magicalghoul's reviews
76 reviews

I'm glad Jennette McCurdy is still creating, I'm glad she's well and I'm glad she's shared this with us.

In her (fantastic, I must say) writing she says that she wants to do something meaningful with her work, and I hope she's seeing all the conversations that her book are opening around abuse and specifically abusive motherhood and childhood exploitation in the acting industry.

This was a hard read at times with how much some parts resonated with me, but it was a needed one. Regardless, please take care of yourself and read the trigger warnings before diving in. 

Considering that the source material this companion book belongs too was partly inspired in creepypastas, I wasn't surprised by the anecdotical r/nosleep format it's presented in. 

It sure answers a couple of questions and even manages to take a dig at the current state of the "free press", but the real treat was the addition of the illustrations for the refiner's manual at the end since we only caught a glimpse of it in the series. 

Forgot any thought I was forming after the contrast between the humor and how brutal and raw the description of the battle at the end of the book was, and how looking back on it Rachel's commentary is that she wasn't being brave like everyone thought she was being or even how she consciously behaved in that moment because that was the role the group needed for her to play. She simply couldn't see well and didn't know what she was walking into.

Interesting to note that The Ellimist was introduced on a Rachel book and that we can see a sort of bond between them already—what with Rachel being the one to fully decipher The Ellimist's true intentions, and what with The Ellimist showing her her adult form. Since, you know.

About the audiobook: Emily Ellet continues to do a wonderful job, her voice shines on the most somber moments of the narrative and if I haven't said I love her Marco voice then I'm saying it now.

Highlight: The fact that the "I want to go see that new Keanu Reeves movie" line hasn't aged one bit. 

This one fell victim to my reading slump, although by not fault of its own.

AI-turned-organic x Alien species is a though premise to sell, and just as hard to pull off so I mostly picked this up to see how it managed: My main concerns once I learned the setup were with the themes of consent, gender and how the leads would navigate the power dynamics of their relationship and I'll say, I really really liked what it did.

Aguirre just went in Earnestly, and what we see in Love Code is the belief that regardless of the mismatched origins of the leads, what matters in their relationship is their deep respect for each other.

As it developed it covered all the bases I was concerned about— There's deep and lengthy talks about consent, about giving options in partners, and respecting boundaries. Another pleasant development was Tiralan culture and how their relationships were polyamorous, plus the inclusion of non-binary characters (even one of the leads themself!). I don't know, it's always fun to see sci-fi that's not held back by heteropatriarcal views and actually takes worldbuilding out for a spin.

The dialogue and descriptions felt a little stiff and matter of fact at times, same with the dialogue. I haven't read any of Aguirre's other titles so I can't say for sure if this was a conscious choice, but the style certainly fits the leads at least even if it wasn't to my liking.

The steamy scenes were interesting with how Tiralan biology worked, the xeno-lover in me appreciated them and the added setup of Helix learning to parse sensations through his organic body was really really good.

I wasn't too interested in the conflict and wasn't really that content with how it was resolved, but if the main goal was to introduce us to the main lead of the next book and interest us in the final entry of the trilogy then it worked on me. I'll be picking it up in the future for sure!

Love circular stories, love the unending search for a place to call home, love the criticism of consumerism and late stage capitalism.

Not too keen though, on the tendency the narrative had of putting all of humanity in the same bag for the sake of its connecting narrative. I really wish that just as much as it criticized capitalism in-text, it did the same for colonialism— at times it even felt like it was romanticizing it, just for the sake of a metaphor that didn't quite land. 

For example I don't think that colonialism and genocide perpetrated by very white nations when "discovering" the "New Worlds", or mass consumerism and ecocide due to corporatocracy, should've been drawn as a parallel to what happened in Rapa Nui (who's never referred by its actual indigenous name) for a cautionary tale. Even less so coming from a white author.

It does have beautiful turn of phrases though, but I think I would've liked it better as a space opera.

I picked up this book completely blind just based on the fact that it was horror and that it was being heavily talked about. I wasn't familiar with the author before this so discovering as I read that

it was basically a slasher featuring a revenant elk

was a wonderful surprise.

The quasi stream-of-thought narration took me some time to grasp but the visuals were really good. That coupled with the way it worked up the tension made me feel like in the middle of a slasher movie, and I could see this being easily adapted as one— There's more than one scene that I couldn't help but picture as a cinematic in my head, specially when they had tinges of other well known horror tropes.

Like Denorah sitting in class and looking out the window only to find Elk Head Woman there, bringing up a similar —and often emulated in horror media— scene with Laurie Strode and Michael Myers from the Halloween franchise, in case anyone was doubting at that point that Denorah would be our final(s) girl

 

Basketball being so prominent kinda threw me off but that's on me for not being big into sports, although I see what it was going for. And if the match at the end lost me, the following scenes got me back anyways and that's what matters.

And God, that ending!

We love closing the cycle of violence and we love women being compassionate to other women and we absolutely love Denorah, whom we're welcoming to the final girl hall of fame.

 The fact that I kept at it despite my HUGE aversion to animal death is a testament to how good this book is, I think. It made me feel like I needed to see it all to the the end, and when I put it down between reads it kept haunting me— I saw echoes of it in other media and situations, and I suspect it will keep happening.

After this I'll be reading more books from the author in the future and also going down the list of influences he mentioned in the acknowledgements, that's for sure.

Akhilandeswari, una mujer en sus 40s, se cansa de todo y decide irse en un viaje largo en tren. En el vagón conoce a otras cinco mujeres quienes compartirán las historias de su vida con ella y con nosotros. Intercaladas a estas historias, la propia Akhila también comparte cómo ha sido su vida hasta ese momento.

Este libro lo compré en una feria hace años basada sólo en la portada y no lo había no tocado, de hecho aún tenía la lámina protectora cuando lo abrí para leerlo. Pero estoy contenta con lo fortuito de la compra, pues me gustó mucho el libro.

Reboza de esa camaradería y sororidad de cuando las mujeres, con sufrimientos y alegrías en común, se juntan en un sólo sitio. La conclusión es esperanzadora y la prosa es muy bella. Aunque no he leído el original no sentí que la traducción le entorpeciera.

Mi historia favorita fue la de Mari. Amé su temperamento, el hecho de que hayan incluído la experiencia de una mujer pobre (que nota y reclama cuán distinto la tratan las otras mujeres por su estatus social percibido) y además sáfica. Esto último no me lo esperaba.

Tuve que buscar ciertos términos durante la lectura pero era de esperarse pues este libro fue básicamente mi iniciación a la cultura de la india, así que también agradezco la oportunidad para aprender. Aunque quizá no vendría a mal que las versiones internacionales trajeran un glosario.

Me encantó también la inclusión del recetario. Creo que culmina la idea de que este libro además de un intercambio de historias es también un intercambio cultural.

Warning for mild spoilers.

The introductions are over, we know the kids and their motives, the basis for their conflict and character arcs has been set, so in this book we, checks notes,

have Jake getting infested by the same aliens he and his friends are risking their lives to save Earth from and to force it out they have to starve it, which means Jake is trapped with a dying alien in his head. And there's 56 more books to go.

I love any narrative where we get a chance to see an outsider's perspective of our heroes. In Animorphs, this book is my favorite showcase of that. The upcoming David arc is another great example of it, but The Capture stands out to me since it's one of the early books and already we see how brutal these kids have to and can be and how much of a unit they already are.

One more reason to like this book: the direct threads connecting Jake's actions here to his future self in the endgame. It's in this book where he's first given the option of killing defenseless yeerks, and he goes and boils them alive. But the yeerks haven't been fleshed out and humanized by the narrative and the kids don't know the nuances of their enemy yet —the concept of seeing the yeerks as nuanced and sentient creatures is only a seed by the end of the book, so readers are characters alike have a surface level understanding of the enemy— so while on a first read you probably don't think much of it, it's horrific on a reread. And it makes Jake's actions in the future even more damning.

Jake being infested by Tom's former yeerk serves to solidify his motive of wanting to save his brother. As a narrative device it also shakes up the usual format of the books a bit and I enjoy that. It also gives us a glimpse of the symbiotic process (I would like to know even more about it please) and a first hand account of the experience as an unwilling host, in case the stakes and the scale of the situation the kids are fighting against wasn't clear enough.

This book marks the debut of other players in the war such as the Crayak and we also get hints that there's more to the Andalites (and their relationship to the Yeerks) than what our heroes have been told.

The descriptions of Jake trapped with the dying Temrash in his head are Haunting, and so is the bit with Temrash torturing Jake with Tom's holdover memories.

As for the audiobook: Loved it, as usual. Another voice that took me some time to get used to but that once I did I enjoyed. Particularly liked Temrash's voice and the Rachel-as-a-valley-girl imitation.

No highlights for the book because I don't even know where to start from. This book is simply a favorite.

With Marco we close the "introductory" books. Like his fellow Animorphs, Marco has a stereotypical role he fills (whiny comedy relief) which is how we and the other kids see him but that now that we get to access his inner world, is subverted; he's the most sceptic and cynic of the bunch, the contrarian who has more to lose than to gain if he does fight this war that he went into solely because of his loyalty to his best friend and an alien who died for him, and the humor? He learned it from his mom and it's his very deliberate main defense mechanism— much like fearlessness becomes Rachel's.

Around this time Marco's had way too many close calls (and will continue to have them if memory serves right) and despite how much he cares for his friends (which is to mean Jake), it is family (his depressed dad who's already coping very badly from the loss of Marco's mom) who must take precedence and whom Marco has to pick. He has to pull out.

So, how do you give this type of character a reason to stay and fight instead? And not only that, but with renewed strength? No spoilers, but you corner him and you make it personal.

Just like the rest of the introduction books, is a phenomenal foundation for what's in store for him.

Here we have motive and characterization and in no time we'll get to see how his archetype and the contradictions within him come together to form his contrasts as a character. He's outwardy clowny, sarcastic and aloof but he's also analytic (we see hints of it in his inner thought process during the plan they execute), manipulative (as we'll later see!) and self defines as ruthless. 

Yet at the same time he puts all of that brutality he's capable of in service of his friends and family and that's something we already see in this book too. As mentioned before he's initially fighting for Jake and an alien he saw die for him (“And you're wrong, Rachel. That means plenty to me.” is his response when Rachel accuses him of not caring for the alien's sacrifice in book 4) and in fact we're introduced to him at a point in his life when he's being a caretaker to his own dad, a role he'll continue to fulfill one way or another because they sure as hell added "parentification" to his list of traumas.

(And put a pin on that because it's extremely relevant to understand the dubious choices he makes in later books.)

I also love that his contrarian nature contributes to the multiple philosophical debates these kids will have and that that same nature is depicted as an advantage to the group just like Cassie's kindness is:

It allows him to point out faults in the plans and err to caution even if that means he goes against the group, same as Cassie, but not punished for the individuality that shows— it helps that it reminds me of Eric from the Dungeons & Dragons tv series in that regard, so I'm going to assume that "not depicting dissident voices in a group as inherently wrong in children's media" was a conscious choice from the start when writing these books.

As for the audiobook: I'm deeply enjoying the audiobooks so far. Wish Marco's voice were higher in pitch but after listening to it a while I liked it.

The narration of Marco seeing Eva alive made me Cry with how emotional his voice got, so good job.

 

In conclusion, in this house we love Marco.

Highlights: The horror comedy that was the lobster morph, the straight up horror of the ant morph and Marco finding an ant still stuck to him afterwards, Rachel's first public outburst and Marco using his goofy persona for damage control, the Visser 1 reveal, and the confirmation that basically all these kids are having ptsd nightmares now.