My husband and I watched it twice back to back, and then a third time about a week later. It’s so weird how much I liked it, since any show without period costumes, swords, or fantasy elements has a hard time getting my attention.
It’s just so wholesome, and I think inspires us to want to be better people.
Terry Goodkind
Derivative fantasy heavily ripped off from Robert Jordan, misogynist self-insert male protagonist, and the author was hugely derisive towards the idea his books were “fantasy” and not “literature.”
I think my two favorites were A Horse and His Boy and Voyage of the Dawn Treader. They both made the world containing Narnia so much bigger. There was so much wonder, terror, and weirdness in VotDT
I remember reading Tricia Belden and the Mysterious Code when I was around 8. I loved the idea of secret codes, languages, and ciphers. Also, the world of the 1950s was just as magical, weird, and fantastical as an actual imaginary world.
I read the first three books at age 12, too! They really stuck in my head, and when we moved abroad for three years, I kept thinking about them, so reread them again when we moved back. The magic-with-hard-science-explanation, the stakes, and the ambivalence of the Lone Power…. The series is so good!
I heard Diane Diane was going through so hard financial times, so it might be a good time to but copies of her books to give for Christmas
I think that Michelle couldn’t be with Ted because of his relentless cheeriness that was his way of avoiding difficult confrontations. She starts to soften after he expresses his discomfort with her dating Jake over the phone - possibly the first time he’d ever said anything that indicated everything wasn’t peachy keen. Once he confronted his trauma over his dad’s suicide, and then the whole fuck-you-thank-you with his mom, Ted got to a place where he could be a functioning partner.
I think Michelle always loved him, and they clearly have a similar sense of humor. But his avoidance of conflict and inability to deal with trauma left so much of the emotional labor to her, and she couldn’t anymore.
Now that he’s home, and he can communicate his feelings and deal with them better, she might see him as the man she always knew he could be.
So I think they eventually get back together, and are healthier and happier than ever