![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Or really, I could almost say say "March graphic novel reviews" since my library list was all about the short stuff. Only a few full length novels here. No surprise, since I travelled twice in that time, spent a lot of time making angry birds, and bought a new DS game, so books were largely slotted into what I could finish between trips. I had to return a couple of novels that I'd really like to read so they're going back into my request queue once I clear some of what I have out.
Amazon has switched their referer links in such a way that makes them not work with dreamwidth. How obnoxious. I'm building links from LibraryThing, but it takes a lot more time... Anyone want to recommend a site which will let me search for books and then cut-and-paste links with book covers and links to more detailed book info?
Runaways vol 4-6: Still enjoying the series. Nothing really new to add: story continues. Maybe a little tired of time travel driving plots: surely there's enough potential for these characters without bringing someone in from the past or future every volume? But even if the hook seems cheap, the story's good enough.
Mom's Cancer: I thought I'd read this before, but I didn't remember all of it, or perhaps it's just taken on a different light after the past few years? Still award-winning for a reason, and more poignant with experience about how confusing the symptoms and the medical establishment can be.
Yumekui Kenbun, Nightmare Inspector: Despite lovely art, I feel like it would have been better if I could have used my imagination. I'm sure in my head the dream sequences would have been much more detailed! But despite this complaint, I really enjoyed the manga. I liked the idea of a nightmare inspector, and the lucid dreaming of going back into dreams to figure out how to solve issues appealed to me a lot (perhaps because I often lucid dream my way out of weird nightmares, a skill I picked up years ago as a teenager.)
Federations:
Neat collection of sci-fi stuff with a bit of a star trek feel if that makes sense (they also mention star wars, but for some reason this felt mostly more trek to me). Rather than read straight through (as I often do), I found myself bouncing around in this one a lot as various stories appealed to me on different days. I'm a bit worried I might have missed some as a result, so maybe I'll pick it up again in a year or two when they won't all be fresh in my mind and I can read it cover to cover.
Stiches, a memoir:
I'm not sure there's much I can say about this without spoiling the story. Disturbing but well-told story of a boy whose life is change irreparably? These comic memoirs always make me so happy for my own well-adjusted family.
Girl Got Game vol 6-10:
I think I missed a few volumes in here, but since they had the last bunch all together at the library I got them out anyhow. The first of that set was strangely dark compared to the others, which made me feel in some ways like it was a much deeper story than I'd gleaned from the earlier volumes, but it didn't lose its more cutesy manga charm in the last few volumes as a result. Strangely endearing for a story about a girl winds up enrolled in the best basketball school in the city... as a boy.
House of Mystery: Hated it. Creepy, violent, and outright gross in the first story or so I made it through... I was expecting something more like intellectually creepy speculative fiction from the description, not disgustingly gorey creepy. Not my thing, so I gave up and returned it.
08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail: The Obama story, as it were. Interesting to me as a Canadian, since I didn't follow the lead-up nearly in that level of detail. I'm sure grade schoolers will appreciate this summary later on when it's part of the history books, and I was surprised it didn't feel too soon to be reading it.
Shapeshifter - A young adult novel based in irish myth about a fae woman who becomes a deer, and winds up using her shifting ability to protect herself when a dark mage takes interest in her. I liked the feel of this, where it could have been very dark but instead went sort of foggy as her deer-memories fade the more tragic parts of the tale.
Amazon has switched their referer links in such a way that makes them not work with dreamwidth. How obnoxious. I'm building links from LibraryThing, but it takes a lot more time... Anyone want to recommend a site which will let me search for books and then cut-and-paste links with book covers and links to more detailed book info?
Runaways vol 4-6: Still enjoying the series. Nothing really new to add: story continues. Maybe a little tired of time travel driving plots: surely there's enough potential for these characters without bringing someone in from the past or future every volume? But even if the hook seems cheap, the story's good enough.
Mom's Cancer: I thought I'd read this before, but I didn't remember all of it, or perhaps it's just taken on a different light after the past few years? Still award-winning for a reason, and more poignant with experience about how confusing the symptoms and the medical establishment can be.
Yumekui Kenbun, Nightmare Inspector: Despite lovely art, I feel like it would have been better if I could have used my imagination. I'm sure in my head the dream sequences would have been much more detailed! But despite this complaint, I really enjoyed the manga. I liked the idea of a nightmare inspector, and the lucid dreaming of going back into dreams to figure out how to solve issues appealed to me a lot (perhaps because I often lucid dream my way out of weird nightmares, a skill I picked up years ago as a teenager.)
Federations:
Neat collection of sci-fi stuff with a bit of a star trek feel if that makes sense (they also mention star wars, but for some reason this felt mostly more trek to me). Rather than read straight through (as I often do), I found myself bouncing around in this one a lot as various stories appealed to me on different days. I'm a bit worried I might have missed some as a result, so maybe I'll pick it up again in a year or two when they won't all be fresh in my mind and I can read it cover to cover.
Stiches, a memoir:
I'm not sure there's much I can say about this without spoiling the story. Disturbing but well-told story of a boy whose life is change irreparably? These comic memoirs always make me so happy for my own well-adjusted family.
Girl Got Game vol 6-10:
I think I missed a few volumes in here, but since they had the last bunch all together at the library I got them out anyhow. The first of that set was strangely dark compared to the others, which made me feel in some ways like it was a much deeper story than I'd gleaned from the earlier volumes, but it didn't lose its more cutesy manga charm in the last few volumes as a result. Strangely endearing for a story about a girl winds up enrolled in the best basketball school in the city... as a boy.
House of Mystery: Hated it. Creepy, violent, and outright gross in the first story or so I made it through... I was expecting something more like intellectually creepy speculative fiction from the description, not disgustingly gorey creepy. Not my thing, so I gave up and returned it.
08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail: The Obama story, as it were. Interesting to me as a Canadian, since I didn't follow the lead-up nearly in that level of detail. I'm sure grade schoolers will appreciate this summary later on when it's part of the history books, and I was surprised it didn't feel too soon to be reading it.
Shapeshifter - A young adult novel based in irish myth about a fae woman who becomes a deer, and winds up using her shifting ability to protect herself when a dark mage takes interest in her. I liked the feel of this, where it could have been very dark but instead went sort of foggy as her deer-memories fade the more tragic parts of the tale.