Fiona

The artwork is nice although it doesn't do a terribly good job at conveying the story, as many spreads are just too busy. The plot is choppy and heavy-handed, even though the premise appealed to me. Ultimately, the message is nice but it's not enough to make this an enjoyable read.

I like how each character has thier own colour to highlight who is speaking, making it really easy to learn the graphic novel format. Short stories with cute characters with some amusing references for parents but easy enough to be read solo (by a 6 year old who will get this for her bday).

Adorably disjointed. I like how simple the illustrations are and the attitude of the protagonist and the facts about real sea creatures.

CatKid is adorable and I'm glad he got his own series.

Cute in a boring sort of way. Artwork is lovely.

I really expected more Dickensian puns/references. Yes, I'm complaining it wasn't sophisticated enough.

Weird and pointless, like something written by a drunkard practicing their drawing.

A really intresting concept, that a young man with severe retardation can be medically made into a genius. As always, science overreaches itself, although there is no moralizing about the dangers of tampering with nature or god's work. Plenty of good fodder about identity and different kinds of intelligence and the right of retardates (as the book calls them in its marvelously archaic way) to be treated like real people. Plot starts to drag in the middle but otherwise a marvelous read.

There's very little meat on this bone; Doyle rabbits on for 22 pages before giving the first example of the problem he's meant to be examining. DNF at page 45 (but perused the epilogue) because it's so damned boring, recounting the Salem witch trials and telling us what others have said about cancel culture rather than actually building a convincing argument. (I don't disagree with the premise that knee-jerk social activism is problematic but fuck, present some facts already!)

Given that the author was ostensibly the trucker convoy's spokesman, I was expecting behind-the-scenes stuff, but no. Dichter swanned off in the first week before returning and breaking his leg so he doesn't seem to have been privy to much. The funniest bit is him claiming that other people were trying to do his job. The bulk of the text is about why Trudeau sucks and regurgitating what was said in the media. The book does appear to have been proofread tho and its not full of typos.

The writing itself is very choppy and the structure unimpressive but the plot itself is fairly interesting. If I didn't feel obligated to read this for book club, I would have noped out 50 pages in.

Pretty standard fare and it really lacks Pilkey's usual cleverness that I expect based on Captain Underpants and Dogman. Santat's illustrations go from picture book to comics for the action scenes which I liked and makes it a good option for younger readers.

I liked the premise and message of this (i.e. fame is not as important as making people happy) and Megabat is a rather endearing character but the “bat language” really grated at me, especially the use of ‘kwirls' in the text like it was a real word.

Thank you to Tundra Books who kindly sent me a copy for review.

Delightfully absurd.

Cute premise and not badly written. While the animal illustrations were lovely, all the people look ridiculous with weird noses and dots for eyes.

Telgemeier makes cute art but her plot-creation really leaves something to be desired.

That proved quite clever at the end. I like these autobiographical type graphic novels especially when the characters are portrayed as the little assholes kids are at that age.

Genius. I will be reading everything else Santat has created.

I wanted to keep an open mind but this is terrible and I have better things to do with my precious time. Lawton should have hired an editor for this self-published trash. DNF.

Too dark and dreary to warrant my interest right now. DNF at page 50.

The lack of continuous narrative lost my interest a third of the way through.

Fuuuck. I was not expecting that. I got this from the library because of the hype and I don't often do audiobooks because my brain doesn't seem to retain information delivered aurally but I'm glad I heard this in the author's voice. It's harrowing to hear what she went through; it's laid out in such a basic way, without caveats or excuses, that the trauma is obvious but never devolves into self-pity.

I was a little worried about the choice of Patroclus as narrator (especially near the end cause I fucking hate dead narrators) but it was low-key genius and definitely the right choice.

Takes a long time to get going (the titular hero doesn't even make an appearance until 50 pages in) but the premise is marvelous and the array of characters make this amusing and delightful.

Conceptually, this is marvelous and the use of language is impressive. But there's little to sink your teeth into character-wise and I struggled to connect with the story emotionally. Still, an interesting book and I do not resent the time I spent reading it.