Bless This Mess: Alchemised by SenLinYu
So, I read Alchemised. I have some thoughts.
In short: it’s too damn long.
At length: …well, you’ll just have to read further.
I read this book partially because it began its life as a fanfic, and I was curious to see how that played out. I’m not going to talk about that in this review, because I want to talk about the book as it stands on its own, but I do have some fanfic-related thoughts, and they are here if you’re interested.
Content warnings: discussion of gore/body horror, rape/sexual assault
Bless This Mess: Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
I’m back! Been a while since I read something that was this bad and yet this compelling.
Young girl with cancer gets isekai’d into her favourite (kind of) book series, into the body of the villainess, and has to survive. I was immediately sold on this concept, and then the execution, uh, left something to be desired.
Question up at the top for anyone who can help me out here: big boobie evil (maybe sorceress) lady who seduces the king. What are we referencing here? Where does this trope come from? Because this book was certainly interested in critiquing it and I just want to know. Please tell me where to find the big boobie evil villainesses, I need to know for science.
Let’s get into it.
Bless This Mess: A Court of Frost and Starlight
This is such a weird little entry.
So, Feyre, human-turned-Fae extraordinaire, won her war and has functionally lived happily ever after with her mate (bleh) Rhysand. Why not publish a little Christmas sorry, Solstice special?
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a published book like this. There is very little plot or story here, things happen without even the barest glimpse of a character arc, and it’s all basically a setup for the next big novel. Still, it’s here, and it’s wild, so we’re going to talk about it.
Bless This Mess: Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)
Like any self-respecting theatre fan, I have a complicated relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Listen, I’m basic, I can enjoy me some Phantom or Cats or Joseph. But my one true ALW-penned love is and probably will always be Jesus Christ Superstar. I think it’s awesome, so much that I wrote a paper on it for a religious studies class I took in my undergrad. It chronicles essentially the last week of Jesus’ life, right up until his death on Good Friday.
And specifically, today, we’re going to dive into the 2000 filmed version of it, because it was the first version I saw when I was about 13 or 14, and therefore it has a special place in my heart. Is it the best version? No. (For my money, see if you can find a bootleg “slime tutorial” of the production that went to Broadway in 2012, it’s the best by a huge margin and I will not be taking feedback). But I do come back to this version again and again, so let’s dive in.