotten there. (Maybe this was covered and i was reading so voraciously I missed it.) Then Bryde drove to the MFA and ditched Burrito before going to steal The Kiss. Current status of Burrito: Unknown.

The last sighting of the BMW is at the end of Call Down the Hawk before Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde face off against the Moderators and then zoom off on the hoverboard. There is no mention of it after this that I can find. Is it still at Great Falls? Did Declan retrieve it and bring it back to the Barns? Current status of the BMW: Unknown.

I don't even know if Bryde is alive to get therapy at this point? My interpretation is that the explosion at the MFA was Bryde going Visionary. Whether this actually killed him, like Liliana's last vision killed her, is unclear, because then he shows up in the shared dream at the end to dream the orb that slows Nathan's bomb (unless this was just Ronan manifesting Bryde again in the dream as a hail Mary?). Matthew only mentions Bryde became a Visionary and changed ages, though Ronan says Bryde is dead in the aforementioned shared dream. Current status of Bryde: Unknown.

(All the logic behind the Visionary stuff is still a little murky for me.)

With the new Fenian, I don't care enough about him as a character to feel sad for him, honestly. That whole subplot didn't hit for me. 🤷‍♀️ But that might just be because I'm too dumb to understand it.

And I like your interpretation of Ronan's funeral dream, anon. 😌 Time is definitely a circle in this universe, and the end is always the beginning.

#greywaren spoilers #greywaren #the dreamer trilogy

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crimeronan · 1 year

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hi i'm so curious what does "very jordan hennessy of them" mean on the grimwalker post? who is jordan hennessy?

on this post? :)

jordan hennessy is a character / two characters in the dreamer trilogy by maggie stiefvater (first book call down the hawk). hennessy is a woman with out-of-control magic who has been accidentally making clones of herself for a decade. jordan is the first clone and doesn't have any of hennessy's deeply traumatic memories or chronic illness.

whenever a new clone joins them, jordan is the one who's comforting and caring for and explaining the situation to them while trying her best to keep everyone sane, safe, whole, and alive.

hennessy, on the other hand, mocks, belittles, kills, and drives more than half of the clones to suicide. despite jordan's best efforts to shield them from her. despite how badly this is traumatizing and hurting jordan. despite the clones' undeniable personhood. because she hates herself and refuses to see the clones as anything other than an extension of her own inadequacy.

you'd be surprised to hear that they're BOTH protagonists and, i think, they might be the best dual protagonists of all time. hennessy means a lot to me for various personal reasons. but she is... not a good person. and has been abusing / taking advantage of jordan and the others for a Long time

if you like grimwalker horror tragedies and clone questions and bodily autonomy stories, you might enjoy them :333

#replies #toh #cdth #hennessy #jordan #previous golden guards #caleb wittebane #suicide m #abuse m

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hklnvgl · 2 years

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HI!!! It's time for our usual back and forth lol. What are you thinking of when it comes to: the ending of MI and what is up with GREYWAREN!??

omg i'm so so so very late 🙃 i planned on answering this after rereading mi but i kept not getting on to that and it turns out i've just finished it now (and my greywaren copy still hasn't arrived so I'll just use this as an excuse to list all the questions I have right now!)

(no greywaren spoilers pretty please!)

so. i already knew it but mister impossible is a damn brilliant book. all the foreshadowing that went into it and how the clues were sown into the plot! it's a lesson on good writing. I won't be able to be sure until i read the final book but reading the dreamer trilogy feels like having all the good things i loved about trc (the characters! the setting! the clever dialogues! the amazing prose!) BUT with a great plot on top of it! it's just so good 💛

the ending of mi fucked me up the first time and omg i've got so many questions! whose voice was it that matthew heard in his dream? who dreamt sherry's child? and who the fuck dreamt the moderators omg. when did ronan dream bryde? why doesn't he wake up? at first i thought it couldn't be that he was also a dream but now I'm not so sure? also is the lace like hennessy's cabeswater? what was going on with nathan farooq-lane? did jordan paint a sweetmetal? 🤭 I can't wait to find out!

as for predictions, well. I do want to see adam wake up of course! and pynch talking on page is always 💕💕💕 I want to see if those visionaries' visions of the end of the world do come true. i want to see hennessy and jordan reuniting! matthew should get to go to school. opal should get to bite bryde. the handcat should get to never appear on page again. let's see how many of these I got right ✨

(I just know I'll love it no matter what I'm just playing around! let's hope my copy arrives next week 🤭)

#again please don't send any spoilers my way!#thanks a lot for the ask!!! I'm really sorry it took so long it's been a weird year 🙃#i only remembered mi in emotions #not in plot facts!#it's always lovely hearing from you 💛💛#ask #creativefiend19 #d #tdt

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booksandwords · 2 years

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Upside Down by N.R. Walker

Read time: 3 Days Rating: 5/5

The quote: "All I want really big and rock-hard on a guy is his IQ, and what I consider to be hardcore porn is a picture of a guy reading a book with a hard cover. Soft-core porn is a paperback, and browsing Amazon is my version of PornHub, okay?" — Jordan O’Neill

Warnings: homophobia, acephobia, debatably sexual assault (main character, past relationship)

Most of this review is just my fave quotes from the book. 🥰 It is a joy when one of your favourite writers writes about your people, and these really are my people. Importantly for that, I guess, this is set in Australia, using our language though not to the extent that it would be illegible to others. It is worth noting that Hennessey and Jordan both have darkness in their pasts pertaining to previous romantic relationships, family and their dual asexual and gay identities. So warnings for homophobia, acephobia, debatably sexual assault. Look he claims it was consensual, but it was far from enthusiastic consent and it upset me, as was the point.

One of the two protagonists, Jordan, feels like me or eerily similar to me in training. Jordan O'Neill is a librarian who works in the stunning Surry Hills Library in Sydney's inner suburbs, he comes across as slightly clumsy, swears A LOT and most importantly he's a baby ace. He's at first trying to figure out if he is asexual and if he can be comfortable wearing that label along with his others (including gay) then he starts trying to reconcile his attraction to Hennessy with his ace-ness. You cannot read this if you cannot take harsh language. Jordan loves to swear. His favourite word is motherfucker. There is the rather memorable passage "Motherfucker, motherfucker, mother-fucking-fucker. I’m so stupid. I felt awful. My stomach was in knots, my heart was aching, my mind was a motherfucking mess." (Jordan). He swears when he's excited, swears when he's stressed, swears when he's sad. I like it, it suits him, it suits a young Australian. I mean he even swears at work, much to the chagrin of his manager. Jordan is gorgeous, he makes me smile. I love his constant swearing and anxiety. Hennessy is just sweet and knows how to handle Jordan and his anxiety well. Their relationship is just sweet, that soft flirting on a bus and their funny audience. Hennessy Lang is just sweet, known at first as Headphones Guy, then Hennessy the Headphone Guy. Hennessey runs an aspec support group and catches the same bus as Jordan every day. He works as a network security expert, honestly, it sounds kinda fascinating. Hennessey is so self-assured and feels not worldly per se but confident in guiding and helping others on their aspec journey. He's a comfortable character, he feels so different to Jordan while definitely on the same wavelength. But Hennessey doesn't feel as I don't know unique maybe as Jordan, I certainly don't relate to him on the same level. Overall Theirs is a sweet story of coming to terms with yourself, your identity, your limitations and how to be yourself with someone else.

The support cast. The Soup Crew are quite possibly the funniest wider supporting cast I've read in a long time. If they don't make you laugh I'm not sure anything will. Honestly, I think I've almost been those people. Jordan summed them up in one line "So God help me. The Soup Crew really were a bunch of weird and wonderful motherfuckers.". The idea of Hennessy and Jordan's relationship creating friendships among their supporters is a good one. Anyone who catches the same public transport at the same time on a regular basis knows the sensation of hey it's you. And has possibly seen people change over time. I know people watched me grow up when I was catching the bus daily for school. I know this because people commented on it when I was in my final days of year 12 and later 'haven't seen you in a while, how is life post high school', also regular horn honks from bus drivers while I'm walking. Other than them and more important than them in many ways are Merry Jordan's best friend and work colleague, Angus his housemate and Michael Hennessey's friend and colleague. These three all want what is best for their respective person. Even if they have doubts about the other party there is both trust and a want to defend their soft souls. Merry in particular threatens Hennessey with violence more than once if he dares hurt Jordan. Micheal is the poly rep with his wife whom we do meet albeit a little briefly. Angus, Angus is something like a brother to Jordan. But he is very, very odd. He needs to be read to be experienced.

Some of my fave quotes and comments on them

“We see repeatedly, we’re told repeatedly, it’s shown, it’s implied, it’s blatant that sex equals love. That we’re not complete without it. That sexual intimacy is the pinnacle of all relationship goals.” — (Hennessey) This with a tone of slight disappointment, and frustration. But an absolute mood for my aspec sibs. We've all had a moment of exasperation while trying to explain that this whole thing is bullsh*t.

“There’s a difference between normal behaviour and normalised behaviour,” Nataya said. “Normal is subjective. And by whose definition should we fit anyway? Do we take normality from people like my grandma who is horrified by just about everything we see on the internet, or do we take normality from guys who think it’s normal and completely okay to send dick pics to people they’ve never met?” — (Nataya) It is that first line that is critical to real-life and aces know that better than most. But while the first line has the most highlights in the book, I wanted to include the whole thing. The full quote explains the first line.

"I didn’t want to admit the asexual thing to myself for a long time, and I’m thinking it will take some getting used to. Like breaking in a pair of Doc Martens, ya know? Like they’re uncomfortable and tight and basically kill your feet until they’re the most comfortable shoes you’ll ever wear. They become like a second skin, and I’m pretty sure this whole asexual thing will be like that.” He made a thoughtful face. “I like that analogy.” — (Jordan and Hennessey) I too really like this analogy. I've had to come to terms with my aspec identity and all the things it means, more the cultural milestones losses, the broader implications and I have broken in Doc Martens too. Yeah, they kinda feel like the same thing.

And his eyes when I admitted it wasn’t music I was listening to… well, his grey-coloured eyes melted like silver, warm amber with hints of blue and green. And he smelt really good, and his nervous rambling was kinda cute. — (Hennessey) This about Jordan, I mean obvs. It's the description of his eyes they are gorgeous and this is a helluva way to describe them. And Hennessey is the analytical of the two, not the more creative one. Though there is creativity in what looks a lot like white hat hacking when he talks about it.

“Thanks. I like to add a little colour to an otherwise drab uniform.” “It matches, every day,” I said. “Of course it does.” He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “I’m gay. Of course it fucking matches.” — (Jordan and Hennessey) I unashamedly love Jordan. It's Jordan that adds colour to his uniform every day, brightly coloured scarf and shoes, coordinated perfectly with his jacket. They always match and some of the colours are outrageous. But it was the last line that made me laugh... out loud... on the train.

“Sarcasm is in the self-help section, by the way.” “Self-help?” "Yes, so you can pull your head out of your own arse.” I barked out a laugh. “Are you always so funny?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s a fine line between comedy and horror. It could go either way.” — (Jordan and Hennessey) We do a love library/ Dewey Decimal joke. This is basically

“She’s the best. She knows how to deal with me.” “Which is…?” “Well, that depends. She either tells me to pull my head out of my arse and stop being such a dick, or she talks me back from the ledge. It totally depends on what I need more, which she seems to know better than me. And I work at the library.” — (Jordan and Hennessey) This about Merry. Merry is the best friend Jordan could ask for. We see her build him up, we see her talk him off the ledge and it's her that encourages him to push his limits, push through his discomfort for his betterment.

“Was that during one of my nervous ramblings, because you can probably disregard anything and all I ever say when I’m like that.” I chuckled. “I think it might be the opposite. I think the filter comes off and you say what’s really on your mind.”

I chuckled. “I think it might be the opposite. I think the filter comes off and you say what’s really on your mind.” — (Jordan and Hennessey) To this point I hadn't picked up on this point of Jordan's ramblings. Hennessey is transparent with Jordan and intuitive. Hennessey shares his insights with the audience

“It’s like a treehouse,” I whispered. Jordan grinned. “Isn’t it awesome?” “Pretty sure whoever designed this was a reader or someone who really loved books.” — (Hennessy and Jordan) Surry Hills Library is library p*rn, it's fu**ing stunning. Thank God it's not "architecturally designed" as is the joke made in my library technician TAFE course (Fiona if you do ever read this Laura and I have never forgotten those moments). Or designed by committee which is even worse. Basically, the libraries and spaces designed by architects (without consultation with library staff) are horrendous and usually borderline impractical. I'm wondering if this might be where NR Walker does her writing and research. I really want to go there now. I guess I'll add it to my library tour bucket list. I've got half a chance I only live 12hrs away, I go back to Sydney one day.

"And about the breed of bird you made up, do they look like puffins? Because they’re the cutest bird I’ve ever seen. You know, if one was curious.” “If one was curious, they’d be pleased to know the Australian Pygmy Puffin is far cuter than the Atlantic Puffin. Like all Australian animals, they look adorable but are either venomous, poisonous, or just total jerks.” “The Pygmy Puffin?” I asked, smiling. “Yes. Small fluff balls, incredibly rare. There are three rules when handling them: One, no bright light. Two, don’t get them wet. And three, never feed them after midnight, no matter how much they beg.” — (Hennessey and Jordan) Okay I lost it at this exchange. There is context but do you really need it? This is kinda where their conversations go off into wonderland.

“He quoted Lewis Carroll,” I tried to say, but it was barely a squeaky breath. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered. Her eyes went from my phone to me, then back again. “So that’s it then. I’ll start planning the wedding.” — (Jordan and Merry) Merry is bestie goals. This kind of dry deadpan humour is key to her.

“Ask him why we send something by car and call it shipment but send stuff by ship and call it cargo? Or why do our feet smell and our noses run? Or why the number eleven isn’t pronounced onety-one? Is Disneyland a people trap operated by a mouse?” — (Rachel) Another quote where there is context to do with philosophical questions prompted by "Why isn’t cereal considered to be or called a soup?" and “Do you think maths is something we invented or something we discovered?” from Jordan. This is Rachel's sense of humour. Also, all three questions just made me think. I couldn't help it.

I’m no expert in art, but I know books, and there is such a misconception about what genre people prefer. I don’t give a fuck what people read, as long as they read. From manga to gardening books, it doesn’t matter, and why people scoff at romance, I’ll never know. Because isn’t it a beautiful thing? Romance, that is. People wanting a happy ending. How is that ever wrong? — (Jordan) I have no words for this other than it speaks to my librarian soul.

“Celebrity you’d love to meet?” “Percy Shelley but I’ll need a priest, a Ouija board, and the blood of a chicken.” — (Hennessey and Jordan) Just what??

Oh, and your questions earlier. My tattoo is the Marvel Avengers’ A, you know, but in black, grey, white, and purple, like the ace flag. Kind of like my superhero shield. — (Hennessey) I love this tattoo so much. And I like the idea of mixing our flag colouring and a beloved fandom iconography. I would so do this with the dagger I've wanted for years.

“Like I said before, desire and attraction are not the same thing. To experience sexual desire does not make someone less asexual than someone else. Asexual people can engage in sexual pleasure. It doesn’t make them any less asexual. Sometimes our bodies betray our minds, and it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. Your asexuality is still valid.” — (Hennessey) This is from an extensive passage or series of passages from Hennessey about desire vs pleasure. In some ways because Jordan is such a baby-ace and Hennessey is his first real contact with the aspec community and a guide somewhat to him this makes sense. But what he really becomes is something of an educator to the reader, particularly readers who don't know much about what asexuality really is.

“Really? Dick jokes?” “Yes. Dick jokes. I’m asexual, not dead." — (Jordan and Hennessey) No comment. Just 🍆😆

In the interest of full disclosure any book that uses aspecs well, that explores asexuality gets an automatic five stars from me. We just need more representation. And Upside Down does explore asexuality well. That idea of coming to terms and adjusting to your new self and learning how to be that person with someone else. This has so much joy, power and representation. This is an Australian author going where so few dare to tread, with two ace protagonists and a setting in their own backyard. Better yet Hennessy and Jordan are fun, funny and written in a way that makes you just want them to be happy. Hopefully together but if with other people so be it. With an uber supportive and highly amusing support cast to boot. I really recommend this as a way to see a different world.

#upside down #n.r. walker #readaustralian #queer #dymocksreadingchallenge #asexuality #spoilers on goodreads #read 2022 #ktreviews #book review #booklr

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