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Miniature Monday #2

I have been on a kick lately of reading a lot of graphic novels, comics, and even a bit of manga, and I have more on my TBR for the next month, so I decided I would start a new series. Every 1-2 weeks, I’ll be posting a small batch of mini-reviews for graphic novels and the like! I’ll also include poetry collections, as I’ve read a little poetry lately. This week, I’ll be reviewing four graphic novels. Monstress, Vol 1: Awakening...

Starfish – Akemi Dawn Bowman (ARC Review)

But some people are just starfish – they need everyone to fill the roles that they assign. Kiko’s story is so tough to read at points – not only due to her childhood trauma, but also due to her struggles as a biracial young woman in a rural town. Her father is Japanese and her mother is white, and her mother has spent Kiko’s entire life shaming her half-Asian appearance, name, and culture. She once told me she wished she...

Miniature Monday #1

Hello, everyone, and happy Labor Day to those of you celebrating it! I have been on a kick lately of reading a lot of graphic novels, comics, and even a bit of manga, and I have more on my TBR for the next month, so I decided I would start a new series. Every 1-2 weeks, I’ll be posting a small batch of mini-reviews for graphic novels and the like! I’ll also include poetry collections, as I’ve read a little poetry...

An Enchantment of Ravens — Margaret Rogerson

Spoiler-free review! I was gladdened by the sight of those vicious thorns more than I could say, and wondered whether the stories would have gone any differently if the princesses had been the ones telling them. A book about star-crossed lovers, art, and a fae prince who shape shifts into a raven? YES, please! ✘ plot In Whimsy, humans practice Craft: cooking, artistry, writing stories, even designing clothing – all of which the fair folk are drawn to, despite their...

House of Ash – Hope Cook (ARC Review)

She felt her own solidness, and she felt the tremor of spirits all around her. Mila smiled. The house had made its first mistake. You’ve shown your hand. You’re a thing that’s alive. Anything alive can be killed. ✘ PLOT Curtis is determined to keep his head down, protect his little sister from their mentally ill and unstable father, and work through his own demons just a little longer – just until his eighteenth birthday, when he can take his sister...

All Rights Reserved – Gregory Scott Katsoulis (ARC Review)

“Words matter. Words make ideas. They preserve truths and history. They express freedom and they shape it. Words mold our thoughts. That gives them value and power.” ✘ plot In the future, lawyers have realized they can put copyrights on things as basic as words, and now, on each individual’s fifteenth birthday, they are given a device that tracks every word they speak or gesture they make – and charges them exorbitantly for it. On Speth’s fifteenth birthday, she realizes she doesn’t want...

Moxie – Jennifer Mathieu (ARC Review)

“This is what it means to be a feminist. Not a humanist or an equalist or whatever. But a feminist. It’s not a bad word. After today it might be my favorite word. Because really all it is is girls supporting each other and wanting to be treated like human beings in a world that’s always finding ways to tell them they’re not.” A book about a teen girl coming into her own as a feminist and learning how to...

Flame in the Mist – Renee Ahdieh (ARC Review)

“Be as swift as the wind. As silent as the forest. As fierce as the fire. As unshakable as the mountain.” ✘ PLOT Mariko is reluctantly on her way to meet her betrothed – the emperor’s son, who she’s been sold off to marry by her family – when her party is attacked by masked assailants and she is forced to escape alone into the night. When she comes to the conclusion that the infamous Black Clan, a group of...

Girls Made of Snow and Glass – Melissa Bashardoust (ARC Review)

“Weak or strong – she didn’t know what they meant anymore. Maybe they didn’t mean the same thing for everyone.” First, you have to know that this book literally is being marketed as, and I quote, “a fantasy feminist fairy tale”, and if you think that wasn’t enough to sell me on it, you are DEAD WRONG. ✘ PLOT In the wintery wonderland Whitespring, Princess Lynet is nearing her sixteenth birthday, and her father expects her to come into her...

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue – Mackenzi Lee

I’m very sorry to direct you here instead of posting this on Goodreads, but GR has recently taken to cracking down heavily on any negative reviews that specifically mention the author’s behavior. Alas, I’m only posting this on my own personal blog. update: june 18th, 2019 I loved The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue a lot when it came out. I hadn’t seen much bi rep in books at that time, and as a bi woman, it felt good to...