OKAY SO HERE'S THE THING.

i will not be getting into my long-standing weird guilty pleasure-y love affair with everything these two authors write together, because i don't feel like it. i know they're not particularly good people, i know the books are not particularly good as far as these kinda books go, but, again, not everything i read is Good Literature.

i didn't even read this book recently. it was a long time ago. shit, maybe it was last year. but i am still thinking about it, because this one goddamn thing will not let me go. this isn't really a review of the book as a whole, then, as much as it is...i don't know, some sort of angry-sad stream of consciousness.

let's talk about zila.

Spoiler

zila, zila, god, zila, you were EVERYTHING to me from the moment you appeared on the page. i love girls like this. girls who are smart and weird and not very much fun to be around. girls who other people don't Get. i saw so much of myself in her from book one. then book two rolls around and she likes girls. she likes girls, for real and canonically she does. holy fucking shit, zila really likes girls.

they don't use the word "autistic," and they don't use the word "lesbian," because this is space and idk if those exist anymore, but inside me i fucking ache with recognition. zila means the world to me. even if there was still like a Lot of unintentional ableism in the way she was written.

and in book 3...

in book 3, zila falls in love with a girl she barely really gets a chance to know, and literally gives up her life for her friends. she LIVES, i guess, but she'll never see them again, these people who she supposedly found connection with after so long.

and i wanted to justify this to myself! i wanted to say this was what she wanted! what made her happy! what her arc was about! fucking hell i still don't dislike nari, i think she's fucking fine! the thing is, she's just fine, because i barely got to know her at all! and the thing is, this ISN'T what zila wanted, it's what her WRITERS wanted, because someone had to be a sacrifice and of course it had to be the one who was the outsider from the beginning, huh!

the time loop shtick set it up from the beginning and all, yeah, okay. and of course it was gonna be zila, right? she's the only one who didn't have anything tying her down to the modern day (COUGH. A LOVE INTEREST. COUGH). of course it was gonna be zila.

of course it was gonna be zila. and now i feel like i got played.

because of course there was a catch, huh? of course the (hypothetically) autistic (hypothetical) lesbian (who also happens to be black, huh, how 'bout that) was a perfectly implemented tool who had to fall into place just right so everyone else could save the day. of course she doesn't get to keep her found family. of course her purpose is to be separated from them. of course she's expendable.

of course of course of course of course of course. of fucking course.

the book is done. i guess she's happy. at the end of the day she's just a character. but a character who meant everything to me. and a reminder that i am always going to have to try a little harder to fit in. and even when i do, i'm still the odd one out. right up until it turns out my purpose was with some girl i just met all along, i guess.

(literally so much of the romance in this book would have been better if the authors weren't afraid of polyamory. scarlett has two hands. let her have finian and zila for crying out loud. and just do kal/auri/tyler while you're at it because love triangles suck and i didn't forget about the time kal and tyler Literally Did The Kissing To Distract The Authorities thing???? ell emm ay oh.)

i don't really know how to end this. maybe one day there will be a thousand autistic lesbian characters who will bury their way into my heart and it won't feel as lonely out here anymore. maybe one day i'll forget about zila entirely and won't have that little pinprick of hurt in me anymore. but also the thing is i don't want to forget about zila. i want to remember her. i want this to hurt. i want it to make me mad. i want to reread this series in the future, because god damn it i actually like it, and i want to see myself in zila. i want to see her get taken in by these people who actually learn to care about her and understand the way she thinks, the way she feels, the way she loves.

then it'll end and tear me open a little bit again. and i'll have to learn to deal with it.

i'm willing to do that. i just wish i didn't have to.

justice for zila. maybe now i can finally stop thinking so much about this for a while.