I wasn’t too sure about the Moonstruck series after volume 2; volume 3 has redeemed things a bit. Even though it kind of splits of the coffee shop gang a little, with Chet (centaur) going off for an internship and Julie goes with Selena to a mermaid Festival. Most of the volume follows Julie and Selena, who meet up with Selena’s friend and roomie, the mermaid Skyla (Julie apparently has never met her and didn’t know Skyla and Selena live together). Naturally things don’t go as planned, especially since Julie has been having strange episodes where she ends up being drawn into some kind of mental other-realm with Cass and unconsciously shifting into her wolf form. She gets the ominous message that she must break up with Selena, and she also meets Kit, a mysterious pretty girl who is obviously trouble and possibly a kitsune.
What I don’t quite get is why neither Julie nor Selena seems capable of being even a little real with the other about personal relationship things when they’ve supposedly been going out for something like 6 months. I get that Julie at least has issues, some of which we get to see possible origins of in a flashback) but they can’t seem to hardly talk to each other about anything even a little touchy. The big fight is not even a little surprising but it’s hard to feel especially worried for the two when neither one seems ready for the kind of thing they were in. The back and forth between several conversation in which Julie is trying to work out her feelings and we’re finding out how Chet’s thing went and his reactions, and something pretty similar going on in parallel with mark (vampire boy). The conclusion is probably meant to be a cliffhanger with Julie starting the process of what is obviously going to be a terrible decision, but somehow I’m not especially worried even though I’m probably supposed to be. Maybe some of it is the parallel Pleasant Mountain Sisters story and some of the likely lesson suggestions there, but who knows.
Anyways, there’s more continuity being set up here which I appreciated, and I also find Kit an interesting addition to the mix of things.
