Cheer [netflix]

You have to be a devotee of reality TV to really appreciate this, I think, but I absolutely am, and I thought it was fascinating. 

Season 1 follows Navarro Texas's community college's cheer team as they prepare to try and win their 14th national title against their rivals from the next town over. The coach, Monica, is a really interesting person; very self-contained and relatively quiet, but occasionally you see how driven she is, and how downright mean she can be. We meet some of the students on the team, hoping to "make mat," that is, be one of the performers at the actual competition in Florida. Each one of them is an unbelievably compelling and tragic figure in different ways -- shout out to my girl Lexi, for whom I want only good things. The team is trying a pyramid that's more difficult than anything they've done before. People get injured. Last minute switches have to be made. Everything is falling apart, and then, at the end of the season--

Well, I won't spoil it, but it's very good television. And then season 2 takes a totally different approach. Because between seasons lots of things happened. The team got very, very famous, and a lot of their time when they should be practicing is now spent doing car commercials, going on Ellen, and hosting red carpets. Monica, the coach, is on Dancing with the Stars, so she isn't even actively coaching the team most days. Kids have graduated and left. Other kids have gotten in to trouble (including one absolutely heartbreaking reveal that a truly beloved person in season 1 is a sexual predator and currently in jail) and been kicked off the team or left. And a lot of season 2 focuses on the rival school, scrappy Trinity Valley community college, just a few miles away.

Will the Navarro heroes win again? Will the Trinity College underdogs snatch the trophy away from them? It's compelling, but not nearly as compelling as season one; season 2 is mostly watchable because it's really interesting to see all the ways that become famous have screwed everyone up. 

And I do have some unanswered questions and complaints. For example: it's a two-year college, but some students seem to be on the team for three or even four years. Some students appear to not even be students, but are still allowed to compete. Only two teams ever win -- are there only two teams in their division? Because it's a lot less impressive if Navarro has won so many times... but there are only two teams competing. Why did Netflix feel the need to put the sexual assault survivors on screen, when they are under age? The whole second season is about how badly fame can destroy you; why would you put those children in the show??? I was furious. 

My other big gripe is the same one I have about so many movie musicals in the past decade; the editing of the actual cheer routines is terrible. I don't want slow motion cut-aways to the crowd screaming! I want to see the actual thing the show is about. Let me watch the unbelievable athleticism of these students! Let me appreciate this pyramid they've been killing themselves to perfect! Stop cutting the camera at weird angles every seven seconds and trust that viewers actually do want to watch the students cheer.

If this sounds interesting to you, you'll probably love it. If it doesn't, don't go to brunch with me, because I'm going to be talking about it for weeks. 

Hello

 I will be honest, I have't read a single book yet this year. 

Sure, we're only three weeks in, but I also read very few books last year, or the year before that. My time is taken up with video games, with watching youtube, with staring into space and contemplating the universe... I joke, except I'm not really joking. Part of it is that since 2016 the world has felt a lot less safe and comfortable. Part of it is that since 2020 my job has gone completely sideways and become a hostile, miserable place, and after 17 years of the same work, I'm seriously thinking about updating my resume and looking for something where I'll feel safer and more respected. All of that takes up a ton of brain space, and reading books has fallen by the wayside.

Also, I fully forgot I had this book blog. Whoops. I was thinking about writing, maybe, about the video games I've been playing, or the make up I've been enjoying, or the youtube videos I'd recommend, and I went to search up blogger and... this popped up. It feels like a different person read these books, although I skimmed it and my opinions are basically the same. 

So here we go! I am going to put down my thoughts about things like why I love the Trails series of video games (and all the problems with those same games), why I don't want to read any hot takes about Breath of the Wild 2, and why trash reality TV is the only that helps me turn my brain off these days. 

Scales of Gold (The House of Niccolò #4), Dorothy Dunnett

This is the most engaged I've been by a Niccolo book so far. I really enjoy Gelis and Diniz and Loppe (and Umar). Of course, having read Dunnett before, that meant I was waiting for something terrible to happen to at least one of them by the end of the book.

This is a travel story, and while I am still a little hazy on Nicholas and what he wants and why he does the things he does, I enjoyed the travel through Africa. I thought it was handled incredibly well, especially given when this book was written. African cultures were treated with the same respect and awe that Trebizond or Cyprus were in previous books, and while the characters occasionally judged the culture of Timbuktu it never felt like the book was. 

There is a section at the end, when they've all come back from years of living abroad, and find that the only people they can talk to about the journey is each other, which I related to intensely. I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and it's nearly impossible to explain what it was like to anyone who wasn't there. For those scenes I finally felt like I understood and enjoyed Nicholas, who otherwise is a cipher who leaves me cold in these books.

The end of this book is, frankly, bonkers. I won't have time to pick up the next book for a few weeks, but I'm definitely going to be thinking about it the entire time.

Grade: B
#63 in 2017

Barrel Proof (Agents Irish and Whiskey #3), Layla Reyne

This whole series feels like you've just tuned into season 3 of a TV show about crime and drama in the FBI. When we met Aidan in book one, he'd already lost his husband and partner, and there was a whole huge family and set of friends who showed up repeatedly to contribute to the plot. So it makes sense that in this book, the "season finale," most of those characters show up again. It makes the resolution of the plot a little bit crowded; instead of focusing on Jaime and Aidan's relationship, which falls apart for very good reason at the beginning of this book, it has a lot of plot to deal with. I was happy at how their conflict resolved, and very pleased they got together. It just felt more like a season finale of an ongoing show than the final resolution of a trilogy of books.

Grade:B
#62 in 2017

Spectred Isle (Green Men #1), KJ Charles

I am so glad this is the start of a series -- I liked both of the characters and this world so much. Set just after WWI, Saul is an archaeologist who lost his reputation and job in the war after making a very bad decision; Randolph is the mysterious stranger he can't stop running into. They meet at mysterious situation after mysterious situation. The only job Saul could get was working for a crazy old man who thinks magic is real, and Randolph turns out to be a man who fought in the magical battles of WWI. Both men are different, damaged people on the other side of WWI; both have lost nearly everyone they loved or cared about.

This is a magic action-adventure story, and also a historical romance. Randolph doesn't care what anyone thinks of him because he's from a wealthy, ancient family. Saul doesn't have that privilege. but their growing relationship is lovely, as is the promise of their future adventures together. It's exciting and scary and sexy and I'm excited for the rest of the series.

Grade:B
#61 in 2017

Single Malt, and Cask Strength (Agents Irish and Whiskey #1 and #2), Layla Rayne

The summer of reading tons of romance novels and Dunnett continues! I liked the first book so much! I love a romance novel that's also action-adventure, and this has lots of mystery and clues and sudden reveals of bad guys. Both protagonists were well-drawn and complex, and it made sense for them to want each other, and to have serious challenges getting together. Aidan's husband was killed mysteriously eight months earlier, and he's not over it yet. Jaime's handsome and charming and a little famous, and being in a relationship will be public and uncomfortable. As I finished this book I said out loud to myself, "How many of these are there? I'm going to read ALL of them."

There is a little telling instead of showing in the first couple of chapters, and a few too many uses of nicknames (something that bugs me a lot because romances seem to rely so heavily on it), but overall I liked this a lot, and I immediately bought the sequel, so...

I liked the second one even more. There are amazing tropes here. Aidan and Jaime have gotten together, but promised to keep it casual (and Aiden is sleeping with a bunch of other dudes, to remind himself not to get too attached to Jaime, which is breaking Jaime's heart a little). Jaime has to go undercover as himself; he was previously a basketball player, and the FBI asks him to be himself, as a coach, to bust an online gambling ring. Jaime misses his old life and of course runs into the ex-boyfriend who broke his heart, while Aidan is pretending to cozy up to a suspect. The pining is magnificent, as are the dark secrets. 

When I got to the end I immediately pre-ordered the third one, which luckily is coming out next month. This is just what I wanted on my summer vacation. 

Grade: B 

#59 and #60 in 2017

All I Have (A Farmers' Market Story #1)

This is very sweet. One thing I love about Nicole Helm's writing is that she gets the claustrophobia of growing up in a small town. Just like Mia, I was a smart, awkward girl in a very small farming town, who was consistently unable to make friends or figure out how to be "like everyone else." Actually, now that I think about it, I also came home and hooked up with a guy from school who was working on his family farm. We didn't end up madly in love and buying a farm together, but this book captures the despair of always being the person you were in high school. 

I wish this story were longer; I wish the fight at the end had been a little more complicated and harder to resolve. But this is a lovely read that is the best kind of wish fulfillment.

Grade: B

#58 in 2017