harrietj's reviews
317 reviews

The first third or so of this book was by far the best, but it never stopped being a really enjoyable read. The art - again, especially in those first issues, by Guillem March - is usually great. It's without a doubt laughably oversexed, but I can't get angry with it - it's so obvious and ridiculous that it comes across as hilarious, rather than infantile. I like the dynamic between the three women, and I like the little bit of set up for the Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn relationship that's now so established in the DC universe. I also enjoyed the dual characterisations of Harley, with the childlike MPDG attitude that always feels like a bit of a front, and as the cold, impressively intelligent criminal that she becomes around the Joker.

I will say that it's disappointing how much this series focuses on the women discussing, bordering on obsessing over, various men, and it would have been nice to see them engaged in conversation or plotlines that didn't fail the Bechdel test quite so spectacularly (yes, we had a storyline about Selina and her sister, but it was definitely the weakest of the series), but I still really enjoyed this series from start to finish.

Captain Scarlet was the only one of these properties I'd heard of when I picked this up, so I expected to like his story the most, but actually I much preferred the other two short stories! They were much more explicitly science fiction. The story about the killer house robot especially had a really enjoyable classic 2000AD vibe. I'm not sure I'll consciously seek out any more of this series, but I definitely had fun with two out of three of the tales.

This wasn't great. It was a bit obvious the whole way through, and the ending was very abrupt. I felt like I was still waiting for the big climax when I closed the book. I also felt that the author perhaps doesn't have a very good grip on character. The people in this book were all fairly 2D and unbelievable. The younger child in the family was supposed to be I think ten or eleven, but she was written as though she were four or five. The mother's anxiety was so all-consuming that it threw any other characterisation she may have had right out.

It was a quick read, and would have been fine to get through a plane journey with, perhaps, but it wasn't worth rereading, and having read two of his books now I won't seek out any more John Saul. His style is oddly old fashioned - I could easily have believed this was a pulpy throwaway novel from the 80s if not for the references to modern technology, and even they were few and far between. I do not mean that it provides a nostalgic pleasure. I mean it's thinly written and shallow. But in fairness I don't think it's pretending to be anything else.

I'm still loving every page of the art in this series but the story is still leaving me a little underwhelmed. I enjoyed this volume more than the last one, but it's still only good enough. The whole series has been a very quick read; even while the art invites lingering, the writing is carrying the reader along at a very fast pace. I think you could easily speed through all three of the volumes so far in under an hour, and perhaps it would read better that way - having spread the books out, perhaps I expected too much from each chapter. 

I'm glad I followed this through to the end, although I always find a surprise pregnancy reveal like this one a little lazy. There's a view of motherhood as this magical, miraculous thing that can literally damn or save the world that shows up a lot in this kind of story and I feel like it's a bit of a cop-out.

Art is still clean and engaging, and the writing is as good as Tim Seeley ever is (I'm a fan), and the story had a fairly satisfying conclusion. I just wish it hadn't taken so long to get to it.

I hate to say it, because initially I was really loving Revival, but at this stage I feel like I'm almost skimming it to find out how it ends. The plot is still interesting but it's gone too long and lingered for too long on characters in whom I have little interest, who seem to exist only to be later killed off in service of the plot. The art is still absolutely competent and attractive, but it's nothing particularly revolutionary and I'm not captured by any pages specifically. I don't even remember any standout panels. That said, the story is still fairly interesting. I'm willing to stick with the series, if only to find how it ends.

I've never read a book set in Puerto Rico before, and this was very much a book set in Puerto Rico. The novel could not have  taken place anywhere else; the entire novel was steeped in the landscape and the culture. It was really interesting, and even to me, entirely ignorant of really anything to do with the country, the wealth of information about the place and the people did not distract from the story.

Marketed as a horror novel, I'd actually call this more of a crime thriller, with supernatural elements. It told the story of Bimbo, a young man whose mother is killed in a drug related shooting, and his four best friends who stand by him while he gets increasingly deeply embedded in a mess of murder and revenge. At its core was a touching story about young male friendship and platonic devotion, and I was absolutely along for the ride.