#mishell baker

Borderline (The Arcadia Project #1) by Mishell Baker

I'm trying to trim down my tbr list(s) and I'm asking for your help! Descriptions and more info under the cut. Please reblog and add your thoughts!

Today I finished the first season of OB: The next chapter in Realm.fm, and I felt the need to express a bit of the tornado of ideas I've got myself trapped in. I'm no cultural journalist to go and try to make a heavily-well argumented-dense critic, but in my humble opinion as a consumer of the original series and an audiovisual professional, this is a shit-ton of work that pays off greatly.

My first and most relevant thought during the whole season was that these writers (beautiful people Malka Older, Madeline Ashby, Mishell Baker, Heli Kennedy, E.C. Myers and Lindsay Smit) were so loving and responsible about the truth of these characters that matching the care Maslany puts in everything she touches transported me in a heartbeat into a world I had been missing for a bit now. The humor was there, the wit and the danger, the political statments that soak and base every characters' decisions. They show such an smart sense of timing when introducing new characters as well as letting the old ones make their big entrances, and this keeps you there, wanting for more, being promised almost nothing because they didn't owe us shit, but still found a way to give us new nuances of personality among the clones, new ways of aproaching the same old problems and furthering the discussions that were left open in the TV show.

I am almost in love with the swift in protagonism and activation among the old characters. The fact that Cosima stands first in the first chapters and the detail and effort put in the portrait of her happiness with Delphine strikes me hard personally as I adored these characters and I'm profoundly grateful for the intention of justice that this steady life represents for a couple that was heavily beaten up during the show (not by the writers and directors but by the fictional forces). I love every entrance of every Clone Club sestra - eternally charismatic and multi-layered Allison, twisted and stubborn and wounded Rachel - but when I thought that Helena wouldn't be up for this adventure, her coming down of the truck in her wild hair and parka (and the boots that once belonged to Allison) made me shiver with a sort of simple, joyful happiness that I understand as a gift from the team of this podcast and I am grateful again.

There are several other ideas that I find just right, some new and some old ones that still amaze me: the growth and codependency of small Clone Club Charlotte and Kira, the concept of modern/choosen family, the resistance to structural violence of a minority based on a trust net and their natural skills, the redemption that this concept offers to heavily traumatised undercasted ones as Helena, Rachel, potentially Vivi, and how this interacts with the universal, odysseic concept of coming home; the smart use of Donnie, Art, Felix and Delphine as support as always, offering familiarity but also space for the developpment of those who carry on with the story this time (even though it unsettled me a bit the fact that Delphine didn't suspect a thing about anything when she was so close to the real deal, but that's me respecting and expecting too much about this character anyway) or the effort in documentation needed to talk this much about academic environment, big corporations, northern-american politics and inmigration policies that surely could be addressed more realisticly with even more time than 11 one hour and a half episodes, but still serves to infuse life to this ever-expanding world that could go on for ever. Well not for ever, but I'd like to think that.

Chez Cophine. We were in the right hands all the time, I knew it.

So, I've needed time to come around and sit to listen this properly, but now I think is one of the finest products I've consumed in some time. Only a new, natural step forward for a franchise that have always proved itself to be supported by senseful creators and technicians with a formidable work ethic, tremendous ambitions and love. Now I am equally terrified and excited to listen to Season 2 because I know that some of the old cast actors will voice their characters, but I am not ready for this to be finished. Still, here I go, expecting as much quality as these creators have proven themselves to be capable of providing.

Borderline by Mishell Baker

A year ago, Millie lost her legs and her filmmaking career in a failed suicide attempt. Just when she's sure the credits have rolled on her life story, she gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales. For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court. To find him, she'll have to smooth-talk Hollywood power players and uncover the surreal and sometimes terrifying truth behind the glamour of Tinseltown. But stronger forces than just her inner demons are sabotaging her progress, and if she fails to unravel the conspiracy behind the noble's disappearance, not only will she be out on the streets, but the shattering of a centuries-old peace could spark an all-out war between worlds. No pressure. (via Goodreads)

Although I thought it was fascinating, this book, and its protagonist, are definitely not going to be for everyone! Millie is not an easy character to like, and almost everyone in this book has painful circumstances in their life.

The actual worldbuilding is really interesting. Although we know at the beginning that there are fae from the blurb, Millie learns about them and the rules for the reality she had no idea existed pretty slowly. Essentially, the fae have a separate world, only connected to this one with specific portals. When a fae and their human counterpart find each other, they both give each other a boost of creativity and spark, which fades over time as the magic drains out of the fae. It’s a really creative idea.

The characters are where some people will stick on this, I think. The plot and the worldbuilding are really cool, but Millie is a rather difficult to like protagonist. She’s had some really rough life experiences and has BPD, and can act rather awfully to people around her. Although I know some people with BPD have said that they don’t like Millie as an example of people with BPD or don’t agree with the portrayal of BPD here, the author has BPD, so I think it might be one of those kinds of things where some people have a very different experience with it. Regardless, Millie is very angry, and aggressive, and can sometimes totally wreck people, which makes her hard to like sometimes. But she has a spark underneath it all, and she’s trying to get better, so I didn’t dislike her as much as I really thought I might in the beginning. Also, all of the other characters are very diverse, but most of them are damaged in some way. It’s hard to read, sometimes. (I honestly don’t remember what most of the triggers were, but I know there are several.)

I’m pretty excited to read the next one, since I very much enjoyed the world that Baker portrayed, and I recommend giving Borderline a shot!

My book slump continues. I’m struggling to pick anything up/ finish what I start. But I did managed to read these two fantastic books!

Phantom Pains by Mishell Baker

The second in the Arcadia Project series and not a standalone. Baker continues to aptly portray a person living with Borderline Personality Disorder and multiple physical disabilities within the context of a fantasy world. This time Millie has to unravel a conspiracy that reached all the way to the Unseelie court and beyond, to a time of beasts and legends. She remains something of an anti-hero, difficult and prickly, but I think Baker tries harder to show Millie’s emotional motivations in the second novel and her longing for understanding/loneliness. 4 stars.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey