The second Squirrel Girl novel by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale was as delightful as the first, mostly because it advances Doreen’s character to where she starts to learn how to talk down crime and communicate with others and I swear it’s funnier than that sounds.
Alpha Chive is the best name for a squirrel, too.
I’m disappointed only in that because of the nature of the medium and the fact the North/Henderson/Charm run of Squirrel Girl is complete, Ana Sofia will probably never be in the comics.
Good stuff, good stuff. Note to future self: You found this generally enjoyable and planned to read the next one ASAP.
Summary: England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.
Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all-too-obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.
As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.
As the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before…
Well, I read the sequel to this first (Proper English, about Fen and Pat who are in this as well) and was like ‘well I’d certainly like to see more!’ so I picked this up! Even though both involve a good deal of death and blackmail, the mysteries had very different tones to them. Especially since partway through, this one turns into a spy caper.
I have a confession: I have gone the whole book without looking up what a ‘dago’ is and I’m pretty sure it’s nothing nice.
Man. The moment where the POV stops calling the love interest by the surname and by his first, that’s A+ right there.
It had an amazingly gory end. A ‘I really really was not expecting that’ level of gory.
Overall I think Proper English was more my speed, but I definitely enjoyed reading this one and was disappointed to find out there was no further ones in the series. I’ll just have to try her other books.
Ghost Twins: Mystery at Kickingbird Lake
Summary: The former home of the Ghost Twins, Robbie and Beka, and Thatch, the Ghost Dog, is now a rental at the Kickingbird Lake Resort. First visitors: the Shook Family. And a cat? Poor Thatch! The Shook kids find a treasure at the lake. It belongs to the Ghost Twins—and they want it back . . . .
So this is a fairly lighthearted and small ‘oh we’re just ghost kids having antics!’ book which was a perfectly fine quick read but it has the added bonus that if you read it from Kim Shook’s perspective, it’s actually a horror story where she nearly dies in a horrible accident… POSSIBLY CAUSED BY MURDER GHOSTS.
So definitely an A+ book and going on my horror shelf.
I really liked the first one, The Witch Boy, and I was excited to see what came next!
The Hidden Witch
This one focused on the fallout from the first book and got into the kinds of dangers a witch faces beyond an actual enemy. I liked the newly introduced characters and expansion of previous ones.
The Midwinter Witch
This one has moved on from consequences and explores the larger world of Aster’s family. There’s some really great scenery in this one, art-wise.
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So I like the Witch Boy series! I think that my only issue with it is that it needs a little more room to expand itself, because otherwise it feels a little anemic plot/character wise. But art, absolutely wonderful. Love the designs and scenery. And so much character in the characters in just the little we see! I love Aster and Juniper’s relationship as siblings among all the other excellent character beats.
I love Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson as, among other things, it has the best drawn unicorn ever.
Book 5: Unicorn Crossing (2017)
This one was a collection of the newspaper comics, with the ongoing plot of the Goblins which I liked because for some reason ‘Blart!’ is very funny to me as a dialogue thing. I’m slowly catching up via the volumes so I can start reading the daily comic which has been piling up in my gocomics subscription.
Book 6: Phoebe and Her Unicorn in the Magic Storm (2017)
This one’s an actual story! With Max characterization! And an ongoing Legend joke which was just delightful. Phoebe is a sweetheart. I really like her as a character, especially in this.
Nubia: Real One, written by L.L. McKinney, art by Robyn Smith.
I saw this advertised on twitter with some character design art and a ‘It’s Wonder Woman’s twin sister Nubia in high school!’ and I bought it and read it immediately.
Well! I think that about sums it up, really. Saw it, wanted it, read it, loved it. The character designs were great, the story drew me in, and it hit a lot of intense emotional beats. I was supposed to be saving money, but no regrets.
We, The Girls Who Did Not Make It by E.A. Petricone is a short story in Nightmare Magazine that I finished reading a bit ago but I feel like I got hit by a hammer.
It’s about the ghosts of girls killed by a serial killer. And I do like ghosts!
I read the ending first, to make sure I’d be okay after, but I didn’t expect how intense the overall story would be. Apparently I was just sitting there with huge wide eyes after.
It was very good but also I’m not sure I’m happy I read it.
I started reading this in 2020 and through no fault of its own, I sort of lost track of it (even if it was digital) between vignettes in the book. I like the contained stories. Jesus and Buddha go to the pool! Jesus and Buddha go to a festival! Jesus and Buddha do crafts!
It’s very good natured and hopefully the rest of the series is like that (I need to read it!) so I can safely use it as a starter rec to people. I’ve got friends who want to ‘read manga’ but it’s sort of like being told ‘I want to read books’ so I’m trying to assemble a list of good starting points for various genres. This would work well as a comedy one. Or a slice of life, in its own weird way.
Prooobably my favourite part was Buddha teaching Jesus how to swim and Jesus’ stigmata opening and then Jesus accidentally parting the pool. Or when Jesus read Buddha’s comic and thought it was so funny his thorn crown sprouted roses as a miracle from his joy. Or Buddha winning… a Buddha.
I have been reading this one for uh, a while now (and it turns out I had actually finished it once before back in 2014, thanks Goodreads) and I was disappointed to discover the last story I had left before finishing was the one about the boy who hits his sister who turns out to be a robot who decides instead of letting him go fuck himself to sacrifice her life/brain to become his robot car.
Anyway I apparently hadn’t forgotten THAT one. I did manage to totally forget the plot of Kino the Magician and ah, that was bleak.
So! Astro Boy. Look at all that wacky art mixed with horrific narrative. I’m not gonna get into what happened during that dog story, but the sheer amount of bullshit the robots as a whole go through is very stressful to read. I guess when, in-universe, you’re either seen as a people or a chatty toaster.
Just a little too close to how we treat real people too.
That said, I plan to start Volume 2 pretty soon. I own the whole collection and by god, I am going to read it.