Perry

Adorable art belies the eroticism of this little graphic novel. There is a time jump at one point that is a bit confusing. But this is such a precious little story with adorable characters and some lovely history notes to boot.

3.5 stars.

I received this ARC from Harper Collins. As a born and bred New Englander, I very much enjoyed the setting and intricate details of Brown's novel. Having spent all of my adulthood in the Midwest, I appreciate the imagery that has me reminiscing about the cold, the enjoyed, the mountains, the sea. I appreciated the historical details too. The character of Falon was a fascinating creation, though I felt was though her progressive politics were far ahead of the early nineties.

Essentially, this is a small town family drama. A closed mill is set to reopen on Penobscot land, and suddenly burns down. Almy's mother runs the local paper and writes editorials about it. Meanwhile, a neighbor attacks a Penobscot girl taking catches from his lobster traps in the river. Which is tribal land, not his. Much drama ensues, embroiling Almy's family, the girl's, and the fisherman's, until it all ends, of course, tragically.

One or two notes about issues with the writing. The story is told from Almy's perspective, but the story has certain parts that are in the nearly omniscient third-person perspective. Her is no indication written this will happen. Indeed, a couple of times it happens during points when it is very clearly from Almy's perspective. The first time it occurred, I was confused, until I realized Almy seemed to be omniscient.

There are also quite a few tangents in the novel. Long descriptions leaping off from one or two sentences in the main narrative. Whilst I don't have much of an issue with this, it does seem more akin to classic novels than to modern litfic. That being said, I enjoyed this far more than many works of litfic I've read or given up on.

I feel as if I might have wanted more from the end, but I'm not sure what Brown could have done differently. I am very glad Almy took Otto the dog though.

Let's be real. The main reason I'm reading this is for the sexy times. The art is good, although it's better in her own short series from 2019. But there is sufficient fun in this to keep reading.

Ah, me. Named-dropped in ‘Quiverfull,' this lady is at the forefront of female thinkers in the patriarchy movement. Ironically, some of these women write books and seem to spend much time out of their homes propounding this antiquated, anti-female view of patriarchy–although, they expect other woman to sit at their husbands feet and bend over backward to do everything to please him.

This book starts out interesting enough, talking about the history and ‘theory' of feminism–as conservative evangelicals view it–and then devolving into tenuous theories of how it has caused the downfall of American society. This book does not really get into the idea that woman are at fault if their menfolk misbehave at all, but it does equate feminists and New Agers and Wiccans basically with the Beast of Revelation (not literally, of course, I speak hyperbolically). Never mind that the views propounded in this book are often reasons why things in American society ‘go wrong.' Ahem.

Adorable!

I rarely, if ever, read het romances, but I'd heard good things about this one . A fat heroine plus fabric is irresistible! And I was so very pleasantly surprised by how much I utterly loved this! The parental issues of both April and Marcus are too real. It was just such a precious book!

Thank you to Net Galley; Mr VanderMeer; and Firar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC of this book for an honest review.

I love VanderMeer. Really, I do. I gobbled up the Southern Reach trilogy; I bawled over Borne. I have his amazing book on writing. So I fully expected to love this book with every fiber of my being. Yet, I did not.
Essentially, we follow “Jane,” our statuesque, muscular heroine as she goes down the rabbit hole of eco-conspiracy theories. One day, as she's leaving a coffee shop, the barista runs after her with a mysterious note. This note leads her to a taxidermied, extinct hummingbird. And after that, things get really real. She's followed, she's threatened, she's armed. Her life gets topsy-turvy and out of her control completely. And all because of a dead bird. And maybe a salamander, if she can find it.

The focus of her quest is one Silvina Vilcapampa, supposed eco-terrorist and daughter of an evil industrialist who traffics in rare animals. Silvina is supposedly dead when the story starts, but so many things don't add up for Jane. As she hunts down anyone connected to Silvina and the bird, she is further embroiled in a strange conspiracy that has ties to her childhood. And nothing, including what she thought of Silvina, is reliable.

I went into this book so excited for everything in it. But the writing was not up to the standard to which I'm accustomed with Vandermeer. He constructs beautiful sentences into weird, lovely, tragic tales. This had very little of that. It felt like he dialed it in, or rushed to meet a deadline. Jane is never as engaging as Ghost Bird or Borne or Rachel or the Psychologist, or even Control. She's a mess of a person, which is fine. But she just lacks that extra something. And the things that happen don't entirely make sense. I've read two books in which heroes hide in piles of slain animal grue in the last few weeks, and this one just didn't feel as realistically horrifying as the other one (in My Heart is a Chainsaw). Jane engenders a disconnect from the reader. It isn't a case of likeable or unlikeable. It's a case of, “I don't really care about her.”

I kept waiting to love this book, and I kept being disappointed. It felt like a thriller, but weirder. But not as charmingly Weird as Vandermeer's other books. And, at times, it was almost nonsensical, but not in the giant bear fights sentient alien plant way, which is the very best way.

And then the end, Which I realize some people didn't like. But, for me, it kept the book at three stars. The end isn't satisfying; it doesn't need to be. It needs to have impact, which it did. Nothing is what Jane expected, nor what I expected. And the not knowing is tragic and hopeful and beautiful.

Amusing enough, but not as good and fun, or funny, as ‘Bunny.' It's fine that the main character isn't very likeable. But the prose gets repetitive, a little too repetitive. A character has burnished hair one too many times. It's beyond fixation. I just feel like the story got away from Ms Awad a little bit this time. But I still enjoyed it.

This is not an easy read. It's actually quite heartbreaking. But it was very good.

The unnamed protagonist has a lazy eye and is bullied horribly. He becomes friends with a girl in his class who is also bullied. The reasons for the bullying are different. His is not a choice, but Kojima, the girl, chooses to present herself in certain ways in order to connect with her father, whom she misses, and whom her mother divorced. There is much discussion of weakness as strength, finding meaning in one's abuses, and how people view abuse. One character, a bully named Momose, is basically a psychopath. He never participates but watches from afar. When the protagonist asks him about it, his response is pretty nihilistic.

The extremes are represented by this Momose and Kojima. She seeks meaning in everything; he sees meaning in nothing. These middle schoolers have massive existential crises and manage to elucidate their thoughts in language that most kids their age wouldn't necessarily have. But that isn't a problem here. Even without the necessary vocabulary, a young teen still might feel these things.

There is a modicum of hope. Just a little, for our little hero. But he'll probably have to wait a bit.

So it had been ages since I'd read Furuba. I think I'd read it in my thirties, but that was still years ago. i decided to reread it now, in my mid-thirties, when I'm basically the age of Shishou–or, rather, fast approaching his age. And I see the flaws more now than I used to. But, the again, I also get it more and bawled WAY more. I was basically crying every other volume.

Scratch that. I probably cried at something in 90% of the volumes, at least.

So Furuba is still a lovely tale, flaws and all.

And I think I also realized...

I might ship Tohru and Momiji...

Mild spoiler

Yes, there are flaws here, pointed out very well by other reviewers, regarding how the few women are written; I completely agree with those observations. By the end of the book, we know what Soraya smells like. The main character's mom is basically fridged.

This being said, I still really enjoyed this book. Sometimes, it was funny, but most of the time, I was just staring in horror at the page, at all the crap through which he goes, at what he briefly becomes, and his dark ending. Parts of it are so real. The ending though...is almost a little too optimistic, in a strange way.

Still, a fun time was had by all reading this, with a fine observation of how non-white people are treated. About how white people can be so brutally tone deaf, ignorant, or just plain evil, with serious cognitive dissonance. Despite how wild some of the end is, I don't think it is unrealistic in its assessment of workplace politics, systemic racism, and white retaliation. The only thing at which I might have quirked an eyebrow in the very end was where he finds his freedom. But that would be too much of a spoiler.

Also, I'm a sucker for most anything with found family.

Far better than the last book, which was wholly unnecessary and not good at all. The main problem with this one is that the hero's journey happens in, like, the last twenty or so pages of the book. We are briefly introduced to two companions on the hero's journey but given no time to really bond much with them, especially the skinless dear one. It's all very anticlimactic, which has been a problem for a good chunk of the series. The journey needs to be built up so much more than in this book.

That being said, I enjoyed more than some of the others, most notably the Jack & Jill second book, which was actually bad.

There are lovely paragraphs and some real potential, but the series isn't taking the time and care that it did in especially the first two books. I wanted more of everything in this one, because what I DID get, I mostly enjoyed. It all just needed to be developed more.

I wanted a bit more from this. That being said, I realize it's a novella. It goes down very easy. It's a fun piece of weird fiction. The cover is gorgeous; like, my favorite cover of the year, basically. I want this artprint.

Anyway. Looking at the criticism of this book, I get it, but I'm fine with how things are. How many litfic books are about friends who all actually hate each other? I feel like it's a common trope. But this one, we get hints of the background, which makes me want to know more. We get just enough to know why things are strained. And we don't get any direct explanation of the Japanese terms in the book. Which I don't mind at all. I can look it up. And I did look up the term ohaguro-bettari; as I had inferred, it basically means, “Nothing but blackened teeth.” Anyone who watches subtitles can figure stuff out on their own.

Now, as for the writing. Wow. I mean, gods. There were some sentences that were so lovely that I could have cried.

I'm looking forward to the other novella of Khaw's I have now. Honestly, I want more from the Blackened Teeth world. I want to know what adventures they had.

Enjoyable, if repetitive at times. Smoking hot. Adorable animals, grandmas, and big brothers. Also, Simon.

Fun but not great. He's obviously an intelligent person, and I got some mild gore. So yeah. Fun but not living up to the hype.

I have no cultural reference for one of the characters in this book. BUT that doesn't matter. Just. If you haven't, do yourself a favor and read Urasawa-sensei. He is amazing.

This wasn't a great book. It wasn't even a great mystery. It was, however, a fun read. I was never bored with the ridiculous drama of rich, awful people who are painfully heteronormative. This is pretty much the same shtick as The Hunting Party, but the toxic friendship is male this time around. And it's a wedding, obviously. But it all tracks exactly the same, just with different details. I don't really get the love; but at least I was entertained, even though I kinda guessed what was going on way before the end. It was bad but fun, so it gets three stars, rounded up from 2.5 or so.

Thank you to Cannongate and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

So. Well. I debated what to give this, because I truly appreciated the things Ms Godden said here. I even agree with the politics of it. Intersectional feminism, discussions of poverty, misogyny, racism, sexism–all necessary things to discuss, all things about which we must do something.

My problem was the way the very minimal–for all intents and purposes, non-existent–story handled everything. I was very excited to receive an ARC. Death is in my wheelhouse. And whilst Death has been portrayed as a woman before (Sandman, of course), she has never been an overtly Black woman, or an overtly homeless person. So that is potentially cool. As is the general concept of a young person finding her desk and buying it, and then becoming a sort of friend to her.

But the concept is all this book has. It has no story. We have background on Wolf, one of our narrators, aforementioned desk-buyer and Death-friend, and his tragic childhood: First, he loses his mother in a fire and incidentally meets Death; after which, he ends up at the home of his abusive grandfather and his trampled grandm0ther. He also is in therapy? There was a strange moment when he's in therapy and realizing his personal relationship with Death will end soon. So, was she in his mind? Some sort of coping mechanism?

That's about as much plot as a reader will get. The rest is vague ruminations on Death and politics and the mess of the world around us. One nonsensical passage implies Jack the Ripper was a woman dressed as a man? Was this supposed to be as transphobic as it felt?

This book has mishmash of prose, poetry, lyrics, and it can be pretty incoherent at times. There are some lovely sentences; then, there are repetitive ramblings that read like mediocre poetry and filled with circular wording. It becomes tedious and also seems to lose all sense of meaning.

If you're looking for a novel, avoid this. This isn't a novel. A novel doesn't have to have a traditional plot, but it should at least have some dynamism, some change, some conclusion. Rather, this book should be advertised as a collection of loosely connected poems about Death and the darkness of the world around us in the here and now. But calling this a novel does a disservice to readers and the book itself, because the book will be set up to fail because of our expectations.

Also, don't really expect to connect with anyone. This isn't that type of work. This is more a poet's attempt at working through the tragedy around us. Which is understandable, sympathetic, and artistic. But, perhaps because of my expectations, this book left me cold; it was tedious, repetitive, as I've said, and tried to hard to have clever wording that just fell apart. There is merit here; however, I just don't think it's as effective as the author might have wished.

Holy crud. This book contains subject matter that is at least as difficult to read as you think it is. It is also beautifully written. It is lyrical and tragic, and I actually truly loved the characters. The multiple points of view can be unnecessary, but I didn't mind it; it reminded me of the middle episodes of Lovecraft Country, the show, each focusing on primarily the women. I appreciated the perspectives of the characters that lead to the end.

There isn't much plot, so don't go looking for it. It's all about the concepts and the tragedy of the characters, and the strength of the women. And the consequences of our actions.
On top of the obvious themes of racism, Christian supremacy, homophobia, and love.
I had many feelings at the end. And I want go bundle Isaiah in a big blanket and give him a hug.

Just discovered this at Heathrow W.H. Smith on my way back to the US. Got it for one of my nieces. It's utterly charming and adorable. I am Bartholomew Moon.

The art is nice and gross, and there's a lot of potential here, but the story would have benefited from more exploration of character and cult.

Netgalley ARC. I finished this last minute. I, of course, was interested in learning about the eel, and I did. But I feel like the book meanders in a sophomoric philosophical fashion, which prompted me to take way longer than I should have reading it. His prose is best when he's detailing his eel fishing adventures with his father. But even there, he forgoes familial intimacy in favor of heavily detailed descriptions of fishing itself. Which I get. It was bonding time with his father. But, subjectively, there were moments that were too graphic for this vegetarian. If have preferred straight science and history without the pontificating. And the weirdly proselytizing moments mentioning Christianity that didn't fit, especially for an ostensibly irreligious writer.

In short, I wanted more eel and less weird babble about Freud's weirdness about Italian women.

2.5 stars, review later today.

Who knew? I guffawed many times. I was dubious, but this was such a delight! Spike and Grimlock. Soundwave and Co. versus Fluttershy. Arcee and Rarity.

ARCEE AND RARITY. Can I ship it? I ship it.

Anyway, SO FUN!

Fun, fast read

3.5 stars. Fun, creepy, and fast. It could have been more fleshed out, but it reminded me of classic horror. Shi it worked for me.

I've enjoyed other Star Wars titles by Soule, and I'm a fan of Kylo Ren. But I feel like everything leading up to TROS is a disappointment, just like the movie. This is no exception. It retcons what we learned about Ren in the first two movies, and just falls flat. Ren is too nice. KoR just aren't that engaging, and they run from Luke Skywalker. And where are the half a dozen kids who leave with Ben Solo? This literally attempts to make Kylo Ren not as bad as he actually is. As if it's trying too hard to convince me he's redeemable. The movie didn't, so neither did this limited series. Soule's Poe comics are great, and so is his new run on Star Wars. So I'll just blame this on the fact that there is no saving anything to do with TROS.