Boy Saves Town

Phantom Eyes by Scott Tracey completes the trilogy about Braden, the magical boy who comes home to Belle Dam to reconcile a century-long feud, rid the town of demons, repulse the evil witch who started it all, and oh yes, get the cute boy. As my ninth grader assured me, it's more fun than the middle book because Braden stops being so silly and starts throwing his weight around.

I don't really recommend it to adults, because a lot of the writing tics bothered me; a bit too much show rather than tell, especially when the tell and the show are accidentally off. Or the use of poorly chosen speech words -- ' "Yes" he quipped' is not an example of funny repartee. Also, Braden is very much an emotional seventeen year old, and spending an entire trilogy in his first person is exhausting for me, while my fifteen year old just accepts it as natural. But, despite my incredibly slow pace of reading this afternoon, it was a fast and fun read, and I especially liked the side characters of Drew and Jade. And it was cute to read about a shy gay boy throwing tantrums about his boyfriend trying to rescue him all the time (I'm not a princess!) or about their first dance and Braden's dreams of a romantic first date, which they'll try to have a few chapters after the end of the book since none of their previous encounters (even the Winter Dance!) seem to count.

Seriously, it's good to see a book where the character is gay but that's not a problem at all. It's acknowledged, but his friends and family have no issues about it, and it's not part of the plot at all. It's just there because that's how things are in this world.