Caro
So this is the sequel to Barda by Ngozi Ukazu and I went in really curious because Scott Free and Big Barda are some of my favorite DC characters ever (specially Barda) and I had literally never read anything from Orion's POV before. He's always been background noise in the Mister Miracle and Barda stuff I'd picked up, the angry son of Darkseid raised on New Genesis, and I kinda assumed he'd be a one note rage machine. Spotlighting him here was a nice surprise.
What I loved is how hard it leans into nature vs nurture without getting preachy. Orion grows up being told he's something he's not, and the whole arc is him figuring out who he actually is under what everyone needs him to be. It's a story about self knowledge, self acceptance, and how society decides who you get to be before you even get a vote. His friendship with Lightray is also genuinely cute, a little softness in all the Apokolips grit.
Landing on 3.5 (rounding up to 4) because the emotional core works but the pacing felt rushed in the middle and the New Genesis section was lighter than I wanted before the tonal switch. It also reads more YA than Barda did, which is fine but not always my favorite mode. Still, if you've only ever lived in Scott and Barda's heads like me, worth picking up just to see Orion as a person and not a plot device.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC
Mary is in her thirties, broke and back in her old York town pulling pints, when she starts remembering things that cannot possibly have happened. From there the book slips back into her school days during the Blair years and the Iraq War protests, and into the slow drift of childhood friends becoming different people. I really liked it. The writing is warm, the friendships feel real, and that wobbly memory thing landed for me. It loses half a star because the central mystery does not punch as hard as I wanted, but the coming of age side of it is lovely. A solid four stars.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC
DNF at 40% I'm bored out of my mind
As a Wes Anderson fan I really wanted to love this. A graphic novel walking through his life and filmography, from his early awkward attempts at filmmaking to becoming the symmetry obsessed icon we all know, sounded like exactly my thing. There were moments I genuinely enjoyed: little bits of trivia about how a film came together, the inspirations behind certain scenes, things I didn't know about his collaborators.
Where it lost me was the art. I know taste in illustration is personal, but for a book about one of the most visually distinctive directors alive, the artwork felt flat and a bit clumsy, and it kept pulling me out of the story instead of pulling me in. Pages I should have wanted to linger on I just wanted to flip past. The pacing didn't help either. The storytelling is really choppy, jumping from moment to moment without much connective tissue, so instead of feeling like a flowing narrative it reads more like a series of loosely related panels stitched together.
It's a shame because the concept is great and the source material is so rich. With stronger art and a more cohesive script this could have been the perfect coffee table love letter to his work.
It pains me but I have to give it only 3 stars, I found it boring and none of the characters managed to hook me. I picked it up because so many reviews were raving about it and I got curious, but this one clearly wasn't for me.
What wore me down the most were the constant tweaks to language meant to make the world feel more futuristic (oob = uber, ka-ching = money, etc.). Instead of building the world, they kept pulling me out of it. I also couldn't shake the Ayn Rand nods: the critique of total privatization ends up flirting a bit too much with the aesthetic it claims to be criticizing.
The premise, a society where human beings are 51% owned by corporations, had real potential, but it settles for being a competent thriller and little more. Juke, Haylee, the Red Queen... none of them moved me.
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc :)
Zillah is twenty-three, living with her mom, eating the same ten foods she's eaten since she was a toddler, she's stuck, and she knows it. When she starts secretly listening to her neighbor's exposure therapy sessions and decides to DIY her own mental health journey, things get messy fast. The premise is quirky and original, and I love that the book uses picky eating as a metaphor for all the ways we avoid the things that scare us. But I'll be honest, the first half dragged for me. It took me a while to get into the story.
I was completely rooting for Zillah and her neighbor Lisd, their friendship feels so genuine and messy and real. The way they push each other to face their fears, the humor in their conversations, the tenderness underneath it all. That second half had me turning pages way faster than the first.
My biggest frustration is with Zillah's mother. The book hints at a really complex, layered backstory there, long-buried truths, a carefully constructed home life built on half-truths, the codependency between them. But it never goes deep enough. It felt like the book was right on the edge of saying something really powerful about generational patterns and mental health within families, and then pulled back.
Still, Picky is a warm, funny read about finding the courage to grow up, even when growing up means letting go of the safe little world you've built around yourself. It's not going to change your life, but it'll make you think about your own comfort zones.
“Down the Hole” by Scott Slater is an absolute gem!
Slater's storytelling dazzles with wit and suspense, perfectly capturing the dance between a cunning fox and an even cleverer rabbit. The illustrations are stunning, and the dark humor is brilliantly balanced with a cheering ‘root-for-the-underbunny' vibe.
A must-read for anyone who loves a twisty, delightful tale. An instant classic in the making!
The pictures are cute but I don't think the message is appropriate for kids, the way the bear resolve it is not a good example.