#quick review

However, they both had to face situations that made them a little bit insecure and afraid because the school event prompted a lot of people to come to confess. At first, Hioki had to see, yet, another person confessing to Watarai and he also learned from his friends that it happened a lot before too.

Then, he was asked to deliver a letter to Watarai and he wondered why this person liked him. While he listened to everything she said, I think his thoughts got muddled. Hioki is a nice person, but seeing and hearing why others would want to be with Watarai are two different things.

I guess Hioki was pushed to realize that he also was a little possessive with Watarai. Unfortunately, he didn't get to entirely process all these thoughts before Watarai misunderstood him a little bit.

When Hioki gave him the letter and Watarai discovered it was from someone else, he was probably a bit hurt and it showed in his actions. It left Hioki being even more lost and he also feared having angered Watarai.

Thankfully, these two could count on their friends to make them "reconcile" and finally give Hioki the chance to say what he feels. I guess feeling "jealous" made Hioki see how much he likes Watarai. In the end, he confessed his feelings which brought a lot of joy to Watarai.

What I like about this episode is that the "misunderstanding" or the "jealous part" of Hioki aren't shown in a dramatic over-the-top way, but you do see them. It's not exactly a fight or a real misunderstanding, it is just two young men trying to navigate young love. The characters are experiencing it, but it doesn't further them apart. Instead, it makes them think and grow from it. It brings them closer.

The message could be that to get a healthy relationship it is important to talk about how you feel. Communication is the key and friendship is always helpful. I really like how this series is bringing this very well-known but sometimes forgotten message.

It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me cheer. Go see it. 10 out of 10.

The God of Endings, Jacqueline Holland

After several visits of picking it up and then deciding to wait til next time, I finally rented The God of Endings in an audio book through Libby. I really enjoyed the world building and childhood sections. Ultimately though, the book falls apart and commits (in my opinion) the worst story crime. It’s unsatisfying. I finished this book less than a year ago and cannot remember a single character’s name.

The concept of a young girl from a grave stone carving family in colonial America receiving the “gift” of immortality from her estranged Eastern European grandfather is a clever enough one. The inherent conflict of feeling she ought to have died and the plot device of coming from a family that respects and values death instead of fearing it really carries the book up until plot points of vampires killing Nazis, the central modern day conflict inflated past a point of logical stakes, and our narrator hypocritically giving up her centrally held tenets without demonstrating any growth or change to bring her there. The ending is unearned and the use of mythological figures and teachings (such as Chernobog) leave more questions than answers that matter little to the narrator’s over all arc and growth. With that in mind, I think about the first half of the book, its complexity, and “vampire rules” all the time with fascination, unfortunately the same cannot be said for the ending.

The Marble Queen is a an amazingly drawn book, Gabrielle Kari is one of the greatest artists out there and her brilliant craftsmanship truly captures a unique voice in comics. I am impressed her illustrative style was captured on so many pages of the books really showing the level of heart that went into this work. The amazing use of paneling and page layout allowed for very dynamic use of the medium of comics breaking conventions from each other while feeling like bold artist moves on the page.

The book is hampered some what by being a YA book, it feels like at times there are areas that maybe would have been better served with more details but it does really edge what most YAs feel their able to do in a first novel. With lots of death, some blood and some implied sex. The pacing was a bit fast, there were moments that felt like they could have lingered longer and taken more time and perhaps the beginning starts a little slow but the romance does feel satisfying.

I think there are feelings I'd like to see explored more, the ending appears to set up a potential follow up book but it's ending is satisfying enough to simply imply potential conflict that is not needed. Anna does do a great job capturing Amelia's anxiety and the ways it manifests, the ways she tries to treat it, and how it affects her life. It is a great deception of that mental health struggle. I do wish we could have seen more into Salira's perspective, the white woman who doesn't know about being gay being the POV makes sense in the like cynical ways but I would have liked to get more into the interiority of Salira who does fall a bit into the "more butch brown woman who dots after he innocent white GF trope." I think that would have been felt a little less if we saw the world a bit more from her eyes. That said the book does do a solid job of showing plenty of fem brown women so I think it be an oversimplification to say it's just an example of that. It's worth noting only in that i know several other BIPOC women who might hesitate at it but I think we're in the clear here.

My heart melted when they all hugged will after his coming out. I was sobbing ong im so bloody proud for my guy🙏🙏

So I watched season one of the Percy Jackson tv show as it was released and now here is time for a quick review!

Sorry I wanted to finish this drawing before, hope you like it! (To be honest i didn't draw the drawing on the shirts, I just used what was used on the Disney store, but I draw the rest.) You can see it on my Instagram too, without the review

SPOILER WARNING

I'll start my review of season one by talking about...

The characters

Well, first I wanna say I like how the three main characters are being portrayed here ! Percy is a very loving and kind character while Annabeth is a smart girl desperately looking for recognition from her mother. As for Grover, he's a kind and clumsy satyr who really likes Percy and it shows. Basically these three characters love and trust each other and it's incredibly obvious ! Even Annabeth and Percy, who start their relationship by not being that much trusting in each other. I really like how their quest improve their relationship !

What I love too is how the adults are shown, especially Sally and Poseidon. Sally, who was shown as a perfect mother in the book, became a woman who is doing her best to raise her son in the series and I find it so interesting ! The book is in Percy's point of view so it's obvious that he would see her that way, but the tv series isn't exclusively from his point of view so it can show her turning desperate because she don't know how to effectively protect her son. I can say I really like her scene with Poseidon too, that was so touching!

Just a word about Gabe, who is way less clearly abusive. A lot of people thought it was a problem, that he was too nice, but I thought it made him even more scary because if he's not physically violent against Sally, he's still clearly psychologically abusive. Though it seems like Sally is able to manage him a bit.

Just remember that abuse isn't always physical, that you can be abusive without hitting anyone.

The gods

I can say I like how the gods that appears in this first season are portrayed!

Dionysus is so manipulative and bitter, I love it! Even if we never say it in the series (from memory), it's obvious that he doesn't want to take care of the demigods, and I love it!

Ares is wonderfully portrayed as a being who has a real passion for the war ! For example, we see him having fun on Twitter and, later, Grover succeed to convince him to talk to him by talking about less-known wars. He also has that wonderful vibe of "don't mess with me or I'm going to beat you to death".

We don't see Hephaestus a lot but again you feel it's someone confident who is a very skilled blacksmith.

I love that as soon as we meet Hades he's very welcoming and behaving in a very "I don't care about what's happening with my brothers" way. He just want to protect the underworld and, again, it's obvious.

Zeus is incredibly intimidating which, again, I love so strongly ! I can understand why no one would stand to him.

Finally, Poseidon is a very loving dad who can't do much for his son but is trying when he can try. I also love how, at the end, he ends up standing to Zeus to protect Percy. Then the very awkward interaction he has with him because the didn't talk much, Poseidon was mostly absent, but he still love him.

The adaptation

Now, of course I'll talk about the adaptation. And I'll start this part by a very personal story: how I discovered Percy Jackson.

I started my discovery with the movies. Actually with the first one only, I didn't want to watch the second one because I didn't understand why it would have a sequel. I thought it was enjoyable, though very cliche, but far from the best movies. As I didn't know the original story I thought it must have been an adaptation of a very average book series who must have gotten a bit of success and has been adapted because Hollywood didn't have any idea anymore.

Then I finally read the books because a friend insisted it was good, and Internet was talking about how it was full of representations... And now I hate the movies ! Because I considered we could have gotten incredible movies out of the books ! But we didn't...

Honestly I'm not angry that the tv series made so many changes. Because it wasn't exactly my problem with the movies. My problem was it made changes that didn't make any sense, transformed the story into something very cliche and sexist, and wasn't respectful of the mythology when the book was.

I'll only give one example that angers me a lot: Grover's case.

In the book Grover is a very sweet, kind, brave and goofy character who love his friends and even more his girlfriend Juniper! He's very likeable, and a good protector for the demigods he's in charge of.

In the movie he's not likeable at all. He's a goofy character and likes Percy but he isn't sweet and only think about girls... Like you have a scene where he decides to stay with Persephone because she's hot... He clearly isn't sacrificing himself at all. Overall I don't think he's likeable, I thought he was kinda useless and annoying.

In the tv series... He's kinda goofy but not too much, and he's sweet, kind and brave. More than that, he's considerate and I actually like that he's clearly intelligent in this show because he lived longer than Percy and Annabeth. He's not entirely faithful to his book counterpart but the changes make sense and he's still very likeable and I want to hug him so hard !