Miscellaneous Movie Moments XCV (August 2023)

That's right, it's BARBENHEIMER time. Here are my quick reactions to the…*counts*...twelve films I watched in August.

Haunted Mansion (2023) | Spy Kids | Oppenheimer | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem | How to Blow Up a Pipeline | Blue Beetle | The Last Voyage of the Demeter | Meg 2: The Trench | Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story | Golda

Miscellaneous Movie Moments LXXXIX (February + Partial March 2023)

I didn't quite watch all of the Oscar films, but I made a decent dent! Plus the latest in MCU, of course.

Tár | Causeway | Aftersun | Marcel the Shell with Shoes On | Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania | Close | Empire of Light | Babylon | The Fabelmans | Puss in Boots: The Last Wish | Triangle of Sadness | The Sea Beast | Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Could You Repeat That? CXCVIII: Favorite Lines of Recent Reads

The Thousand Eyes, AK Larkwood
That made twice in an hour that he'd thought about her. It had been so very, very long. He didn't miss her, except in the way you missed the empty space when you stubbed your toe on something in the middle of the night.

The Last Days of Salton Academy, Jennifer Brozek
The plan worked for the first three yards.

Crusade, Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguie
In her four-inch heels she glided slowly to the window. She had learned centuries before that among those who could move with blinding speed, nothing aroused fear as one who moved slowly.

Star Wars: Dark Apprentice, Kevin J Anderson
"Is that wise, Admiral?" Leia asked.
"No," he said, "it is a trap."

My Two Souths: Blending the Flavors of India into a Southern Kitchen, Asha Gomez
I suspect I may have been a fruit bat in a former life.

Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, Toni Tipton-Martin
Despite all this name-calling, deviled crab is a spectacular first course.

And...

"All I want to know is who is bringing the chocolate cake," Aunt M. quietly demanded in a way that let everyone know she wasn't pleased.

Could You Repeat That? CXCVII

A lot of these were Hugos nominations reading, and then a TON of urban fantasy. Summer reading at its best, as far as I'm concerned. 

Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
"I think it's pretty amazing that you're saying this," I told him bluntly.
"Oh, I took some night school courses in psychology," said Bill Compton, vampire.

The Last Thing He Told Me, Laura Dave
"And all the details are different too, right?" She pauses "Like...my birthday?"
That stops me. The heartbreak in her voice when she asks the question.
"Like my birthday's not really my birthday?" she says.
"No, probably not."
She looks down. She looks away from me. "That seems like something a person should know about themselves," she says.

Gone with the Gin: Cocktails with a Hollywood Twist, Tim Federle
Set aside your beer (sorry: your Stelllllaaaaa!) and combine all the ingredients with ice in a shaker.

Witchmark, CL Polk
"Do you have any idea how much work it is to be majestic? The high court is exhausting."

Stormsong, CL Polk
"They can't know," I whispered. "If they knew what our parents and grandparents did, they'd never forgive us."
"Do we deserve forgiveness?"

Soulstar, CL Polk
The word "uza" meant something that didn't quite translate to Aelander. It meant solidarity. It meant unity. But something more than that--it meant that the people banded together in a community had a moral duty to each other, to serve one another.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers
'You know, on the subject of Humans, there's something I've long wanted to ask someone about.' He paused in thought. 'Cheese. Is that a real thing?'

Miscellaneous Movie Moments LXXXV (April/May/June 2022)

After my Oscars binge, I vowed to take a break from prestige films and go all in on my most beloved genre, science fictiony action. It's been a good three months, let me tell you.



Death on the Nile (2022) | Stargate: Continuum | The Batman | Spider-Man: No Way Home | The Lost City | Turning Red | Moonfall | Casablanca | Galaxy Quest | Ghostbusters: Afterlife | Ron's Gone Wrong | Dog | Moneyball | Morbius | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness | Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Movie Moments LXXVIII: Tim Burton Edition

Happy Christmas, Dani! You are the only person for whom I would watch these festivals of cheery macabre.

Previously, from the Oeuvre
Seen:
Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, Big Fish

Not Seen:
Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows, Frankenweenie, Big Eyes, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Dumbo

What's the Deal
I've just never been a fan of creepy, you know? Say "Tim Burton," and my brain conjures up a Johnny Depp in white pancake makeup stabbing people and I think we're all past that stage in our lives. Then again, I've enjoyed the Burton films I have seen (except Edward Scissorhands, obvs).

Movie Moments LXXVI: Guillermo Del Toro Edition

Happy Christmas, Kassy! I figured I'd do the Del Toro, in honor of our visit to At Home with Monsters. Spooky and lovely--just like you, in fact.

Previously, from the Oeuvre
Seen:
Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water

Not Seen:
Cronos, Mimic, The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak

Miscellaneous Movie Moments LXXII (October 2021)

Three non-mermaid movies for the month of October: The Green Knight, Dune, and A Place Among the Dead.

Miscellaneous Movie Moments LXX (September 2021)

Wild Mountain Thyme, 26 September 2021, streamed via Hulu
Our theatre department is doing a production of Outside Mullingar, and this movie is written and directed by the playwright, John Patrick Shanley, so here we are. Jamie Dornan has a real young-Colin-Firth vibe going on here. And Emily Blunt, well, I would probably follow her anywhere. (Jon Hamm continues to absolutely NAIL the market on handsome, hollow-eyed capitalists.)

Anyway, this is a cute if unremarkable rom-com and then it is revealed the major obstacle between our two heroes is that my dude thinks he's a honeybee.

You read that right.

Only Lovers Left Alive, 26 September 2021, streamed via Prime Video
They had me at Hiddleston, yeah? Tilda Swinton is divine. (She, alas, barely seems to have learned from her unfortunate demand that Margaret Cho explain whitewashing to her a few years ago.) Plus, John Hurt as bitter Kit Marlowe. And oh, ow ow ow, the late Anton Yelchin is in this, ow. My heart.

Movie Moments LX: Godzilla Edition (March 2021)

Y’know, I should probably familiarize myself with, like, the OG Godzilla movies. (Or, like, the Broderick one from the 90s, which I mostly remember because of the excellent "Come With Me" by then-Puff Daddy, which remains awesome. Anyway, the newest MonsterVerse movie has come, so here we are.

Movie Moments XXXIII: July 2020 (Twilight edition)

I had to look the librarian in the eye while she confirmed that, yes, I wanted to rent all five of the Twilight movies at once. (“You a fan?” Uhhhhhh.) I have to live in this town, people!

So, like, this is the story of a young woman who gets gaslit by her stalker so thoroughly that she decides to change species. It’s apparently a heart-warming love story.

Movie Moments XXVIII: May 2020 (Alien edition)

I’ve never watched any of these before, so this is a grand adventure! You are getting slightly filtered, but entirely new thoughts! Meanwhile, I am slightly terrified! This is going to be gross, I’m pretty sure.

Prometheus, 26 May 2020, streamed via Google Play
I decided to watch these in chronological order, which should be fascinating, since I recall that folks were less than thrilled with whatever happened in this one.

• Crew: 17. Oh, THAT can’t be good to know. If ever there was a signal that most of the crew is toast, that is it.

Movie Moments VIII: October

So this October was the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. I didn't get to attend as much as I'd have liked (apparently work continues even when film festivals are happening), but this is possibly more documentaries in the span of two weeks than I've seen in the rest of my life altogether. In any case, this puts me at twenty-two movies for the month. Egads.

Given, 07 October 2017, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
A documentary about a surfing family that goes on walkabout to surf from six different continents, Given is narrated by a young child, whose name, it turns out, is Given. Things going overly twee at points--the framing narrative of hunting “the big fish” is leaned on too heavily, but it does end up with the kid’s father catching a six-foot fish, so apparently it wasn't supposed to be solely metaphorical? In any case, Given’s script is generally lovely--it seems clear the producers took a lot of Given's kid-chatter and wove it into lovely coherence. And given the number of locales (e.g. Iceland, Senegal, Thailand, Peru, Fiji), and some portraits straight out of National Geographic, anyone with a travel bug would dig this, and hard.

Grizzly Man, 07 October 2017, HSDFF
That was...absurd. And tragic. And that scene of Jewel’s face as Herzog listens to that audio, “You must never listen to this...I think you should destroy this.” That's going to stick with me for a long, long time.

Oh, and Werner Herzog and producer Erik Nelson had a quick Q&A after the screening. In regards to that scene, Herzog said, “There are certain borderlines that you do not trespass,” when one must respect the “privacy and dignity of a human being’s death.”

Beasts of the Southern Wild, 07 October 2017, DVD via public library
“We’s who the earth was for.” This is a movie that makes you want to cuddle the youngsters in your life.

Wasted!, 08 October 2017, HSDFF
I changed my entire teaching plan for next semester so I could use this in class. It's SO GOOD. And hits right at the sweet spot between my foodie, environmentalist, and cultural critic identities. <3

Magic Mike XXL, 08 October 2017, DVD via Netflix

• That “Pony” scene on its own is all the reason this movie needs to exist. IT IS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE TO "PONY."
• What a gift Channing Tatum is to the universe.
• HOW IS THAT BACKSTREET BOYS SCENE SO GOOD.
• This is like some crazy Odyssey-level plot, y'all, and Channing Tatum is apparently Odysseus.
• "It's not bro time, it's show time." "One, two, three, MALE ENTERTAINERS."
• I’mma need some Rome/Effie Trinket fic, like, IMMEDIATELY, y’all.
• Not even joking, this might be one of my favorite movies now. It's like Bring It On crossed with a stripper version of The Odyssey.

I MEAN, SERIOUSLY.
The Mummy (2017), 11 October 2017, Blu-ray via RedBox
Despite the dire reviews, I have long known I pretty much enjoy the hell out of any Tom Cruise action movie. (I'm 50/50 on his drama and romance work.) I suspect the structure of the movie was to its detriment--rather than capitalizing on Cruise’s “competent rake” schtick, they started off with a lengthy prelude narrated by Russell Crowe. Switching things around would have worked so, so, so much better. Like, start with tomb robbers in Iraq and then do the exposition as the tomb’s contents are unearthed. Basically, they structured it like the titular monster was the draw and, like, nobody cares about mummies as a thing? Also, they kept using ravens as harbingers, and does Egypt have ravens? I was legit distracted by this insignificant detail.

In any case, things kicked into gear once the Prodigium appeared on the scene--secret monster-fighting societies are a rock-solid genre and aesthetic--and they had a dab hand with Cruise's “flustered coward” mode (think the first third of Edge of Tomorrow). And Sofia Boutella got saddled with some epic nonsense, but goddamn if she didn't get throw herself into the physicality of the role.

So yeah. Not a great movie, but I’d be curious to see the next installment in the franchise.

The Cinema Travellers, 12 October 2017, HSDFF
This was a lovely and sad movie, about a handful of folks in India who traveled around rural areas showing movies on film. Most heartbreaking was one film camera repairman, who cheerfully engineered a number of workarounds for machinery quickly being replaced by digital films.

Waiting for the Sun, 12 October 2017, HSDFF
Sun Villages, in China, are a collection of homes for children whose parents are incarcerated. I cried a lot.

Waiting for the Sun - International Trailer from KASPARWORKS on Vimeo.

Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer, 12 October 2017, HSDFF
This was a really entrancing memoir (kind of) of Marcelo Gomes, a ballet dancer at the height of his work, growing more cognizant of how close he is to moving onto the next stage of his career. Also, it is impossible not to stare at his butt. I swear I tried my best, all for naught.

Liyana, 12 October 2017, HSDFF
This one was more of a heart-warming tearjerker: a number of children, orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, gathered into a storytelling workshop, tasked to write a story of a girl like them. It's gorgeous. And magical--we get snippets of all the kids narrating the story, as well as an animated presentation of different pieces of their tale.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 12 October 2017, DVD via public library
It's like they cast this movie by having a BAFTA after-party for weak-chinned but compelling white dudes.

Score: A Film Music Documentary, 13 October 2017, HSDFF
Most hilarious was an opening scene when Hans Zimmer vocalized being nervous about a gig. “I think you’d better call John Williams; I have no idea what to do here.” LOL.

No Man's Land, 13 October 2017, HSDFF
Remember the nonsense of the Bundy family forming a militia and taking over that wildlife reserve? While the filmmaker didn't go out of their way to demonize the group, it becomes very, very clear that none of them actually had a plan aside from seizing the chance to go out in a blaze of glory. And then one of them did.

The Last Animals, 13 October 2017, HSDFF
I remember being very young and becoming very invested in saving endangered animals. This film puts a zoom towards rhinos and elephants, specifically, and how the trade in horn and ivory continues unabated. Most poignant was the attrition through the film, as the last of the northern white rhinos died: we started the movie with five, and ended with three. In the world, mind you. Three left in the world. (I just looked it up: there are now only two Northern white rhinos left in the world.)

Quest, 14 October 2017, HSDFF
What starts out as a close-up on a poor Black family in Detroit ends up with a striking arc, as PJ, a pre-teen girl, gets shot in a drive-by and loses her eye. In one scene, her father recounts the aftermath, a little heartbroken at how she apologized for getting shot.

The Workers Cup, 14 October 2017, HSDFF
The work to prepare Qatar for FIFA’s world cup is ongoing, and it's well- and horrifyingly-known that the workers--almost entirely immigrant labor from Africa and South Asia--are exploited, with steady reporting of illness, injury, and death. As a way to manage the unrest (implied but not explicitly), the corporations involved form a football/soccer intramural, basically. It's fun to follow one of the teams as they compete, but we never get to forget the context surrounding their breaks.

Tell Them We Are Rising, 14 October 2017, HSDFF
The film is a fairly in-depth accounting of the formation of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). While some of the history should seem familiar--”An educated (black) population could not be an enslaved population,” K. Crenshaw notes--but other things, like Booker T Washington's work against the education of African-Americans, were both surprising and unsettling.

In a fun turn, Stanley Nelson, the filmmaker, was also on hand, as he received a lifetime achievement award at the festival’s close. He actually walked down the line of folks waiting to get in, and it was really lovely to hear folks tell him, each time he stopped, which HBCU they had attended.

White House Down, 14 October 2017, DVD via public library
I'm slowly making my way through Channing Tatum’s filmography, but I won't lie, seeing Jamie Foxx’s faux-Obama hit me where it hurts. This is a silly, fun, straightforward action flick, which is exactly what I wanted from it.

Blade Runner 2049, 22 October 2017, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
#BladeRunner2049: All the Asians must have gone off-world because they sure as hell aren't in this movie. The entire film is breathtakingly gorgeous--to the point that I’d buy it to just stare at some of the shots--but given that I largely enjoyed the original because it portrayed a slew of Asian folks, I was hugely disappointed here.

The King’s Speech, 26 October 2017, DVD via university library
I was a bit worried this would be grand melodrama, and was pleased to discover it was more like a quiet, matter-of-fact story with a little bit of pomp.

The Martian, 30 October 2017, DVD via university library
“I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.” At least one critic called this “competence porn,” and yeah. I dig it 100%. I also had the weird experience of thinking this was based on a true story, then shaking myself out of it, over and over again. Go figure.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, 31 October 2017, DVD via public library
I think this is what I wanted National Treasure to be. Based on the first 20 minutes, I’m solidly convinced none of the writers have met any grad students. Nor, possibly, any librarians. Also, for a hot second I thought they were running with Kelly Hu/Sonya Walger, and I am just going to pretend that's what happened.

TV I'm Watching: iZombie

Or, welcome to back Neptune, AKA Seattle.

So, I've just started watching iZombie, which you can watch on Hulu (though the full run isn't available). I knew, even back when talk of it started circulating, that I would give it a shot, because Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero were the showrunners. As in, the folks responsible for the spectacular Veronica Mars. So I had it on my queue and sort of knew I would get to it eventually, and then I read that David Anders was in it.

David Anders is on this show. Oh hey, here's a picture of me and David Anders, when we randomly ran into him outside a club in West Hollywood eight or so years ago:



...wait, what were we talking about again? OH. iZombie, yes. So I read that he was on the show, and I immediately brought the show up on Hulu and discovered the first episode was expired, so I bought it on Amazon Prime. I've just watched the fifth episode, "Flight of the Living Dead," and y'all. Y'ALL. This show is great. It was sort of all over the place for a few episodes--very Veronica Mars in tone, wry and morbidly funny, but not quite sure what it wanted to do. It is based on a comic book, though from what I understand, "inspired by" might be a better term.

The Concept: Liv Moore (GET IT), a young doctor, with everything in life going perfectly, goes to a party and gets turned into a zombie. She wakes up on the beach, undead. As she adapts, she quits her job as a surgeon and starts up as a medical examiner. She breaks up with her fiance, and also starts solving crime. Turns out, whenever she eats somebody's brains (with generous amounts of hot sauce, because zombie taste buds aren't delicate), she gets flashes of their memories, and also temporary infusions of a few of their personality quirks. She then convinces a homicide detective she's a psychic, because obviously that's what happens when zombies decide to fight crime.

SPOILERS for up to the fifth aired episode, FYI.



I still have five episodes to watch, so I'm working from a limited standpoint. That said, here are four things that I dig about the show:

1. 
   
   I mentioned David Anders is in this right? And he's having a marvelous time. Think, say, Sark as an entrepreneurial zombie instead of a spy. His name is Blaine, and he is remarkably pale and bleached blond. Think of him as charming and devious, an effortless liar, who manipulates everybody around him so that they answer to him, and only him. Think of him as a zombie that hires a chef to make brain-eating an elegant pursuit. This might, perhaps, be Anders's ur-role. It is what he is meant to be.
   
   
2. 
   
   The delightful gentleman on the left is Ravi, Liv's boss/partner in the medical examiner's office. He grokked onto her zombie nature before she told him--one of the very earliest scenes was him catching her eating brains and not being surprised. Instead, he's delightfully scientific about it--he runs all sorts of tests to see how the whole undead thing works, but not in a mad scientist way. He's genuinely excited and curious, and also is pretty much Liv's best friend and only non-zombie confidante. They are great. Also, he's the new roommate of Liv's ex, Major, but I have yet to see that side plot come to any interesting fruition. But, yes. Ravi! He's awesome.
   
   
3. 
   
   Detective Clive Babineaux, beleaguered homicide detective. While his whole, "yes, I totally believe in your psychic powers, suspiciously pale woman" deserves some side-eye, Clive's already got way more depth than we usually see in TV detectives. For one, there's a clear sense that he's good at his job, but awful at politics. He was deep undercover in Vice for a long time, which leads others to treat him with suspicion. He's rightly frustrated when Liv pops in, wide-eyed, and pokes and pokes him until he investigates one of her "visions." And he's got a good heart. The fifth episode has Major come in (for the second time, but the first time without Liv around) and ask for Clive's help following up on a missing teenager. It's the best, and possibly ONLY, character depth we've seen in Major so far. And following up is a scene where Clive walks into a skate park, gets clocked as five-0, and corners a kid with his prickly stare. Which leads to the kid nodding him over to a board plastered with missing persons flyers. It's excellent work--the conversations have a believable cadence, and the non-verbal cues lend the interactions a lot of depth. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this--a show where the non-Liv characters have lives beyond Liv will be a good one.
   
   (I will note--Liv's roommate and supposedly best friend Peyton has had almost zero development. Liv's parents were pretty one-note in the premiere, and Liv's brother in a previous episode was a creep who kept creeping in Peyton's bedroom. So it's not ALL great character work so far.)
   
   
4. 
   
   The fifth episode also introduced Lowell, a gorgeous rock star who starts as a murder suspect. When he first sees Liv at the crime scene, he stares at her, almost shocked. In the next scene, he flirts with her to the extent that I thought, hey, maybe he's guilty. And in their third scene together--in one of the most spectacularly-constructed scenes I've ever watched--he offers to make Liv a drink while they chat about the case. Instead of doing vague drink-making-like gestures, the camera frames him so we can see exactly what he's doing: swiping lime wedges around the edge of two glasses, then twisting the rims with cayenne. Pouring the tequila and the tomato juice, and then quickly adding glugs of hot sauce. Carefully slicing two bright red jalapeno peppers to garnish the drink, and when he presents it to Liv, she notes, "This is hot." And that, friends, is how Lowell reveals he knows Liv is a zombie. Because hey, he is, too.
   
   I have no idea where this love interest thing will go, but in a universe of TV shows that constantly have actors flailing around empty coffee cups, this scene will remain glorious in my memory.

So, yeah. iZombie. It's worth a watch, folks.



I realize I mostly talked about handsome gentlemen in this post, which is sort of missing a major thing: Liv. Liv is delightful. She sort of sad and messed up, as new zombies are wont to be, but she's also caring and intelligent and wry. It's hard for me to talk about her, because her voice is so very Veronica Mars, but I dig her. I'm hoping she'll get more to develop beside "I hate murderers" and "I am sad I am a zombie, mostly because I can't make out with my ex." Anyway, I'm off to the sixth episode now.

Fall TV 2013: Tuesday Nights

The saga continues. And Tuesdays are heavy. Not urgent, but entertainment-laden. I kind of wish networks would try some counter-programming, though.

Vague spoilers for the most recent episodes of New Girl, but otherwise I think this post is pretty safe.

BOOK REVIEW: Evernight by Claudia Gray

So I'm reading Claudia Gray's Evernight, which I've had for a while, but never stopped to read. It starts out as a fairly well-written, YA vampire novel. Y'know, YA vampire novels often start out with the premise that nobody expects vampires, but honestly, that does not spoil anything, right? Like, you're not going to pick this book up and not know there are vampires in it. In a boarding school called Evernight. And by reading those last two sentences, you are probably already expecting everything that I expected as I read. And while it is well-written, I was kind of like, Yeah, yeah, okay. Let's get to the "surprising" discoveries already! And then I reached the almost half-way mark of the book. And then things got awesome. Let it be known that I am pleased with this book, and am perhaps going to buy the following two books as soon as my budget allows! (Isn't it weird how every book turns out to be a trilogy nowadays? Oh, publishing, I do not understand you, but like all good consumers, I won't complain too much as long as you keep supplying when I demand.)

"Cal Leandros" and "Trickster" series by Rob Thurman

SO. If you are a fan of brothers being brotherly, or supernatural beasties being beastly, or mythology come to life, or friends becoming a ragtag fightin' family, you might definitely want to check out the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman. Cal Leandros is a smart-mouthed, slobby, floppy-haired jackass who really likes his guns. Niko is his mostly-zen, fiercely overprotective, terrifyingly competent older brother. TOGETHER, THEY FIGHT CRIME. I don't want to spoil the series (there are five books so far), but there might also be an immortal trickster, a serial-marrying vampire, cranky bar-owning angels, a seer who takes payment in ice cream, a healer with a wolfish cousin, monsters that eat muggers, a mummified cat, an evil reflection, dimension-hopping elves, and many, many, many werewolves and zombies. I love this series. It is equal parts American Gods, Supernatural, and the funniest bits of Angel. And sometimes there is kissing, but Cal dislikes talking about his feelings, okay? Anyway, these folk are so competent it makes me squee, but they are also grumpy and flawed and have squabbles about junk food, so sometimes evildoers forget they can also kick ass hardcore. And then squabble some more about, like, who gets to drive. ♥! I also want to resoundingly recommend the "Trickster" series, also by Rob Thurman, which has one book out and one book upcoming. If you loved all the above stuff, but then thought, HEY. WOMEN, PLZ! This is the series. There is a war between heaven and hell, and there are demon hunters, and I will tell you this up front: Two incredibly hot dudes who are totally in love but don't know it yet. Everybody else does, and yet it is not frustrating at all. (Caveat: The author has hinted that sales for the first book weren't spectacular, so those two books might be all we get. WOE.) And there is Trixa, who loves the color red, does not take crap, and has mixed feelings about her found family because they might distract her from her mission of VENGEANCE. Trixa is terrifying. Trixa is AMAZING. I PROMISE YOU WILL LOVE THESE BOOKS. Give 'em a shot, won't you?