Liars, Inc. | Book Review

Title: Liars, Inc.

Author: Paula Stokes

Genre: Mystery, YA

Summary: A student named Max starts a club called Liars, Inc. where he and his friends forge signatures, call in for "sick" kids, and other petty high school stuff. But then, Max is framed for the disappearance for this best friend, Preston and things go from bad to slightly less bad to really bad to ???

Rating: 3/10 stars

Review: 

I'm going to start this review with the things I did not like. First, the character Parvati. While part of me can appreciate a half-Indian love interest/female lead (not something you see in YA fiction a lot), most of me was upset with Parvati's characterization. It wasn't enough to make her a free spirit, which is something that I don't think I would have a problem with. Stokes took it way too far.

My issue comes with her being a lying, scheming, drug abusing manipulator. A South Asian girl being shown as untrustworthy and only starting to gain a conscience when she finds the right Basic White Boy? Come on, now. It's a main point of the story that the characters are all untrustworthy, but I feel that Stokes overdid it with Parvati's character. Max lies to the FBI? Shitty decision but when you're being set up for murder and interrogated, with a criminal record, I can understand why he'd do those things and for his character, it makes sense for him to impulsively do things. If I were in his position, I'd probably make the same dumb choices. With Preston, not to spoil anything, but I get why he did the things he did. It's believable and in line with his characterization. 

But with Parvati, I felt that too much was piled onto her to make her seem too much like a mysterious bad girl, when her smarts and rebellious streak that got her kicked out of her last school would have been more than enough to justify the narrative painting her as untrustworthy and for Max doubting her. Unfortunately, Stokes decided to dump way too much onto Parvati and it turned out messy and insensitive.

There are a pair of twin Korean babies in the story, and they're nowhere near needed for the plot. One's named something or another but the other is named Jo Lee, as in that's her "first name" and her surname is the name of the white people who adopted her. I'm obviously not an expert on Korean culture, but I'm at least eighty percent sure that the name Jo Lee makes no sense as a given name. Lee is a surname. And even if the kid's surname was Lee and her first name was just Jo, her twin would have the same surname, which she does not in the book. Again, I'm not Korean, or even Korean-American, so I could be wrong about this, but if I'm not, that seems a bit like the typical "pick vague names that possibly fit a culture and put them in the book because Western readers won't know the difference" bs that many authors like to pull.

Then there's a part in which a character has green eyes and pale skin and therefore looks ~less Latino~ and :) when :) will :) white :) people :) realize :) that :) they're :) not :) the :) only :) ones :) with :) pale :) eyes :) and skin :) and :) having :) those :) features :) does :) not :) make :) PoC :) any :) less :) of :) members :) of :) their :) own :) race :) :) :)

There's also a part in which Parvati is referred to as looking "otherworldly, like a ghost or a hot alien chick" because yeah, people who aren't 100% white Americans must be ALIENS. You can have a love interest who is a woman of color without using the teenage male narrator to fetishize her and make lowkey racist remarks about her. Hiding behind the character won't excuse your casual racism.

But racist undertones aside, Liars, Inc. is a pretty predictable mystery. There was no point where I slapped my hand over my mouth or gasped aloud. For a book that is advertised to be like Gone Girl and How To Get Away With Murder, clearly you can see why I was disappointed with the mystery plot. I guessed many things early on. As soon as one clue was revealed, I figured out its significance. I kept reading the book because I wanted to be blindsided by something. I wanted Max to actually turn out to be guilty, or for any of my predictions to be completely wrong. A photo of a kid who looks like Preston could turn out to be a photoshopped red herring. All these videos and photographs that were found of Parvati having sex? Perhaps they led to someone getting arrested for child pornography (for real, you can't tell me that F.B.I. agents would just let that slide. I've been binge watching Quantico. Alex Parrish would never let something like that go.) I feel that SOMETHING should have come from nowhere and thrown the reader for a loop, but it never happened.

The book might have benefited from involving Liars, Inc. more. After the first act of the book, the idea is just dropped and only mentioned in passing. I get that there is a mystery happening but I feel that if half the premise is this club, and the book is NAMED after it, there should have been a bigger purpose for it. Like Max said, he would have covered for Preston even if Liars, Inc. didn't exist, so why was it in the book in the first place if the narrative wasn't going to use it for more than a few chapters?

Overall, Liars, Inc. isn't the worst book I've ever read, and it's not the worst YA mystery out there. But with its offensive content and paint-by-numbers plot, it's not anything special. I flew threw it thanks to the short chapters, and while there are worse books to spend time on, I still don't think Liars, Inc. is a must read for YA mystery lovers.

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The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) | Book Review

Title: The Hidden Oracle

Series: The Trials of Apollo (Book 1)

Author: Rick Riordan

Genre: MG, Fantasy

Summary: Apollo's a human now and has trials to complete so he can be a god again. And he's at Camp Half Blood. And funny stuff happens.

Rating: 8 out of 10 perfectly placed arrow puns

A very, very short review:

****Spoiler warning****

Oh man, how I've missed this mythological world! I haven't read a book by Rick Riordan since The Blood of Olympus and I think that's because I was so disappointed with that book. I've been wary to read another book of his because I didn't want to be let down again but something told me to go ahead and read The Hidden Oracle and I'm so glad I did. I love the cameos from past characters and I ACTUALLY CRIED when Leo returned (spoiler alert). I missed him so much!!

The humor was spot on and I think Apollo was the right Olympian to center this story around because he's the one who can have the most development. I'm imagining if this book had been led by Hades or Athena and those both sound like... weird and bad ideas. A MG/YA book about Apollo as a human + Riordan's trademark humor + believable character development made this book so much fun! I really, really, REALLY want the sequel in my hands. Like, right now. I want to be able to touch the book at this very moment.

I told you the review was short.

Basically, go read The Hidden Oracle if you're a fan of the Percy Jackson books, or if you like a lot of humor mixed with fantasy!


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Too Late by Colleen Hoover | Book Review

Title: Too Late
Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: New Adult, Romance
Summary: This girl is in an abusive relationship but then starts a secret relationship with the undercover cop who is trying to bust her drug trafficking boyfriend because that's obviously a smart idea.
Rating: 3/10 unnecessary epilogues
Review:

I love Colleen Hoover's books, and she's a great writer. But I feel like this book was not very good.

The premise is interesting and it starts off strong, but everything quickly goes downhill. The characters feel underdeveloped and cliche. I don't like how this story is supposed to be about how Generic Female Lead overcomes this abusive relationship, but in the end it's her Generic Male Hero who ends up saving her from the relationship.

The ending, without spoiling anything, is a mess. Generic Female Lead starts to act completely out of character in a "revenge" scene that is as uncomfortable as it is disgusting. When the reader is feeling grossed out by the main couple of a romance novel, that's probably not the best sign of a good book.

The only interesting character, unfortunately, is Asa, the abusive boyfriend. The 3 points I've given the book come from him. While he's nuts and evil and a terrible person, at least he's got some sort of personality! I would much rather have read a book all about him than the snoozefest that was Generic White People Falling In Love. The backstory of him and his father, as well as the crime ring he runs would have made for a much more entertaining story, in my opinion. In the end, I even found myself hoping there'd be a twist ending, with him winning, just so something about the book could be original. But things end how you'd expect a story like this to end, and it's super boring.

While this is no way turns me off to Colleen's other books, and I'm still going to read anything she and her talent touch, I don't recommend reading Too Late. But if you'd like to read the book anyway, it is available for free on Wattpad.com

How To Finish The Novel That is Driving You Nuts

I really want to give writing advice, especially to those people who are struggling to finish the first draft of their first novel. When I was trying to find advice on how to power through the first draft of Epic, everything I came across was like “just do it! Just write the book!” and I was thinking “if I could just write the book I wouldn’t need any advice." But this past December I had a lot of time on my hands and was feeling inspired to write and before I knew it, I had finally completed the novel. I spent two years on that draft because I could never finish it, I wouldn’t touch it for months at a time. I worked on other stuff, short stories and such, but in my heart I always wanted to finish Epic and I was lucky that my inspiration came back. I guess it’s true that you can’t rush art.

But onto the actual advice part of this post.

To the people like me who apparently just need inspiration, keep your eyes and ears open. I mean it. I was listening to this song and the sound of it (not the lyrics of the original song) inspired a key (no pun intended)* setting in Epic and I looked at this image and it inspired an important scene in the story. My point is that inspiration can be anywhere and when you think that something strikes a cord and could lead to something in the novel, WRITE ABOUT IT. Without going into much detail about my novel (this post is about you, I promise) the song I linked just clicked somewhere in my head with what I wanted that scene to represent to the reader and to the characters, but it was just that upbeat, happier version of the song (the original is depressing af) that I was connecting that scene to. So I created this gorgeous, and vivid world based on a song that only lasts a few minutes. A big chunk of the novel is set here and it was all written around a song. So like I said, keep your eyes and ears open. inspiration will come, sometimes in the form you least expect. It can be a song, a film, a photo, a person, a building you walk past. There are so many things in this world you can see and interpret in your own way. If you walk past a skyscraper, you may think “wow I bet some important stuff happens there” but if your characters walk past one, let’s say in a post-apocalyptic setting, they’d be curious and want to explore this massive, ancient structure that is somehow still standing (hint: that’s a metaphor for humanity surviving the apocalypse). So then the characters go in, they find something cool, they take it home, ask their parents about it and the old world, the family begins talking about how life once was, and then you can just keep going and see where the writing takes you. If you hit a dead end, so be it, but you’ll be writing and something you come up with in this sort-of freewrite can maybe develop into a full idea for the novel.

I know that this process of “write when inspired” isn’t for everyone. And to those people who this doesn't work for, I recommend a few things. first, try to pick a side character and create a new document in whatever program you use. Then write 5-10 full pages of information for this character. physical stuff, quirks, pet peeves, anything about them. This doesn’t have to become the canon stuff, you can always change things later. And this doesn’t have to go into the final version of the story, it can just be for you to know the character better.

If you’re still not inspired, write a summary of the novel, make it at least a page. It doesn’t have to be an outline but just get down what exactly you’re aiming to have once the novel is done. One, it’s good practice for querying, and two, having a good idea of where the novel is headed can help you visualize the complete novel, and it won’t be as completely as abstract an idea as it is in your head… that made sense, right?
If you’re still, STILL not feeling it, here’s a controversial tip: do nothing. Nada. Zilch. Do not touch that novel. I’ve been there before many times, and like I said, I wrote other stuff. Write something completely new. Epic is a high fantasy, space adventure so what did I write when I wasn’t feeling Epic enough? A short story about vampire hunters, and I started a steampunk retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Go to the opposite side of the genre spectrum and just let the juices flow (I hate that saying ew). It’s like when you’ve spent too much time with your s.o and you’re just like “I… need to spend the weekend with my friends.” You don’t want to smother your novel, or worse, have it smother you.

I hoped this post helped those of you suffering from writer's block. If you have any questions or need clarification on anything, don't hesitate to ask me!

- L

"Epic" is Almost Here

Eleven teenagers. Eight planets. Seven Keys. One wronged queen.

When Annabelle Garcia and her friends find themselves mysteriously on another planet, they learn that they may only return to Earth after retrieving seven magical Keys for queen Mayra of Eden, who has been stripped of her crown and accused of murdering her husband. With reluctance, Anna and her friends accept Mayra’s offer, but the secrets being kept threaten to tear them apart. An impossible mission, the odds are stacked against them in every way. If they aren’t careful, our heroes and heroines will be pushed to the limits of the psyche, become enemies of nature, and if they’re caught by anyone, they face the a high possibility of execution.
Danger lurks around every corner in the form of nightmares and monsters too vile for the worst of humans to endure. But with their combined skill and wit, and a little bit of luck, the crew just might be able to succeed and return home.
A highly imaginative novel that pushes the boundaries of fantasy, this is a tale that can only be described as epic.

Epic is a high fantasy young adult novel, and the first book of a duology. You can preorder it on Amazon, and it will be delivered to you on July 11, 2016. Many of you have waited YEARS to read this novel and we’re finally here. In less than a month, well… you’ll be able to swipe its pages on your ereader.

Make sure to preorder the novel, read and review it, as well as tell your friends if you enjoy it. Thank you so much for all the support you guys have given me over the years :)

As soon as I have more information about ordering a physical copy, I will let you guys know!

Okay now that I’ve gotten all the business stuff out of the way, I want to talk a bit more about the story. I’ve said a lot on my blog about Epic, about wanting to have a story full of imagination and all that jazz. But one of the biggest reasons that I’m proudest to finally have this book out into the world is that it means there’s one more book for LGBT+ youth and youth of color to see themselves in, as main characters and not sidekicks. When I was younger, I always wanted to read a story like this, and I feel that many readers want the same thing. So Epic is a book for me, for the reader I was who could never find the story she needed. But it’s mainly for the rest of the world, for people who have been told through fiction that they are always second rate to the majority. I’m sure that one day, I’ll end up writing thousands of words about what Epic means to me, and perhaps some day, I’ll receive letters and messages about what the story means to the readers. I’m looking forward to it.

- L

Seeker | Book Review

Title: Seeker

Series: The Seeker Series (Book 1)

Author: Amy Reece

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Summary: Ally has psychic visions and she keeps having visions of bad shit happening to a classmate and then other stuff happens I suck at summaries

Rating: 8/10 pretentious quotes about telling the truth

Review: I was surprised with Seeker. It does follow a lot of YA tropes (mean popular girl, troubled bad boy, plain Jane female lead) but the book makes up for it by having a lot of humor and being self aware. There were multiple times that I was reading something and thought "that's ridiculous"  but then a character would point out the ridiculousness immediately afterwards. Ally, for the most part, is an alright heroine. Her constant crying gets annoying after a while and she makes really stupid decisions a lot of the time. I mean, REALLY stupid decisions. For example, instead of going directly to a girl who she knows is being abused, and getting help as soon as possible, she wastes time joining the cheerleading squad and trying to wiggle her way into that girl's inner circle. This girl's life is in danger and Ally acts like it's not as big of a deal as it really is.

Ally's personality is good, she's funny and entertaining, but I still feel like she's a bit immature. Which is a problem because she's fallen into insta-love with the Typical Troubled Bad Boy. They're at the "I love you" stage within a handful of weeks. The Typical Troubled Bad Boy tells Ally he was arrested for drug use and she doesn't even ask what drug(s) he had? Any rational person who is trying to have sex with someone, and who claims to love them, is going to know about their drug use past. Drug use can spread diseases if certain drugs are involved. If the Typical Troubled Bad Boy had told her it was just marijuana, then Ally would have been in the clear because it's harmless. But if he told her it was heroine, HIV can be spread through needles and there could be a chance that he has it, yet she's trying to have sex with him?? Do you see where I'm going with this? Realistically, it was probably just marijuana and the Typical Troubled Bad Boy doesn't have HIV, but still, I wish we could have characters who know how to be responsible.

Another thing I wasn't particularly fond of was the ending. I felt that it wrapped up too fast. We'd spent the entire novel building up to the climax and it's over in a few pages. It was like the author was already focused on book 2 and needed to get through book 1 as quickly as possible.

Despite the gripes I have with Seeker, I was entertained by it. It's funny, interesting, and Ally is a solid, yet reckless, heroine. I recommend picking it up (it's free on Amazon kindle!)

Seeker is available at Amazon and at the Book Depository.
You can add Seeker to Goodreads here.

Filthy Beautiful Lies | Book Review

This book is a filthy beautiful mess

Title: Filthy Beautiful Lies with no commas separating the words
Series: Filthy Beautiful Lies with no commas separating the words (Book 1)
Author: Kendall Ryan
Genre: New Adult, Adult
Summary: Sophie decides to sell her virginity to pay for her sister's cancer treatment and she ends up having to live with/have sex with a rich, hot, young guy because that's totally realistic.
Rating: 5/10 bottles of wine actually called "Naughty Girl"

Review:
I don't know how I feel right now. Filthy Beautiful Lies has some strong points but then sometimes I was actually cringing while reading it. The best thing about the book is the cliffhanger, which was so good that I want to read the next book. And I do think the premise, while ridiculous, is new and original. However, some of the dialogue and the romance was laughable and the main character is such a moron. The 28 year old billionaire love interest with a disturbingly high sex drive (let us count how many novels feature a character like this) has no consistency? He says he doesn't want to force Sophie into sex, which of course makes sense, but this is after he's forced her to perform oral sex on him twice?????????? He attempts to treat Sophie with care and respect, which again makes sense, but then he turns around and calls her his property??? Sophie claims to be a smart independent woman yet she's calling this guy who PURCHASED her "master"????????? The term "genital-on-genital contact" is actually used in 100% seriousness??
But I gave this a medium rating for a reason. Like I said, it's original and I liked the cliffhanger. And I sped through this baby in a day because laughing at it was keeping me so entertained. It's not the worst adult or new adult novel I've read or attempted to read (will anything ever be worse than Fifty Shades?) but it's far from the best. If you're looking for a great romance with an engaging story, Filthy Beautiful Lies may not be for you. But if you want something new and fun, take a day or two to curl up with this book and laugh your butt off.

Filthy Beautiful Lies is available on Amazon and at the Book Depository

Hunted: Chapter One

I've been writing this short story for a long time, I uploaded it online, edited it, and I am starting to reupload it as a better version of itself.

Hunted follows Diana Crowe, a vampire hunter searching for the monster who killed her best friend. But one night, everything in Diana's world is turned upside down and she must find herself facing monsters she didn't know existed, including those close to her own heart.

Hunted contains graphic violence and mature themes. You can read a sample of chapter one below.


"There was blood at the tip of my stake, dripping onto the pavement below. I stood panting, lowering my arm. The thing had put up one hell of a fight, almost besting me a few times before I finally put an end to its unfortunate un-life.

It was a warm summer night, mosquitoes buzzing around, the stale air making the stench of the dead creature even more prominent in the alley I stood in. We were in the warehouse district. I’d caught him just as he was about to swoop in and munch on a helpless factory worker. I left him there, leaving it to the sun to turn him to ash. I didn’t have to worry about anyone finding him bleeding in the alley. We used charmed stakes, ones that turned the monsters invisible to regular human eyes.

Once back in my car, parked a quarter mile away, I tossed my stake into the glove compartment, and turned on the radio. A catchy pop song about the usual clubbing and sex and alcohol was on, backed by a generic electro beat. I hated this type of music but I turned the volume up anyway, rolled the windows down and sped off to report back to HQ.

The normally twenty minute drive took over two hours, with the back road I always took blocked off, forcing me onto the busy interstate. It was eleven p.m., with many of the cars just now leaving the Lakers game we had tonight. Traffic in Los Angeles is notoriously awful, but that night was some of the worst that I’d ever seen. Finally, countless Top 40 songs later, I exited and drove down a lone road, peering closely so that I wouldn’t miss my turn. I’d been in the business for a year now and yet I still got lost too often. I turned left, checking my rearview mirror for cars. If someone had seen me, I would have had to turn around, making sure the other car saw me leave. We couldn’t prevent everyone from seeing us, but we tried to keep the witness number low.

I was in the clear and I drove for a few more miles before finally reaching HQ. It looked like a normal business from the outside. Our front was that we sold pencils and that’s it. It didn’t bring in much money. But then, we were government controlled so it wasn’t as if we had to worry about money anyway. I pulled around to the back, where there was an underground parking garage with only two levels of parking lots. I parked in my usual space, just outside the door leading into the lowest level of the building, and climbed out of my car. My ballets flats snapped against the gravel as I walked to the revolving door.
I was in L3, passing by a bunch of scientists and doctors, or “Undead Specialists”, who I’d learned had spent the past several years searching for a cure. In the late-00’s, a group of Specialists in London created the charm that allowed us to keep vampire re-deaths from the humans a secret. Until then, we had left them for anyone to find, and the police and government would step in and squash any questions public had about the dead bodies.
The cure, however, was the goal now. The Hunters could not allow vampires to live, as they had to either kill their victims, or worse, let them turn. But that does not mean that we aren’t conflicted by what we do. We don’t typically see the undead as people anymore, because they’re monsters that kill or curse others to their lifestyle. But we also know that it’s not the vampires fault. Someone forced them into their un-lives by drinking them to the brink of death, feeding them vampire blood, then letting the sunlight heal, and turn them.
This was why a cure was important. We’d tried to reverse the process, put the drained person into darkness for a day, then let them out, but at some point during the day, they would die of their wounds, even with the vampire blood in them. It was tragic and I’d hoped that something could be done about it soon.
“Crow Feet!” I heard someone call. I looked away from the Specialists and saw him barreling towards me, grabbing me by the arms and pulled me in for a hug when he finally reached me. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah, I am. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“You didn’t get the message?”
I shook my head. I was one of the rare American teens not glued to my cell phone.
He looked grim. “We were all called off patrol a few hours ago. We have an emergency.”
Charlie was my best friend, my goofy other half, the sun to my moon. But the expression on his face, the tone of his voice, held no trace of my friend. He was no longer the guy who first welcomed me when I got here on my first day of the job. He was in full on Hunter mode, stomping off with me right behind him. We took the elevator a floor up and he hung a quick right. Uh oh, I thought."

Continue reading on Wattpad

Please like, share, and comment if you enjoy reading Hunted! Be on the lookout for more updates!

Boyfriend Glasses (Greta Bell Psychological Thriller #1) | Book Review

"Bitches be crazy"

Title: Boyfriend Glasses

Series: Greta Bell Psychological Thriller

Author: Livia Harper

Genre: New Adult, Thriller

Goodreads

Summary: Greta is in love with Blake. They are soulmates.

But Blake is dating Greta's roommate. And Greta is batshit fucking crazy.

Rating: 10 "the fuck is this bitch doing?'s" out of 10

Review:

I don't even know where to begin with this novel. I just found it for free on Amazon kindle and I wasn't expecting much from it but then I found myself cringing, creeped out, and laughing throughout the entire thing. Greta's obsession with Blake and the flashbacks about her previous obsession with a boy named Johnny are just nuts. She has completely deluded herself into believing she has relationships with these guys and it'd be one thing to read about her disturbingness from the point of view from her stalking victims but to read her thoughts and get the entire story from her makes everything at least 7.3 times more uncomfortable.

The story is pretty straightforward, Greta arrives at college and falls in love with Blake at first sight, then is jealous of her roommate, Amber, for dating him, and she spends the novel trying to get Blake to be with her instead, through any means necessary. But what kept me going was the fact that Greta's life was a trainwreck that I couldn't look away from. I don't want to give away too much but through multiple acts of arson, having sex with random truck drivers, sleeping naked under someone's bed, and a scene straight outta Compton "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," Greta gets into some pretty bizarre situations and they are what keep the story flowing even when it doesn't seem like much is happening.

I like the way the novel jumps between Greta's high school story and her college story and the way the high school story goes is not how you see it going, and just when you think the college story may end the same way, something happens that throws everything off and sets up for what are sure to be strange sequels. I don't have any complaints about Boyfriend Glasses. It's fun, original, unpredictable, and one of the best books I've read in a long time. I highly recommend giving this series a try.

Boyfriend Glasses is available for free on Amazon Kindle, and in paperback at the Book Depository.

The Naturals (The Naturals #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Book Review

Title: The Naturals
Series: The Naturals (Book 1)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Summary: It's basically a YA version of Criminal Minds, in which a smart girl named Cassie joins the FBI to help catch serial killers
Rating: 9/10 stars
Review: I'll be honest, I think I know everything. I've read countless novels, I watch Criminal Minds religiously, so when I know how bad guys are caught on that show and I know every trope in fiction, it's rather hard to take me by surprise. Which is why I have to give The Naturals such a high rating. I had figured out who the killer was from their first appearance and for the first time in as far as I can remember, I was wrong about a novels' plot twist. While I was reading The Naturals, I saw myself giving it a 6 or 7 starred rating because I thought it was predictable. However, by the end of the novel, I found myself overlooking the pointless love triangle and one dimensional characters because I enjoyed the last third of the novel so much. The plot was easy to follow, moved fairly quickly (I finished this in just a few days), and the story is a lot of fun. There aren't many young adult novels based around criminal profiling so it's refreshing to read something new and unique. The Naturals does have its problems though. The love triangle, for one, is not needed at all. Michael and Cassie have chemistry as friends but whenever things get romantic it's awkward and I feel like they can't relate to each other very well and that this should just remain a friendship. The romance feels thrown in for cheap tension. Dean and Cassie make a lot more sense together romantically and I hope that by the end of the next book, the love triangle has been squashed and we can stop dedicating pages to it when that page time could be given to developing the characters. I feel like too often characters start to blur together, Lia and Sloane, Briggs and Agent Whatsherface. The characters don't feel distinct enough and it makes it hard to get attached to any of them, to the point where someone was on the floor bleeding to death and I was thinking "what am I going to eat for lunch?" There are still at least three more novels in this series and maybe now that we've gotten the first one out of the way, characters can have room to stretch their legs out a bit (and show off their abilities more).

The Naturals is a little rocky in a few places but manages to stick the landing and make the reader eager for book two, Killer Instinct. This is a solid start to what's sure to be a fun series.

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Shadowhunters "Of Men and Angels" Review: Angry Racist White Men Ruin Everything

"Clary, listen, you cannot wear white after labor day! God, it's like you were raised by a demon or Donald Trump." "Magnus, they're the same thing."

Another week, another adventure for Shadowhunters. Well, sorta. This episode was slowed down a lot and jam packed with exposition. "Of Men and Angels" answered a lot of questions nonreaders (and even some readers) have been asking, while setting up plot lines for the second half of the season. For as much exposition that was put into the episode, there was still a lot more fun than I expected.

The good:

• Would you look at that? Another episode with barely any Clace interaction. I love these two taking breaks from each other but still being there for each other. It's a nice breather for the viewers and it's the perfect way to have them hang out with other characters and explore new dynamics.

• I'm glad that Alec has finally had it with all the rules. Whenever a rigid rule-follower goes through a rebellious phase, it's nice to watch. He's followed the rules, kept everyone alive, and tried his best yet he's still going to be forced into a marriage that he doesn't want. So naturally, his response to this is to go flirt with Magnus and try to explore this secret part of himself that his family is unknowingly trying to crush. I can't wait to see Alec grow and learn from Magnus how to stand up to his parents and the Clave.

• Max Lightwood is tiny and sassy and honey, you've got a big storm coming.

• I actually like Robert Lightwood? He's a lot less of a dick than he was in the novels, and though we readers know there's something that he's done in the past that is all sorts of fucked up, he's still a likable character because unlike Maryse, he treats Isabelle like she's actually his daughter and he doesn't make her feel bad for being herself.
• We barely got a glimpse of it, but Alicante (that's the city in Idris where the shadowhunters live) looks really cool (sorta, more on that later). But as far as the landscape (AND THE DEMON TOWERS!), I really want to see more of the land. When I read the books, it was hard to picture the place because it was kind of medieval but there was a city made of glass. I'm from a huge city so I was picturing all of our skyscrapers and businesses as looking like glass but smacked down into a medieval location and it just didn't make sense. From the .5 seconds we saw of the glass city, it's too early to tell how the show is going to mix these two things together, while adding shadowhunter technology on top of it, but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that it's done well.

Hello, I'm here to be dramatic and ruin everything.

• One thing I had been looking forward to with this series was a lengthy flashback about The Circle. In the film, all we got was Valentine looking shady, stealing the Cup, burning his house down, and Jocelyn vanishing, which left a lot of moviegoers (myself included) hella confused. Now, we've got a coherent version of the story and it's dumbed down enough that nonreaders can follow what's going on. There are still some questions (will they ever explain the rest of the Mortal Instruments? Why is it taking so long to make Valentine's Downworlder-human army?)

• The origin of The Circle is told by Magnus and Luke, which is important because Luke told Clary in the novels and he was close to Valentine so obviously he'd be the best person to know all the details. But having Magnus talk about the discrimination and racism is important in a bigger way. Here we have a bisexual man of color talking about how an Angry White Man was so jealous of the racial minorities that he decided to exterminate them, and through his charisma and leadership qualities, he managed to get a lot of good people to support him. And then the story goes to Luke's narration, in which he says the reason Valentine went from B- evil/angry to A+ evil/angry was because he saw Luke and Jocelyn growing closer. Valentine completed his "supernatural Hitler" transformation because he saw a black man "taking what was his"*. I'm not sure if the show meant to go this deep with this, but these writers are smart, and they know what they're doing with their social commentary. They know what they're doing when they show a mean character slut shaming Isabelle, they know what they're doing when they cast actors who are PoC to play this shows' version of minority groups, they know what they're doing when they make Valentine the fantasy version of a white supremacist. I love that this show is not afraid of weaving in these social messages while making them a part of the story. All these people are getting killed, lives are being destroyed, because a white man can't control his rage, and having PoC being the ones to tell a white character (Clary) about it is so much more powerful than white people telling white people about how much white people are fucking up. No one cares what white people have to say about white supremacy because they aren't the victims. The minority voice matters most, the Downworlder voice matters most. It's a very small part of the episode, just a tiny detail, but I'm so happy the writers decided to use this detail to say so much.

"Hey girl, wanna touch my mango?"
"What is it? Like a paperweight?"

The bad:

• I am a sucker for Jace/Simon. Their banter is hilarious, and Dominic Sherwood and Alberto Rosende have great chemistry together. However, I felt like their scenes in this episode were not needed. It was important that they had the "Clary treats you like a lap dog" "that's how you treat Alec" moment but the rest was just pointless? We don't need Jace friendzoning Simon FOR Clary, the audience can already see that Clary has no feelings for Simon, it doesn't have to be spelled out for us. The ending scene where Simon sees Clary and Jace having a moment, and Jace looking sadly at Simon would have been subtle enough, but having them vocally argue about this love triangle just doesn't work. Here's hoping this is the last we see of that.**

• I know they had to have a way to show that some scenes were set in Idris and that's why they had the bluish tint but I am going to be annoyed if that's how all the Idris scenes look, especially since most of book 3 takes place there and I'm sure the show is going to have the gang go to Idris like the books say. It'd be pretty lame if they didn't. But anyway, I thought it looked cheesy. I would've preferred for them to put an "Idris, 1997" caption whenever they did flashbacks, and just kept everything normal looking but oh well. They can't change that now. But for future reference, they need to fix the blue because I don't think anyone wants to see bluish tint for a full season. 

Alec Lightwood trying and failing at containing his thirst

Summary: A solid, emotional episode, this had a little banter, as to be expected from Shadowhunters, yet it was mostly full of the Lightwood parents fucking up their kids, Downworlders being pissed about Valentine, and the early stages of certain plot lines that some fans are looking forward to. "Of Men and Angels" is Shadowhunters at it's most serious but now it seems we're finally going to be getting the Cup, more history about Clary's family, and in a perfect world, skipping the whole "_____ was/is J.C." story and going straight to everyone's favorite piece of angsty garbage, Sebastian. This episode gets an 8.5/10 from me.

* Jocelyn didn't belong to Valentine, people can't BELONG to each other (I mean, they can but I'm 97% sure it's illegal). It's just that Valentine sees her as a possession and got mad when Luke a.k.a Mr. Steal Yo' Girl swooped in.
** This isn't the last we're going to see of it, I know, but let a girl have her dreams, okay?

All Shadowhunters reviews can be found here

Shadowhunters "Moo Shu To Go" Review: Who's Up For a Game of Werewolf?

When you meet your girlfriend's mom and she's kind of an asshole

Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else, Shadowhunters has now become a serious show. It now is just intense drama, heartbreaking conversations, and dead main characters at every turn. The campiness of the show was fun while it lasted. It is time for us to put our angst hats on. What's that? There's a Chinese restaurant with 85 cent cocktails and a doggy door for werewolf police officers to enter through? Oh, thank God! I didn't know how I was going to cope with Shadowhunters taking itself too seriously. Guys, "Moo Shu To Go" was a fun episode (wow, what a surprise). We got some character dynamics that we haven't seen much of yet (in the show or the books), some progression in the storylines, and a few mysteries introduced. In true Shadowhunters form, this was a jam-packed hour filled with lots of goodies and weirdness.

The good:

• Up until now, Alec has been off to the side, making grumpy remarks and being a pain in the ass, but in this episode, we finally start to see why he acts the way he does. From his "no homo but very homo" heart-to-heart with a clueless af Jace, to his interactions with his mother, to his job as babysitter of Clary, this was an Alec-centric episode. Alec is not my favorite character from the novels, but a lot of readers love him. Shadowhunters, again, has made me love something that I didn't in the books. Alec's motivations are shown as "first he wants to please his mother, then he wants to protect everyone, then he doesn't like Clary." This is a smart thing for the show to do because it helps the audience understand him better as a character, doesn't put his jealousy of Clary above everything else, and makes him likable enough that the audience doesn't hate him. We see that he's a shadowhunter first and his emotions come second to whatever he does. He may dislike Clary and the trouble she's accidentally causing but he still saves her ass when she needs it. This version of Alec Lightwood is still consistent enough with his book counterpart to keep readers happy but is different enough that those who don't like the book version of him can actually enjoy the way this Alec is written and how well Matthew Daddario is portraying him.

"I can't believe I got stuck babysitting your ass"

• Jace is put on the back burner for Alec to get the spotlight for a little while, and though I love Jace with all my heart, I think it's nice that the show knows that too much of a good thing can be bad. Jace (and the Clace romance) are benched for the majority of the episode so it's nice to know that we can expect breaks from them every now and then. I hate having to compare a YA property to Twilight but I'm gonna break my morals and do it anyway. A problem many people have with the Twilight Saga is that the Bella/Edward romance is 99% of the story, and the interesting side characters and subplots get overlooked in favor of the romance. The Mortal Instruments novels are about 30% Clace and 70% everything and everyone else and it's still too much Clace (especially given that their relationship in the novels was... lacking). But Shadowhunters, while still giving us 2-3 Clace moments per episode, remembers to give us other relationships, other friendships, and, y'know, the entire quest to find the Cup and stop Valentine. It's nice that we can have a teen supernatural show, even one with a bunch of love triangles, that still remembers that romance is not the point of the story and other characters need to breathe.

• I wasn't sure how the show was going to do the werewolves. I've never been a fan of putting makeup on actors and having them be hairy humans rather than actual wolves, but I hadn't heard anything about real live wolves being used on set of the show, so I had accepted my fate: that I would be seeing poorly made up werewolves on my screen for hopefully several seasons of this show. I'm not sure why it never crossed my mind that the show could have CGI wolves, much like the film did, but when I first saw a sneak peek of the wolves a few days before the episode aired, I was convinced the wolves were real and that they just hadn't let fans know the wolves had been on set. When I realized they were CGI, I was impressed. They looked fantastic! These wolves looked so good that I'll forgive the complete nonsense of werewolves being entirely clothed after shifting back to human.

Guys, you're Lightwoods, not Fightwoods

• Probably my favorite part of the episode was Clary putting the rune on the door and it catching fire! Don't you just hate when that happens? I thought that Clary had attempted putting an opening rune on the door and that the rune was too strong and for some reason it caught fire. Clary's face made her look as though she was in a trance or something, which I interpreted as maybe some sort of assistance from up above helping her create a strong rune to escape danger. I thought that a major revelation about Clary from City of Ashes was going to make its way onto the first season of Shadowhunters. Unfortunately, this was actually just a case of Clary mixing up her runes and creating an explosion rune on accident. Oops. I thought this was actually funny because as a Shadowhunter, more so for a newbie for Clary, it'd make sense to get your runes mixed up.

• I like these subtle hints that the show is dropping about what exactly the Circle ideology is, and how some Shadowhunters think of the Downworlders. Maryse's comments about them needing to stay separate and Meliorn pointing out that Shadowhunters don't protect Downworlders like they protect everyone else are good at hinting at what the Circle really is but not telling the viewers what's really happening. I'm loving that the writers are showing the viewers that this Shadowhunters vs Downworlders conflict is a metaphor for race relations and the show is doing it so well without throwing it at the audience's face or making it seem out of place. I can't wait to see how far they're going to go to in showing the audience how awful Shadowhunters can be.

• Simon is showing signs of being a vampire and he thinks he is catching a cold.

The bad:

• I don't like that the show will wait multiple episodes to explain the smallest of things. If Clary saw Dot in episode two and Jocelyn in the pilot, why wouldn't she tell the Lightwoods that the necklace lets her see them? They could have told her a long time ago that the necklace was part Portal. It doesn't change the plot that these answers are coming late but it's irritating. After spending several books not getting answers for plot holes or non-explained happenings in the novels, I'd thought the show would be different. And while I don't have to wait as long for answers, I'm still having to wait. At least we found out what the deal is with Alec's arrows, though.

Shouldn't we call the cops? The real ones?

The Leftovers:

• I'm not sure if it's intentional but every time Alec and Jace parabatai track, it just looks extremely gay. They literally gaze into each other's eyes and start leaning in like they're going to kiss. It's equally funny and sad because Alec will likely never get to kiss Jace.

• Clary thinks Jace is straight. After Jace told Simon his comments about demons in New York is " the first correct thing [he's] said all day" just minutes after Simon said he wasn't Jace's type. I'm not saying Jace is bisexual but Jace is bisexual.

• Seriously what the fuck is Valentine doing? I do like the detail about him speaking Russian to the newborn Forsaken so we know that even if he is just killing mundane New Yorkers, he's at least smart enough not to do all his crimes in the same spot. But really though what is going on? He's creating an army to fight the Clave with, that much we know, but he's collecting different types of blood and creating Forsaken? Are the Forsaken going to be his army? Is he putting Seelie blood and warlock blood in them? Why was he taking blood of people who have the Sight? Is he giving that blood plus the Downworlder blood to the new Forsaken? Will we ever reinstate Pluto as a planet? These are important questions and I demand answers ASAP Rocky.

In the end, "Moo Shu To Go" was wonderful, allowed the show to stretch its wings a bit, gave us a lot of new stuff to analyze and theorize about, and had A+ CGI werewolves walking through a doggy door of a Chinese restaurant. Shadowhunters may not be everyone's 85 cent cocktail, but it's one hell of a fun show. Television is meant to be entertainment and in an age where almost anything vaguely supernatural or science fiction must be full of darkness and gloom, it's refreshing to see a series that knows when to be Batman and when to be Guardians of the Galaxy. "Moo Shu To Go" gets a 9/10 from me.

Isabelle Lightwood, "Shadowhunters", and Why Millennial Feminism Is Needed in Today's Fiction

Emeraude Toubia as Isabelle Lightwood in Freeform's Shadowhunters

A little background for those who don't know what exactly is going on. The Mortal Instruments is a young adult novel series about teens who hunt demons. One of the demon hunters (or shadowhunters) is sixteen year old Isabelle Lightwood, a smart, cool, tough, and sexually confident girl. Now, there is a television series, Shadowhunters, in which Isabelle is a young adult (somewhere between ages eighteen and twenty-something). Isabelle is still smart and sexy, but since she is older, we get to see her be more explicitly sexual, rather than how the books had her sexuality only be hinted at due to her being a teenager (I don't think I need to explain why sexually explicit content about a sixteen year old is gross). A Latina had been cast in the role and when we see a Latina being sexy, it makes sense to automatically think "oh no, they're going for the one dimensional fiery Latina stereotype" which is awful and unfortunately does happen in Hollywood. Fans were pretty taken aback by Isabelle's very revealing attire in behind the scenes photos and her being described as "exotic," because we were afraid that Isabelle was going to be reduced to a sex object. But Emeraude Toubia (who plays Isabelle on Shadowhunters) said in interview after interview that Isabelle is intelligent and caring as well as being sexy, so some fans jumped off the "they're going to ruin Isabelle" train. Those fans who were still worried had their worries squashed within the first few episodes of the series, in which the show literally defended Isabelle's revealing wardrobe with "she's very comfortable with her body" and having Isabelle show feelings of guilt when someone under her protection is kidnapped, having her give pep talks and defend Clary, the female protagonist. Fans saw her have a loving, though filled with sibling bickering, relationship with her brother, as well as using sex as a tool to get information. But fans were okay with this because it was either in character or a positive change from the books (Clary and Isabelle hate each other in the novels). That is, the fans who aren't misogynists were okay with this. Unfortunately, some fans who have a lot of sway over the fandom and even has sometimes gotten their way in how the show is made, do not have their feminists hats on. But that's okay. We can't all be automatically "woke." That's why people like me are here: to educate the uneducated.

The biggest problem I think fans are having is that they're still seeing Isabelle as a sixteen year old kid, but you can look at the television version of Isabelle and obviously see she's an adult. If the show is showing her as being grown and you're just not understanding that, sweetheart, that's your fucking problem. If you still want to think she's sixteen, go right ahead. You do what you want to do. However, when you are in a position of power, you cannot displace your own internalized misogyny onto a team of writers and an actress who have done nothing but send pro-feminist messages with a character.

Wow, look at how this show completely disrespects
Isabelle's sexuality!

What's that? You don't have any internalized misogyny? Then, my sweet summer child, please explain why you're hating on Isabelle for using sex to get information but you're not saying a damn word about Meliorn doing the exact same thing in the same fucking scene? Or better yet, why are you upset about Isabelle being an undercover stripper and that being "too sexy" or "wrong" but you haven't said anything about the men who were watching her dance? Why are all of you applauding Jace and Simon being shirtless but when Isabelle shows skin, it's not okay and she needs to cover up? Why is it when Magnus makes sex jokes, you laugh, but when Isabelle does it, you say it's tasteless or bad? Why do you criticize female characters for literally doing what male characters are doing? Hint: it's because you're a misogynist.

And then there are my favorite comments in which viewers complain about Isabelle being reduced to "the sexy one" when we've been shown that she is emotional, loving, brave, fierce, and a fleshed out female character who happens to also being attractive or sexual. Sound familiar?

I could list 90% of the heroines in Hollywood but we don't have time for that. My point is that you can't overlook the majority of characterization and personality so you can just focus on a woman as a sexual being and then turn around and accuse the show runners of doing that very thing. They're the ones who are making Isabelle a rounded out character. YOU are the ones who keep reducing her to her sexuality.

But IF they were doing wrong by Isabelle's wardrobe, if they were dressing her in a revealing way just for the hell of it, I could understand the outrage of book purists. I, personally, think it's dumb as hell when people are upset that adaptations aren't 100% like the source material, but I'm going to look at this from a purists point of view. Because in their minds, Isabelle was not dressed in short, tight dresses, or fighting demons while wearing heels. Which is fucking stupid because the books literally say she wears sexy stuff all the time.

"Under the coat she was wearing one of what Clary called her "typical Isabelle outfits": a tight short velvet dress, fishnet stockings, and boots." - (City of Fallen Angels, page 4)

"She [Isabelle] was wearing a long silvery skirt and a sequined top, and her nails were painted like glittering coins. strands of silver beads were caught in her dark hair." - (City of Bones, page 208)

"She [Isabelle]… was wearing a long red dress, slit up the side to show most of her leg… She was covered in Marks. They twined up her arms, threaded their way up her thigh, necklaced her throat, and decorated her chest, a great deal of which was visible, thanks to the plunging neckline of her dress." - (City of Fallen Angels, page 290). And by the way, she proceeds to fight in this dress, so any talk about these clothes being impractical for demon hunting? Yeah that's all bullshit.

I know what you may be thinking by now. "Leigh, this isn't even that big of a deal! It's a television show." And if it was just a group of fans doing this, I probably wouldn't be making such a big deal out of it. However, the one person who should be sticking up for Isabelle is also jumping on the "Izzy's a slut, she's too sexy" bandwagon, and that person is the always delightful Cassandra Clare. Yes, the person who created Isabelle Lightwood, who wrote her dressing sexy and being a sexual girl, is now saying Isabelle would never dress this way, despite writing that Isabelle would, in fact, dress this way. There's also the problem of Ms. Clare liking tweets saying that Isabelle looks like "one of Sebastian's girls" (a reference to the novels in which a character had young women with him who were written to be ~trashy~). There are other mean tweets about Isabelle that she has agreed with, but I'm too lazy to list them, you can go through her tweets and likes for those. The feminist in me wants to scream because how can you write a character who is meant to be comfortable with how she looks, and be confident in being sexy and badass, how can you write these things and then turn around and act like there's an issue with her being portrayed that way in an adaptation? As a feminist and as a fellow author, I feel that too many authors are stuck in that "sexy therefore not valid" mindset about female characters that 80's and 90's feminism taught them. But they end up drilling these ideas into their readers. The fans who think it's alright to slut shame Isabelle think this because they see the creator of Isabelle doing the same thing. Sure, there are other factors, the feminists those fans are friends and family with, the other books, music, and other forms of entertainment those fans take in. But, as a fan, I know how much fans look up to the creator of source material. So if J.K. Rowling says "it's totally fine that Hermione is black!" that's going to make fans be more accepting because the creator has the most important opinion to fans. It's the same principle here. If Ms. Clare says "Isabelle wouldn't wear that" or agrees with slut shaming comments, she's just telling young impressionable fans that it's okay to think of a woman as being less of a person simply because she's sexy. The Shadowhunters television show is already trying very hard to undo some the toxic parts of the books (*cough* Clary and Isabelle hating each other simply for being women*, *Isabelle only being "the hot one" until the later novels*). They're giving us Clary and Isabelle being friends, giving Isabelle a personality beyond her hemline and innuendos.

"You know, it’s really funny ‘cause usually when two girls meet and someone trespasses their territory, girls wanna be mean to each other and they wanna put the stop right there. But it’s really nice because Clary and Isabelle, you know, she embraces Clary. She plays dress up with Clary, she lends her her skirts and her high heels and she does her makeup. So it’s a really nice relationship with a very friendly relationship. She’s there for Clary. She fights for Clary. She’s willing to risk everything for Clary. And it’s really nice to show girls out there that you can actually be friends with girls. You don’t have to be mean girls or bully girls. You can actually be friends and that’s really nice." - Toubia about Isabelle's positive relationship with Clary, the only other major female character on Shadowhunters

This situation creates a clash between old feminism and millennial feminism. Millennials who are feminists do not care if a woman wears a short skirt, a long dress, jeans, or nothing at all. We don't base a woman's value on her cleavage. And while, in the books, it's nice that Isabelle is sexy (no matter how much the author tries to say she isn't), and that she does eventually get something to do other than standing around looking hot, it doesn't make sense to write her as being sexy and fun and a character that current feminists can get behind but then turn around and impose old feminist ideas on her. You can't have a sexy character on purpose and then slut shame her. This just doesn't make any sense.

Talking about Ms. Clare and her legion of blind followers is making my head hurt, but now I want to get to the main reason I actually created this post. It's not just because the feminist and the author in me respects women and characters. It's me, as a WoC.

When Emeraude Toubia was cast as Isabelle, I, just like many fans, was happy. They could have easily given the role to a white girl but instead they racebent her and made one of the most kickass girls in YA fiction a Latina. I'm black, for those of you who don't know, and we get roles in television and film... every now and then, but Latinx people get even fewer roles than black people do. Since I know Latinix representation in Hollywood is very, very low, I knew that even if it felt cool for me to see a Latina as Isabelle, it meant more to other fans who are Latinix and hardly ever see themselves as anything other than a drug dealer or a fiery Latina in Hollywood. Watching the show, I feel good knowing that there's a smart, powerful, funny, sexy, and just plain awesome Latina on my screen and that other young girls, especially those who are Latina, can see a character worth looking up to. And I'm glad that Toubia was given this role because she's absolutely nailing it. Which is why I feel bad for her. Imagine doing all this hard work, the fight training, the dieting, the actual acting, having to do emotional scenes, having to bring a beloved character to life, having to deal with the racism of a small group of fans who are upset their white fave has become Latina, having to go through all this shit, getting the final product out there for people to see your hard work, and then the woman responsible for creating your character and the entire story your job is centered around, as well as her followers, have reduced you to nothing but a "problematic sex object". This happens to women ALL the time. We work hard, we do great things, and all people think we're worth talking about is our bodies. I know this isn't just a problem with Shadowhunters, the fans, and this character in particular. It happens all the time in Hollywood, and in society in general. And it's fucking terrible. It really is. And what makes me even more upset about this is that it's women who are saying these things about each other. If it were men saying it, it'd obviously be bad, but women have to stop treating each other like shit just for being sexual. We can't expect men to respect us when we don't respect each other.

If you want to be a feminist, act like it. You can't say "women deserve equal pay" but not agree with women being just as sexual as men. You can't say "women should be sexually free" but then hate women for being sexual. You can't say "OMG he's shirtless! Yay!" and then hate a girl for also being shirtless. Feminism is equality. It's is either all inclusive, or it's not feminism. So if you're going to have a problem with Isabelle's sexiness, you better be ready to talk about Jace, Simon, Alec, Hodge, all the male characters being sexier than they were in the novel series. If you want to write a sexy character, you better be ready to defend her against slut shaming and not pull out your feminist card only when it suits you.

Toubia is doing a damn good job at being Isabelle, and Isabelle is a great character. It's possible for Toubia to be a great actress and be sexy, just like it's possible for Isabelle to be one of the best Shadowhunters in the world and be sexy. We've got a rounded, wonderful character, and an actress who was pretty much born for the role, and she's LATINA, and the first thoughts some of you have is to be assholes, to completely shit on all the work Toubia has done to fit your own sexist view of the world. The show's writing, the wardrobe department, even Toubia herself, are paying respect to all aspects of Isabelle. Don't blame them when you're salty about Isabelle's sexuality just because you had an extra cup of misogyny today.

Shadowhunters "Raising Hell" Review: The Demon Deceived Me!

Harry Shum Jr. as Magnus Bane in Freeform's Shadowhunters

See? Filler episodes can be fun! Filler episodes, for those of you who don't know, are normally put into shows that have over 20 episodes per season, where they have the time to slow down, explore characters, and set up new plot lines. These episodes are notoriously boring, and aren't common in shows that have limited episodes. The first season of Shadowhunters only has thirteen episodes to get through roughly the first book of The Mortal Instruments series so it doesn't make much sense to have filler episodes when every minute is crucial to the complicated world of Shadowhunters. So when a show like this gets a filler episode, it can make viewers wary. But of course, Shadowhunters continues to show viewers why it's one of the best shows on television: even when nothing happens, it's still gripping. Let's jump into this review! *minor spoilers for The Mortal Instruments books will follow*

The good:

• "Raising Hell" gave us our first real look at Magnus Bane - the High Warlock of Brooklyn. He'd had a few minutes of screen time up until now but this is when he truly arrived as massive improvement on his book and film counterparts (like pretty much every aspect of this show). He was kind of a dick, which he has every right to dislike Shadowhunters (if you know about his relation to the ideology of the Circle... it's really hard not to majorly spoil this). Magnus is a warlock who has spent hundreds of years putting up with a bunch of bratty Shadowhunters so it's understandable why he'd be so antagonistic towards them. But we also get to see that he has a soft side and is a protector of other warlocks, especially those younger than he is. He's funny, obviously very powerful, and surprisingly emotional, which brings him a step up from the sparkly caricature he often came off as in the novels. Harry Shum Jr is perfect in the role, giving subtle facial expressions, showing the swagger of an ancient warlock, and being over the top without being laughable. This version of Magnus is the fun guy that long time fans of The Mortal Instruments know and love, but there's an extra aura of intrigue surrounding him that is going to keep viewers that haven't read the books interested in his character.

• I've said it before and I'll say it again: the slow burn revealing about Alec is so well done. TV shows that have LGBT+ characters like to jump out of the gate with telling the audience the character is queer as soon as the character appears because they're pretty much trying to say "hey look at our representation, keep watching because we're progressive!" And while, of course, representation is important and shows are allowed to let the audience know early on that a character is queer, the way Shadowhunters is doing Alec's characterization is preferable to me because they're letting the audience like (or dislike) him as a person before bringing up the fact that he's gay. It's just important that in an age when fiction is trying to be inclusive of the LGBT+ community, writers understand that a character being queer is not more important than them being a person.

Emeraude Toubia and those other people as Isabelle
Lightwood and those other characters in
Freeform's "Shadowhunters"

• Clary and Isabelle continue to be cute and supportive of each other while making not-so-subtle comments about the other's naughty bits and, honestly, this show could just be a series of Clary and Isabelle flirting and I would be totally cool with that.

• I know that I talk a lot of shit about The Mortal Instruments books but one thing that is really nice about them is the humor. It's pretty hit or miss but when it does hit, it's very funny. So imagine my surprise when direct quotes from the novels started making their way onto my screen. It made me so gleeful, and the only things I typically get gleeful about are cupcakes and Chris Hemsworth.

• Speaking of novel references, there were a few easter eggs in this episode, and one in particular that likely gave a few fans heart palpations. First, we have the cautious warlock Elias, who meets a different fate in the book series. He isn't a major character but it was nice that they are using the book characters in new ways such as they've done with Elias and Maureen (she was a thirteen year old who was stalking Simon in the books). Second, that kid Kirk that Simon said Jace is like? In the novels, Kirk is the lead singer of Simon's band before he is replaced by an actual piece of shit named Jungle Kool-aid, which I'm sure is why the writers of the show gave Simon the "Kool-aid" line while he argues with Clary. Third, and this is the big one, Magnus name dropped Tessa, as in Tessa Gray, as in the protagonist of the prequel to The Mortal Instruments, as in the protagonist of The Many Adventures of Tessa Gray and Her Sweetheart Jem Carstairs The Infernal Devices. Word has been going around that if Shadowhunters proves to be a successful enough show, Freeform will start production on a spin off based on The Infernal Devices, which is pretty much Shadowhunters mixed with steampunk and automatons. So yeah, name dropping Tessa so casually may be a hint of a future adaptation of her story and that's something the world needs to be blessed with.

Emeraude Toubia as Isabelle Lightwood in Freeform's Shadowhunters

The bad:

• The show seems to be flipping between good and bad effects which makes it even more noticeable. If it's 100 degrees outside and someone drops a bucket of ice on you, you're going to notice. That's how I feel about the effects here. Magnus's magic looks amazing, the Portals look good, and I love it when demons and vampires die and they explode into the golden orange lava. It just looks aweseome. But the demons... could be better. The entire memory demon scene was unintentionally hilarious because the demon looked like a tornado and Jace's flying was strange. It just wasn't as good as previous effects on the show have been. However, this is a television series on Freeform, and it's just on the first season and doesn't have a huge budget, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. It's still funny though.

• Simon's subplot was disruptive. It only happened two or three times but it was still so removed from the main action that it just didn't gel right. We had most of the episode being about Clary, Magnus, and Alec and how their development all goes together, but we'd take breaks to check in on Simon and his vampire drama. They have to get Simon's symptoms into the plot somehow, but I feel like that could have been saved for the next episode. 

• Clary is wearing a very tight, short dress, she doesn't have a bag to put anything in, so she doesn't have anywhere she could be hiding the handle of an unlit Seraph Blade yet she miraculously has it when they get to Magnus's? Alec's bow and arrows disappear after he kills Valentine's assassin? And then they reappear later? Weapons pop up when needed and it's confusing. Isabelle's whip is always on her as a bracelet and Jace has pockets he can hide weapons in but Clary and Alec don't have these luxuries so where are these weapons coming from? This is a minor thing and doesn't really affect the story but it's still irritating because while I could see perhaps Clary strapping her blade to her thigh, or Jace carrying it in his pocket for her, Alec can't strap a big ass bow and a bunch of arrows to his thighs. And they're certainly not going to fit in Jace's pockets. 

• Valentine actually sent just one assassin to find Magnus the first time. He sent ONE person after the High Warlock of Brooklyn. He did send more later on but still. He originally sent one person to kill one of, if not the most powerful warlock in the world.

Overall summary:

"Raising Hell" was a filler episode and nothing much changed in the plot except that Clary's memories are forever gone and Alec is almost completely out of the closet. But despite the lack of the plot moving a lot forward, and a few things not making much sense, there was still a lot of fun to be had in this episode. "Raising Hell" gets an 8/10 intricately drawn pentagrams stars from me.

Shadowhunters airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on Freeform (formerly ABC Family)

Shadowhunters: "Dead Man's Party" Review

Kat McNamara and Dominic Sherwood as Clary Fray and Jace Wayland in Freeform's Shadowhunters

It’s been two weeks since we’ve gotten brand new Shadowhunters footage. And holy cow, was it worth the wait. “Dead Man’s Party” proved that “The Descent Into Hell Isn't Easy” didn’t just happen to be a hundred times better than the pilot. Shadowhunters has improved greatly over the course of just THREE episodes, and it’s not even a third of the way through its first season. Most fantasy/supernatural shows take at least half a season to start getting intense and emotionally heavy but Shadowhunters just skipped out on all the “gradually getting better” nonsense and went from 0 to 100 real quick. This is going to be a fun review to write.

This review will spoil episode three, as well as give minor spoilers for The Mortal Instruments books.

The bad comes first because I am a Negative Nancy:

• I’ve got very few problems with this episode but one thing that annoyed me (and I understand the show has to do for time restraints) is that characters infer things and the show expects the audience to do the same. For example, we could wonder why the entire Downworld seems to know that Clary is a Morgenstern, and it took me a while to realize Raphael and Lily (the girl who was dangling Simon in episode two) overheard the entire reveal with their super hearing. The show does have only 40-ish minutes to get through episode arcs so they can’t take little breaks to explain all these jumps and the show expects the viewer to be smart enough to catch onto these things. I just happen to be good at inferring stuff but some viewers need everything explained to them so I think the show needs to figure out how to fix some of these logic jumps.

• I had this same problem with episodes one and two but no one is explaining what a Shadowhunter is. Jace drops “you’re part angel” while talking to Clary and she doesn’t react to this??? It’s the first time she’s been informed that there’s angel blood in her and her reaction is nonexistent. Episode six is titled “Of Men and Angels” which will feature the flashback story of The Circle, and I predict the Shadowhunter origin story (Shadowhunters are literally the hybrids of men and angels), and both stories will include The Mortal Cup. The Mortal Cup will likely be found in episode seven, “Major Arcana”. So since the Shadowhunter origin is tied into the Cup, it makes sense for the two plot points to be paired together. But still, Clary should’ve had some sort of reaction to this news or the entire line should’ve been cut because nonreaders are probably super confused about it.

The good:

• There’s a whole lotta good in this episode! I LOVE that they’re not throwing all the Downworlders at us at once. For two episodes, we focused on warlocks, then in this episode we got the Seelies and vampires, and in a few episodes we’ll probably get the werewolves. These explanations are being spaced out nicely.

• They have spent three episodes with Alec having characterization that went beyond his Token Status because as of now in the show canon, the nonreaders don’t know that he’s gay. I like seeing his relationship with Jace starting to become messy, and their Parabatai bond was so much more believable than the books had it, where it seemed a bit tossed in and lacking.

• Kat McNamara’s acting is exactly where it needs to be. In my review of episodes one and two, I said there was room for improvement but I still couldn’t put my finger on what the actual problem with her line delivery was. Then I saw a tumblr post saying Kat, while playing Clary, enunciated everything like she was doing public speaking or an interview, basically talking like Kat the celebrity and not like Clary the regular teenager. So I rewatched scenes of her as Clary and I started realizing that where she was the best was where she was just letting the words flow naturally and wasn’t trying to say everything perfectly. That’s when she was the most believable. In “Dead Man’s Party,” that uncharacteristic enunciating is GONE and Kat sounds so natural and it’s just great. She’s always been great at showing the different sides of Clary, making her a good heroine, and she’s A+ at the emotional scenes she has and now I can finally fully enjoy Clary’s scenes. 

• Kaitlyn Leeb as Camille was a pleasant surprise. We didn’t see much of her in the previews or in clips so I was wary of how her portrayal would be. I never cared much for Camille in the novels so I wasn’t too concerned with what Camille was going to be like in the show. But from the minute Kaitlyn’s version of Camille spoke and came on screen, I was unable to take my eyes off of her. She was attention grabbing, bratty, and creepy as hell. Camille is a minor character but I wouldn’t mind if she gets a more major role as the series goes on.

• We’re getting all the technical stuff out of the way in one bullet. Hotel Dumort looks much fancier and less trashy than it did in the books. It looks like the type of place aristocratic vampires would actually live in. That vampire bar Jace takes Clary to is so seedy and ugly I wouldn’t walk within a mile of it. The CGI when vampires die is gold/orange like when demons die and that’s smart. If you haven’t read the books, Downworlders are either related to demons, or infected with demonic diseases. So it makes sense that their blood would react to angelic weapons how demons react to the weapons. This was a good detail to put in. The flying motorcycle scene looked a lot less cheesy than how the book described it and was actually cute and romantic rather than just awkward, like in the books.

• The fact that Luke is a cop who has pretty much adopted a daughter plays into the “my dad’s a cop and taught me self defense” trope so it’s not surprising that Clary knows how to take down a grown man without any weapons nearby. This can also speed up some of her training because she’s known how to fight humans for presumably years, plus there’s instinct, and the greatest Shadowhunter ever is helping train her. I’m looking forward to Clary’s badass evolution.

• The look Jace had when Clary killed that vampire. That was adorbz, right?

Guys, “Dead Man’s Party” was the best episode of Shadowhunters we’ve gotten so far and I don’t know how the show is going to keep improving. There’s gotta be a limit to how good it can get, right? I give the episode a 9.5 out of 10.