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synth3ticas's Reviews (39)
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It's a middle grade Ninjago chapter book centered around Cole, my favorite ninja. I really enjoyed it!
Despite the inherent bias behind Cole being my favorite ninja Cole, being the ninja of earth, is always a solid source of strength for the ninja team throughout the show and especially in this book. He is also the on that gets overlooked and undervalued, which is something that the Phantom Ninja story touches on. Everyone thinks that they have the capability to be a leader and that a leader just commands everyone to do everything, but that's not all a leader is. A leader amplifies others' strengths and helps them through their weaknesses, and the other three ninja realize that when Cole gets "kidnapped". I just really enjoyed it, honestly.
Despite the inherent bias behind Cole being my favorite ninja Cole, being the ninja of earth, is always a solid source of strength for the ninja team throughout the show and especially in this book. He is also the on that gets overlooked and undervalued, which is something that the Phantom Ninja story touches on. Everyone thinks that they have the capability to be a leader and that a leader just commands everyone to do everything, but that's not all a leader is. A leader amplifies others' strengths and helps them through their weaknesses, and the other three ninja realize that when Cole gets "kidnapped". I just really enjoyed it, honestly.
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Sorry for the mini essay lmao. This one was a doozy.
First and foremost, let me say that the content warnings; please heed the content warnings on this book (emotional abuse, sexual assault, and crimes against children are big ones). This one had me squeamish and uncomfortable the entire time (which, duh, it’s a horror book) but the content warnings here on Storygraph for this book are valid and present throughout, so please heed them and skip on this one if you can’t handle it.
Anyway, on to the actual book review. This book was alright. It was written well and unsettling in a lot of parts of the story because you wonder how the hell is nobody taking Patricia seriously even a little bit (mainly pointed at the men honestly like they got too friendly with a man they’d just met in my humble opinion). It took me a while to fully get through considering how unsettled I was about James Harris, just to be proven right in the actual narrative. When he’s introduced, you can tell there’s something a bit wrong with him. He’s too perfect and everything lines up too well with his appearance in the story. And before anyone says anything, my perspective on whether or not some descriptions about what James Harris did was necessary is this: he’s meant to serve two purposes in the novel, one being the perverse evil that infiltrates a community under people’s noses and is not taken seriously until it’s too late and the other being the fact that despite all of that, people will be judging instead of hearing someone’s concerns out. What James Harris does to Korey and Patricia and people in the Six Mile are meant to illustrate the fact that the big bad was getting away with what he was doing–even when Ms. Greene and Patricia and Wendy (I think that’s her name) were being honest and truthful about James Harris and his dangerous vampiric actions–and that no one even wanted to challenge or believe that he was capable of doing it. Partially due to greed and more because the men in this book stuck together just as much as the women in this book, which causes a lot of problems towards the ending of the book. James Harris is the perverse evil that threatens their children outwardly and no one other than Patricia and a few others who have had direct experiences with the man even wanted to think that he could do it because they were convinced that the front he was putting up was how he actually was when it wasn’t true. And Patricia found that out very fast.
I honestly would recommend it for people who like vampire books as well as a bit of psychological horror because the amount of times that Patricia questions her own reality and her own lived experience because of this fuckass vampire weirdo is so much so and I liked reading how it played out. Like Patricia really just was trying to keep the town and their children safe and no one believed her until the very last second.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
This manga was fine! It really does fit it's significantly younger demographic very well; it was short and snappy and a fun read to pick up over time, I just think I aged out of the demographic for the manga which is probably why it didn't hit as hard for me. But that's just me, honestly.