I'll admit it: I went into Julie and the Phantoms expecting the predictable, overly polished teen show Disney Channel has made me associate with this genre. I wasn't expecting much. Fortunately, I was wrong. This Netflix series turned out to be a genuinely enjoyable surprise, with good music, likable characters, and a story with more heart than I expected. At its center is Julie (Madison Reyes), a teenager trying to reconnect with music while dealing with grief and the complicated emotions surrounding her family. When she meets three teenage ghosts who were once musicians, an unexpected partnership begins. The Relationships Are the Real Stars What I enjoyed most about Julie and the Phantoms wasn't necessarily the supernatural element. It was the relationships. Julie's family storyline gives the series an emotional foundation, while her relationships with her best friend and her school rival add the kind of tension and awkwardness that make teenage stories interes...
If there's one thing Nikki Maxwell knows how to do, it's feel humiliated. Every slightly awkward situation seems to be the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to her. And honestly, if that doesn't perfectly capture the dramatic experience of being a teenage girl, I don't know what does! The humor and ridiculous situations that define the Dork Diaries series are still very much present in the fourth book. The ballet chaos is particularly hilarious, delivering exactly the kind of mess you'd expect from Nikki. But this time, I enjoyed the story for reasons beyond the laughs. Nikki is growing up, and that makes all the difference. A Bigger Heart Behind the Chaos One thing that bothered me in previous books was Nikki's tendency to get caught up in her own problems, sometimes without taking enough responsibility for her actions. In this installment, however, I noticed a real change. The ballet incident, for example, takes a more serious turn when Ni...