Other reviews have said everything better than I can: this book is nonsensical and melodramatic. But all the descriptions of people’s tuxedos remindedOther reviews have said everything better than I can: this book is nonsensical and melodramatic. But all the descriptions of people’s tuxedos reminded me of My Immortal and there was a reference to my beloved Good Times/Bad Times, so gets a two based on so-bad-it’s-fun rather than actual merit....more
**spoiler alert** Six Sacrifices Arc books down, one to go.
There was much to like about this one: lots of politics for my boy Scrimgeour, the rival ne**spoiler alert** Six Sacrifices Arc books down, one to go.
There was much to like about this one: lots of politics for my boy Scrimgeour, the rival newspaper subplot, and Harry accomplishing vates tasks, to start. We got a lot of Connor POV, which I found myself really enjoying; dude has really grown on me. There was also more slice of life than we tend to see to in this series; it was a welcome change of pace to focus on so many non-Voldemort aspects of this world. Also, the author matches the phases of the moon to the actual calendar; I’m blown away by such crazy attention to detail.
Not my favorite: Harry bouncing back to his old patterns of thought and behavior re: sacrifice and lack of self care is a major been there, done that; I can’t imagine how badly such repetition would have grated on me if I hadn’t taken a six-month break after WTStSaS. Snape was a giant baby for a huge chunk of the story, which I get was in part due to Voldemort’s influence, but that didn’t make it less annoying to read. The Stone and Falco Parkinson subplots resolved anticlimactically.
But the real detraction I’m levying comes from the pacing: July through Halloween took 50% of the book, while the second 50% covered November till June 6. While I appreciate how Harry’s rebellion affected his position in wizarding politics, I just can’t get behind the werewolf plot taking up so much of the story, especially considering it was only added very late in book five to begin with. I don’t think I’d want it to be dropped altogether, but a major scaling back would have been my preference.
Onto I Am Also Thy Brother! I remember extremely little from this one—only four scenes, in fact, and all but one are Connor focused—so I’m very much looking forward to it....more
**spoiler alert** Closer to 3.5 in reality, but I’m rounding down.
Fifth book in The Sacrifices Arc, and the one with my favorite name in the series, W**spoiler alert** Closer to 3.5 in reality, but I’m rounding down.
Fifth book in The Sacrifices Arc, and the one with my favorite name in the series, Wind That Shakes the Seas and Stars picks up right where Freedom and Not Peace left off. It’s dominated by three plot lines: the abuse trials against Harry’s parents and Dumbledore, the open war against Voldemort, and Harry’s reactions to both of those. Plus the romance with Draco heats up.
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The good:
• This book introduces some of my favorite characters, Charles Rosier-Henlin and his sons, Indigena Yaxley, Honoria Pemberly, Argutus the Omen snake, and Thomas Rhangnara, all of whom are exciting and memorable in their own ways. The author also adds great depth to others we’ve before: my appreciation for McGonagall and Scrimgeour grows with each POV scene, and I was enamored with what (admittedly little) we got from Connor and Pansy.
• Some of the most memorable scenes in the series: Lily and James’s abuse trial, Harry in the Room of Requirement afterwards, the attack on Henrietta’s house, Harry fighting the Wild Dark, and Draco and Harry taking down Dumbledore are the big ones. The Midwinter fight is so memorable, in fact, that I’ve thought of it every winter solstice since I was seventeen.
• Amazing to see the prophecy come true in such an unexpected way, tremendous payoff for everything that came before it. Excited to see it happen twice more, especially since I don’t remember how Falco Parkinson gets taken down.
• The Midsummer battle: couldn’t get enough of Light wizards showing what they’re made of. We got numerous perspectives, no punches were pulled in terms of violence, and the good guys won in the end—everything I could hope for in a battle; I enjoyed every second of that fight.
The bad:
• It’s such a boring choice to make a Bad Guy House out of Ravenclaw, considering a huge achievement of this series is its rehabilitation of the House villainized in canon. That’s been building since No Mouth But Some Serpent’s, and it came to an obnoxious head that I hope dissipates in A Song in Time of Revolution. (I don’t know how much of that one I remember.)
• We got chapters upon chapters of how learning how weak the wards are, seeing what the specific damages entail, hearing of and even watching McGonagall and the Founders fix not only the ones on the castle itself, but also the grounds. But, unless I missed it, there’s NO explanation for how Voldemort took them down so easily enough that Hogwarts was put under siege after a ~twenty-minute fight. Why spend all that time successfully fixing the wards only for them to fall in such a way?
• Why get the ball rolling on the werewolf plot 75% into a book that’s already got so much going on? Insane decision.
The exhausting:
• No book needs to be 1.5x Stephen King’s The Stand.
• Harry’s constant backtracking on personal growth. I actually had more sympathy for Harry on a human level than I did last read-through, now that I’ve seen people in my life have pretty comparable relapse cycles. But having a better understanding of something emotionally does not make it more fun to read. Seeing the same conversations over and over is a real drag: Harry doesn’t see himself as a person, he doesn’t talk to anyone, he considers his abuse no big deal. We get it already.
All the blame isn’t on Harry here, either: Draco and Snape almost never gave him in benefit of the doubt, even when his actions seemed perfectly in line with a real teenager rather than a product of Lily’s training. (Particularly, not bringing up dangerous situations because they’d make a big deal out of it when everything was fine, who cares?) Or when Harry jumped in front of that curse to save Connor—I saw zero problem with that and truly didn’t get why almost everyone did, especially after Harry explained his reasoning.
(Though this may be a Gryffindor vs. Slytherin thing: once a new friend and I were swimming in the sea when I recognized we were caught in a riptide. I yelled at them to swim parallel to the shore and escaped it myself before long, but I turned back and saw they were still struggling. So I jumped back in, pushed them out of it, and had to break out myself again. When I told my mom this story, expecting her to be happy with my decision, she said, “Okay but what about you?” and the question truly did not compute because I truly saw no other course of action I could have lived with.)
But Draco and Snape even yell at Harry for “risking his life” because he went outside to check out the storm and got struck by lightning. That wasn’t even his fault, and Draco did it too anyway. Give Harry a break.
The unfortunate:
• Maybe it’s because I’m a member of an at-risk group about to live through an administration that has explicitly targeted people like me, but I do not think Harry’s dedication to both Light and Dark minhagim—or rather, lack of dedication to both—has aged well. Being undeclared is okay, obviously, but right now I’m extremely sensitive to anything even approaching “both sides bad” rhetoric.
Similarly, Harry’s willingness to look past his allies’ former crimes when they haven’t even expressed remorse for their victims or agreed to behave differently in the future is grating on me. Adalrico pressured Harry about the Black Plague spores he used as a Death Eater. Hawthorne was grieving so it’s more excusable, but she did her Red Death curses on Yaxley when she could have just killed her and taken that danger off the board entirely.
And look, I LIKE that these are fully realized characters that we can empathize with even as they’re committed acts of evil—at the end of the day, everyone IRL is a person with his own rich inner life no matter what wrongs he’s done, and for a variety of reasons, it does no good to dehumanize anyone. But Harry’s embrace of them despite their active prejudice against Muggleborns makes me think of people who are like “My dad buys my mom flowers every Friday after work and coached all our soccer games and loves baseball. He also thinks migrants are subhuman scum who needs to deported and trans people should kill themselves, but none of that makes him a bad person.”
Thankfully, in this book Draco finally start to realize his dislike of Muggleborns is harmful. Good thing, too—I don’t know how long we were supposed to take Harry seriously as vates when he was dating an unapologetic racist.
• I could be wrong about how this goes because I don’t remember the next installment well, but this book seems to set up that Henrietta Bulstrode will teach Transfiguration next year, and Edith Bulstrode will be taught privately in France, and I REALLY fucking hate that. We got Harry as Edith’s champion this book, and we saw her living a happy life in Gryffindor with people who were kind to her for the first time, but now because Henrietta wants in on the war, Edith has to throw her new life away? I’m glad Henrietta showed up at Midsummer and saved Hermione, but Harry should have sent her straight home afterwards: obviously the harmed party’s comfort comes before the abuser’s preferences. I’m going to be next-level disappointed if the next book priorities Henrietta’s growth at the expense of her victim.
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I’ve written a ton of complaints here, but I think that’s inevitable with a story as large as this: the bigger it is, the more opportunities there are to make mistakes. So I want it known I DID like this book a lot, evidenced by my finishing it in the same time I did as Comes Out of Darkness Morn (three times shorter than this). The plot was engaging, the world continues to develop in exciting ways, and the characters can’t be beat. But the timing of where we are in the world right now has unfortunately worked against my enjoyment of the themes and has made me wary of some of the writing’s implications....more
I was not expecting this to take me two whole months, jeez.
This book is the best so far in terms of character growth—Draco and Connor both finally becI was not expecting this to take me two whole months, jeez.
This book is the best so far in terms of character growth—Draco and Connor both finally become characters I like rather than annoying. We get some great worldbuilding especially in terms of Light wizard minhag, and the plot itself obviously goes into overdrive. A lot gorier than I remembered. ...more
**spoiler alert** Disappointed with the endgame being the exact same as it was in NMBSS—Voldemort’s horcrux possessing someone and no one suspected it**spoiler alert** Disappointed with the endgame being the exact same as it was in NMBSS—Voldemort’s horcrux possessing someone and no one suspected it—and this one also starts the exhausting part of the series where Draco and Snape get on Harry’s ass about every single risky decision he makes even if it’s a completely reasonable one. But this book also has some of the scenes that stick with me the most from the series, like Dobby and Fawkes showing Harry his webs, the confrontation with Ron, Harry’s power being released, and Harry enacting the justice ritual, that I can’t dock it too many points. Plus it introduced Scrimgeour, who is my favorite....more
Hufflepuffs taking Connor down a peg was the best part of this one; I love it.
Also, I know Draco is infatuated with **spoiler alert** RIP Sylarana :’(
Hufflepuffs taking Connor down a peg was the best part of this one; I love it.
Also, I know Draco is infatuated with Harry himself as well as Harry’s magic, but it threw me out of the story how much Harry and Draco touched each other, hugs especially. Maybe wizarding culture is different, but at that age my friend group wouldn’t have hugged each other if ours lives depended on.
Love how well the author is starting to lay the whole plot out, though; I’m excited for the vates aspect to begin....more
This is a very long, very heavy Harry Potter AU where the author tries to make a good story out of common tropes, namely Slytherin!Harry and twin!HarrThis is a very long, very heavy Harry Potter AU where the author tries to make a good story out of common tropes, namely Slytherin!Harry and twin!Harry. As I said in an update, I read the series in the fall semester of senior year of high school and then in the fall of my junior year of college. Been wanting to revisit for a while, and since I tie books to seasons, now was the perfect time to go for it.
This first book held up just as well as I remembered, thankfully—I was scared my tastes had changed and I wouldn’t like it this time around. The quality of writing was very good (only once did a line stick out at me as being particularly awkward), and the characters, while not very similar to who they are in canon, are well developed and interesting in their own right.
You know when you talk to someone about HP and they say that while the stories themselves were pretty basic, JK Rowling created such a great, realistic world? No one who reads this series will ever espouse that opinion again. The Sacrifices Arc shows a depth to wizarding culture that JKR herself never comes close to. My favorite is the intricacy of pureblood culture, in this book most clearly shown when Harry stays with the Malfoys for Christmas. I’m very much looking forward to more of that. (If I’m remembering right, we get way more of Dark wizarding culture than Light, but I hope I’m wrong; I really like the idea of Houses besides Slytherin keeping wizarding traditions alive, pureblood or not.)
Harry is the most frustrating unreliable narrator I have ever encountered. Very effectively done on the author’s part.
Only a couple gripes with this one: - I get there’s a reason for this and that it’s entirely deliberate, but Harry doesn’t read like a child even remotely - Rolled my eyes so hard when Harry was like “Connor just needs to spend more time with my friend who’s actively calling his friend racial slurs :)”
I’m very glad to be reading this series again. Huge time investment, so let’s hope my pending surgery goes through soon; balancing hockey and reading this will be tall order. Those six weeks in recovery/off skates might get me through book four, if I’m lucky.
(As much as I love this series, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone; there are 3.3 million words among the seven books.)
Oh, also, I really wish the author had gone back and edited this book to have a Swinburne title like the rest of them....more
Good end to the series. Great we finally got character development for Mordant. I wish there were more books, but I can find zero information about thGood end to the series. Great we finally got character development for Mordant. I wish there were more books, but I can find zero information about the author anywhere....more
**spoiler alert** This series is extremely easy, turn-your-brain-off kind of reading. I like the characters a lot and think the setting of Hyperspace **spoiler alert** This series is extremely easy, turn-your-brain-off kind of reading. I like the characters a lot and think the setting of Hyperspace High has a lot of potential, but frankly, these books have some of the laziest worldbuilding I’ve ever seen.
How do classes work—there are more than 1000 kids, but John’s class only has about 18 kids in it, so are we talking classes like how they work in elementary school? How bad is the education that the contest finals consisted of all first-years? What does John’s actual schedule of classes look like? How come the other kids know more about what’s going on at the school than John even though the others are all first-years too? We don’t even know how old John is, and that’s driving me crazy.
(A big disappointment here is I bet if the author read Bruce Coville’s My Teacher Glows in the Dark, he’d have a great example of how this kind of work can be done even in such a short story. Like I said, serious potential that’s not being utilized.)
Interestingly, John is probably English, considering he was going to go to a boarding school in a place called Derbyshire, but other than that, this book reads as entirely American. ...more
**spoiler alert** Love the museum planet, but Animorphs has really spoiled me in regards to ethics in kids’ sci-fi. John had no problem with possibly **spoiler alert** Love the museum planet, but Animorphs has really spoiled me in regards to ethics in kids’ sci-fi. John had no problem with possibly killing aliens in that battle, and then the headmaster literally shot a guy into space to die. Especially when the author is clearly going for a Dumbledore-type figure, that’s an insane move....more
This is cute: basically simplified Harry Potter but sci-fi instead of fantasy. Some elements of Tom Corbett in there too. I’ll get around to reading tThis is cute: basically simplified Harry Potter but sci-fi instead of fantasy. Some elements of Tom Corbett in there too. I’ll get around to reading the rest of the series....more
If Gallowgate and The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane had a disappointing baby. It read a lot like a debut novel, and I might be more forgiving if that wIf Gallowgate and The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane had a disappointing baby. It read a lot like a debut novel, and I might be more forgiving if that were the case, but the author has written other things before.
Middle grade dark academia, so it should have been my scene, but there were a number of distracting tics (constant references to Nev’s “mechanical mind” and things being tucked into corners or pockets every other page, it seemed) and the story itself didn’t make much sense.
Nev accepted getting told off for going into the east wing without telling the principal they were locked in by a prefect. It was set during the Depression, but there seems to be no reason for this, given everyone read like modern teenagers, and it didn’t add anything to the story beyond the lack of electricity. The reveal of Deephaven secretly being a magic school fell flat. Nothing about the story meshed into a fluid whole is what it really comes down to.
(Also, I struggle with singular they and often had to go back to clarify whether Nev alone was doing something or if the person Nev was with was also included, but that’s more of a me problem.)
It wasn’t offensive or boring enough to get only one star, but nothing about it particularly impressed me....more
Was this mostly reskinned Harry Potter? Yes. Does that make me like it any less? No. Cute characters, fun story, love that Bastian is gay, and I like Was this mostly reskinned Harry Potter? Yes. Does that make me like it any less? No. Cute characters, fun story, love that Bastian is gay, and I like that their equivalent of the House system is more like college majors. Highly recommend for when you want something quick, easy, and a little spooky....more
**spoiler alert** This book’s subject is so up my alley that rather than start with a neutral opinion in my head and figure out the star rating as I r**spoiler alert** This book’s subject is so up my alley that rather than start with a neutral opinion in my head and figure out the star rating as I read, I basically started out assuming it would be five stars and took points off as I went.
First things first, I love boarding school fiction. Probably my favorite genre, and I’m not exactly picky: kidlit, literature, contemporary, vintage, sci-fi, you name it. I do have a solid preference for mid-century stuff, though, which already made this book a perfect fit. When I saw it had a chapter on my favorite book ever, Good Times/Bad Times, I didn’t stop looking until I managed to track down someone selling it for $20 instead of the $80+ I was seeing most places.
Things I liked:
Generally, the organization was good, how each chapter had one primary book and subject it dealt with. Pitofsky made good use of bringing in short stories to further illustrate his points rather than focusing only on the particular book highlighted in each chapter.
Pitofsky’s interpretation of Catcher in the Rye was very intriguing; it is not an opinion I’ve heard before, and I had a great time seeing him make his case. He made a lot of fun points, and I’m definitely going to look at things through this new lens next time I read it.
I learned a lot about the background of the authors, especially about James Kirkwood: I had no idea that he had a headmaster not dissimilar to Mr. Hoyt when he was away at school, and learning he had a best friend who died shed a lot of light on not just GT/BT, but other books of his I’ve read too.
Devoting an entire chapter to my favorite book that no one else will read (I begged my ex for years, to no avail) is an automatic point in its favor. (I especially liked his caveat that, yes, the book did age REMARKABLY poorly in its depictions of gay men, but it was a typical-to-daring portrayal for the time it was written.)
Actually, that’s another thing to like: at one point Pitofsky thanks his friends and family for listening to him go on and on about these books. I found that very relatable, as I’m always telling people close to me about things I love but they could not care less about.
Things I disliked:
There was quite a bit of his analysis I disagreed with, but that in and of itself isn’t a misstep: of course we’ll have different opinions; we’re two totally different people. The trouble I had was he left a number of topics of discussion completely off the table.
A blind spot of the author’s seems to be sexual assault in these novels, which is of course discussed, but not as fully as it could have been. Mentioning Holden claiming men constantly hit on him and an acknowledgement that he could be exaggerating, which he always does—a great start, but to leave out the specific instance of Mr. Antolini petting Holden’s head while he sleeps and Holden’s subsequent freak out? Nothing explicit happens, sure, so if he wanted to make an argument that that didn’t count, whatever, but to neglect mentioning it at all was a real shame.
Similarly: Pitofsky mentions GT/BT’s Dennis Vacarro’s background as a survivor of CSA, which is good, and he quotes from the rubdown scene with Mr. Hoyt and Peter, but he stops before Mr. Hoyt is at his worst, which felt to me like a deliberate misinterpretation of the scene. (He mentions Hoyt spilling too much alcohol on Peter’s back and pulling his pants down, but does not mention Hoyt actually touching Peter’s balls and trying to flip him over to get to his dick.)
If you’re going to address these themes in your book, you need to go all the way and do an analysis that does these scenes justice.
I also would have liked him to properly address the teachers pretty much neglecting the boys in A Separate Peace, given his argument was that the boys themselves were at fault for violating Devon’s traditions.
Another issue I had is that the title claims we’re only going to discuss fiction from before 1982, but there ends of being a bit about Dead Poets Society, School Ties, and Scent of a Woman, all of which fall beyond the date range laid out. I get that these movies are very much in line with the themes and portrayals talked about in this book (and not with post-1981 boarding school fiction that’s the subject of his next book), but in that case change the title to reflect the stories are about institutions that are SET in the middle of the century, not those that were necessarily WRITTEN in that time period. (Though even then, Scent of a Woman would be an outlier.)
Final missed opportunity: Pitofsky mentions how prep school stories from the 1920s and earlier were generally happier and focused on stuff like sports and pranks rather than the angst of mostly privileged white boys that’s the subject of the fiction outlined in this book. Which is all true, but it doesn’t mention that fact that Tom Brown et. al were intended for children, while the stories here are targeted toward teenagers or adults. I can’t imagine that didn’t have any kind of effect on the types of school stories being published, but that idea isn’t even mentioned, let alone explored.
In the end, even with all its faults, I’m giving it three stars. I enjoyed my time reading it, and it gave me a ton of new books and stories to look into, which is a huge plus, and some of Pitofsky’s arguments were really good. But ultimately, it has a number of blind spots that I can’t ignore, so I cannot give it the five stars I was hoping for.
This was engaging enough for me to read it in one sitting, but there wasn’t really a plot, and the style of writing didn’t really seem concordant withThis was engaging enough for me to read it in one sitting, but there wasn’t really a plot, and the style of writing didn’t really seem concordant with its taking place in the early 1940s....more
I started reading this around March of 2018 but put it down once trying to join the Navy took up all my attention. I got medically disqualified and thI started reading this around March of 2018 but put it down once trying to join the Navy took up all my attention. I got medically disqualified and then struck out with the Army and the Marine Corps, too. I was depressed and inconsolable for more than a month. Once I was back functioning properly but still sad, I decided finishing this book might cheer me up.