(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #179-184 can be found here: Spawn Origins Collection, Vol(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #179-184 can be found here: Spawn Origins Collection, Volume 30....more
(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #179-184 can be found here: Spawn Origins Collection, Vol(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #179-184 can be found here: Spawn Origins Collection, Volume 30....more
(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #179-184 can be found here: Spawn Origins Collection, Vol(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #179-184 can be found here: Spawn Origins Collection, Volume 30....more
(C+) 66% | Almost Satisfactory Notes: Secret massages, trauma barrages, unearthed malefaction, no mystery solved, no action involved, no real satisfact(C+) 66% | Almost Satisfactory Notes: Secret massages, trauma barrages, unearthed malefaction, no mystery solved, no action involved, no real satisfaction.
(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Wherein babies strain the teenage brain, awkwardness ensues, a slice-of-life and drama-rife befuddled point-of-view.
*Check out p(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Wherein babies strain the teenage brain, awkwardness ensues, a slice-of-life and drama-rife befuddled point-of-view.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary: (view spoiler)[
Progress updates:
03/15/2025 - Preamble (1) As a rule, my first time reading a novel has to be in prose. Ergo, all my audiobooks are "rereads." Though I've read a decent number of Nick Hornby novels, this is the only one I've read that my library has available in audiobook. - I don't remember much from the first time I read this, mostly that I didn't really care for it and that it's about teenage pregnancy, skateboarding, and an imaginary Tony Hawk.
03/19/2025 - Chapters 1� (1) Gee, this is a real mid-2000s time capsule! - They're name-dropping everything from Joss Stone to Borders bookstores! (2) This is a terrible choice of narrator. - For one, he doesn't sound nearly skater enough. (3) There are many reasons given for why Sam and Alicia want to have sex. - Ultimately the one they settle on is to stop her from crying. - Frankly, the revenge ones would have been less unsettling.
03/27/2025 - Chapters 3� (1) There are plenty of things to quibble about with this, but the one thing it gets absolutely spot-on is how, when you're a teenager, everything means everything. - Every joy is the best feeling ever and every misfortune is your whole world crashing down. It's living in a constant state of hyperbole. - Having said that, this is a book about teenage pregnancy, so that at least is worth being hysterical about.
04/03/2025 - Chapters 6� (1) I usually hate dream sequences but I'm fine with this one since it's more so a peek into a speculative future. - Also, it's played straight, and not the usual sojourn into a funhouse mirror world of forced symbolism. (2) Sam refers to onesies as the "all-in-one tracksuit thing that babies wear." - I don't know what tickles me more, the idea of babies wearing tracksuits or that tracksuits are adult onesies.
04/12/2025 - Chapter 9 (1) Alicia: "'Some girls don't tell their parents [they're pregnant] for ages. Not until they have to,' she said. 'I've been reading stuff on the Net.'" - Gee, that's a blast from the past. I've not heard "on the Net" for ages. Nowadays it's "on the Web." Though, what do I know, it may just be a British thing. - I doubt it's exclusive to teen pregnancies. I find people in general aren't keen to face the music.
04/18/2025 - Chapters 10�12 (1) "I'd slammed too. I'd never had a slam like this, though. The wheels had come off the trucks, the trucks had come off the deck, and I'd shot five metres into the air and gone straight into a brick wall." - This isn't the first we've seen the titular line (likely the second or third) but it's the first time "Slam" has been given added subtext and been used as a metaphor for reality smacking Sam in the face.
04/22/2025 - Chapters 13�15 (1) Alicia names the baby Rufus Jones, which is significant. It's the first indication we've had so far that Sam's dreams of the future aren't entirely prophetic. - In his dreams, the baby is Rufus Burns. (2) It's surprising how traditional Alicia is compared to her parents. - They want her to abort the baby, she wants to keep it. - Her mother wants the baby to take her surname, she decides it should be Sam's.
04/24/2025 - Chapters 16�20 (1) The novel ends on a kind of downer if hopeful note. Alicia makes one last attempt to get back together with Sam for the sake of the baby, only for her mother to talk them out of it. - She doesn't so much convince them with words as demonstrate then and there how unhappy a loveless marriage can be. - Once again, it's shocking how traditionally-minded Alicia is, in contrast to her rather progressive parents. (hide spoiler)]...more
(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Art's great to start but falls apart, the steepest of declines, and plot's a mess: no weightiness, banal and ha(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Art's great to start but falls apart, the steepest of declines, and plot's a mess: no weightiness, banal and hardly shines.
(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Deals in lore from long before, blah but not a plodder, new lady Spawns are on-and-gone and merely cosplay fodder.
*Progress upda(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Deals in lore from long before, blah but not a plodder, new lady Spawns are on-and-gone and merely cosplay fodder.
(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Review pending re-read. Individual reviews for included issues can be found here: - NighReview to come... [image]
(B+) 77% | Good Notes: Review pending re-read. Individual reviews for included issues can be found here: - Nemesis: Rogues' Gall[image] Review to come...
Notes: Review pending re-read. Individual reviews for included issues can be found here: - The Magic Order 5 #1 - The Magic OrdeReview to come... [image]
(B+) 78% | Good Notes: Artwork shines, new cast designs and energy look cool, though it's plainly clear the magic here adheres to zero rules.
*Progress (B+) 78% | Good Notes: Artwork shines, new cast designs and energy look cool, though it's plainly clear the magic here adheres to zero rules.
(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #1-6 can be found here: Jupiter's Legacy, Vol. 6.(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #1-6 can be found here: Jupiter's Legacy, Vol. 6....more
(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #1-6 can be found here: Jupiter's Legacy, Vol. 6.(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Read in trade paperback. Collective review for issues #1-6 can be found here: Jupiter's Legacy, Vol. 6....more
(A-) 82% | Very Good Notes: On loving books, kinetic looks, being self-reliant, brains-over-brawn, small but no pawn, its heroine's mentally giant.
*Che(A-) 82% | Very Good Notes: On loving books, kinetic looks, being self-reliant, brains-over-brawn, small but no pawn, its heroine's mentally giant.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary: (view spoiler)[
Progress updates:
01/25/2025 - Preamble [image] (1) There are two versions of this eBook at my library, and as much as I detest the big Netflix logo defacing the cover, this is the original text, not the 2022 altered text that removes "offensive" language. - Regardless of how you feel about the controversy, this is the version written by no one else but Roald Dahl, and so this is the only version I will ever read.
01/29/2025 - Chapters 1� [image] (1) First of all, this has a ton of illustrations! At least compared to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which I recently finished. - Probably because illustrations for the latter were done retroactively, and along with other books for visually-uniform new editions, so far less time would have been put into that compared to a new release. - I don't think Quentin Blake started illustrating Dahl books until the late 1970s. (2) "[Her] parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away." - This story definitely has a juvenile tone, which makes sense coming from a four year-old's perspective. - Not necessarily potty humor, but more lowbrow in a Dav Pilkey sort of way. - There's also talk of bunions and nose-picking shortly thereafter. (3) As with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the correct and regular use of "nor" pleases me to no end. (4) This is a very quaint-feeling book, at least to start. Before all the hijinks begin, it's all about Matilda's reading routine, which no doubt strikes a chord with its likely book-inclined readership. - Not only are specific authors and names of books mentioned, it includes quite a long library book reading list, which I'm sure has been the focus of many a book club or reading challenge. - It also goes into a fair bit of detail explaining libraries and how to use them. - Television, on the other hand, is demonized as a kind of forced activity by her cruel and boorish parents. (5) The language here is very distinctly British English. Much more so than "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" which was regionally ambiguous albeit still linguistically British. - I don't know if Aylesbury is a real place, but the name just screams rural England. - Pounds and pence are also explicitly mentioned, whereas "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" notably used dollars and cents. (6) "[Matilda] was not quite tall enough to reach things around the kitchen, but she kept a small box in the outhouse which she brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted." - I can only presume the box serves the same purpose in the outhouse as it does in the kitchen. - The outhouse, along with a nearby sawmill, just underscores this as a distinctly rural setting. (7) "'No one ever got rich being honest,' the father said. 'Customers are there to be diddled.'" - Yeah, I can only assume, this being a children's book, that "diddled" was far less perverse a term when this was written than it is nowadays. - Alternatively, "diddled" could be less severe a term in Britain than in North America. The dictionary does describe it as "chiefly British." (8) I've noticed that Dahl really likes to hyperbolize and reiterate character traits. - The father here is an immoral and dishonest man, which is hammered home almost ad nauseam. We're made to believe he has no positive characteristics. That he destroys a library book, especially to the reading audience, is treated as sacrilege and irredeemable. - Matilda, on the other hand, is all respect, patience and quiet pastimes. Her diminutive stature is brought up repeatedly and only underscores her total helplessness and thereby justifies her subsequent mischief. (9) "'Filth,' Mr. Wormwood said. 'If it's by an American it's certain to be filth. That's all they write about.'" - All I'll say is that "Fifty Shades of Grey" and its sequels were written by a Brit.
01/31/2025 - Chapters 6�10 [image] (1) While this hasn't yet shown any inkling of fantasy nor the supernatural, it's nonetheless imbued with a great sense of improbability and wonder. - Matilda being able to read and do advanced mathematics in her head is treated like having magical powers. (2) This also uses a lot of Biblical language, which only adds to its sense of mystery. - Hortensia: "We are the crusaders ... and the Trunchbull is the Prince of Darkness, the Foul Serpent, the Fiery Dragon..." - It's interesting how Miss Trunchbull isn't only described as akin to (or literally) Satan, but in masculine terms as well: "the Trunchbull" not Miss Trunchbull, and "the Prince" not princess or anything close to feminine. - Additionally, we have the children attending prayers and scripture lessons, and allusions/references to Moses parting the Red Sea and "the Day of Judgment." (3) "'Get me a mirror!' the father yelled. 'Don't just stand there shrieking at me! Get me a mirror!'" - Reminds me of that scene in Batman 1989 after the Joker has his reconstructive surgery. Though, I doubt either could have been inspiration for the other since they came out about the same time. - I presume it's the mother shrieking here, though I can't entirely discount the brother Michael. (4) "'Be careful!' shrieked the mother. 'Now look what you've done! That's my best Elizabeth Arden face powder!'" - Gee, you know, I'll never see the words "Elizabeth Arden" again without Prince Harry coming to mind. That brand's ruined forever! - An awful lot of shrieking in this household. The word's used four times in Chapter 6 alone. Though, it may just be a character trait of the mother. (5) "[Miss Honey's] body was so slim and fragile one got the feeling that if she fell over she would smash into a thousand pieces, like a porcelain figure." - Like how Matilda's repeatedly described as being tiny, Miss Honey is also described in diminutive terms and therefore immediately sympathetic—incapable of being a physical aggressor. - Miss Trunchbull is described as the mirror opposite: "She was a gigantic holy terror, a fierce tyrannical monster who frightened the life out of the pupils and teachers alike." - Just from these opening descriptions alone, it's crystal clear how we're supposed to feel about these two teachers. (6) "Looking at [Miss Trunchbull], you got the feeling that this was someone who could bend iron bars and tear telephone directories in half." - I have a feeling that in the future "telephone directories" may require a footnote. - If not Gen-Z, subsequent generations simply won't have a clue—probably about either word. Roald Dahl may as well be Shakespeare. (7) Miss Trunchbull wears "bottle-green" breeches, which, if memory serves me right, is exactly what Willy Wonka is described as wearing. - Were bottle-green pants a thing back in the day? If not, I can only conclude that it's intentional as either something Dahl-specific or (albeit far less likely) a direct allusion to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (8) Mrs. Wormwood: "A girl should think about making herself look attractive so she can get a good husband later on. Looks is more important than books, Miss Hunky." - How very Game of Thrones, a positively medieval mindset. - Everything about that last sentence, from the message to using the incorrect copular verb to calling Miss Honey by the wrong name just screams superficial, crass and uneducated. - Additionally, Mr. Wormwood calls Miss Honey "Miss Hawkes" and "Miss Harris," which is very Horace Slughorn of him/them. - From Miss Trunchbull to Matilda's parents, this book's villains don't care about education, particularly reading. (9) We get blatant child abuse here, with Miss Trunchbull literally throwing kids around by the hair. - A scene that likely horrifies children and parents alike. - It's yet another example of the book's "brains versus brawn" duality. (10) "Mr. Wormwood ... [cast] a look of such simpering sloppiness at his wife it would have made a cat sick." - I've got to disagree with Dahl's characterization here. There's nothing wrong with going gaga over one's own wife. - Dahl makes it seem like Mr. Wormwood is crazy or delusional for thinking his wife is better looking than Miss Honey. Misogynist though he may be, at least he's a monogamy-minded misogynist. - One man's simp is another man's hopeless romantic.
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