Stacia in Progress

Soo...I guess if we're gonna bump into each other tonight in our dreams, we might want to decide when we're all going to sleep. Everyone has a 9 p.m. bedtime, right? Wait, what? You get to stay up til 10? No fair! 


While I was reading Disney After Dark, I kept comparing it in my head to a starter version of Ready Player One. Unfortunately, I kept wishing for this book to become as epic as RPO and it never quite got there. 

The strange thing is, I can't find anything wrong with DaD (hah). Even as I browsed back through my notes, I didn't have anything negative to say other than some of the phrasing seemed a touch too outdated for today's kids (it happens sometimes when an adult writes kidfic). However, that wasn't even so much a complaint, but more of an observation over a few phrases which didn't sound very kid-like (can't think of any 13 year old boy who would use the phrase hip-huggers, for example). 

Yet, while there was nothing wrong, I couldn't seem to find much that was right either. And by right, I mean in a "wow, we just hit that good point of the book" type of way. Disney would sort of ebb and flow, with a few brief mini-adventures, then some conversational downtime; rinse, repeat. But nothing ever peaked at a high-intensity level which got my blood pumping. All in all, there weren't a whole lot of "feels" happening. I was never excited, afraid, amused, anticipating, etc. I was just mildly interested in what would happen next. And sometimes I wasn't even all that interested. I never once felt the need to have to pick the book back up after putting it down. 

The adventures/fight scenes/puzzle solving reminded me of a lower-key version of Percy Jackson, except without the large dose of humor and the fast-paced flow which keeps PJ fans hooked. 

Sadly, I won't be picking up the next book in the series. There just wasn't enough to make me want to find out what happens next. However, I would watch this as a movie, if only to see the holograms and the Disney character battles at night after the park goes dark.