Poe: Stories and Poems: A Graphic Novel Adaptation AND So This Is Ever After

[cornerofmadness]

Poe: Stories and Poems: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Gareth Hinds

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I found this adaptation of Poe's short stories and poems in graphic novel form in my local library and it had to be my October horror reading. It was very well done. The art is varied, fitting the story or poem it accompanies. Two of my favorite poems The Raven (naturally) and Annabell Lee are both in this which made me very happy.

Two I hadn't read before (or more likely read so long ago that I had forgotten them) were The Bells and The Masque of the Red Death, the latter of which I very much enjoyed.

It's a very nice adaptation of Poe's work and worth the read.



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So This Is Ever After by F.T. Lukens

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'll be honest I picked this book up for its awesome cover and I read that it helps libraries to prove there IS interest in LGBT books (true or not I don't know but hey what the heck? I like LGBT books, just wish less of them were romances).

And seriously, the cover is the best part of the book in some ways. Lukens hit the jackpot with cover art, getting wrap around art where all six of the main characters are on the cover and actually look like how they're described. Fantastic cover.

I'll be honest. I'm not really much of a romance reader so this wasn't tailored made to me and I especially am not fond of rom-coms so I picked this up hoping it would be more fantasy than rom-com. It wasn't but that's on me, not the book.

It really reads like someone decided to make their D&D game into a book (and certainly not the first time that has been done). The tropey-est of tropes are all here Arek our would-be king, Matt the mage, Rion the paladin, Lila the rogue-thief, Bethany the bard and Sionna the warrior (all we're missing is the cleric). And it opens creatively with the end of their quest. They defeated the Vile One, the former evil king.

So now what? That's what the book is all about. So this band of 17-18 year olds are now in charge. Arek is the de facto king because his best friend from childhood, Matt, said put on the crown until we can spring the rightful heir from her tower prison but oops, she's dead and now Arek's magically bound to be king. The catch is if he's not soul-bound to his mate for life by 18 he dies (not spoilers, this is on the blurb).

And here is why I didn't give this more stars because I did like it. It's cute.The characters are fun BUT 1. Really only Matt and Arek are well drawn (it's first person pov from Arek's pov) and the other four are lesser (not unusual in a large cast of main characters)
2. It kept lapsing into 2020s teen speak. That bugged me. I'm not looking for stilted high fantasy but having it sound like my college classroom was a terrible distraction
3. The only way the main plot works is if Matt and Arek are total dumbasses. Sigh.

So Arek gets it in his head that Matt doesn't like him that way so he won't even bring it up thinking either a) he'll lose his best friend or b) Matt will be 'stuck' with him because of this magical issue. He even works it up that Matt rejected him. Why? Don't know, don't remember because it was that weak and lame I forgot it two chapters later.

Arek's big plan is to try to woo each of the other of his fellow questers (all of whom he's only known briefly) all while trying to fix all the nightmare problems the Vile One created in the kingdom. To me that was much more interesting than the woo them and have it go hysterically wrong each time because that is such a worn out trope because you just know how it must end: he discovers that love might have been in front of him all along (cue Hallmark and my gag reflex and yes that's right on the dust cover)

If Arek and Matt would have spent three seconds talking to each other this would have been solved (and this would have been a short story I guess) Instead we have to suffer through them being total idiots and not saying anything, things that normal people would say just to create the drama (and to me that is the lazy way of creating drama) This would have been much more interesting to me to see Matt and Arek trying to make a relationship work with all the outside pressures bearing down (like prejudice against Matt's magic which is briefly mentioned but never capitalized on) but that wasn't what this story was.

And what makes it worse is Matt knows Arek is dying and he still says nothing. He doesn't say I love you, doofus, woo me. He doesn't say we're best friends since childhood, pick me because at least we're friends and we work that way. No he let's Arek's magical slow death keep going on and on until I lost all respect for him.

But that's me. I don't like rom-coms much so take this with a grain of salt. If you like rom-coms and fantasy you'll probably really enjoy this.



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