Kacen Callender

Content Note: child sexual abuse, (critical treatment of) racism and queermisia

Plot:
Mattie Cole is having his big moment as an actor. After a much lauded supporting role, he has landed his first lead part, and opposite Logan Gray no less. Logan himself was a child actor, now turned troubled bad boy. Despite sex tapes, his bisexuality and a couple of physical altercations, he is pretty well-established, and the perfect opposite to Mattie’s clean, happy image. He has also made disparaging remarks about Mattie in an interview. When production is overshadowed by yet another Logan-scandal, the production company has the perfect solution to all of their problems: Mattie and Logan just need to start dating, personal feelings be damned.

Stars in Your Eyes keeps a delicate balance in delivering a wonderfully breezy fake dating romance while also acknowledging trauma and what it takes to start to heal (spoiler: love is not enough). I absolutely loved it.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2024/09/08/stars-in-your-eyes-kacen-callender/… (plus d'informations)

I'm somewhat ambivalent about this story, I liked the representation but on another level they didn't really show enough of the building relationships and the problems inherent in having to learn from scratch what you can do intuitively. While the characters are supposed to be in their late teens they did come across as younger and less capable than the plot was suggesting. Somehow I finished feeling that I was missing something, context or background that would be necessary to understand what was going on sometimes. It was interesting to see trans rep and a character whose gender was literally fluid and that this wasn't strange or unusual to the other characters, it was refreshing.
It's a story of a gifted alchemist who can't get into the school of alchemy and so becomes a gardener there to try to get access to information. Ash is the illegitimate son of one of the most powerful alchemists and he becomes embroiled in a plot to find a mythical book that could change everything. More of the change may come from within than without.… (plus d'informations)

Unfortunately, this turned out to be called a young adult book so then I stopped reading it. The protagonist through no-fault of his own in a universe that is truly skewed against him is unable to pass his magic exam. But it sounds like the most ridiculous excuse that anyone would ever make for failure. The test was skewed against him with constantly changing questions because obviously he supposed to use magic to figure out the answers. It’s not that he wasn’t smart. It’s not that he didn’t study. So I just left the book at that.… (plus d'informations)

Very deep issues are presented in this book. King is friends with a boy named Sandy Sanders who confides he is gay. King then abruptly ends the friendship, as his older brother Khalid cautions..."you don't want people to think you're gay too."
After Khalid suddenly dies, King can't bring himself to reconcile with Sandy, whom he misses. When Sandy goes missing, King worries that harm has come to his friend.
Although it is a good plot, the characters need more development. Even though the story is told from King's point of view, he seems to change his point of view halfway through the story.… (plus d'informations)