Director's Cut

Whenever you encounter episodic storytelling, be it on a TV show or a Cinematic Universe or even a series of a books, the work often needs to justify itself while it catches you up. Yes, it's often subtly side-eyeing you for walking in during the middle of its performance, but it acknowledges that not everyone necessarily has seen the beginning of the story (or, if they have, don't have perfect recall).

Sometimes, you can mix in the exposition with the entertainment – think the recaps of Luis in the Ant-Man movies – or even woven into the story as a narrative structure, a la Zombieland's rules. But other times you get the literal "Previously, on The West Wing" where a voiceover recaps everything relevant to ongoing storylines. 

Much like this review, I implore you to slog through the information dump at the top of the book, because it eventually gets to where it's going. Admittedly, I initially did not know that this book is a shared universe – though I did read the first one – so maybe it's understandable. I want to advise not to judge too early.

A lot of the narrative of this book revolves around queer cinema, and as a card-carrying queer, I know firsthand the value of representation and feeling seen and validated in media. In the same way, Val's generalized anxiety feels like a breath of fresh air, even if it is incredibly difficult on a personal level to read through the insecurities and self-sabotaging.

Nobody's perfect in the real life or fiction, and Val and Maeve are no different. Val doesn't handle herself with the most grace and care, Maeve doesn't react perfectly ... but they're both people, and they're both trying. You know I'm a sucker for real characters having real emotions and real reactions. 

A passing familiarity with musicals is probably pretty important if you don't want to zone out completely for the teaching scenes, but I thought the technical movie discussions were approachable while still intelligent. 

This book gets a little dense at times, but honestly I like that too. Life isn't always quips and back-and-forth repartee, and it's nice to let thoughts and emotions breath a bit. All in all, it's a lovely time well-spent, and I look forward to meeting some of these characters again.

This review is for an advanced reader copy of the book, provided by the publisher.