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Ms. Marvel Goes Through Some Big Changes (12/4)

Kamala’s parents remind me of my father a little bit. The super over-protective nature and not allowing her to really do anything at all is basically the same. I can’t say that my father was equally as bad, but he definitely had his moments.

Getting some slick size changing powers is already coming in handy for Kamala. Saving Vick (for now at least) is a good start. I’m really curious to see what she does next. Based on how things went in this first volume, I’m sure everything is smooth sailing from here on out.

That Inventor guy seemed like he’d gotten his feathers ruffled a bit when Kamala smashed up his hideout. Sucks to suck though.

I’d also like to find out how Kamala’s family will react to finding out that she has superpowers. The way they treat her and act in general is just so different from my own family dynamic that I can’t say they are really predictable for me. Hopefully they end up being supportive and understanding at the very least. That’s all you can really ask for I suppose.

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Ari & Dante Break My Heart 11/28

I love this story and I hate it at the same time. All of the questions I’ve been holding onto the entire book were literally all answered in the last couple chapters. Back to back to back and it was a lot to take in.

Questions about Ari’s father and what he went through in Vietnam. Questions about Ari’s mother and the pain she was holding onto with his brother. Questions about Ari’s brother himself and exactly what he did. Questions about the pain in the family and about the pain within Ari. Questions about exactly what Dante is doing. Although that one was relatively more apparent than the others. Questions about Ari’s aunt that I didn’t even know about and how she ties in to the relevant issues.

I was so scared when Ari went after those boys who beat up Dante. I didn’t want him to end up like his brother. I could feel it happening. I’m really glad that he didn’t kill anyone. Really glad. I would have probably yelled rather loudly if he had.

Man I hate this book.

I love this book.

I can’t wait to read the same story from Dante’s perspective. I feel that it will be equally exciting and interesting even though I know how it all ends. But maybe it ends differently for Dante. I have no idea.

GAH

Okay. It’s fine.

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Aristotle & Dante Chicago On A Break

Okay cool. Yeah that’s fine. I knew something was going to happen to split the two of them up and make them grow emotionally distant or strained or something. I didn’t know it was going to happen immediately after last week’s readings. Love it.

On one hand I get it from Aristotle. He wouldn’t be in the hospital with broken legs if it weren’t for Dante in the first place. If he’d never met the guy, he never would have had to deal with any of this. The resentment is strong with this one.

From Dante’s perspective I can empathize quite well. I would also feel awful if my best, and probably only friend got hit by a car because I was a dumbass walking into the middle of the street to pick up a bird without checking both ways to see if a car was coming.

And now Dante’s gotta go to Chicago for almost a year because his dad is working as a visiting professor for a while. Great. I hate it.

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Aristotle And Don't Make Me Stop Reading (11/7)

I can already tell I'm going to like this book. It's so sweet. I don't mind reading creepy stories from time to time, and I love reading comedic books, but I do enjoy the happy and heartwarming vibes I'm getting so far from this book. I hope it continues for a little while longer at the very least. I know it won't. I know something bad is going to happen, and most likely sooner rather than later. As long as Ari and Dante don't stop being friends with each other and cut ties by the end of the book, I'll be fine I guess.

The relationship that Dante has with his parents is a strange one to me. While my parents don't ignore me or shut me out like Ari's father, physical contact with my parents kinda weirds me out. I don't like it. I think the last time I kissed one of my parents on the cheek was when I was in elementary school. Weird.

I'm enjoying the relationship that Ari and Dante have with each other. Their witty banter about nothing and about everything at the same time. Things that don't matter, yet they still mean everything. Such is life.

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Well That Was Creepy (10/31)

It all started out on a sort of strange note anyway, so I’m not sure why I’m so surprised about it. When the living arrangements of this Zegner family were being described, I kept getting this incredibly desperate vibe that was somehow subtly off-putting. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was this strange sense of disconnect where everything seemed to be falling apart in this weird way. The mom slowly fading away into nothingness and losing her sanity. The dad’s mind also slipping away and devolving into a beast of singular passion. The brother who was off doing who the fuck knows what. Getting blood on his hands or something from who knows where and who knows why. I was upset by the tone of the story from the beginning, but it kept getting worse.

First the seemingly last ditch attempt at proving their homestead. Then the blood on his brother’s hand. Then the creepy ass person stalking Miles in the rain. Then the fact that Miles’ horse booked it out of there. At that point I was done. I didn’t want to keep reading. I wanted to pretend that he made it out of there fine. But then they went to the house and he saw the graveyard of bones and I wanted to punch that dude in the face and help Miles make it out alive. I’m still upset. Horror is definitely not my genre. I hate it when people I’m attached to die. Not that I like perfect and pristine happy endings either. But c’mon man.

Of course it had to end with the Sticksel family most likely dying too. Because why not. Sucks to Stick am I right?

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The Absolutely True Long Title Pt. 2 (10/19)

I’m not crying. You’re crying.

It takes a fair amount of pushing and prodding to get me to be sentimental about anything. I have a difficult time of tethering myself to someone else’s story most times. This book however, hit me right in the feels. All I wanted was for Junior to find happiness and succeed and I guess it kinda happened. Not in the way I wanted it to happen. But the way it had to happen. For his story at least.

I think it’s incredibly unjust and awful the way he had to grow up. Not just with the bullying from his fellow rezidents, but also due to the fact that he had to grow up on a reservation in the first place. The whole rez system is disgusting. The discussion of how most deaths of Indians he knew were due to alcohol in some manner or another is what really bothered me. The fact that everyone was so depressed and had lost hope so long ago, really hit home. I cannot imagine what that would feel like. When Junior lost Eugene, his grandma, and then his sister, I started to give up hope myself. I wasn’t sure how a happy ending could come from this story.

After the big rematch against his old school, I felt terrible for Rowdy. I wanted him to be able to find happiness in something too. I want too much. I know Rowdy and Junior got back together and closed the story out by playing ball with each other, but we’re left with this feeling of emptiness. Life is shitty, and it’s not going to get better. But they’re going to try and make the most of it. Junior is going to go places, and see things, and experience all that he can. Rowdy is going to live vicariously through him and expect postcards from everywhere Junior goes. WHY AM I CRYING PLEASE SEND HELP

I love this book. I also don’t know if I can find the emotional strength to read it again.

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The Absolutely True Long Title Pt. 1 (10/10)

I can’t get over the sheer amount of this kid went through growing up. Not only physically, but emotionally and verbally as well. He already started out on the wrong foot when he was born. That pisses me off in that sense as well. It’s not his fault that he has brain damage, and will continue to incur brain damage due to his seizures, but he gets picked on and beat up for it constantly. That is not okay to begin with, but when you’re beating on a kid and you can cause some serious and irreversible damage, those people can....okay I’m ending that sentence because I’m going to swear too much for my own good.

I used to get picked on growing up for being a nerd and liking things like Pokemon and Yugioh and things like that. The other kids would call me nerd, geek, dork, four-eyes and anything else they could think of. Joke’s on them though, I still like those things. So suck it you small children. Hmm I probably should work on my phrasing.

I never encountered anything even remotely close to this level of bullying however. No one that I know has either. Just reading about it is making me infuriated but also ashamed for the behavior of a lot of the individuals in the book. The poor kid has enough going on already in his life with all of his medical issues. He doesn’t need your help to feel even more miserable. Plus he had to help his dad take Oscar outside so that he could shoot the poor dog. I mean, come on. Now I’m thinking about when I held my 17 year old dachshund when she had to be put down and I sobbed for days. That was actually the last time I’ve cried since I was a little boy. UGH

On the whole however, I feel really engaged in the story and I’m liking it a lot so far. I am curious to see how it continues and I am hoping for a positive outcome in some way, shape, or form.

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Everything I Never Told You Pt. 3 I Hate Everything

Well that was fun. Turns out Lydia did not intentionally kill herself, and nobody else was present when she tried to swim to the dock. Jack had nothing to do with it. At least in the literal, physical sense. He did however spurn her to consider her life choices and how she got to where she was. How she had simply rolled over and embraced her mother’s dreams and aspirations instead of forging her own. How she only did what she was told and was incapable of forming original thoughts. Nath also pushed Lydia over the edge when he began to ignore her and push her desperate attempts at consolation aside. All she wanted from him was recognition of her problems, of her spotlight. But once university showed up on his doorstep, he gradually began to forget about her plight. James was not helping anything either with his relatively sketchy (even before the funeral) relationship with Louisa. The whole family is messed up. Even Hannah, who apparently steals miscellaneous objects from her family members and hopes they never notice that they’re gone.

Marilyn bugs me quite a bit. The way she is constantly pushing physics and straight As and college onto Lydia, when all Lydia wants to do is..... something. I have no idea what Lydia wants to do. Lydia doesn’t know what Lydia wants to do. It’s not until the moment before she drowns that she finally has the gumption to actually do something of her own accord and not because she was told to like something, or do something, or behave in a certain way. Part of me wishes that she hadn’t drowned and had actually managed to make it to the shore. However, if that were indeed what had happened, then I would not be here reading this book and getting upset at all of the characters because they’re all annoying in their own way.

The only character I remotely like is Nath. I want him to succeed so badly. I want him to do well at Harvard, and end up being an astronaut and seeing space with his own eyes. I want him to finally embrace his feelings for Jack and let himself love. I want him to treat his sister better in her final moments of contact with him. I want so many things to be different/ better for him. Not knowing what happens after her death is a little frustrating, but at the same time, there would not be that much of a reason to keep reading after that anyway.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. Even though all the characters pissed me off. Probably would not read it again, because I enjoy not yelling at my book while I’m reading, but I’m glad that I did read it this once.

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Everything I Never Told You Pt. 2 This Family

Okay. A bunch of things just happened and I’m not entirely sure where to begin. I get where Marilyn is coming from with her desire to achieve a certain level of education and ability to make some money for herself, but my word. She definitely went above and beyond the necessary line of action to even give that one a shot. Leaving your family out of the blue like that was pretty nuts. I cannot say that I understand what must have been going through her head for that one. The fact that Nath basically gets ignored after that upsets me quite a bit. I myself am studying astronomy in university, and the fact that this kid who wants to shoot for the stars is being grounded by his own parents is making me sad. He seems to be bottling a handful of various emotions up throughout the story so far. Pushing his own sister into a lake when she doesn’t know how to swim is generally a good indicator that something is not going well for him. I get that parents have favorites, because it’s hard not to, but come on now Marilyn. Even if Nath isn’t your bestie, he’s over here wanting to be a scientist/ astronaut and you’re just pushing this kid to the side like he doesn’t matter. Get that shit out of here. James isn’t helping anything either by constantly picking on Nath and messing with his self esteem. Having an adequate amount of confidence is generally a good thing. Having none whatsoever is generally a bad thing. I’d like to see this kid grow up to be a successful something or other and not be tied down by his upbringing too much. That’s my hope at least for the rest of this story.

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Everything I Never Told You Pt. 1 She Dead

I can already tell that this book is going to throw me for a loop. In a good way. When it starts off with “Lydia is dead.”, I don’t really know what to expect from that point onward. While I did not mind getting to know James and Marilyn a little bit, I would much rather be fed more information pertaining to what exactly happened to Lydia. Why is she dead? Why is that even important? Not that someone dying isn’t important, but clearly this must be some special case seeing as how someone wrote a book about what could possibly be this one girl’s death. Give me something to work with here.