Talk:The Sophomore, Book 2/@comment-34138917-20180117202455/@comment-34138917-20180120020754

SecretlyATurtle, I think you've pretty much just summed up MC's role in the story: a supporting character in her own story.

I can't possibly think of any other way to describe it. That's all ​she's become. In The Freshman, she needed to work with Prof. Vasquez to stay in school. That was a real ​problem. And now, Prof. Vasquez is dead and her book is complete. So...now what?

She just...she just becomes a mother hen as you said. Now, she does ​work on the school newspaper, but even then, she's still not a very interesting character anymore. We never actually see her interviewing or writing about anyone outside of her group of friends, and as an editor of my school magazine, that feels incredibly biased and unprofessional.

And the dinner with James and Collin...ugh, don't even get me started. It honestly did feel like we were just there as a reference to James. At the end, if you play your cards right, there will be a notification telling you that you James impress Collin. If I recall correctly, there's nothing about YOU having impressed Collin, no, no.  Just..."James impressed Collin at dinner!"

​I honestly think the series started to slowly decline after Vasquez died, but Book 3 was still actually pretty good. Book 4 was a little iffy, though. It was short, no doubt about that, but it also gave you less time to spend with your love interest than Book 3. And the plot was sort of sitcommy, so to speak. I mean, "Oh hey, Zack has a van!  Now we're going to a concert across the country and picking up all of our friends."

That actually leads on to another complaint. Zack is getting little to no attention in the story anymore. Book 1 was setting him and Brandon up. Book 2 was reinforcing him and Brandon. Book 3 was being a good friend and helping him deal with his long distance relationship with Brandon. Then, Book 4. Book 4 where he and Brandon, who knows why, broke up, and Zack is cynical, rude, and pretty empty for the majority of the book (and that felt REALLY wrong to me, because he's one of the happiest, most friendly characters in the entire series). In The Sophomore, Zack gets minimal attention, except for when he learns about his architecturing passion, Teddy is in town, or whenever your character is trying to nudge him into going out with Grant (even though he says he just wants to remain friends with him, and we don't even know if Grant likes other men).

And, of course, Sebastian. I was sort of hoping that when the house was sabotaged, it would be Natasha or someone else, because I thought, "Huh.  Sebastian would be too predictable.  Maybe it'll be a mystery or something." But no. No, it was Sebastian. Needless to say, I was mildly annoyed.