despite only reading 4 of them this year, this log covers all 6 of the phase 2 books, plus the grimoire!
well i finally got around to finishing these at long last; i started them last year right after I finished my re-read of the original books (which was indeed a whole year ago now). I'll be honest, I hated them, got about halfway through and gave up. last week I managed to finish BEDLAM, the book I'd abandoned halfway through, and powered through the final three books. Good god dude this was honestly kind of a miserable experience all round. additionally, I own these physically and while there's nothing stopping me from pirating a kindle version for when i'm in public, I was actually worried I wasn't going to be able to focus on them unless i have the actual physical no-distractions-allowed book right in front of me, which just means I spent the last week or two awkwardly wedging the book under my arm and shuffling between work and the cafe across the road before someone asks me what i'm reading. there is no good way to explain why i'm a grown ass full time employee reading a book series for 16yos with a big magical skeleton on the front cover.
I found the first three books of this phase to be so painfully uninteresting and reading them was quite a chore. I abandoned BEDLAM halfway through for.....about 10 months......because I did not give a fuuuuuckkkk oh my god. in my review/notes section of the original series, I wrote "no 14yo wants to hear about emotionally mature conversations, they want to hear about magically exploding people into viscera" and to be honest, I still don't think I want emotionally mature conversations from these characters. i want more magical viscera explosions. there's no reason to aim for sincerity and emotional maturity when, quite frankly, the author is not very good at it. it's unsatisfying. The next book, SEASONS OF WAR, I thought had found its footing a bit again. I actually quite enjoyed that one - likely because my favourite of the original books (phase 1, I guess, is what we're calling it) is LAST STAND OF THE DEAD MEN and its very reminiscent of that. I have to say that I really don't care for the overarching plot that's been building in phase 2; it's cheap and just recycling things and characters from phase 1, but i did find the last three books to be a lot more fun as individual books than the first three in this iteration were.
There is a little part of me that's wondering if I just hate these because of nostalgic reasons - I grew up with the phase 1 books, I begged my parents to buy me the first one when it released in 2007 and dutifully bought and read every book after that. I loved them. Still did on my reread last year! The question is, are these books actually uninteresting, or am i just not a child anymore and have my interests shifted? They have matured in this phase - they're much more gritty and grounded and a far cry from the way violence and real life issues were carefully danced around in phase 1. I mean, don't get me wrong, the first phase certainly is violent and treats its young readers with a level of respect that i think is great. It's just that phase 2 has corrupt cops and nazis and drugs, so.
I don't really know what it is that put me off these books. I can't pin down anything specific and on paper, I should love them. Continuation of my childhood fav books but the protag is now my age and the books are a bit less kiddified? Also answers some burning questions I've had since I was in high school, AND dips into character backstories and fleshes them out further? Great! But no, for some reason it just doesn't work or click with me. However! Everyone else I've run across in recent years fucking hates them too, so it's probably not just me.
I will be the first to admit that it's a strange and unusual form of self harm, but I'm probably going to read the phase 3, uh. "trilogy"? it's calling itself a trilogy but there's 5 books for me to suffer through, so. at least they're short lmfao. I didn't want a bar of these last year but unfortunately i'm a completionist and i Need To Know. i just need an ending dude
also yeah not sure where else to put this but I'm including the grimoire in this since it released after phase 2 - this was fun! I like lore. I like titbits and illustrations and such. i'd bought this long before I wanted to read phase 2 and turns out it does need a lot of phase 2 context, so this was my reward.