en-US Tue, 21 Jan 2025 12:48:36 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 32333164
Wally is a young boa constrictor who loves hugs. His parents give him hugs to begin and end the day, and he hugs them back just as tightly. However, Wally's classmates at school don't seem to love hugs as much as he does and are scared of getting hugs from Wally, since boa constrictors squeeze so hard!

How can Wally show them that his friendly hugs are nothing to be afraid of?]]> 32 Barbara M. Joosse 1499804040 RJ 2 children 3.55 2017
author: Barbara M. Joosse
name: RJ
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: children
review:
Two stars for the charming illustration style and some of the set-up. The conclusion kinda felt like the author gave up: Wally finally pouts enough that he gets to give hugs, and he hugs gently at first, but then too hard, so then as some kind of apology gives kisses to his still-captive classmates. It doesn't really work as a metaphor, or as a joke. So many ways this could have ended, and you went with this? Huh?
]]> 201479229 A transformational, transformative story about videogames, three queer friends, and the code(s) they learn to survive, from the winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Trans Fiction

It is 1998; Lilith, Sash, and Abraxa are teenagers, and they are making Saga of the Sorceress, a game that will change everything, if only for the three of them.

18 years later, Saga of the Sorceress still exists only on the scattered drives of its creators. Lilith might be the first trans woman to ever work as an Assistant Loan Underwriter at Dollarwise Investments in Brooklyn. Sash is in Brooklyn as well, working as a research assistant and part-time webcam dominatrix. Neither knows that the other is there, or that Abraxa, the third member of Invocation LLC, is just across the Hudson River, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s grandparents’ Jersey City home. They have never met in person, and have been out of touch for years, but none have forgotten the sorceress, or her quest, still far from finished.

This new book by Lambda Literary Fellow Jeanne Thornton, one of trans America’s brightest literary stars, queers our notion of nostalgia as it expertly blends literature with technology.]]> 496 Jeanne Thornton 1641296046 RJ 0 to-read 4.18 2025
author: Jeanne Thornton
name: RJ
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60656848 A funny, heartfelt YA romance about finding love—and lots of grilled cheese sandwiches—in the place you least expect it, from rising talent Deya Muniz.

Lady Camembert wants to live life on her own terms, without marriage. Well, without marrying a man, that is. But the law of the land is that women cannot inherit. So when her father passes away, she does the only thing she can: She disguises herself as a man and moves to the capital city of the Kingdom of Fromage to start over as Count Camembert.
?
But it’s hard to keep a low profile when the beautiful Princess Brie, with her fierce activism and great sense of fashion, catches her attention. Camembert can’t resist getting to know the princess, but as the two grow closer, will she able to keep her secret?
?
A romantic comedy about mistaken identity, true love, and lots of grilled cheese.]]> 256 Deya Muniz 0316538728 RJ 0 to-read 4.39 2023
author: Deya Muniz
name: RJ
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176440282 AN NPR "BOOK WE LOVE" FOR SUMMER 2024

A gorgeously illustrated guide to memorable Latin phrases, including famous quotations on love, death, nature, politics, and more.

Latin may be a “dead” language, but it’s all around us—in science, philosophy, religion, and literature. From “carpe diem” to the more obscure “alea iacta est,” classicist Maia Lee-Chin examines the deeper meanings of many Latin phrases still in use—as well as those lost to the ages.

Illustrated in artist Marta Bertello's haunting style, this unique compendium illuminates ancient Roman history and culture like never before.]]> 144 Maia Lee-Chin 1524886343 RJ 0 to-read 4.12 2024
author: Maia Lee-Chin
name: RJ
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 206101583 'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the Strange universe. Featuring an introduction by Susanna Clarke and gorgeous illustrations from Victoria Sawdon truly worthy of the magic of this story, this is a mesmerising, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.]]> 64 Susanna Clarke 1639734481 RJ 0 to-read 3.47 2024
author: Susanna Clarke
name: RJ
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61242426
The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone.

But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.]]> 296 Travis Baldree RJ 4 4.04 2022
author: Travis Baldree
name: RJ
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: bookclub4m, adult-fic, ya, queer, magic
review:
Is it a mind-blower? No. Does it deliver precisely what it promises? You bet!
]]> 60149517 A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.

“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?”

Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.

But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.

An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.]]> 288 Ahed Tamimi 0593134583 RJ 0 to-read 4.67 2022
author: Ahed Tamimi
name: RJ
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk” city of “old traditions and new machinery,” but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning” of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 RJ 0 to-read 4.51 2024
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: RJ
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56803179 In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.]]> 292 Sulari Gentill RJ 4
The metafiction aspect won't work for everyone, but it appealed to my brain, even when it got a little stressful and unsettling. Like, no, stop pointing out that there's no fourth wall! We need it to keep things out!!]]> 3.46 2022
author: Sulari Gentill
name: RJ
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves: adult-fic, author-of-color, bookclub4m, metafiction, mystery, new-england
review:
I love a rag-tag group-of-friends story, and the tension of potential betrayal within that group was unnerving and thrilling. My perfect mystery gives me enough clues to suspect whodunnit on my own, but not enough clues that it's frustratingly obvious, and that balance was delivered really well here.

The metafiction aspect won't work for everyone, but it appealed to my brain, even when it got a little stressful and unsettling. Like, no, stop pointing out that there's no fourth wall! We need it to keep things out!!
]]> 60460704
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.]]> 275 Victor LaValle 052551208X RJ 0 to-read 3.68 2023
author: Victor LaValle
name: RJ
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55648820
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York's Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can't deny their chemistry - or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.

Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva's not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered...

With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781538719107.]]> 336 Tia Williams RJ 0 to-read 3.98 2021
author: Tia Williams
name: RJ
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211003925 An f/f adventure romance where the only thing trickier than finding gold is understanding what's in your best friend's heart.

Archaeologists Isadora Ross and Louise Morgenstern have been best friends for sixteen years. But ever since Lou went back on a promise, broke off her toxic engagement and took a once-in-a-lifetime job on a dig in Turkey, leaving Isi behind - their relationship has been teetering on a precipice.

Lou’s been back a year, and Isi’s avoiding her, struggling with her resentment and unrequited romantic feelings. She throws herself even further into her never ending search for her mom, who went missing on a research trip in the mountains fourteen years ago.

But when Isi unearths an old journal of her mom’s indicating that the legends of lost Cherokee gold were more than legends, and she and Louise are kidnapped by a wealthy private collector who’s also been searching for it, they are forced to work together. After escaping, all they have is a half-empty pack of supplies they stole from the camp, a broken compass, the clothes on their backs… and each other.

Now, they must navigate not only the complicated feelings between them but also predators, the weather, and even the dark as they race through the mountains. Isi will have to decode her mom’s map in order to find the gold and get them out alive.

In Colby Wilkens’ thrilling friends-to-lovers adventure romance If I Dig You, there’s no place better for getting dirty than the woods.]]> 336 Colby Wilkens 125029293X RJ 0 to-read 3.14 2025
author: Colby Wilkens
name: RJ
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10252827 632 Daniel Heath Justice 0826350127 RJ 0 to-read 4.14 2011
author: Daniel Heath Justice
name: RJ
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6719507 218 Emma Pérez 0292721285 RJ 0 to-read 3.75 2009
author: Emma Pérez
name: RJ
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12988330
Battling to save herself, Myfanwy will encounter a person with four bodies, a woman who can enter her dreams, children transformed into deadly fighters, and terrifyingly vast conspiracy.

Suspenseful and hilarious, The Rook is an outrageously imaginative thriller for readers who like their espionage with a dollop of purple slime.

"Utterly convincing and engrossing -- -totally thought-through and frequently hilarious....Even this aging, jaded, attention-deficit-disordered critic was blown away."-Lev Grossman, Time]]> 541 Daniel O'Malley 0316193275 RJ 3 adult-fic, bookclub4m, scifi "a clueless dude wrote this"? Please see me after class.]]> 4.16 2012
author: Daniel O'Malley
name: RJ
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2021/11/19
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: adult-fic, bookclub4m, scifi
review:
It's possible that I would have liked this a lot more if I had encountered it at a younger age. O'Malley clearly has a lot of fascinating ideas. Like, world-building? A+. Plotting, structure, writing from a woman's perspective in a way that does not scream "a clueless dude wrote this"? Please see me after class.
]]> 54369251
But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…]]> 306 T. Kingfisher 1614505241 RJ 5 bookclub4m, ya, magic 4.02 2020
author: T. Kingfisher
name: RJ
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: bookclub4m, ya, magic
review:

]]> 36534132 Body Music explores the language of love and relationships. Set in Montreal, a typical metropolis where strangers meet under varying circumstances and either fall in love or break apart, Julie Maroh’s gentle hues and fanciful vignettes unearth the pleasures, surprises, and complexities of love.]]> 300 Jul Maroh 155152693X RJ 0 to-read 3.74 2017
author: Jul Maroh
name: RJ
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58667437
We’re opposites! / You’re right—we are.
Like big and small. / Like near and far.
But even when we disagree / I like you, and you like me.

A rhyming friendship story told in two voices, this picture book follows two children as they try to discover what they have in common, from favorite toys to shaggy dogs to pizza toppings.
With its gentle message and dynamic illustrations, this sweet story is sure to resonate with young readers.

“This quietly beautiful celebration of childhood will appeal to a wide range of young readers and may inspire dialogue about constructive disagreement and respecting differences.” — School Library Journal (Starred Review)]]> 32 Linda Ashman 1419750895 RJ 4 children, storytime 3.91 2022
author: Linda Ashman
name: RJ
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: children, storytime
review:
Rhyming text and easy to follow -- solid friendship-themed storytime pick.
]]> 58089450 "Dark academia at its most oppressive and intense."—The New York Times

A Most Anticipated Pick for Buzzfeed

The Two Doctors Górski is a dazzling contemporary fantasy and an exploration of reclaiming personal power in the aftermath of abuse by Lambda Award-winning author Isaac Fellman.

Annae, a brilliant graduate student in psychiatric magic and survivor of academic abuse, can’t stop reading people’s minds. This is how she protects herself, by using her abilities to know exactly how her colleagues view her. This is how she escapes the torturous experience of her own existence.

When Annae moves to England to rebuild her life and finish her studies under the seminal magician Marec Górski—infamous for bringing to life a homunculus made from his unwanted better self—she sees, inside his head, a man who is both a destructive force to everyone around him, and her mirror image. For Annae to survive, she’ll need to break free of a lifetime of conditioning to embody her own self and forge her own path.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 144 Isaac Fellman 1250840120 RJ 0 to-read 3.42 2022
author: Isaac Fellman
name: RJ
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58065212 A whirlwind romance between an eccentric archivist and a grieving widow explores what it means to be at home in your own body in this clever, humorous, and heartfelt novel.

When archivist Sol meets Elsie, the larger than life widow of a moderately famous television writer who's come to donate her wife's papers, there's an instant spark. But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office. On their way to falling in love, the two traverse grief, delve into the Internet fandom they once unknowingly shared, and navigate the realities of transphobia and the stigmas of carrying the "vampire disease."

Then, when strange things start happening at the collection, Sol must embrace even more of the unknown to save himself and his job. DEAD COLLECTIONS is a wry novel full of heart and empathy, that celebrates the journey, the difficulties and joys, in finding love and comfort within our own bodies.]]> 256 Isaac Fellman 0525508406 RJ 5 Every book, its reader. And this book? Right here? Its reader? Is me.]]> 3.59 2022
author: Isaac Fellman
name: RJ
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/03
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves: adult-fic, libraries, queer, romance, trans, magic, vampires
review:
The third of Ranganathan's laws of library science states: Every book, its reader. And this book? Right here? Its reader? Is me.
]]> 54681586 205 Rachel Quinney RJ 0 to-read 4.27
author: Rachel Quinney
name: RJ
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53968436 From the author of?Fun Home, a?profound graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with?exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times

Comics and cultural?superstar?Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply?layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through?an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern?philosophers?and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author’s own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others.

A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times.]]> 240 Alison Bechdel 0544387651 RJ 0 to-read 4.16 2021
author: Alison Bechdel
name: RJ
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60392079 A razor-sharp suspense about two local librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined.

No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.

That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper—even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.

Taut and compelling, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession.]]> 256 Laura Sims 059354370X RJ 3 3.40 2023
author: Laura Sims
name: RJ
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/25
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves: bookclub4m, adult-fic, libraries
review:

]]> 215179636 Thyme Travellers?collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction as a genre invites a reconfiguring of reality, and here each story is a portal into realms of history, folklore and futures.?


A man stands on the shore waiting to commune with those who live in the ocean. Pilgrims stretch into the distance, passing a stone cairn with a mysterious light streaming from it. Two Australian women fervently dig a tunnel to Jerusalem. Men from Gaza swim in the sea until they drown, still unconcerned. A father and son struggle to connect over the AI scripts prompting their conversation.


Building on the work of trailblazing anthologies such as?Reworlding Ramallah?and?Palestine +100, this volume is the first of its kind in Canada. Editor Sonia Sulaiman brings together stories by speculative fiction veterans and emerging writers from Australia to Egypt, Lebanon to Canada.?]]> 170 Sonia Sulaiman 1773637045 RJ 0 to-read 4.13
author: Sonia Sulaiman
name: RJ
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52722961 Celebrate diversity, math, and the power of storytelling!

Twins Lia and Luís argue over who has more of their favorite Brazilian snacks. The siblings compare amounts using measurement, counting, estimation, and finally weight to pick the winner. The solution involves clever math--and a little sharing.

The Storytelling Math series shows that all children can be mathematical thinkers. Each book includes ideas for exploring math at home with your children, developed in collaboration with math experts at STEM education nonprofit TERC Inc., under a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.]]> 32 Ana Crespo 1623541271 RJ 5 3.89
author: Ana Crespo
name: RJ
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: children, storytime, author-of-color, artist-of-color
review:

]]> 7684018 Long before President Barack Obama praised his work as “an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort that is literally saving a generation of children,” and First Lady Michelle Obama called him “one of my heroes,” Geoffrey Canada was a small and scared boy growing up in the South Bronx. His childhood world was one where “sidewalk boys” learned the codes of the block and were ranked through the rituals of fist, stick, knife, and, finally, gun. In a stunning pairing, acclaimed comics creator Jamar Nicholas presents Canada’s raw and riveting account, one of the most authentic and important true stories of urban violence ever told.

]]> 124 Geoffrey Canada 0807044490 RJ 4 comics, nonfic, ya 4.01 1995
author: Geoffrey Canada
name: RJ
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: comics, nonfic, ya
review:
Good adaptation from what I trust is great source material - unfortunately I haven't read the original, but I'd like to. I think this version could be a great tool for getting a broader and younger audience interested in Geoffrey Canada's life and work. The only problem in translation was the lack of a visual climax - I left the book feeling it was unfinished.
]]> 60372308
Pangolin is enjoying himself on the royal swing in the bright summer sunshine when suddenly, the ropes break and--OW!--he falls to the ground. What will I tell the queen?! Pangolin worries. He races to the stables to ask his friend Badger. "Tell her the musicians needed the swing's rope for their lutes!" the stablemaster advises. Fox, the castle guard, has a different "Might you say that the King needed to repair his royal jump rope?" Pug, Cat, and Goose all have suggestions, too. But which story will Pangolin tell the queen?! Here is a charming picture book, full of delightful animal friends, about finding the courage to be honest with those around you--and with yourself.]]> 40 Melinda Beatty 0593180135 RJ 4 children, storytime 3.95
author: Melinda Beatty
name: RJ
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: children, storytime
review:
As far as Moral Lesson picture books go, this one is pretty good and gentle. Nice to have something that gives the child character the benefit of the doubt, unlike, say, Boy Who Cried Wolf. Has a good rhythm for storytime, but potentially just sliiightly too wordy -- illustrations are adorable, but likewise, potentially too detailed to play to the back row.
]]> 877894 270 Ursula K. Le Guin 0399504826 RJ 0 to-read 4.26 1979
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: RJ
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 429983 250 Ursula K. Le Guin 0060168358 RJ 5 4.25 1979
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: RJ
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/12
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: writing-about-writing, nonfic, bookclub4m
review:
Le Guin is always a breath of fresh air. I might buy my own copy of this one.
]]> 49882162 Boys' Love for the Ages

Ichinoi, a 75-year-old woman living a peaceful life, unwittingly buys a Boy's Love manga one day...and is fascinated by what she finds inside. When she returns to the bookstore to buy the next volume, the high school girl working there--Urara, a seasoned BL fan--notices a budding fangirl when she sees one. When Urara offers to help Ichinoi explore this whole new world of fiction, the two dive into BL fandom together, and form an unlikely friendship along the way.]]> 146 Kaori Tsurutani 1645052958 RJ 4 4.38 2018
author: Kaori Tsurutani
name: RJ
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves: bookclub4m, comics, translated
review:

]]> 57147089 176 Wataru Hinekure 1974725278 RJ 4 4.35 2019
author: Wataru Hinekure
name: RJ
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves: comics, bookclub4m, ya, translated, romance, queer
review:

]]> 58703758
At the older woman's insistence they travel back to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.

Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree's playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.]]> 739 Geetanjali Shree RJ 0 to-read 3.65 2018
author: Geetanjali Shree
name: RJ
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62850110
"Wondrous . . . captivating.”—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Immense World

Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd” (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. While?in the?park one morning in May 2020,?Cooper?was engaged in the?birdwatching?ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old?when what might have been?a routine encounter with a dog walker?exploded?age-old racial?tensions.?Cooper’s?viral?video of the incident would?send shock waves through the nation.

In Better Living Through Birding , Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today. From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover them yourself.

Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding recounts Cooper’s journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.]]> 304 Christian Cooper 0593242386 RJ 0 to-read 4.21 2023
author: Christian Cooper
name: RJ
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 122781112
??Entire libraries of criticism study good art. Who studies bad art?

For the most part, bad movies have been buried by their creators, or have circulated in midnight screenings and Reddit threads. They've been used for humor by Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Red Letter Media, and presented as outrageous spectacle by critics and commentators. Rarely have bad movies been studied.

JUNK FILM's thirteen essays explore the failures of specific works created between the 1940s and the 2010s. Each demonstrates a different kind of failure, from mixing incompatible genres (Cop Rock) to stacking a screenplay with sociopaths (Staying Alive). The book uses a few basic theses about bad film and television to unpack these failures. Importantly, it shows what students of film can learn from bad movies: how to make art that works via watching art that doesn't.

Junk Film bridges film scholarship and pop culture criticism with wit and warmth.]]> 269 Katharine Coldiron RJ 3 bookclub4m, nonfic 3.69
author: Katharine Coldiron
name: RJ
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/29
date added: 2024/05/29
shelves: bookclub4m, nonfic
review:

]]> 32671333 A mouse who acts as a careful custodian of his book tries to guarantee his reader some peace and order in spite of escalating chaos.

A book is no place for tomfoolery, and this mouse assures us that his book is to be no exception. Just please ignore that Word-Eating Flying Whale, and--oh, no, the lights have gone out. Wait, what is THAT?! Nothing to fear. Everything is under control. . . .]]> 32 Cirocco Dunlap 0399550615 RJ 3 children
Merged review:

Eh! Some very charming elements, but I think the whole thing would have been more cohesive and easy for kids to understand if we got a page or two introducing us to our narrator, and why he wants to be in a boring book where nothing happens. Just a page where he's on his lonesome, appreciating the white space!]]> 3.39 2017
author: Cirocco Dunlap
name: RJ
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2018/11/28
date added: 2024/05/21
shelves: children
review:
Eh! Some very charming elements, but I think the whole thing would have been more cohesive and easy for kids to understand if we got a page or two introducing us to our narrator, and why he wants to be in a boring book where nothing happens. Just a page where he's on his lonesome, appreciating the white space!

Merged review:

Eh! Some very charming elements, but I think the whole thing would have been more cohesive and easy for kids to understand if we got a page or two introducing us to our narrator, and why he wants to be in a boring book where nothing happens. Just a page where he's on his lonesome, appreciating the white space!
]]> 46029443 Timid Tadano is a total wallflower, and that’s just the way he likes it. But all that changes when he finds himself alone in a classroom on the first day of high school with the legendary Komi. He quickly realizes she isn’t aloof—she’s just super awkward. Now he’s made it his mission to help her on her quest to make 100 friends!

]]> 192 Tomohito Oda 1974712125 RJ 4 comics, translated, ya 4.14 2016
author: Tomohito Oda
name: RJ
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/11
date added: 2024/05/11
shelves: comics, translated, ya
review:
If I had a nickel for every time I read the first volume of a new manga series that was proving extremely popular and a human teen character volunteered to be another character's "dog", I would have two nickels but it's maybe weird that it happened twice
]]> 63105496 Any Other City is a two-sided fictional memoir by Tracy St. Cyr, who helms the beloved indie rock band Static Saints. Side A is a snapshot of her life from 1993, when Tracy arrives in a labyrinthine city as a fledgling artist and unexpectedly falls in with a clutch of trans women, including the iconoclastic visual artist Sadie Tang.

Side B finds Tracy, now a semi-famous musician, in the same strange city in 2019, healing from a traumatic event through songwriting, queer kinship, and sexual pleasure. While writing her memoir, Tracy perceives how the past reverberates into the present, how a body is a time machine, how there’s power in refusing to dust the past with powdered sugar, and how seedlings begin to slowly grow in empty spaces after things have been broken open.

Motifs recur like musical phrases, and traces of what used to be there peek through, like a palimpsest. Any Other City is a novel about friendship and other forms of love, travelling in a body across decades, and transmuting trauma through art making and queer sex—a love letter to trans femmes and to art itself.]]> 287 Hazel Jane Plante 1551529114 RJ 5 4.12 2023
author: Hazel Jane Plante
name: RJ
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/04
shelves: adult-fic, bookclub4m, trans, queer, metafiction
review:

]]> 37809265
Green Almonds: Letters from Palestine is a personal look into a complex reality, through the prism of the experience of a young woman writing letters to her sister about her feelings and adventures in the occupied territories. Green Almonds is an intimate story with big implications.

A young woman discovers a country, works there, makes friends, lives a love story, and is confronted with the plight of the Palestinians, the violence on a daily basis that we see on our screens and read in our newspapers. Ana?le's story is brought to life by Delphine's simple and evocative drawings, which give full force to the subject and evoke the complexity of this conflict, creating a journey to the everyday life of Palestinians.

Green Almonds: Letters from Palestine received the Doctors Without Borders Award for best travel diary highlighting the living conditions of populations in precarious situations when it was published in France in 2011.]]> 152 Ana?le Hermans 1941302890 RJ 4 comics, nonfic 3.50 2011
author: Ana?le Hermans
name: RJ
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves: comics, nonfic
review:

]]> 37969732 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Debbie Macomber brings us to the Alaskan wilderness for a magical Christmas tale about finding love where it's least expected.

Before beginning her dream job as sous chef in one of Seattle's hottest new restaurants, Josie Avery takes a summer position cooking at a lakeside lodge in the remote Alaskan town of Ponder. Josie falls for the rustic charms of the local community--including Jack Corcoran, the crotchety keeper of Ponder's famed sourdough starter, and, in particular, the quiet and intense Palmer Saxon, a famed master swordsmith.

Josie and Palmer become close during the long Alaskan summer days, but Josie knows that, come fall, she'll be returning to reality and the career she's worked so hard for. Palmer, on the other hand, would like nothing better than to make Josie his wife and to keep her in Ponder. But Josie can't imagine abandoning her mother back in the Emerald City and sacrificing her career to stay in this isolated town--not even for a man she's quickly coming to love.

Fate has other plans. Josie misses the last boat out of town before winter sets in, stranding her in Ponder and putting her dream job at risk. As the holidays approach, Josie and Palmer must grapple with the complications that arise when dreams confront reality, and the Christmas magic that can happen when they put their faith in love.

Debbie Macomber is at her best in this beautiful holiday story about the far journeys we travel to find a place to call home.]]> 256 Debbie Macomber 0399181288 RJ 3 3.63 2018
author: Debbie Macomber
name: RJ
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/03
date added: 2024/04/30
shelves: bookclub4m, christmas, romance, holiday, adult-fic
review:
Quick read. Fine. Not very Christmasy.
]]> 60532371
A bear named Dave is sweeping his cave one day when two slugs, covered in fuzz, emerge from the dust pile and announce that they are THE?Eyebrows of Doom . Suddenly, Dave feels the urge to do something unkind, so he crashes through a fence at the nearby campsite and eats all of the campers’ food and knocks down their tents. The evil Eyebrows then find a young girl named Molly, who smushes her ice cream all over her grandfather. But when the Eyebrows try to disrupt things at the zoo, they get a big surprise!
?
Illustrated by Miguel Ordó?ez, the illustrator of the best-selling Jimmy Fallon Your Baby's First Word will be DADA , This is BABY , and Everything is MAMA
?
?]]> 24 Steve Smallman 1680102672 RJ 4 children, storytime 3.95 2022
author: Steve Smallman
name: RJ
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: children, storytime
review:

]]> 62807190
Earth, the distant future: climate change has reduced our verdant home into a hard-scrabble wasteland. Saints and sinners, lawmakers and sheriffs, travellers and gunslingers and horse thieves abound. People are as diverse and divided as they've ever been - except in their shared suspicions when a stranger comes to town.
One night a ship falls from the sky, bringing the planet's first visitor in three hundred years. She's armed, she's scared... and she's looking for someone.

Love, loss, and gunslinging in this dazzling debut novel by Grace Curtis. For fans of Sam J. Miller, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Becky Chambers, Frontier is a heartfelt queer romance in a high noon standoff with our planet's uncertian future, full of thrills, a love story, and laser guns.]]> 256 Grace Curtis RJ 0 to-read 3.62 2023
author: Grace Curtis
name: RJ
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195177497 This cozy debut science fiction novel tells a story of misfits, rebels, found family—and a mystery that spans the stars.

Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury—and an absolute magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as: Why are there love poems in the lobby inbox? How many Imperial spies are currently on board? What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver's conference? And perhaps most pertinently—who is driving the ship?

Each guest has a secret, every member of staff a universe unto themselves. At the center of these interweaving lives and interlocking mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, longtime manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It's the love of his life and the only place he's ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl's comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final question: when is it time to let go?]]> 324 Grace Curtis 075641931X RJ 0 to-read 3.65 2024
author: Grace Curtis
name: RJ
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49086125
All that changes one day when, while walking through the woods, Bea meets Cad, a member of the Galdurians, an ancient race thought to be long-extinct. Cad believes that if anyone can help him find his missing people, it’s the Pig Wizard.

But when the two arrive home, the Pig Wizard is nowhere to be found—all that’s left is the Jar of Endless Flame and a mysterious note. Fearing for the Pig Wizard’s safety, Bea and Cad set out across Irpa to find him, while danger fights its way out of the shadows and into the light.

Will these two unexpected friends find the beloved Pig Wizard and prevent eternal darkness from blanketing their world? Or has Irpa truly seen its last sunrise?]]> 247 Tim Probert 0062990462 RJ 0 to-read 4.40 2020
author: Tim Probert
name: RJ
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 209190422 240 Katherine Alejandra Cross 1736716867 RJ 0 to-read 4.04 2024
author: Katherine Alejandra Cross
name: RJ
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57250247 From the creator of the acclaimed and beloved Pokko and the Drum comes an emotionally resonant, “richly imagined” (The Horn Book, starred review)? picture book about trust, worry, and loyalty between a father and daughter.

Mina and her father live in a hollowed-out tree stump on the edge of a pond on the edge of a forest. Nothing ever bothers Mina, until one day, her father brings home a suspicious surprise from the woods.

Should Mina trust her father—or listen to her own instincts?]]> 68 Matthew Forsythe 1481480413 RJ 4 children 4.16 2022
author: Matthew Forsythe
name: RJ
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/26
date added: 2024/03/26
shelves: children
review:

]]> 58739625
What can you do with a rubber band? You can do everyday things, like keep it close when you sleep or bring it along at bath time. And you can do exciting, unexpected things, like use it to bungee jump out of a plane or to grab a snack. With a special object of your very own, the possibilities are as limitless as your imagination!

Acclaimed Japanese author-illustrator Shinsuke Yoshitake ( The Boring Book, There Must Be More Than That!, I Can Be Anything, The I Wonder Bookstore ) delivers another laugh-out-loud experience in his latest picture book. With signature humor, wit, and boundless creativity, this charming story celebrates the potential of everyday objects to become catalysts for curiosity and play, at once honoring a child's attachment to favorite objects and opening the door to a world of exciting new objects and experiences.

SHINSUKE YOSHITAKE IS A Fans of the critically acclaimed picture books The Boring Book and There Must Be More Than That! will immediately recognize Japanese author-illustrator Shinsuke Yoshitake's signature art style, humor, and imaginative sensibility!

ENCOURAGES CREATIVE Imaginative play is on full display in this smart and silly picture book about finding joy in an everyday object that others might overlook. Even the smallest of items offers a portal to possibility and play—all you need is a little humor and lots of imagination!

EXCELLENT CHOICE FOR STORY The tone and antics in this picture book are just right for the three-to-five age set, and the quirky, thought-provoking scenarios are fodder for laugh-out-loud moments. Parents and kids alike will enjoy reading this fun and funny tale out loud together!

IDEAL FOR RELUCTANT With a comic-esque style, unique narrative approach, fast pace, and charming voice, this humorous offering packs lots of reluctant-reader appeal.

Perfect

? Fans of Shinsuke Yoshitake
? Fans of Japanese picture books
? Parents, grandparents, and caregivers
? Teachers and librarians
? Gift-givers looking for a unique and funny present
? Lovers of thoughtful, humorous, and imaginative children's books]]> 52 Shinsuke Yoshitake 1797214926 RJ 5 children, translated 4.06 2019
author: Shinsuke Yoshitake
name: RJ
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/21
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves: children, translated
review:
Everything I read by this author is a gosh-dang delight.
]]> 62997342 Why I Adopted My Husband is a profound exploration of love, societal expectations, and individuals' lengths to solidify their bonds. Yagi's storytelling prowess and the manga's impactful message position it as a must-read, shedding light on the challenges LGBTQ couples navigate in Japan."As a gay couple living in Japan (where gay marriage is not yet legal), Yuta and Kyota have found a unique loophole in order for the government to recognize their Kyota adopted Yuta.

This nonfiction manga depicts how the two men met and fell in love, their life together for the last twenty years, their struggle to communicate their relationship to their families, their anxieties about the future, and their determination to live happily and carefree as any other married couple, while they strive for independence and equal rights in a changing cultural landscape.

"If you know nothing about what homosexuality or LGBTQ people, Why I Adopted My Husband is a perfect introduction and learning tool. It also teaches you about Japanese culture, how many family traditions are ingrained into law, and how that's both a comfort to people and can hinder LGBTQ people who want to live their lives. It's cute and funny and gets the points across with a spoonful of sugar instead of a hammer." — Adi Tantimedh, Bleeding Cool

"Why I Adopted My Husband is a profound exploration of love, societal expectations, and individuals' lengths to solidify their bonds. Yagi's storytelling prowess and the manga's impactful message position it as a must-read, shedding light on the challenges LGBTQ couples navigate in Japan." — Travis Hayward, Geek Therapy

"There are tips on how a gay couple can go the adoption route, like information on contracts. It even includes a section showing how to fill out the paperwork. This part doesn't pertain to American readers, but the manga is still worth reading because of its well-told story, its look into the realities of gay couples in Japan, and how the characters are relatable — because even if someone isn't in Yuta and [Kyota]'s shoes, the parts about feeling left out would be something everyone can relate to on some level. The fact that both men are otaku (and there are plenty of references to otaku culture) makes telling the story in manga format all the better." — Katie Kimura, Otaku USA]]> 148 Yuta Yagi 1427874581 RJ 4 3.86
author: Yuta Yagi
name: RJ
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: bookclub4m, comics, nonfic, queer, translated
review:

]]> 61103015
This wacky counting adventure by Geisel Award-winning author David LaRochelle is a hilarious ode to dragons and math, with pitch-perfect art by Lian Cho.

High on a mountain live 100 mighty dragons all named Broccoli. When a tremendous wind blows half the dragons away, ten others sail off to become professional surfers in Hawaii. The oldest and youngest dragons take a train to New York City to start their own heavy metal band. And a mysterious wizard turns four more into a unicorn, a werewolf, a zombie, and a tiny pink poodle. Now how many dragons are left? Young readers will delight in following each and every dragon as they leave their home for marvelous adventures, until there is but one dragon remaining. That's when this final dragon named Broccoli retreats to a cave for the winter and reappears in the spring with a surprise that will thrill and delight. Prepare to read again!

"Plenty of giggles . . . This is one entertaining and silly way to do math.” —Kirkus
"A hilarious, charming and extremely silly book. . . . A great addition to any child's bookshelf.” —The Minneapolis StarTribune
"So clever, so utterly silly and absurd, so delightful and so engaging." —InfoDad.com
"Colorful . . . Countable . . . Humorous . . . Lively." — Booklist]]> 40 David LaRochelle 0525555447 RJ 5 children, storytime 4.21 2023
author: David LaRochelle
name: RJ
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: children, storytime
review:
Lol the ending is so my exact brand of humour that I might dare to try to get a roomful of kids to count to 100 with me
]]> 45046552
Csorwe does. She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate.

Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard's loyal sword-hand -- stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled.

But Csorwe and the wizard will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.]]> 464 A.K. Larkwood 1250238900 RJ 0 to-read 3.70 2020
author: A.K. Larkwood
name: RJ
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58464181
ゲーデルの蛮行に耐えかねる山の戦士达。
ハガ达は、泥沼化する死闘に巻き込まれていく。闭闭> 160 Masamichi Satō 4065239567 RJ 3 4.00 2021
author: Masamichi Satō
name: RJ
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/09
date added: 2024/03/09
shelves: scifi, comics, magic, translated
review:
Fine! I feel like we didn't learn much new about the characters and the world in this one, and the way the Gaydle/Yamanaka story wrapped up was EXCEEDINGLY dark and a little too fast. But there are some obvious set-up things that will hopefully pay off later.
]]> 64008050 IT'S EAT OR BE EATEN...LITERALLY!

In her first hours as lord of the dungeon, Marcille has completely transformed the dungeon’s layout, sending hordes of monsters from the deepest floors―as well as several of her own making―hurtling dangerously close to the surface. Though the demon’s influence is strong, Laios has a surefire way to reach Marcille: through her stomach! Drawn from fondly remembered flavors, will Senshi’s ultimate culinary creation be enough to break through to their friend?!]]> 240 Ryoko Kui 1975367987 RJ 5 comics, magic, translated, ya Still good baby!!!! 4.64 2022
author: Ryoko Kui
name: RJ
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/06
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: comics, magic, translated, ya
review:
Still good baby!!!!
]]> 474073 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author Neil Gaiman’s modern classic, Coraline—also an Academy Award-nominated film

"Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house...."

When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous.

But there's another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.

Neil Gaiman's Coraline is a can't-miss classic that enthralls readers age 8 to 12 but also adults who enjoy a perfect smart spooky read.]]> 162 Neil Gaiman 0380977788 RJ 4 Why so scary though! 4.05 2002
author: Neil Gaiman
name: RJ
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves: bookclub4m, children-ya, horror, magic, middle-grade
review:
Why so scary though!
]]> 57055809 Flowers for the Sea is a dark, dazzling debut novella that reads like Rosemary's Baby by way of Octavia E. Butler.

We are a people who do not forget.

Survivors from a flooded kingdom struggle alone on an ark. Resources are scant, and ravenous beasts circle. Their fangs are sharp.

Among the refugees is Iraxi: ostracized, despised, and a commoner who refused a prince, she’s pregnant with a child that might be more than human. Her fate may be darker and more powerful than she can imagine.

Zin E. Rocklyn’s extraordinary debut is a lush, gothic fantasy about the prices we pay and the vengeance we seek.]]> 108 Zin E. Rocklyn 1250804035 RJ 4 3.37 2021
author: Zin E. Rocklyn
name: RJ
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/23
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: adult-fic, author-of-color, bookclub4m, horror, magic, mermaids, novella
review:

]]> 58995163 READY TO STRUT YOUR STUFF?

After resolving the department’s latest fiasco, it’s back to the drawing board for the?designers as more tall orders come pouring in from the Client. Creating a gluttonous animal or fashionable bird is business as usual, but a seemingly routine assignment may present one of their trickiest challenges yet—fighting global warming!]]> 144 Hebi-Zou 1646513541 RJ 4 comics, translated, ya 4.21 2021
author: Hebi-Zou
name: RJ
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/20
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves: comics, translated, ya
review:

]]> 123425292
All she wanted to do was live her life in peace--maybe get a cat, expand the family spice farm. Really, anything that didn't involve going on an adventure where an orc might rip her face off. But they say the Goddess has favorite, and if so, Cin is clearly not one of them...?

After saving the demon Fallon in a wine-drunk stupor, all Fallon wants to do is kill an evil witch enslaving his people. And, who can blame him? But he's dragging Cinnamon along for the ride.?On the bright side, at least he keeps burning off his shirt.]]> 279 Kimberly Lemming RJ 0 to-read 3.93 2021
author: Kimberly Lemming
name: RJ
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 198137962
Breathe arose from the need for an evidence-based resource for folks considering chest binding as gender-affirming care. Its original form was a 32-page digital-only 'zine, but Peitzmeier and Kobabe saw potential for reaching a wider audience with an expanded version with more art and more exploration of what the research really shows about binding, designed to be easily readable as a printed book. This is the result.

To create Breathe, Peitzmeier and her research team interviewed many people of different ages and backgrounds about their journeys with binding, and then she and Kobabe combined excerpts from those interviews with evidence-based resources on binding into this extremely accessible book. The result is both a practical resource for trans and nonbinary folks and an engaging and perspective-broadening read for anyone interested in what it means to be on a journey of expressing one's gender in ways that are joyful, healthy, and affirming.]]> 64 Maia Kobabe 0593855825 RJ 0 to-read 4.50 2024
author: Maia Kobabe
name: RJ
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16078963 5 H.P. Lovecraft RJ 2 adult-fic, horror
My only other solid takeaway at the moment is that: I feel like I have heard plenty about Lovecraft's racism in the context of it being a well-known historical fact about him, and its presence in specific stories (such as "The Horror at Red Hook"), but I don't think I've really heard his fear and disgust of difference and "savagery" discussed as the fucking lifeblood of his mythos? It's hard to miss.]]> 3.62 1928
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: RJ
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1928
rating: 2
read at: 2016/09/13
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: adult-fic, horror
review:
I listened to this on my commute and found myself tuning out more frequently than I usually do with audiobooks. Not sure if that's the material or the reader -- I will likely return to CoC in print, if for no other reason than some of the specific references to Providence make me oddly homesick. My relationship to the particular parts of the city he's writing about is such that when a tome bound in human skin was mentioned, my thought was not: "Oh, the Necronomicon," it was legitimately: "Which one I wonder? The Hay library has two, but maybe they acquired one later..."

My only other solid takeaway at the moment is that: I feel like I have heard plenty about Lovecraft's racism in the context of it being a well-known historical fact about him, and its presence in specific stories (such as "The Horror at Red Hook"), but I don't think I've really heard his fear and disgust of difference and "savagery" discussed as the fucking lifeblood of his mythos? It's hard to miss.
]]> 61783806 Poet and author Robin Gow’s moving middle-grade novel in verse Dear Mothman is about a young trans boy dealing with the loss of his friend by writing to his favorite cryptid.

Halfway through sixth grade, Noah’s best friend and the only other trans boy in his school, Lewis, passed away in a car accident. Adventurous and curious, Lewis was always bringing a new paranormal story to share with Noah. Together they daydreamed about cryptids and shared discovering their genders and names.

After Lewis’s death, lonely and yearning for someone who could understand him like Lewis once did, Noah starts writing letters to Mothman, wondering if he would understand how Noah feels and also looking for evidence of Mothman’s existence in the vast woods surrounding his small Poconos town. Noah becomes determined to make his science fair project about Mothman, despite his teachers and parents urging him to make a project about something “real.”

Meanwhile, as Noah tries to find Mothman, he also starts to make friends with a group of girls in his grade, Hanna, Molly, and Alice, with whom he’d been friendly, but never close to. Now, they welcome him, and he starts to open up to each of them, especially Hanna, whom Noah has a crush on. But as strange things start to happen and Noah becomes sure of Mothman’s existence, his parents and teachers don’t believe him. Noah decides it’s up to him to risk everything, trek into the woods, and find Mothman himself.]]> 313 Robin Gow 1419764403 RJ 0 to-read 4.24 2023
author: Robin Gow
name: RJ
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59089710
Laurie is told that the duck has no financial value. But after it disappears under suspicious circumstances, she feels compelled to figure out why anyone would steal a wooden duck--and why Dot kept it hidden away in the first place. Suddenly Laurie finds herself swept up in a righteous caper that has her negotiating with antiques dealers and con artists, going on after-hours dates at the local library, and reconnecting with her oldest friend and first love. Desperate to uncover her great-aunt's secrets, Laurie must reckon with her past, her future, and ultimately embrace her own vision of flying solo.

A woman returns to her small Maine hometown, uncovering family secrets that take her on a journey of self-discovery and new love, in this warm and charming novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over.]]> 320 Linda Holmes 0525619275 RJ 0 to-read 3.55 2022
author: Linda Holmes
name: RJ
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 182484370
Sera Swan was once one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her magical Guild. Now she ( slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps Aunt Jasmine run an inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep the talking fox in check, and longs for the magical future she lost.

When she learns about an old spellbook that holds the secret to restoring her power, she turns to Luke Larsen, a gorgeous historian who might just be able to help her unlock the book’s mysteries. Luke, who has his own reasons for staying at the inn, never planned on getting involved in the madcap goings-on around him and certainly had no intention of letting certain grumpy innkeepers past his icy walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he not only agrees to help, but also finds himself thawing .

Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone... and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all.]]> 352 Sangu Mandanna 0593439376 RJ 0 to-read 4.61 2025
author: Sangu Mandanna
name: RJ
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196806415 Ben Rosewood never meant to be bound to a vampire succubus, especially one as sexy-yet-terrifying as Eleanora Bettencourt-Devereux, but he has to admit there are some fang-tastic perks….

Werewolf Ben Rosewood is happy with his life. One hundred percent. Everything is fine. His business, Ben’s Plant Emporium, is thriving, and he’s even expanding the shop. His anxiety disorder is…well, it’s been better, but that comes with the territory of running a business and having beastly urges every full moon, right? As for romance—who has the time? Though his family is desperate to see him settled, Ben is fine approaching forty as a single werewolf. But after drunkenly bidding on and winning a supposedly-possessed crystal on eBay one night, he finds himself face-to-face with a beautiful but angry vampire.

Eleanora Bettencourt-Devereux is a rare breed—a vampire succubus born from two elite European bloodlines during medieval times. But thanks to an evil witch, she’s been stuck in a crystal since she was thirty, forced to obey orders from the possessor of the rock. Eleanora’s been dreaming of breaking the spell and severing the witch’s head for centuries. But did this witch really sell her to someone new, and for only ninety-nine cents?

Eleanora would claw this werewolf’s heart out and eat it, if only the binding spell would allow her to. But Eleanora and Ben soon realize they can help each other with both vengeful and less hostile needs. And why not have a little fun along the way?]]> 444 Sarah Hawley 0593547977 RJ 0 to-read 3.80 2024
author: Sarah Hawley
name: RJ
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40514431
Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy’s childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the “yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean’s future.

When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken—and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts—the friendships they’ve damaged, the secrets they’ve kept—but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance—up until the last out.]]> 289 Linda Holmes 0525619240 RJ 4 3.80 2019
author: Linda Holmes
name: RJ
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/26
date added: 2024/01/26
shelves: bookclub4m, romance, adult-fic, new-england
review:
added a "New England" shelf for this kind of thing
]]> 123224959
Night falls on the Witch Hat Atelier, and Coco and her fellow apprentices take to their beds. In the quiet of midnight, Qifrey and Olruggio are finally free to pursue their culinary experiments. The magic of the kitchen comes alive as they cook puddings, stews, parfaits, and jellies, and when the sun rises, Coco and the gang are there to savor every bite!

Includes a variety of sweet and savory recipes with step-by-step instructions to help readers recreate their favorite dishes.]]> 156 Hiromi Satō 1646518438 RJ 0 to-read 3.96 2020
author: Hiromi Satō
name: RJ
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60383010 Buzzfeed’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ Romances of 2022

Miriam Blum has no choice but to face the past she thought she’d left behind when she inherits her great-aunt’s Christmas tree farm in this witty, glittering, heart-filled romcom.

Thanks to her thriving art career, Miriam Blum finally has her decoupaged glitter ducks in a row—until devastating news forces her to a very unwanted family reunion. Her beloved great-aunt Cass has passed and left Miriam part-owner of Carrigan’s, her (ironically) Jewish-run Christmas tree farm.

But Miriam’s plans to sit shiva, avoid her parents, then put Carrigan’s in her rearview mirror are spoiled when she learns the business is at risk of going under. To have any chance at turning things around, she’ll need to work with the farm’s grumpy manager—as long as the attraction sparking between them doesn’t set all their trees on fire first.

Noelle Northwood wants Miriam Blum gone—even if her ingenious ideas and sensitive soul keep showing Noelle there’s more to Cass’s niece than meets the eye. But saving Carrigan’s requires trust, love, and risking it all—for the chance to make their wildest dreams come true.]]> 384 Helena Greer 1538706539 RJ 0 to-read 3.65 2022
author: Helena Greer
name: RJ
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58647780 161 Masamichi Satō 1636992447 RJ 4 3.68 2021
author: Masamichi Satō
name: RJ
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2023/12/02
shelves: comics, games, translated, ya, scifi
review:

]]> 58465908 193 Masamichi Satō 163699167X RJ 4 3.61 2020
author: Masamichi Satō
name: RJ
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves: translated, games, comics, scifi
review:

]]> 68005500 A darkly comic, boundary-pushing debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who attends a mysterious language school which boasts complete fluency in just ten days, but at a secret, sinister cost.

Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of ‘great works of literature’, but instead mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood films in her flat in London while living off her parents’ generous allowance and discussing the ‘underside of life’ with her best friend, Naima. Then she meets Adam, who has successfully leveraged his savant-level aptitude for languages into an enviable career. At first, this only adds to her sense of inadequacy, but when Adam learns to speak Urdu with native fluency practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.

Adam tells Anisa about the Centre, an elite, invite-only program that guarantees absolute fluency in any language in just ten days. Sceptical but intrigued, Anisa enrols. Stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world, she undergoes the Centre's strange and rigorous processes. But as she enmeshes herself further within the organisation, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the disturbing, hidden cost of its services.

By turns dark, funny, and surreal, and with twists page-turning and shocking, The Centre takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation with biting specificity, and ultimately asking: what price would you be willing to pay for success?]]> 288 Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi RJ 0 to-read 3.37 2023
author: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
name: RJ
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 20613611
Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, in a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.

Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Hidaka's best friend from years ago when they were both teachers. Kaga joined the police force while Nonoguchi became a writer, though with not nearly the success of his friend Hidaka. When Kaga suspects something is a little bit off with Nonoguchi's statement, he investigates further, searching Nonoguchi's apartment. There he finds evidence that shows that the two writers' relationship was very different than the two claimed...

In a brilliantly realized tale of cat and mouse, the detective and the writer battle over the truth of the past and how events that led to the murder really unfolded. Which one of the two writers was ultimately guilty of malice?]]> 288 Keigo Higashino 1250035600 RJ 4 4.02 1996
author: Keigo Higashino
name: RJ
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/25
shelves: bookclub4m, author-of-color, mystery, translated
review:

]]> 58484228
You don’t have to be old enough to vote to drive political change.

In Crafting Change, author, TV producer, and craftivist Jessica Vitkus explores the rich lineage of craftivism, with profiles of craftivisit icons, many of whom are women and people of color. This YA non-fiction book shines a light on artist-driven projects like This Is Not a Gun – workshops where people sculpt objects the police have mistaken for a gun in fatal shootings -- alongside creative movements that mobilized entire communities, like the AIDS Memorial Quilt and the Pussyhat project for the 2017 Women’s March. This engaging narrative combines compelling artist interviews with full-color photos of creators and crafts alike.

A perfect book for teens who want to channel their creativity into political action, with ideas for simple projects sure to appeal to budding craftivists.]]> 208 Jessica Vitkus 0374313326 RJ 0 to-read 4.08
author: Jessica Vitkus
name: RJ
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 344623 304 Jo Walton 0765349094 RJ 0 to-read 3.85 2003
author: Jo Walton
name: RJ
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 98653925 James Frankie Thomas’s Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers.

For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense, 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond fiercely and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext. Then, during rehearsals for the fall play, they notice two sexually ambiguous boys who are potential candidates for their exclusive Invert Society. The pairs become mirrors of one another and drive each other to make choices that they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.

Looking back on these events as adults, the estranged Fay and Nell trace that fateful school year, recalling backstage theater department intrigue, antiwar demonstrations, smutty fanfic written over AIM, a shared dial-up connection—and the spectacular cascade of mistakes, miscommunications, and betrayals that would ultimately tear the two of them apart.]]> 389 James Frankie Thomas 1419769146 RJ 0 to-read 4.05 2023
author: James Frankie Thomas
name: RJ
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61484875 In this graphic novel by Emily Carroll, a young woman marries a kind dentist only to discover a dark mystery surrounding his former wife’s death.

After many lonely years, Abby’s just gotten married. She met her new husband―a recently widowed dentist―when he arrived in town with his young daughter seeking a new start. Although it’s strange living in the shadow of her predecessor, Abby does her best to be a good wife and mother. But the more she learns about her new husband’s first wife, the more things don’t add up, and Abby starts to wonder...was Sheila’s death really by natural causes?

As Abby sinks deeper into confusion, Sheila’s memory seems to become a force all its own, ensnaring Abby in a mystery that leaves her obsessed, fascinated, and desperately in love for the first time in her life.]]> 256 Emily Carroll 125025552X RJ 0 to-read 4.06 2023
author: Emily Carroll
name: RJ
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 104844920 Enlightened Transsexual Comix is an out-of-this-world parade of earthly delights, for fans of Lynda Barry and Adult Swim." – Shelf Awareness, starred review

The definitive collection of Sam Szabo's "ETC" comics series, serving up a psychedelic stew of social satire and gonzo gender theory!

The year is 2023. The astral plane has entered a tailspin. Fortunately, an ancient cosmological entity is on a mission to spread her fluidity across the galaxy. Our raw, uncut heroine roams the wasteland in defense of trans rights and trans wrongs. Will the Enlightened Transsexual convince humanity to chill out at last? Or will the planet choke on her filthy gags?]]> 128 Sam Szabo 888620017X RJ 0 to-read 4.53
author: Sam Szabo
name: RJ
average rating: 4.53
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59764242 It's all fun and games until someone catches feelings

Fate sends me straight into the lion's den. Or rather, the fox's den. After my dad trespassed into a powerful fox demon's territory, our family is struck with a powerful curse. Now, to remove it, I'll have to appeal to the demon's better nature.

Easier said than done. That arrogant fox demon won't be swayed by an apology basket full of treats. He does, however, need a fake mate for a week-long Winter Festival.

Though I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that our doting lovers' act was becoming harder by the day. The more time I spent with Lucca, the more his irresistible charms get under my skin. Deep down, I know it's all a game. But my heart just can't seem to get the memo. When our week-long affair comes to a close, will I really be able to walk away?]]> 60 Kimberly Lemming RJ 0 to-read 3.98 2021
author: Kimberly Lemming
name: RJ
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60865821
Dealing with a pirate ship full of demons that just moved into town was hard enough. Now on top of it, I have to convince a werewolf that I'm not his fated mate, he's just drugged. Easier said than done.

Though I have to say, having a gorgeous man show up and do all of your chores while telling you you're beautiful isn't the worst thing to happen to a girl.]]> 204 Kimberly Lemming RJ 0 to-read 4.04 2022
author: Kimberly Lemming
name: RJ
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 143243462
James Goldberg, self-described neurotic goth gay transsexual stoner, is a senior in high school, and fully over it. He mostly ignores his classes at Cow Pie High, instead focusing on fundraising for the near-bankrupt local LGBTQ+ youth support group, Compton House, and attending punk shows with his friend-crush Ian and best friend Opal. But when James falls in love with Orsino, a homeschooled trans boy with telepathic powers and visions of the future, he wonders if the scope of what he believes possible is too small. Orsino, meanwhile, hopes that in James he has finally found someone who will be able to share the apocalyptic visions he has had to keep to himself, and better understand the powers they hold.

How to Get Over the End of the World confirms Hal Schrieve as a unique and to-be-celebrated voice in LGBTQ+ YA fiction with this multi-voiced story about flawed people trying their hardest to make a better world, about the beauty and craziness of hope, about too-big dreams and reality checks, and about the ways in which human messiness—egos, jealousy, insecurity—and good faith can coexist. It also about preserving the ties within a chosen family—and maybe saving the world—through love, art, and acts of resistance.]]> 336 Hal Schrieve RJ 0 to-read 3.00 2023
author: Hal Schrieve
name: RJ
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60099237 A?groundbreaking?global history of gender nonconformity??

Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives. ?
?
Before We Were Trans ?illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present,?whose experiences?of gender have?defied?binary categories. Blending?historical analysis?with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive?trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans ?transports us?from Renaissance Venice to?seventeenth-century ?Angola, from Edo Japan to?early America, and looks?to the past to uncover new horizons for?possible trans futures.??]]> 343 Kit Heyam 1541603087 RJ 0 to-read 4.28 2022
author: Kit Heyam
name: RJ
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60563989 A fun and interactive preschool adventure (with cutout surprises?on almost every page!) that explores counting and colors,?from the award-winning creator of The Watermelon Seed and Good Night Owl.

Mister Kitty is missing somewhere inside this book! Will you help us find him??Join the hunt for five yellow spots, four orange paws, three purple bells, and more, exploring numbers and colors along the way in an interactive countdown.?Cutouts interacting with Greg Pizzoli’s vivid artwork reveal a surprise after each page turn, all leading up to the BIGGEST twist?of all at the end!

Don’t miss these board books by Greg Pizzoli:
The Watermelon Seed
Good Night Owl
?]]> 32 Greg Pizzoli 0316056545 RJ 0 to-read 4.09
author: Greg Pizzoli
name: RJ
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 31189134
The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have. Over the course of a few nights, the boy tries to map out his house in an effort that puts his little brother in the worst danger, and puts him in the position to save them . . . at terrible cost.]]> 131 Stephen Graham Jones RJ 5 Heart-puncher of a novella. 3.78 2017
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: RJ
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/29
date added: 2023/09/29
shelves: adult-fic, bookclub4m, horror, indigenous, novella
review:
Heart-puncher of a novella.
]]> 42593850 272 Reimena Yee RJ 0 to-read 4.24 2020
author: Reimena Yee
name: RJ
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 122496755
Good girl, good student, good daughter: Aki has always done what her loving but demanding multiracial family expects. Far from her Vancouver home, she adjusts to life in London?—studies, friends and a relationship with a wealthy but closeted Asian woman. Life is demanding, but Aki is coping until a violent incident triggers an unexpected response in the young Japanese-Latina woman. When she discovers that brutal bar-fighting relieves her stress, she begins a dangerous dual existence—obedient and accommodating by day and brawling by night.

This is a novel about the need to reconcile competing cultures, traditions and values that also explores issues of sexual identity and violence.]]> 256 Emi Sasagawa RJ 0 to-read 3.69
author: Emi Sasagawa
name: RJ
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54317693
As tensions mount with his parents and Ash feels more and more like an outcast, he can't help feeling a deeper kinship with his ancestor Bridget Bishop, who was executed for witchcraft. She didn't conform to her community's expectations either; she was different, and her neighbors felt threatened by her. And she paid the ultimate price. Ash is haunted by her last recorded words: You will keep silent.

Ash realizes that he needs to find a way to stand up for who he really is, or the cost of his silence might destroy his life, too.]]> 224 Sol Santana 1541599241 RJ 0 to-read 3.83 2021
author: Sol Santana
name: RJ
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36321854 Dumb tells the story of how an urban twentysomething copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the practical hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her increasingly lonely journey to regain her life. Her raw cartooning style, occasionally devolving into chaotic scribbles, splotches of ink, and overlapping montages, perfectly captures her frustration and anxiety. But her ordeal ultimately becomes a hopeful story. Throughout, she learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined.]]> 196 Georgia Webber 1683961161 RJ 5 comics, disability, canada 3.34 2018
author: Georgia Webber
name: RJ
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/16
date added: 2023/09/16
shelves: comics, disability, canada
review:

]]> 45320365
Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.

The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing. They'll bring the fight to you.

In Upright Women Wanted, award-winning author Sarah Gailey reinvents the pulp Western with an explicitly antifascist, near-future story of queer identity.]]> 176 Sarah Gailey 1250213584 RJ 4 adult-fic, bookclub4m, queer 3.59 2020
author: Sarah Gailey
name: RJ
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/15
date added: 2023/09/15
shelves: adult-fic, bookclub4m, queer
review:

]]> 58536037 A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst humans with her incessant hunger in this stunning debut novel from a writer-to-watch.

Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London--where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.

Then there are the humans--the other artists at the studio space, the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men that follow her after dark, and Ben, a boyish, goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them. In her windowless studio, where she paints and studies the work of other artists, binge-watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos of people eating food on YouTube and Instagram, Lydia considers her place in the world. She has many of the things humans wish for--perpetual youth, near-invulnerability, immortality--but, she is miserable; she is lonely; and she is hungry--always hungry.

As Lydia develops as a woman and an artist, she will learn that she must reconcile the conflicts within her--between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat.]]> 240 Claire Kohda 0063140888 RJ 0 to-read 3.46 2022
author: Claire Kohda
name: RJ
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60418994 Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author of Prelude to Bruise and How We Fight for Our Lives confronts our everyday apocalypses.

In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us.?

Drawing from memoir, fiction, and persona, Jones confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy with a finely tuned poetic ear, identifying moments that seem routine even as they open chasms of hurt. Viewing himself as an unreliable narrator, Jones looks outward to understand what’s within, bringing forth cultural icons like Little Richard, Paul Mooney, Aretha Franklin and Diahann Carroll to illuminate how long and how perilously we’ve been living on top of fault lines. As these poems seek ways to love and survive through America’s existential threats, Jones ushers his readers toward the realization that the end of the world is already here—and the apocalypse is a state of being.]]> 104 Saeed Jones RJ 5 4.34 2022
author: Saeed Jones
name: RJ
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/31
date added: 2023/08/31
shelves: queer, poetry, author-of-color
review:

]]> 62119776 A pair of star-crossed lovers search for a way back to one another against all odds…

A girl fights for her life against a malignant, generations-old evil…

A peri seeks to reclaim her lost powers…

A warrior rebels against her foretold destiny…

From chudails and peris to jinn and goddesses, this lush collection of South Asian folklore, legends, and epics reimagines stories of old for a modern audience. This fantasy and science fiction teen anthology edited by Samira Ahmed and Sona Charaipotra contains a wide range of stories from fourteen bestselling, award-winning, and emerging writers from the South Asian diaspora that will surprise, delight, and move you. So read on, for after all, magic has no borders.

With stories by:
?Sabaa Tahir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Ember in the Ashes series, and winner of the National Book Award and Printz Award for All My Rage
?Sayantani DasGupta, New York Times bestselling author of the Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond series
?Preeti Chhibber, author of Spider-Man’s Social Dilemma
?Sona Charaipotra, author of Symptoms of a Heartbreak and How Maya Got Fierce, and coauthor of The Rumor Game and Tiny Pretty Things, now a Netflix original series.
?Tanaz Bhathena, award-winning author of Hunted by the Sky and Of Light and Shadow
?Sangu Mandanna, bestselling author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and the Celestial Trilogy
?Olivia Chadha, author of Rise of the Red Hand
?Nafiza Azad, author of William C. Morris Award nominee, The Candle and the Flame
?Tracey Baptiste, New York Times bestselling author of The Jumbies series and Minecraft: The Crash
?Naz Kutub, author of The Loophole
?Nikita Gill, bestselling author of Wild Embers and Fierce Fairytales
?Swati Teerdhala, author of the Tiger at Midnight trilogy
?Shreya Ila Anasuya, New Voices selection
?Tahir Abrar, New Voices selection]]> 352 Sona Charaipotra 0063208261 RJ 0 to-read 3.79 2023
author: Sona Charaipotra
name: RJ
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63249715 The Nib, a hilarious trans-"final girl" horror graphic novel about a bachelor party gone very, very wrong.

Newly-out trans artist’s assistant Sammie is invited to an old friend’s bachelor weekend in El Campo, a hedonistic wonderland of a city floating in the Atlantic Ocean's international waters—think Las Vegas with even fewer rules. Though they have not identified as a man for over a year, Sammie’s college buddies haven't quite gotten the message—as evidenced by?their formerly closest friend Adam asking them to be his “best man.”

Arriving at the swanky hotel, Sammie immediately questions their decision to come. Bad enough that they have to suffer through a torrent of passive-aggressive comments from the groom's pals—all met with zero pushback from supposed "nice guy" Adam. But also, they seem to be the only one who's noticed the mysterious cult that's also staying at the hotel, and is ritually dismembering guests and demanding fealty to their bloodthirsty god.

Part satire, part horror, Boys Weekend explores what it’s like to exist as a transfemme person in a man’s world, the difficulty of maintaining friendships through transition, and the more cult-like effects of masculinity, “hustle” culture, and capitalism—all through the vibrant lens of a surreal, scary, and immensely imaginative romp.]]> 232 Mattie Lubchansky 0593316711 RJ 0 to-read 4.00 2023
author: Mattie Lubchansky
name: RJ
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57851283 In this coming-of-age graphic novel with a fantastical twist, Nayra Mansour, a Muslim American girl is helped on her journey to selfhood by a djinn.

Nothing is going right for Nayra Mansour. There's the constant pressure from her strict family, ruthless bullying from her classmates, and exhausting friendship demands from Rami -the only other Muslim girl at school. Nayra has had enough. Just when she's considering transferring schools to escape it all, a mysterious Djinn named Marjan appears.

As a djinn, a mythical being in Islamic folklore, Marjan uses their powers and wisdom to help Nayra navigate her overwhelming life. But Marjan's past is fraught with secrets, guilt, and trouble, and if they don't face what they've done, Nayra could pay the price.

In this beautifully illustrated graphic novel, Iasmin Omar Ata has created a realistic coming-of-age story with an enchanting dose of the fantastical about strength, identity, and, most of all, friendship.]]> 256 Iasmin Omar Ata 0593117123 RJ 3
The art, of course, is truly lovely - captivating use of colour.

edit: I realized after writing this that I didn't mention the djinn element at all! I think that is... telling.]]> 3.53 2023
author: Iasmin Omar Ata
name: RJ
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/17
date added: 2023/08/17
shelves: artist-of-color, author-of-color, comics, children-ya, ya, magic
review:
A friend saw I was reading this and asked me about it, and I realized that I was half way though and didn't know what the plot was yet. The pacing felt really off to me overall. Some storylines were dragged out too slowly, and at other times, tensions were resolved too quickly to feel real or satisfying. Nayra's fraught relationships with her family and her best friend are referenced over and over but never given enough space on the page. Whenever I'm coming into a story tied to a culture I'm not a part of, I try to give a little benefit of the doubt about narrative structure. This is set during Ramadan, and specific days/phases of the moon act as chapter heading, so, possibly the author wanted certain events to correspond to certain nights, which could explain the pacing? A Muslim reader might get more out of this, story-wise, than I did.

The art, of course, is truly lovely - captivating use of colour.

edit: I realized after writing this that I didn't mention the djinn element at all! I think that is... telling.
]]> 62365904 An exposé of patterns of harassment and bias in Hollywood, the grassroots reforms under way, and the labor and activist revolutions that recent scandals have ignited

It is never just One Bad Man.

Abuse and exploitation of workers is baked into the very foundations of the entertainment industry. To break the cycle and make change that sticks, it's important to stop looking at headline-making stories as individual events. Instead, one must look closely at the bigger picture, to see how abusers are created, fed, rewarded, allowed to persist, and, with the right tools, how they can be excised.

In Burn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywood's corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Lost, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm , and more. Interviews with actors and famous creatives like Evan Rachel Wood, Harold Perrineau, Damon Lindelof, and Orlando Jones abound. Ryan dismantles, one by one, the myths that the entertainment industry promotes about itself, which have allowed abusers to thrive and the industry to avoid accountability--myths about Hollywood as a meritocracy, what it takes to be creative, the value of human dignity, and more.

Weaving together insights from industry insiders, historical context, and pop-culture analysis, Burn It Down paints a groundbreaking and urgently necessary portrait of what's gone wrong in the entertainment world--and of how we can fix it.]]> 348 Maureen Ryan 0063269279 RJ 0 to-read 3.86 2023
author: Maureen Ryan
name: RJ
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60835840 Part memoir, part speculative fiction, The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be explores the often surreal experience of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee.

Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, a book woven from her true story of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee and fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Shannon was given at birth, a child raised by a white, closeted lesbian.

At its core, the novel is a tale of two girls on two different timelines occasionally bridged by a mysterious portal and their shared search for a complete picture of their origins. Gibney surrounds that story with reproductions of her own adoption documents, letters, family photographs, interviews, medical records, and brief essays on the surreal absurdities of the adoptee experience.

The end result is a remarkable portrait of an American experience rarely depicted in any form.]]> 256 Shannon Gibney 0593111990 RJ 5 Spectacular. A trip. 3.87 2023
author: Shannon Gibney
name: RJ
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/29
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves: author-of-color, metafiction, scifi, ya, nonfic
review:
Spectacular. A trip.
]]> 22693815
Moms, dads, sisters, brothers — and even Great Aunt Sue — appear in dozens of combinations, demonstrating all kinds of nontraditional families! Silly animals are cleverly depicted in framed portraits, and offer a warm celebration of family love.]]> 32 Suzanne Lang 0375974261 RJ 5 children, storytime, queer 4.21 2015
author: Suzanne Lang
name: RJ
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/19
date added: 2023/07/26
shelves: children, storytime, queer
review:

]]> 12086014 144 Saeed Jones 1937420027 RJ 0 to-read 4.32 2011
author: Saeed Jones
name: RJ
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62292422
Who said true love is a myth?

A prophecy claims that Psyche, princess of Mycenae, will defeat a monster feared even by the gods. Rebelling against her society’s expectations for women, Psyche spends her youth mastering blade and bow, preparing to meet her destiny.

When Psyche angers the love goddess Aphrodite, she sends Eros, god of desire, to deliver a cruel curse. After eons watching humanity twist his gifts, the last thing Eros wants is to become involved in the chaos of the mortal world. But when he pricks himself with the arrow intended for Psyche, Eros finds himself doomed to yearn for a woman who will be torn from him the moment their eyes meet.

Thrown together by fate, headstrong Psyche and world-weary Eros will face challenges greater than they could have ever imagined. And as the Trojan War begins and divine powers try to keep them apart, the pair must determine if the curse could become something more . . . before it’s too late.

A joyous and subversive tale of gods, monsters, and the human heart and soul, Psyche and Eros dazzles the senses while exploring notions of trust, sacrifice, and what it truly means to be a hero. With unforgettably vivid characters, spellbinding prose, and delicious tension, Luna McNamara has crafted a shimmering and propulsive debut novel about a love so strong it defies the will of Olympus.]]> 352 Luna McNamara 0063295075 RJ 0 to-read 3.75 2023
author: Luna McNamara
name: RJ
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58783802 A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are.

The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.

Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.]]> 367 Kelly Barnhill 0385548222 RJ 0 to-read 3.79 2022
author: Kelly Barnhill
name: RJ
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36692478 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375.

Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 294 Tommy Orange RJ 0 to-read 3.98 2018
author: Tommy Orange
name: RJ
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48672813 Non-Binary Maid Reporting for Duty!

Mogumo is a cute but lonely non-binary high school student who just wants a few loving friends. As someone who doesn’t identify as a boy or a girl, however, finding people who really understand can be a big challenge. When fellow student Iwaoka Tetsu invites Mogumo to work at an untraditional maid café, Mogumo is hopeful that things are looking up. Will they finally find friends to call their own―or just more misunderstanding?]]> 184 Kata Konayama 1645054675 RJ 4 comics, translated, trans 4.13 2019
author: Kata Konayama
name: RJ
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/08
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: comics, translated, trans
review:
I'm kind of surprised (though not upset) to see the reviews so overwhelmingly positive for this one. The premise is a can of worms (non-binary person gets offered a job at a crossdressing-themed maid cafe), and it's unclear how knowledgeable the creator is (they admit to first learning about non-binary people while figuring out the plot), but it manages to mostly hold together. It sounds like the older sister stops being misgendered without much fanfare in next volume (it's unclear at first how she thinks of herself, but later makes a very clear statement about being a woman), which makes me curious what here is the creator's choice and what is the translator? (I'm always curious about that, but a story that is so focused on gendered language makes it leap to mind.) There's some goofy stuff that I think would have really appealed to me as a teen, and as an adult, I enjoyed how all of the characters got more complex as they got more comfortable with each other. The romance is of the hyper-idealized soft-blushing manga variety, but hey, it's cute.
]]> 62952152 What if the murder you had to solve was your own?

Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She's also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her.

Now it's not enough to care for her child, love her husband, and work the job she's always enjoyed--she must also figure out the circumstances of her death. Darkly comic, tautly paced, and full of surprises, My Murder is a devour-in-one-sitting, clever twist on the classic thriller.]]> 304 Katie Williams 0593543769 RJ 0 to-read 3.61 2023
author: Katie Williams
name: RJ
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 80343390 198 Onigunsou 168579680X RJ 4 comics, translated, magic, ya 4.06 2015
author: Onigunsou
name: RJ
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/07
date added: 2023/07/07
shelves: comics, translated, magic, ya
review:
3.5, probably. Feeling more like, intellectually curious about this series, rather than thrilled by reading it. Cool concept and interesting inversion/side-stepping of some of the manga/anime tropes I grew up with.
]]> 60384799
Shuna, the prince of a poor land, watches in despair as his people work themselves to death harvesting the little grain that grows there. And so, when a traveler presents him with a sample of seeds from a mysterious western land, he sets out to find the source of the golden grain, dreaming of a better life for his subjects.

It is not long before he meets a proud girl named Thea. After freeing her from captivity, he is pursued by her enemies, and while Thea escapes north, Shuna continues toward the west, finally reaching the Land of the God-Folk.

Will Shuna ever see Thea again? And will he make it back home from his quest for the golden grain?]]> 160 Hayao Miyazaki 1250846528 RJ 5 4.35 1983
author: Hayao Miyazaki
name: RJ
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: translated, ya, comics, magic, illustrated
review:
So, so good. Loved the contextual notes at the end, especially the observation that this (unlike many of Miyazaki's other stories) is not about a young person reacting to a crisis, but about a young person who wants a better world for his people. I finished it while at the library but took it home anyway because I want to look at it more.
]]>