It's been six months ago, almost to the day, that I read Fairy Tail, volume 8. Then I entirely forgot I had over 40 volumes of it still lying about, unread (well... up to vol. 45 of Fairy Tail proper, then a few extras).
The good news is: I STILL REMEMBER ALL THE CHARACTERS AND THE PLOT (sort of)! Woohoo, go me!
This volume begins with the old master of the Fairy Tail guild using a magic spell which is capable of taking down all enemies in a certain area - while ignoring friends. As this basically makes him into a minor god capable of deus ex machina-ing pretty much any violent conflict, the plot goes on vacation. I assume Hiro Mashima had a 'what now?' moment and decided to change pace.
Then Lucy visits her home for a chapter, which shows a bit of insight into her character, but feels somewhat underused as a plot point.
Then Lucy, Erza, Natsu and Ice Dude (I forgot his name, dammit) go off on a small mission to help out a theater director set up the stage for a play - but since he's terrible at anything theater-related and his actors all left him, the crew are now starring in his silly play. That's a fairly funny part, since wrecking theater like no tomorrow with a terrible play and terrible actors is always good for a laugh.
Then, Lucy gets randomly tackled on the street by sex traffickers, is saved by Loke, discovers Loke's deep, dark secret and then helps him out by using the POWER UP POWERS OF GOODNESS, which means she can randomly do nearly-impossible stuff because she wants to really, really badly and her purpose is pure. Thus, she solves the little conflict there is in this volume through magic and friendship.
The story is enjoyable, but I can't help but wonder where Hiro Mashima will go next - it's all very random and he tends to solve every problem really quickly, so things don't really get a chance to build up well.