A review by ninetalevixen
Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers by Kirsten Miller
3.0
3.5 stars.
I definitely enjoyed reading this, but most of the Irregulars have been relegated to comic background characters (even Oona, the literal face of one of the main subplots) so Ananka and Kiki can continue to take center stage — the exception is Betty, who really comes into her own — and I really missed the group dynamic; it seemed like there were only a handful of scenes where Ananka is actually with the group, and half the time her mind is somewhere else. Leadership is hard, but I don’t think, objectively, she pulled it off quite as well as she implies.
Some of the “Fishbein’s Guide to...” sections are funny and practical, but some are just juvenile. That statement could really be applied to Ananka herself; she never seems to catch on to the inherent issue of panting after her friend’s boyfriend with the explicit hope of “stealing” him away, or to really recognize that other people have their own issues except when it inconveniences her with a self-imposed need to intervene.
There are only a handful of major plotlines, and yet at times I still felt like there were too many moving parts. Part of it might just be Ananka’s overwhelmedness coming through, but another part was that it was just messy — jumping around from focus to focus, switching between Ananka’s POV and Kiki’s (as told by Ananka, of course). The resolutions are too neat, as well as pretty abrupt, which was definitely disappointing.
I definitely enjoyed reading this, but most of the Irregulars have been relegated to comic background characters (even Oona, the literal face of one of the main subplots) so Ananka and Kiki can continue to take center stage — the exception is Betty, who really comes into her own — and I really missed the group dynamic; it seemed like there were only a handful of scenes where Ananka is actually with the group, and half the time her mind is somewhere else. Leadership is hard, but I don’t think, objectively, she pulled it off quite as well as she implies.
Some of the “Fishbein’s Guide to...” sections are funny and practical, but some are just juvenile. That statement could really be applied to Ananka herself; she never seems to catch on to the inherent issue of panting after her friend’s boyfriend with the explicit hope of “stealing” him away, or to really recognize that other people have their own issues except when it inconveniences her with a self-imposed need to intervene.
There are only a handful of major plotlines, and yet at times I still felt like there were too many moving parts. Part of it might just be Ananka’s overwhelmedness coming through, but another part was that it was just messy — jumping around from focus to focus, switching between Ananka’s POV and Kiki’s (as told by Ananka, of course). The resolutions are too neat, as well as pretty abrupt, which was definitely disappointing.