Review: Draw the Line

Draw the Line by Laurent Linn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've seen this book on the shelves at work a few times, and eventually, I convinced myself to pick it up on account of its pretty promising artwork and also the promise of a relatable queer protagonist. Laurent Linn delivers on both, though not without a few glitches. Some of which lay in the realm of this book being quite long - 500-plus pages for a debut contemporary YA, seriously? But also because as much as the book brings quite a bit of diversity to the table, it's not without its problems. Frequent homophobia including repeated use of slurs, for one thing, though I suppose that's still a pretty accurate reflection of small-town Texas. Not to mention bits of problematic behavior among our protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist. Like, there's a scene where Adrian talks about Trent claiming he was asexual after a bad breakup, and then goes on to invalidate the very idea of Trent being ace just 'cause he's a teen boy. Not to mention how, despite being marginalized, pretty much all the friends (especially Adrian and Audrey) have a tendency to forget each other's specific issues and center their own above all else. But hey, all this problematic behavior can be explained by the fact that they're teenagers and imperfect - and a damn sight better than the bullies, although there's some unexpected complexity there too. I'm talking about a scene that owes more than a bit to a certain confession in The Breakfast Club.

But what really sells this book for me, in addition to the surprisingly sweet romantic storyline that gives me some good Simon Vs. style feels, is the artwork, of course. Not only Adrian's beautiful Graphite comic, but even the silly stuff - like the drawing Lev makes of the French teacher as a police officer chasing Adrian with a baguette, and the giant sign reading "INTERDIT DE RIRE," mais j'ai ri beaucoup quand même.

I hope Linn gives us another book soon. Heck, especially if it's a full-length graphic-novel adaptation of Graphite.

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Review: Truly Devious

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really more of a 3.5, but I'll round this one up to a 4 - and hope that my generosity helps speed things up on the still-upcoming fourth and final Shades of London novel. Or maybe not, because it looks like Johnson's gonna be prioritizing this series instead - and yes, it's planned as a trilogy, at the very least, which explains the massive cliffhangers right at the end, including one that had me laugh out loud from mingled surprise, amusement, and exasperation. And, to paraphrase Shaun David Hutchinson's review, those cliffhangers essentially ensure that this first book doesn't bring the central mystery to much, if any, closure - which is actually pretty irritating.

There's good to Truly Devious, though. It's got a slow start, and it's setting up a lot of characters we know are doomed, and some of them are downright unlikable. I'm looking at you, Hayes. Nate too, a little bit, because sometimes he draws on the worst aspects of Jonathan Byers and Jughead on Riverdale, looking like he's willfully isolating himself and cultivating an "insufferable weirdo" vibe, but of course there's more to him than being a tortured artist.

A lot of characters also bring some marginalized rep to the table. Some better than others - for instance, when Janelle starts going out with Vi, she at one point corrects Stevie for calling Vi "her," telling her Vi's pronouns are they/them. And yet this is pretty much the only time throughout the entire book we get any sign that Vi's an enby - all other times, the narrative either uses she/her or carefully avoids pronouns altogether, which leaves me seriously scratching my head. Could be that Vi would use she/they - I've seen a few bios on Twitter of people who indicate their pronouns thusly - but otherwise, I'm gonna chalk that up to a copyediting mistake and hope, for enby readers' sakes, that Johnson has it corrected in future printings. Janelle, though, gives us some good queer rep (her exact sexuality isn't specified, though I'm gonna guess she's pan and leaning towards the lesbian end of the Kinsey scale), and of course Stevie, our star of the show, has anxiety and panic disorders for which she's on medication.

The mystery elements of the story are, again, a little frustrating when they don't wrap up for the most part. Johnson clearly plans to spread these out over the rest of the series, connecting not only the historical crimes of the 30s to the murder that happens in the present day - and also implying some connection between the two with still-living people, including at least one who's hyped up as a major Politically Incorrect Villain and will likely be a Big Bad - if not the Big Bad - for the rest of the series.

That said, though, Truly Devious is a rewarding read because of how the pace builds up with a slow but exponential acceleration. And, just like fellow Maureen Johnson works, the Shades of London series, I'm already finding myself using it as a comp title when querying agents.

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Review: Thunderhead

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first book of Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe was pretty slow to start, but the sequel, Thunderhead, builds so wonderfully on its predecessor's world-building that it somehow feels like the first book is just so much prologue. But really, for this series, we're averting Sophomore Slump but good. Sure, it's a bit long and slow at times just like Scythe was, but that's because Shusterman makes room for a ton of complexities and characters, each of which gets room to propel the book forward. Citra and Rowan, of course. Greyson Toliver. Tyger. Scythe Curie. The Thunderhead itself, even if it has a few too many shades of Kaufman and Kristoff's Aidan (half the time it comes very close to directly asking, "Am I not merciful?")

What really sells Thunderhead, though, is how much it builds on the first book's themes of corrupt power. Rowan's going around making an effort to eliminate the corrupt - but it's not so easy in a world where people are capable of dying and then reviving, which means at least one of his enemies - including someone entirely unexpected, whom I cannot reveal here because of spoilers - doesn't just die and vanish from the rest of the story. (I'll admit, though, one of his best successes comes from his gleaning of Scythe Renoir, an irredeemable racist who goes after First Nations - or Permafrost people, as they're called in this future world - because he thinks they themselves are racist for keeping to themselves socially.) Citra, as Scythe Anastasia, tries a whole new method of dealing death, a more humane one - and, therefore, a more controversial one. And ultimately, the whole book builds up to a fraught campaign to disrupt the official changing of the guard in Scythe leadership by installing a vile, reprehensible assbutt who's decidedly unqualified for the top role, and will either rise to a gloating victory or burn the whole thing down in the event of defeat.

It all builds up to the most Aveyardian cliffhanger since the original Aveyardian cliffhanger in Glass Sword. No bloody joke.

The Toll can't come soon enough, gorrammit.

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Review: Batman: Nightwalker

Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Never thought I'd live to see the day when my five-star streak for Marie Lu books ended. (Well, in hindsight I'd probably rate The Midnight Star four stars, but I'm talking about reading a Marie Lu book and getting an instant five-star vibe here.) I think the main reason why Batman: Nightwalker didn't click for me as well as I was hoping was, not unlike The Midnight Star, it was just too short a book to let Lu's strengths truly shine. And there's a lot of tiny gripes I've got that seem to magnify themselves the more I think about them. Like how Bruce Wayne isn't really Batman here, not at age eighteen, while Leigh Bardugo's Wonder Woman: Warbringer really made it clear that we were getting a younger but no less iconic Diana. And it's not like the Gotham TV series where pre-Bats Bruce isn't the sole focus of the whole thing - Gotham is a big old crime-time soap filtered through a Burtonian lens, while Lu's book only gives us a 250-page glimpse into this particular 'verse. Not to mention the title villain group feels more than a bit formless, like a strange cross between Occupy and the Court of Owls, but more opportunistic than the former and less spooky than the other. And as for Madeline...interesting she was, but as a sort of femme fatale to confound and intrigue Bruce, she kinda fills Catwoman's role here, and doesn't that make Sarah J. Maas' upcoming Soulstealer a little redundant in that case?

But for its faults, this book has some pretty good strengths too. Mostly in terms of social commentary. Lu's no stranger to that, of course, not with the class warfare present in much of her earlier bibliography. But here, we get some pretty stark and standout moments - like, when Bruce is hospitalized after trying to chase down Nightwalkers in his souped-up Aston Martin, and runs into the police, and Lucius Fox tells him he's lucky he's a white guy or else he might have gotten worse than a concussion. Or, again, the Nightwalkers themselves. Like I said, they're a pretty nebulous group, but some of their schemes take their Occupy-inspired ideology to some sick, diabolical extremes. It reminds me a lot of how Bane was perceived as an allegory for Occupy in The Dark Knight Rises.

And then there's teenage Bruce himself. I already expected he'd be better than the version we got on Gotham - no offense to David Mazouz, but as good as his performance is, it doesn't make up for the fact that the show's writers basically pigeonhole him into playing a spoiled rotten assbutt (who, especially in the current season, has been hitting the club scene pretty hard, sex and drugs and rock and roll and all that.) Then again, Mazouz is playing a sixteen-year-old Bruce, I'm thinking. Or maybe seventeen. Either way, Lu writes Bruce as older, and while not fully mature, he's definitely wiser than his Fox TV counterpart all the same.

At this point, I'm thinking Bardugo's Wonder Woman will be the best DC Icons novel when all is said and done. That is, unless Salami impresses me with Soulstealer, though let's be honest, that's exceedingly unlikely. And unless they bring in a new author for the Superman novel, which they'd better now that the original author's been outed as a serial sexual harasser. I'd like to nominate Neal Shusterman or Jay Kristoff for the job myself. Or, even better, one of Supes' biggest fans, the great Sam Ayers.

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Review: Invictus

Invictus by Ryan Graudin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think this one's my favorite Ryan Graudin book yet. More connectable than The Walled City and more expansive in its historical and temporal scope than the Wolf by Wolf duology, it's also the most complex book I've seen Graudin give us. Not for nothing does it earn the comparison to Fringe, and also perhaps to A Thousand Pieces of You, but all condensed into a single story. Really, I'm hashing pissed this is only a standalone.

Perhaps the biggest point of contention for me was Graudin's use of futuristic swears. Some of them, like the aforementioned "hash" and "haze" as F-word substitutes, made a certain amount of sense. Characters making it a game of swearing in as many languages as they could was, for me, tons of fun. But then there was the constant use of "shazm," which was where Graudin's phony-swearing skills kinda deserted her. I think she was trying to go for something that sounded like a cross between Glader-speak and the mangled, kid-friendly swears of Dan Schneider's Nick Verse, particularly in the iCarly and Victorious days, but there's a reason why the Maze Runner movies largely did away with most of the Glader swears anyway.

Where Graudin really shines here, though, is plot and characters, both of which she crafts with complexity and intricacy the likes of which aren't seen as often as they should be in YA. Eliot is gonna get a lot of fans for sure because of her sheer deadliness, but the rest of the core cast are all a bunch of awe and some dorks even as they're hardened time heisters whom the system's wronged in some way or another. And while the story is rooted in the future, the world both past and present (relative to us) still impacts it and the people within quite strongly.

I eagerly await whatever Graudin gives us next, but again, I'm not happy it won't be Invictus 2.0 in any form.

And one more thing - who else was reminded of the opening to J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie with the prologue?

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Review: Radio Silence

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I got myself to think this book had autistic rep, but - correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't really mention that on the page. Oh well, even if not, I headcanon Aled as autistic anyway. And hey, Radio Silence is damn good about not skimping on the rep of any kind, particularly given that it's narrated by a girl who's bisexual (💗💜💙 FTW!) and biracial (English and Ethiopian, specifically), the male lead is demisexual and in an m/m relationship, his sister is gay herself, his boyfriend is Korean, our leading lady's friend is Indian...I could go on.

I'm giving this, my first Alice Oseman book, five stars for rep and also for feels. Seriously, she's that good an author in both respects, just like Adam Silvera or Shaun David Hutchinson. The feels are particularly strong with this one - a lot of humor, but also a lot of heartache poured out through Universe City and its in-universe fandom, and also the pain of teenagers struggling to balance their lives with their education.

I also have to provide a very strong trigger warning for parental abuse. There are quite a few scenes of Aled's mum being just plain awful, refusing to accept his agency as a man and invading his personal space as well. There's one scene in particular that, no shit, brought me to tears. Though I haven't experienced such abuse myself, I can very easily see myself having suffered it in a universe maybe half a remove from ours, if not a full one. I'm not going to explain exactly how close to home this hit for me, but if you know me well enough, you probably understand anyway.

This book, I'm not kidding, will wreck your heart if you read it and that's a promise. I'll leave you with the same GIF I add to every review I write for Adam Silvera's books.



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Black Panther: In Which Wakanda Is The World's Role Model

***NO SPOILERS FOR BLACK PANTHER, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU MOVIES, ESPECIALLY CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, ABOUND HEREIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

As I said last time I reviewed a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, it says a lot that the weakest link of the third phase so far has been Doctor Strange. And with the first of three big 2018 MCU releases now out and dazzling the world, Black Panther continues that trend of MCU excellence. But it also highlights black excellence every step of the way, with a good 80% or so of the cast being black, and much of the crew from director and co-writer Ryan Coogler on down as well. On a mission to impress Marvel fans and everyone else, nobody's slacking off, not in the slightest.

This king stands poised to change the world.

Though we've seen allusions to Wakanda pop in and out of previous Marvel movies, most notably in Age of Ultron when we first met Afrikaner arms dealer and vibranium thief Ulysses Klaue, it was in Civil War where we first got ourselves a hint of the magnificence Black Panther's homeland had to offer. A hint, or two, but nothing more than that, except maybe in the post-credits scene where we got to see Bucky Barnes go into cryo-sleep in a secret Wakandan lab. Other than that, there's no sign of just how advanced Wakanda is, blessed by the cosmos as it was when a vibranium meteorite impacted there hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. Blessed...to a point. As outlined in the movie's very first sequence, Wakanda's several tribes fought over possession of the vibranium until one warrior set out from the rest of the pack and, aided by a purple heart-shaped herb that enhanced his strength and agility, took leadership as the first Black Panther. Most of the tribes, save one, united with him and formed the Wakanda we know today - highly advanced and prosperous, but also hiding itself from the rest of the world for fear that outsiders, were they to know the truth, would come in and exploit Wakanda just as was done to the rest of Africa and other parts of the world.

It's this precise combination of fear and pride that shapes much of the movie thematically. Though Wakanda was never colonized by any Western powers, for many years the leadership has insisted on maintaining strict isolation. That isolation is already starting to break down as the movie begins proper, only a week after the explosion that killed T'Chaka in Civil War and left T'Challa to take his father's place as ruler.

Of course, it's not that simple, and while Civil War sets us up to think that T'Challa just gets the power as part of a familial dynasty, there's a lot more to it that's been saved for this movie. The aforementioned heart-shaped herb, for one thing - which makes it clear that as badass as T'Challa was the first time we saw him, he wasn't even at full potential. Not to mention how, at his coronation, he must stand before relatives and representatives of the other tribes and accept challenges of ritual combat from any who offers one. Only one does - M'Baku, leader of the mountain tribe which broke away from the rest of Wakanda and pretty much only comes down from their own isolation just to throw a wrench in what could otherwise have been a pretty smooth ceremony unanimously approved by all else in attendance. M'Baku and T'Challa fight in a very small pool of water perched at the edge of a waterfall, halfway up the walls of a massive canyon. Here, Coogler brings his experience directing Creed to the table - a fight scene in a pretty spacious area with numerous spectators, but the actual space for the fight is confined and dangerous. It certainly helps that the two men's respective guards keep narrowing a semicircle around them, their spears pointed in the whole time. But again, M'Baku is here more for disruption than anything else, to give the movie a chance to showcase some of its greatest strengths. Not only action, but natural beauty in all the ways.

It's only later, of course, that T'Challa gets a more serious threat to face. Not so much Klaue, who spends his time in the movie having a ball and hamming it up like he's some kind of big-name mogul. (He's actually pretty funny most of the time, at least until he starts saying some pretty racist stuff against the Wakandans and then nobody's laughing.) No, the real villain of this piece is Erik Stevens, aka Killmonger, who's got a surprising connection to Wakanda all his own but otherwise lives like an American. Without getting into spoilers, let's just say that he's one of the best villains in the MCU not only on the strength of Michael B. Jordan's kickass performance (when isn't he kickass, though?), but also because of his sympathetic backstory, rooted in an incident that took place when he was a boy in Oakland in 1992. (It's a very nice touch on Coogler's part, going back to his own Oakland roots.) And because (even though I'm not at all sure he means it) he talks a good game about changing the world and improving the lives of the downtrodden.

That's the biggest theme of the movie by far - a sort of "with great power comes great responsibility" but for entire nations. Wakanda, though prosperous, is secretly flawed, with a history of its most powerful men making some pretty terrible decisions for the good of the kingdom. Just like when Taika Waititi, as a Maori, filtered Thor: Ragnarok through a strong anti-imperialist lens and added quite a bit of Aboriginal-pride imagery, Black Panther showcases the continuing repercussions of colonialism and teaches that maybe the right solution isn't to add to a perpetual cycle of war, but to break down walls and pursue an agenda in favor of the collective, not the individual, greater good. Further underlining these themes are the differences in reactions to Killmonger between the men and women of Wakanda in general. Many of the men in T'Challa's inner circle have a way of cleaving to tradition at all costs. T'Challa's closest women advisers, however, tend to challenge tradition, are more loyal and dependable, and also prove to be dynamic, outside-the-box thinkers. None more so than Shuri, of course. Letitia Wright, as T'Challa's sharp-witted, whip-smart sister, carries more scenes than almost anyone else who's come before her in the MCU. She needs to meet her fellow MCU genii yesterday - Stark, Banner, FitzSimmons, and of course Daisy Freaking Johnson would all love to work with her, and she could help them all save the world in two seconds flat.

About the only flaws I can spot in this movie are really small ones - a bit of an overlength problem, but no more so than a lot of previous two-and-a-half-hour MCU tours, and also how some pieces of CGI (like a climactic fight sequence on the maglev train tracks in Wakanda's main vibranium mine) look a bit unfinished. Other than that, however, Black Panther has no problem securing its status as Marvel's latest A-grade masterpiece, thematically resonant and crafted with painstaking attention to detail. That attention will come in handy for further Black Panther films, and especially if and when Marvel commissions someone to write some damn good fantasy novels that allow us to really explore all of Wakanda.

Till next time, Pinecones...

#FeedTheRightWolf

Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always.

Review: The Cruel Prince

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sooooooooooo...I think this is my third attempt at trying a different Holly Black book, and while I surely like this one better than the earlier books of hers I've tried (Tithe and The Coldest Girl in Coldtown), that doesn't really say much when neither of those other books were anything special to me, and this one, while not a total failure for me, suffered from being equal parts infuriating and boring. Mostly because of the title character, an epic asshole cut from the same cloth as Rhysand back in the early ACOTAR days before character development really set in. Not that Black doesn't give him character development, but even that feels at times like a Rhysand rip-off - like, his cruelty is the result of constant abuse, that sort of thing. And...I mean, I've got a soft spot for a few bad boys of this type, most notably Kylo Ren (come on, the poor guy wants to be good but everyone else pigeonholes him.) But Cardan...I feel like Black wants to fill the void of "bad boy fae you can't help but love" that Julie Kagawa's Ash left open, and Cardan can't fill those shoes no matter how damn hard he tries.

That said, though, I loved Jude's character, if only because, flawed as she is, she ain't no damsel in distress, and you'll never forget it. Vivi was another standout for me too - I'd much rather have a book where she was the star of the show. And while the storyline tends to move very slowly in this book, when it's moving fast, it moves FAST. And bloody violent too - there's one scene in particular that owes a lot to the Red Wedding. No joke.

So this one's more of a 2.5 for me, but I'll round it up to a 3 and hope that if I pick up the sequel, Black will give us something bigger and better. With that ending, there's no reason why she shouldn't.

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Review: Runebinder

Runebinder by Alex R. Kahler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Happy Valentine's Day from the world of YA, I suppose, with this book that packs a postapocalyptic punch of fantasy and paranormal and elementals and romance. Alex R. Kahler is going on my list of authors I need to read more of, just based on the promise I'm seeing here. Combining the heat level of Shatter Me and the heart-in-throat action of The 100, this, the story of a young man named Tenn who fights monsters and doesn't make an effort to hide his emotions on a regular basis. Also, did I mention the all-male love triangle? I can't say I've ever seen one of those - the Half Bad trilogy is probably the closest I've come to seeing one. And while I'm sure my ship isn't gonna sail, I still can't help but root aggressively for Tenn and Jarrett. (Tennret?) Be warned, though - there is a TON of death in this book, and I mean a TON. There's also some pretty tantalizing hooks right at the end, and I understand Kahler's already announced a sequel which will at least partially focus on a new guy. To which all I can say is...bring it on.

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Review: The Last Colony

The Last Colony by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really more of a 3.5, but I'll round this one up to a 4 mostly because it brings back John Perry, that super-relatable and funny narrator of the original Old Man's War, and while it doesn't totally require reading the slightly inferior Ghost Brigades first, The Last Colony does benefit from continuing that book's storylines as well. This time around, though, the real enjoyment lies in the way Scalzi really pokes at the reader's brain, taking his ongoing story threads and giving them a very, very thought-provoking spin. Here, the humans have a pretty implacable enemy who wants to stand in the way of their colonization efforts, but that same enemy isn't nearly as lethal or murderous as the humans would have you believe, merely wanting to avoid colonization of the universe, period. As Haim say in "My Song 5," "I've been lied to, so what's the truth?" (Not exactly apropos, but not entirely a non sequitur either.)

It's a shame that this is, according to the author's note, the last we get to see of John Perry for now...but at least Scalzi's got several other books in this future universe, and maybe since then he'll have brought Perry back? I'll just have to read and find out.

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Review: The Belles

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been looking forward to this, Dhonielle Clayton's solo debut, for quite a while, and while The Belles wasn't quite perfect for me, it was damn good at doing its job - exploring beauty standards in a world where the beauty standards are outlandish and disturbing and cruel - not only to the people who agonize over how difficult it is to meet them, but also to the very Belles who are the people's only source of beauty, and yet cannot do so without actually harming them in the process. I mean, you thought the freakishly graphic description of Pretty-making surgery in Uglies was bad enough, or that "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" story you probably read in anthropology class like I did? Oh, you have no idea.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this story, I'd just like to bring up that as lovely as the cover is - especially on a screen, especially-especially in HD - the physical copy is printed with a super-blurry cover, likely because it's got one of those rough sort of dust jackets. I mean, couldn't Freeform Books have made a little more effort to make Camilla pop off the cover like she should? Especially against those bright pink endpapers detailing the world map. I guess all I can hope for is that my store got a bad batch, or that subsequent printings will correct this particular issue.

So...The Belles. I'll try to keep this spoiler-free, but there are certain trigger warnings to keep in mind for those who haven't read the book yet: attempted rape, bullying, murder, and assorted moments of queerphobia.

Reading this book, I found that Clayton tended to write it with long stretches of not much happening in terms of action. I mean, sure, there'd be people coming to the Belles for their beauty treatments, and also flashy newspaper ads that sound like they came out of Harry Potter - not only because they literally flash with quick changes, but also because many of them are written in a somewhat Rita Skeeter-esque sensationalist tone (which might explain why one such headline misgenders a citizen who's coming out as a trans girl, the source of the transphobia accusations that's dogged this book off and on in the months leading up to its publication) - and also a lot of emphasis on character interaction, particularly between Camilla and her fellow Belles, or Camilla and a mysterious boy, Auguste, who you know is gonna be important later. Character emphasis, yes, but it does sometimes feel like plot is sacrificed as a result because you know shit's gonna hit the fan, but when?

The good news is, Clayton loads more of the plot-driving moments towards the latter half of the book, which could make for a pretty rewarding experience by the time you power through it all. The bad news is, a lot of those plot-driving moments are problematic to some degree. The attempted rape, for instance, though that's nothing more than an attempt that ends in the would-be rapist getting a hell of a lot more than he bargained for. Also the bullying and murder, which the sadistic Princess Sophia (who reminded me a hell of a lot of Danielle Paige's Dorothy, to the point where I kept expecting her to say something like "Quelle surprise, bitches!") forces Camilla and other Belles to carry out on others in the court. (For the Belles don't just manipulate your appearance - they have more of the Corporalnik powers from the Grishaverse too.) The murder is also super-problematic because it's a queer girl who dies. As a queer reader, I'm not particularly offended by "bury your gays" in settings where queerness isn't exactly a character's top defining trait - The 100 TV series being one of the biggest examples - but since I'm a dude, don't take my opinion too seriously. I will further say, though, that using certain story developments (which, knowing Clayton, I'd be very surprised if she hadn't written them with all the sensitivity) to suggest that Dhonielle Clayton is herself lesbophobic and/or queerphobic, especially in light of this article where she talks about growing up a closeted bi girl, strikes me as pretty problematic in and of itself.

What Clayton does super right any way you slice it, though, is her world-building. Between the liberal use of French terminology, the lavish details to describe the setting, and the creepily intimate nature of the Belles' work, she, again, does her job and then some with this book. Over time, we get tiny hints about secret trouble behind the scenes, secrets swept aside by those higher up - and when some of those secrets finally come out, I was reminded very strongly of a certain key moment near the end of Snowpiercer. Not only because of the way we get to see the ways those most important to keeping society running are horribly, unspeakably abused, but also because, fantastical though this setting may be, it's hard not to read it as Clayton pinning...well, maybe not ninety-five theses, but certainly a few dozen, to the door and standing by to watch as people read her critique on capitalism. That, plus unreasonable beauty standards and racism and colorism, get thoroughly skewered by the time the 400-plus pages of The Belles are over.

Long story short, if you haven't read this book - and don't find yourself triggered by anything I've warned for above - I do recommend you pick it up as soon as possible. Dhonielle Clayton deserves your love too.

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Three Years Of Blogging, Etc.

Hard to believe it's been three years since we found out Marvel and Sony decided to shit-can Andrew Garfield. Dick move, studios, and I still, to this day, hope that if my books are ever published, Sony is the one major studio that doesn't get the film rights, between this shenanigans and their tendency to spoil almost the entire movie in all their trailers.

In the meantime, though, my books still aren't published, or even picked up by any literary agents. And I still can't be an out-and-proud bi dude in my own house, though I'm a lot more comfortable being so at work, oddly enough. Though, of course, all of this is small potatoes compared to the fact that America is still a shambling zombie nation until such a time as proper, true leadership is restored. And to think they're doing their damnedest to pretend all our freedoms of information shouldn't exist. Taken for granted they may have been, but hopefully no longer.

As with last year's blogoversary post, I don't have a lot new to say, as you can see. Other than this: I'm in therapy now, and I'm hoping it helps me surmount my anxiety and depression as best I can. Though the very first exercise my therapist suggested - progressive muscle relaxation - might not work at the moment. It's supposed to determine where the anxiety and depression rest in my body, and since my whole body aches 'cause I've got a cold or something similar, that's completely throwing off any results I get.

Maybe later, when I'm feeling better physically, I'll be able to get the information my therapist needs.

Till next time, Pinecones...

#FeedTheRightWolf

Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always.

Review: The Sandman

The Sandman by Lars Kepler
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I'll probably get back to this book eventually, as I did with the first three Joona Linna stories from the Kepler team, but The Sandman, which I found an ARC for behind the scenes at the Stanford bookstore, was a major disappointment for me. I wanted to really like this one, I did, but I feel like this book played up so many of the usual annoying aspects of the previous Kepler books - considerable length and excessively short chapters - that attempting to read it felt like more trouble than it was worth. The choppy writing seriously inhibits my getting truly absorbed in the story this time.

Again, maybe I'll come back to this book someday, but for now, it's a DNF.

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Review: Lost Stars

Lost Stars by Claudia Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Claudia Gray, I think, does the best Star Wars books of the sequel-trilogy era EU, and while this one might not be as good as her Leia-centric novels, it's still a most unique piece of stellar fantasy. Maybe it's a little too long for its own good, but then again that kinda comes with the territory when we get this little study of two characters, star-crossed lovers crossing back and forth with each other across both sides of the war against the Empire over the course of the original trilogy and beyond. Here, more than ever, Gray shows us the emotional impact of much of the death and destruction wreaked during those movies, tearing so many friendships and even relationships apart. Lost Stars is a tragic read, but it's a beautiful one too, a testament to the mysteries of fate as only Star Wars can give us.

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The Death Cure Movie: "I Know It's Hard, But Try To Look Like You've Seen It Before."

***NO SPOILERS FOR THE DEATH CURE, BUT SPOILERS FOR THE PREVIOUS MAZE RUNNER FILMS ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

Well, actually, you kinda have seen it before. All of it, in some form or another. But still, this third and final entry in the Maze Runner trilogy feels no less fresh and powerful than any of its predecessors - and, in quite a few ways, outdoes its predecessors pretty neatly. Almost two and a half hours go by fast in this movie that resembles the love child of Logan, Blade Runner 2049, and Mockingjay, with perhaps the greatest payoff in that it's the closest thing this trilogy has to an Amazing Spider-Man or Logan-grade broad-spectrum emotional experience. Not to say, of course, that it isn't such an experience, but The Death Cure will make your heart race for those two and a half hours and then make you cry buckets right at the end and that's a promise.

"We're all bloody inspired."

Though not 100% true to the source material, that's no surprise since none of the books are. I'd say the first film was about 75% true, and The Scorch Trials about 20% - actually to its benefit in my mind, because of the increase in action. The Death Cure returns back to something more towards the first film's trueness-to-the-book spectrum - more like 60%, but that sixty is the parts that really count the most. Like, for instance, a few of the original book's more infamous moments, but also the heavy focus on the world's "Last City," all WCKD-controlled. Just as in the book, the Last City is basically Denver, according to the map that Thomas rolls out in one early scene, as well as the fact that there's at least one Colorado license plate visible. The city itself looks very much like a mashup of Hong Kong and a futuristic San Francisco-Gotham thing, just smack dab in the Rocky Mountain foothills, which in this post-apocalypse look more like the chapparal scrublands around Los Angeles. Makes sense since the movie was filmed largely in Cape Town, which I understand has a very similar climate to most of California.

Speaking of SF, I couldn't help but think of this recent semi-viral shot while seeing the Last City.

I'm actually a tad bit disappointed that, being filmed in Cape Town, this one kept more than a bit of the second movie's desert aesthetic. One part of the fun for me about the original trilogy was how each book's aesthetic reflected a different biome - jungle in Book 1, desert in Book 2, mountain in Book 3. Hell, I even predicted in the run-up to the initial filming of The Death Cure that they'd shoot in Vancouver - which they did for all of a week or so, I think, until Dylan O'Brien got himself really badly injured and they had to delay filming and release a full year while he recovered. (Which, incidentally, I think also led to him being largely written out of Teen Wolf's final season.)

If I'm not mistaken, he got his injuries filming the movie's very first scene, and I wouldn't be surprised if this were true. That first scene, a train heist, is a gnarly beast, and a hyperkinetically technical one too, powerfully showcasing the ways this movie has improved on its predecessors in the cinematography and visual effects departments. The Maze Runner relied largely on low-angled shots and saving a lot of the big effects - like the Grievers - for nighttime scenes when the relatively low-budget CGI wouldn't show as much. The Scorch Trials significantly expanded the camera's scope to show some eerily lifelike city ruins, but here, in The Death Cure, the camera shows off the most sweeping vistas of all. Hell, that train scene starts off with a bird's eye view of a ruined city not unlike the one from The Scorch Trials, only to pan out and follow the train carrying numerous Immune kids to WCKD HQ in the Last City. And Thomas and company following the train in a couple of jeeps, of course.

And then, of course, lifting a train car up, up, and away. Take that, Bane.

The Last City, though nowhere near as snowbound as what we see on the original Death Cure book cover or the Hunger Games Capitol it superficially resembles (particularly in Mockingjay, Part 2), catches my eye here because of how much it also resembles the cities of the Second 'Verse in my own Red Rain novels. The massive wall ringing the city is largely responsible here. More than ever, I think Wes Ball would be one of several directors perfectly suited to adapting my books to film, though if he adapted any beyond the first book (particularly Blue Monday), it'd be a challenge for him to do so without looking too much like he's recycling Death Cure visual elements. That wall, though, helps encapsulate the movie's centerpiece setting perfectly. WCKD, immured as it is, can shelter itself from the outside world, a world that's ruined and bombed-out-looking right up to the very gates of the city. But said sheltering won't last forever, and over the course of this movie, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down in slow-mo - this, of course, while everything moves at breakneck speed most of the time. It's not all fast, not at this length - and there are quite a few scenes that feel a little padded out, like they could've been easily cut. Then again, though, a lot of good movies suffer from this kind of flaw from time to time. Like the Mockingjay duology, for instance - heavily padded, especially in Part 1, but terrifically action-packed in the right dose to make up for it.

For a girl who was getting pretty sick last time we saw her, she's lost no time getting tough as nails again.

Continuing the previous films' trend of subtly excising elements that wouldn't quite work on film (namely, Thomas and Teresa's telepathic connection, which would've made it far harder to stretch credulity with The Scorch Trials and Thomas not seeing Teresa's betrayal until it's too late), The Death Cure alters the way the Last City falls. Whereas it's largely caused by an attack of mindless "Rose took my nose I suppose!" Cranks in the novel, here we get a combination of the Flare virus going airborne and a massive attack horde of...well, they call themselves Cranks, and with a leader as horribly disfigured as Lawrence (Walton Goggins looking like Voldemort with tons of skin growths all over one side of his body), it's hard to argue the point. But these guys aren't mindless at all - they're desperate, and maybe more than a few are a fever degree or two shy of turning into Cranks themselves. (The Cranks, BTW, are every bit as nightmarish as depicted in the Scorch Trials movie, far outclassing their in-book descriptions in terms of scare factor.) In the early days of Fear the Walking Dead, as the show illustrated the very beginnings of its zombie apocalypse, protests erupted in-universe because footage of cops shooting the earliest Infected dead was mistaken for police brutality. The Death Cure builds on such imagery, with the inevitable clash between Lawrence's army and WCKD looking like riots turned up to eleven. Truly, the final third or so of this movie is a long, drawn-out journey through Hell, and like Logan or Mockingjay, it's an eerily thought-provoking mirror of the real world - perhaps even more so thanks to the one-year delay.

Pictured: our friends facing the impending hellfire of a closed society that really has a problem with immigrants.

As harrowing as the movie is, it's a little easier to travel through because we're in the hands of a talented cast and crew. Dylan O'Brien and Thomas Sangster, playing Thomas and Newt for the final times, deliver some of the best performances of their respective careers - and given the dynamism of O'Brien's signature performance as Stiles Stilinski, that's saying something. Minho spends most of this movie imprisoned - even more than in the book - but leave it to Ki Hong Lee to kick all the spare ass he can. Giancarlo Esposito and Rosa Salazar form that most unconventional family as Jorge and Brenda, both continuing to run the show because without them, everyone else would be all but shucked. (I also appreciated the small touches of Latino culture that Esposito works into his performance - not just his calling Thomas and all his buddies "hermano," but also a shot where Jorge can be seen, in the background, making the sign of the cross as Right Arm leader Vince gives a speech to honor the fallen.) A previous scene-stealer shows up again, whose identity I cannot reveal here because it's a massive spoiler, but let's just say this person gets a very welcome redemption arc. Dexter Darden's Frypan gets a bump too, as he puts his driving skills to use several times and proves incredibly vital when he makes the movie's most improbably awesome set piece by far happen. Aidan Gillen's more despicable than ever as Janson the Rat-Man, but even he proves a force to be reckoned with, getting a little more involved in the action while he spent most of his time in The Scorch Trials either hanging out of a plane or walking up to Thomas with slow menace. Even Kaya Scodelario, whom I've always considered the weakest link of the cast (largely due to her Kristen Stewart-esque acting style and shoddy American accent), stands out for how she plays Teresa the Traitor (you'll love the scene where Minho yells that very word into her face, repeatedly) as perhaps the worst villain of the entire movie. Not the in-your-face kind like Janson, but working as a more junior version of Ava Paige, single-mindedly focused on her task at hand regardless of how unethical it is.

Journeying together once more unto the breach with this team, The Death Cure delivers an A-grade experience just like it's immediate predecessor, and is, for me, the first great movie of 2018. (That is, the first I saw in 2018 that was released for the first time this year - my first movie theater trip of 2018 being a belated visit to The Shape of Water.) As much as the movie's ending will utterly slay your poor feels - that letter got me and Speedy both tearing up something fierce - the action is so high that, especially if you consume anything caffeinated while watching, you'll still have a racing heart even hours after it's all over. Typing this right now, I can personally confirm that.

To the Maze Runner film trilogy, I now say ave atque vale.

Till next time, Pinecones...

#FeedTheRightWolf

Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always.