An incredibly clever collection of comics with topics ranging from history to literature to pop culture and everything in between.
You don’t have to know a thing about Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant to enjoy this book. (I didn’t.) And it is so much fun.
Like any great observational comedian, Kate takes idiosyncrasies or exaggerates details to create comic gold.
For instance, here’s the dialogue from a comic about the Black Prince and some of his early exploits: “How are you feeling about being a hero of the battle of Crecy?” “Bro I am stoked.” “This is quite a momentous event so far in the war…” “Those French guys were like ‘Whoaaaaaa’.” “I keep forgetting you are sixteen.” “And my army was like eat it. Ka chow!!” pg 114
There’s another one I liked about the Greek god Zeus going on a first date that doesn’t make much sense without the pictures so you’ll just have to check it out for yourself on page 123. Basically, it’s a play on all of the mythological stories about Zeus revealing himself to mortals as a swan, shower of gold or something else and still getting the girl. Kate has a point. I mean, how does that even work… showing up as a shower of gold. It’s ridiculous and almost begging for a comic to make fun of it. Like this one. 🙂
In addition to the observational humor, Kate takes characters from old posters, newspaper clippings or magazine photos and gives them a back story. Some of her creations are just hysterical.
The spare and pencil-drawn style strongly reminded me of Nimona, which I also enjoyed. I highly recommend this collection for readers who enjoy comics or satire.
At the SuperMutant Magic Academy, strange things happen and everyone looks different, but teenage angst and questions about reality remain the same. There is unrequited love, hormones run amok and popularity problems. There is a young man who can’t seem to die, no matter how he tries to end his life. There’s an artist who puts herself into shocking situations to underline the pointlessness of reality.
There’s a young woman with the head of a lizard who just wants to find a boyfriend and a beautiful girl with ears like a fox who occasionally has to change into a fox and hunt prey. There’s drugs and alcohol and a host of other issues, while the poor teachers are simply trying to educate the group.
I didn’t connect well with this graphic novel and question its appropriateness for the younger end of the young adult scale. Older or more mature teens should be ok. There’s moments that make light of self harm without, what I think, is the appropriate context. There’s some sexual content that may be incredibly confusing and inappropriate for 11 and 12 year olds.
When I borrowed this from the library, I was under the impression that I could share this book with my child. After reading it, I realized I was wrong. That may have affected my opinions of SuperMutant Magic Academy. If I had just read it for enjoyment’s sake, maybe I would have thought more of its content.
Or maybe not. Jillian Tamaki gives herself, usually, just six panels to create a narrative and it isn’t enough. The jarring moments of reality left me with more questions than answers. I wanted more of a story and never really got that.
It made me think maybe I was missing out on something. If this is based off of a web comic, maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it in its original medium.
Harry Dresden, wizard-for-hire and Winter Knight, joins a group of unsavory characters to pay off a debt owed by Mab and to steal something incredibly valuable from a god. And he thought he had bad days before this. At least he still has a way with words.
“… Nicodemus is a murderous murdering murderer,” I said. “And if he’s picking a crew, they’re going to be just as bad.” pg 26, ebook
Is there anyone he can trust? Can he even trust himself with the strange “parasite”-thing growing in his head?
“Sometimes when you find yourself alone, for whatever reason, you review every little thing you know about someone, searching your memory for small, subtle things that you may have missed about them.”pg 10, ebook.
Any guesses on what they’re going to be stealing?
“My sources say he’s the collector of the supernatural world. He’s famous for it. Art, treasure, gems, jewels, antiques, you name.” pg 37, ebook.
Skin Game is a clever mix of heist and The Dresden Files. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And now my heart is broken because the next book isn’t written yet.
We were finally getting somewhere with Harry’s relationships with his friends and a certain someone in particular. (No spoilers!) Harry was learning how to juggle his “mantle of power”. Molly was coming into her own unique situation.
We’ve learned about angels, demons, fairies, pixies, gods and more in this series. I’ve really come to enjoy the world and the strange things that happen in it. I love the shifting balance of power and how when Harry’s up, he’s really up. And when he’s down… well…
“And since when had I become the guy that things happened to ten years ago?” pg 49, ebook.
I think all of the readers are wondering that too. Not that we’re complaining because this series seems to have such staying power. I really wish it would keep going for awhile longer, just spit-balling here, how about another 15 books? 🙂 Or, at least, perhaps we could tie up the loose ends.
“I know that things happen to people,” he said. “And maybe you’ve got excellent and real reasons for doing what you’ve done. But… at the end of the day, there’s just no replacement for being here.” pg 84, ebook.
I like being in this world and I think plenty of other readers do too. Jim Butcher, give the people what they want. Write, please. Write now!
Big Little Lies follows three different women who all have children starting kindergarten. It is a mystery, drama and satire about the pressures of parenthood, modern motherhood especially, all rolled into one.
“Should I call the police?” wondered Mrs. Ponder out loud, but then she heard the wail of a siren in the distance, at the same time as a woman on the balcony began to scream and scream. pg 19, ebook.
I couldn’t put the book down. I don’t know people who are as intense as the parents are in this book, but with a little push, I could see some of the PTO members making that leap and fitting right in. You know they care about their kids, but it makes them a bit competitive and unapproachable. This book made me wonder what may be going on at home if that’s the face they choose to display in public…
My favorite character in Big Little Lies was Jane, the youngest of the mothers and one who is carrying a devastating secret. She allows her intense love for her son, Ziggy, to keep her going through her anxiety.
If it weren’t for Ziggy she would have driven off. She would have been so focused on her goal of getting him to his kindergarten orientation that she would have left a woman sitting on the road, writhing in pain. pg 28, ebook.
But a close second for favorite character was Madeline, a fiery mother of three children, one from her first marriage and two from her second. She doesn’t let anybody push her around and she stands up for those she takes under her wing. It’s nice to have friends like that.
Madeline saw Celeste and her face lit up. One of the nicest things about Madeline was the way her face transformed when she saw you, as if there were no one else in the world she’d rather see. pg 40, ebook.
Madeline is also the cause of much of the drama in this story. She has a tendency to cause trouble when she’s upset rather than back away from it. Also, gossip seems to follow her around.
Madeline, she realized, was one of those slightly dangerous people who jumped right in defending their friends and stirred up far bigger waves than the first tiny ripple. pg 90, ebook.
Mysterious and beautiful Celeste is the last of the main characters in this story. She’s so easy to love, but, like Jane, also has a terrible secret. And while all of this drama is going on in their personal lives, their children are trying to make it through kindergarten in one piece.
Highly recommended for readers who like their mysteries interlaced with some backstabbing parents and heartbreaking secrets. I’m interested to see the HBO series now and see how true they were to the book.
Something is wrong with the king. His five daughters rush home from various parts of the world to try to figure out what is going on. No one likes a power vacuum.
Meanwhile, there’s problems in the marriage of one of the sisters, whose alliance with the kingdom next door helps keep war to a minimum. Also, there’s raiders who have a mysterious crow-shaped tattoo accosting people on the roads. So, there’s a lot going on.
And that doesn’t even take into account everything that is happening to the twins, the sister whose magic is awakening and the eldest, who stands to inherit the throne if her father dies.
“Bluebell wasn’t a child. She knew one day her father would die and she would take his place. She had prepared her whole life for the moment, but it had always been abstract, like a story.” pgs 17-18 ebook
The number of characters in this book may seem daunting at first, but Kim Wilkins introduces them slowly. It makes it easy to keep track of who is who.
“Her father was dying — and her father was the king of Almissia, the largest and most powerful kingdom in Thyrsland. And when he was dead… Well, what would they say? They could not caution her if she was grieving. A counselor’s first law was that compassion comes before all else.” pg 34, ebook.
That being said, the characters are rather flat. As for the sisters, we have the violent one, amorous one, magical one, religious one and promiscuous one. The “bad guys” feel rather the same too — fixated on achieving their goals at any cost, killing indiscriminately. There is very little gray area or layered meaning in this tale. (With one notable exception, but no spoilers!)
“Now everything had been twisted out of shape, the threads of his destiny balled in a hopeless knot. It would be a measure of the kind of man he was if he could smooth things out, take charge of his future, shape the world to his will.” pg 191
Despite the simplistic characters, I would not classify this read as young adult. There’s some violent and sexual situations that younger readers may find confusing. Also, one of the characters, when she can’t think of anything else to say, just uses the f-word, which was disappointing. There are so many different ways to express frustration…
Honestly, I wanted more action in this story and better dialogue. I wanted more magic and less brooding angst. I wanted the sisters to band together and rage across the land like avenging Valkyries. I guess we don’t always get what we want.
“Rose was silent, sulking. Bluebell responded by pretending she didn’t notice. Ash lost herself in thoughts about her power, her Becoming, and how she was to try to make a future for herself.” pg 203
The description of Daughters of the Storm says this book is “Norse-like” but I felt like it was more generic fantasy. I think the author was leaning towards a tale of warriors and gods, but we never quite got there. It was more of a promise unfulfilled.
For what it is though, it is engaging. Readers who like fantasy, large casts of characters and broad story lines may enjoy this book. As an added bonus, the second entry in the series, Sisters of the Fire came out this month, so you don’t have to wait to read what happens next.
“But now, here, once and for all, I set down my tale. I am not who I was then. I said I was ignorant, and I am not wrong, though by that point I had learned that men lived upside down from us, that for them the ocean was below, the Abyss above, our gravities only meeting at the surface.” pg 15
Patrick Ness weaves a re-telling of Moby-Dick, or, the Whale from the point of view of the whales. It falls some what short of his usual magic.
I think the trouble with re-telling major stories or fairy tales, (as I’ve discussed in previous reviews, Dorothy Must Die comes to mind) is that unless the remake is extraordinary in some way, it won’t surpass the original story. It’s exciting to revisit beloved worlds or, in this case, a classic tale and upend reader’s expectations. Using the point of view of the whales is unique, but the story seems to stall there.
The original Moby Dick gives us obsession and memorable characters. Bathsheba, the young apprentice whale in this tale, is a confused mess most of the time. That doesn’t lend itself to either greatness or memorability.
Ness is at his best when he’s describing Bathsheba’s world. I wish he had gotten more into how they respected and feared the depths of the ocean, which they considered the opposite of the ‘Abyss’ in our world. I also wish he had taken readers through one of the cities constructed by the whales. He hinted at a civilization beyond the hunt, but we never quite got there.
I guess he was trying to build tension with the hunt for Toby Wick. I wanted a more layered fantasy tale.
“Maybe it takes a devil to fight a devil,” I said. “But at the end of the fight, Bathsheba,” he said, “Don’t only devils remain?” And for a moment in the ocean, there was only blackness. We were alone. Even with ourselves. And whatever devils lurked, unseen. pg 99
The artwork by Rovina Cai is beautiful and spare, utilizing very few colors or many fine details beyond shading. I think she conveys the idea that most of the story takes place underwater very well. I liked the illustrations perhaps more than I liked the story.
If you must read And the Ocean Was Our Sky, may I suggest borrowing it from your local library.
Tana French’s second book in The Dublin Murder Squad series packs a serious punch. Cassie Maddox, a former murder squad detective, has moved to a different unit because of the stresses of the case called “Vestal Virgin” and personal difficulties with her former partner. She’s dragged back into the murder squad, when a woman’s body is found and she’s carrying identification showing her name is one of Cassie’s former undercover personas.
This is the main thing you need to know about Alexandra Madison: she never existed. Frank Mackey and I invented her, a long time ago, on a bright summer afternoon in his dusty office on Harcourt Street. pg 12, ebook.
The slain woman has a unique living situation. She rooms with four other adults in a stately manor home called Whitethorn House. The group is a tightly-knit bunch of university students who not only live together, but also spend nearly every waking moment in each other’s company.
“Her main associates,” Sam said evenly, “were a bunch of other postgrads: Daniel March, Abigail Stone, Justin Mannering and Raphael Hyland.” pg 71
None of the group had a motive for killing Alexandra, whom they called Lexie. Or did they? Or perhaps it was someone outside the group, someone who had an old reason for hating them and the house. Or maybe it was a crime of opportunity… and who was Lexie Madison anyway?
Cassie’s superiors ask her to use her physical similarity to the dead woman to infiltrate the group in an undercover operation to try to dig up some answers. Can she pull it off? And, if she does, will whoever attacked Lexie come at her again?
“This is the part I didn’t tell Sam: bad stuff happens to undercovers. A few of them get killed. Most lose friends, marriages, relationships. A couple turn feral, cross over to the other side so gradually that they never see it happening till it’s too late…” pg 62, ebook.
The tension throughout this entire book is incredible. I noticed the same thing with French’s other book, In the Woods. She really has a way of building the story up through complex layers and then delaying the big reveal to pour on the stress.
The characters are fantastic. The conversations are dances, setting up further plot points.
“She’s fine,” said Abby. “She just said so.” “I’m only asking. The police kept saying—” “Don’t poke at it.” “What?” I asked. “What did the police keep saying?” “I think,” Daniel said, calmly but finally, turning in his chair to look at Justin, “that we should leave it at that.”
I had to suspend my disbelief at a couple points in the story. The big one was believing that Cassie looked enough like the dead woman to make the undercover part even possible. I suppose I’ve heard stories about doppelgangers, but I’ve never truly believed such a thing actually exists.
Highly recommended for readers who like their mysteries with a heaping side dish of tension.
I liked having Harry back on this side of the veil, but I was so-so about the rest of Cold Days, the latest entry in The Dresden Files.
Man. Being mostly dead is hard on a guy. pg 11, ebook.
Harry Dresden, wizard for hire, is now the Winter Knight after a series of misadventures and serious adventures in the past couple of books. And the position isn’t very much fun.
The winter fae are hardcore. They’re mean, full of tricks and generally happy to kill without consideration for any consequences. So you can see how poorly Harry is going to fit in.
Queen Mab, his new boss, is smart and dangerous. She also has a lot of pans in the fire that the reader isn’t necessarily aware of until later in the book. But, being that it’s the freaking Queen of the Winter Fae, maybe I should have expected more backstabby things.
“Oh, the Sidhe’s influence had been waning as the Industrial Age gathered steam,” I said. “By making sure the tales kept being told to mortal children, she made sure that she and her folk were never forgotten.” pg 28
I didn’t like Harry’s character development as much in this book. It seems like much of his choice and free will was taken away when he took up the “mantle” of the Winter Knight. I’m not sure that my feeling is fair though. How much choice did he have when he was under the thumb of the White Council? Or being manipulated by the Red Court, etc.
See, that’s the tragedy of the human condition. No one wants to be corrupted by power when they set out to get it. They have good, even noble reasons for doing whatever it is they do. They don’t want to misuse it, they don’t want to abuse it, and they don’t want to become vicious monsters. Good people, decent people, set out to take the high road, to pick up power without letting it change them or push them away from their ideals. pg 30
Harry continues to use “blast first, ask questions later” but now he’s got ammunition made out of ice in addition to fire and he isn’t afraid to use it. His new job (and prior ghost experience) have driven some major wedges between Harry and his friends. I didn’t like that we saw less of the minor characters, some of whom I’ve grown quite fond of. Bob the Skull is the one that comes to mind first, but there were others.
I’m not entirely sure his relationship with Molly is ever going to be the same. The patchwork relationship fixes Harry makes with Karrin Murphy, Butters and Thomas are questionable. Overall, I just felt sad. Sometimes, we out grow our friends or they out grow us. I wanted Harry to be best of pals with those folks forever.
Butters tore off a final piece of medical tape, stuck the end of the bandage down with it, and sighed. “Yeah. Just try not to… well, move, or jump around, or do anything active, or touch anything dirty, or otherwise do anything else that I know you’re going to do anyway in the next twenty-four hours.” pg 287
That’s not to say there aren’t moments to enjoy in this book. There’s still magic, danger and adventure. But I feel like things have certainly changed since a few books ago, and Jim Butcher hasn’t necessarily recaptured the magic he conjured when his characters were racing to prevent the death of a little girl at the hands of Red Court vampires.
Wizarding just isn’t what it used to be. Not so many years ago, I’d think it was a busy week if someone asked me to locate a lost dog or a wedding ring. It had been horribly boring. I’d had lots and lots of free time. I hadn’t been rich, but I’d gotten to buy plenty of books to read, and I’d never gone hungry. And no one had tried to kill me, or asked me to make a horrible choice. Not once.pg 457
I’m dragging my feet on picking up the next entry, Skin Game, because I read that it was the last that Butcher has finished, for now. There are plans in the works for another book, Peace Talks but it isn’t finished yet. I’ve been burned by too many science fiction/fantasy writers like George R.R. Martin or Scott Lynch to expect that the next book will be finished any time in the near future.
Butcher writes on his professional website that he’s lost his dog, gotten a divorce, moved, been delayed in the construction of his new house and gotten engaged since the publication of the last book in the Dresden Files. That’s a lot of change. I wonder if it will come through in his writing…
Maybe I’m mourning the loss of Harry Dresden before the series even ends? The ending seems to be there or at least coming towards us, on the horizon. In addition to the approaching end, I feel like the quality of writing in the books isn’t as good as it was, even a few books ago, when Butcher almost blew up the world he had created with the awfulness that went on between Harry and Molly.
Anyway, of course I will read the next book. Maybe over the holidays, which are swiftly approaching.
In conclusion, I wish Cold Days was more whimsical like the first books in the series or action-packed like some of the last. Because it seems to exist in this middling reality where Harry can’t do anything right and seems to be losing friends faster than he’s making them, all the while spinning his wheels on ice and being manipulated by others who are far more powerful and inventive than he will ever be.
Similar to The Alchemist, The Little Prince is a metaphorical tale that people seem to love or not.
“In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don’t dare disobey. Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket.” pg 4
A pilot crashes in the desert and discovers a child wandering around who claims to be from another planet. His planet is so small that the prince can see multiple sunsets by simply moving his chair. And there’s a rose with four thorns that the prince loves. But he left this planet because of a disagreement with the rose. After a series of adventures where he meets dysfunctional adults on other planets, sees that his rose isn’t the only rose in the universe and learns about love from a fox, the prince decides he wants to go back home.
How he’s going to do that is not really clear.
So that’s the literal story.
The allegorical part has to do with how differently children perceive life than adults, what love is or means and how growing up, change or death affects love… among other things.
Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” pg 63
I felt like there were layers to this story that I haven’t grasped yet. I suppose this could also be about a man contemplating his inner child. Then again, I suppose this story could be about a lot of things.
This was the first time I’ve ever read it and, to my amusement, when I checked it out from the library, my 12-year-old said she has already read it. I asked her what she thought of it and she just shrugged her shoulders. I liked it more than a simple shoulder shrug, but, in conclusion, I think there was stuff I was missing.
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