Review: Fort Starlight

Fort Starlight by Claudia Zuluaga

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



What a beautifully crafted novel. Full of swampy imagery, you can almost taste the mud and feel the sticky heat on the nape of your neck.

I really connected to this book: themes of families lost and gained, and chasing dreams that you don't feel you truly deserve struck a chord that really resonated with me.

The story is dark but hopeful, extraordinary but believable.

Be prepared to set aside a good chunk of reading time when you start this book, as you will unlikely be able to set it down.



View all my reviews

Review: Captain Marvel (Marvel NOW!) #1

Captain Marvel (Marvel NOW!) #1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Yet another tumblr recommendation! Also glad I picked this one up, and I'm looking forward to reading more about Captain Marvel's adventures in space.



View all my reviews

Review: She-Hulk #1

She-Hulk #1 by Charles Soule

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I quite enjoyed this comic, and I look forward to reading more about Jennifer's legal AND heroic exploits. Another tumblr recommendation, I'm glad I picked this up.



View all my reviews

Review: Afterlife With Archie #1

Afterlife With Archie #1 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Having grown up with Archie, and loving zombies, this was a great return to Riverdale. Ridiculous in its own right, it's highly readable.



View all my reviews

Review: Lumberjanes #01

Lumberjanes #01 by Noelle Stevenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I picked up Lumberjanes because of a tumblr recommendation. I'm so glad I did! A great romp with best friends at the heart of it. This comic gives "girl power" a whole new meaning.



View all my reviews

Review: Shoot Me

Shoot Me by Lesley Crewe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



When I began reading Shoot Me, I didn't actually expect to finish it. Crewe's brash and conversational style took a few chapters for me to get into, but perhaps I've been spoiled by de Lint. However, I'm glad I stuck it out, because I did end up enjoying the book.

The characters are all a little bourgeois, which is a little more than annoying, but Elsie is likeable, if spoiled by privilege - not her fault, truly. Her sisters are little more than leeches, but her daughters are likeable and her estranged husband redeemable. And Aunt Hildy is a gem.

The story takes some time to get going, but this is not - despite what the back cover blurb implies - a murder mystery; this is a people and relationships story. And really, aside from the deranged murder of a senior citizen, it really does work out as a happy (albeit terribly contrived) ending.

There are many things that could have been done differently with this book, but for what it's worth, this was a fun read and worth the time spent reading it.

However, I now keep thinking I'd heard of a new restaurant opening near the waterfront, before remembering that was in a book, and not real life.



View all my reviews

Review: HELP! A Bear is Eating Me!

HELP! A Bear is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



If you've ever read the Knitter's Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad, this book is a lot like that: hyperbolic stream-of-consciousness-ranting, for the most part. However, unlike the Knitter's Circle Rapist Annihilation Squad, this book is a lot more concerning in that it strikes a lot closer to home.

Marv, our narrator and primary character, is a terrible human being and doesn't even realize it. He is the epitome of deranged male aggression and misogyny. He honestly believes that his actions are reasonable. He's a sociopath.

While intentionally hyperbolic, the thing I found most uncomfortable about this book, is that it doesn't seem too far off from what men, and some women, could actually be thinking. Everything Marv says explicitly is being said implicitly - and sometimes explicitly as well - by our media and society at large. The rub being we're in Marv's head in this book. The things he says out loud to his wife and colleagues could be said by anyone, and it concerns me that the thoughts he's having in this book are more common than we want to admit among men.

As a feminist, I think this book does a service by highlighting the ludicrous male aggression and alpha requirements we have in place for success in our society that breed unnecessarily sociopathic behaviours in men. The satire is on point - it's hyperbolic enough to make its point, but close enough to truth to make you a little uncomfortable.



View all my reviews

Review: Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I quite enjoyed Divergent. The story was interesting and I never found it to drag or be bogged down in unnecessary description or exposition. Roth tells you what you need to know to move the story forward and build her characters.

It's always heartening to see a popular franchise with a girl lead, and I was impressed to see consent and agency in full force in Tris. I think she's an excellent blend of strength and vulnerability - something that the "strong female character" trope often fails.

I would happily recommend this to a preteen or teen girl, which is more than I can say for certain other popular YA franchises-turned-movies.



View all my reviews

Review: Muse and Reverie

Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Every time I find a collection of Newford stories that I haven't yet read, it's like a bit like my birthday. Charles de Lint is one of my writing idols, and I love his take on urban fantasy.

Every story in this collection is interesting and different from the next. New characters and old staples of Newford work their way through the stories, and everything is entrancing as always.

It's hard to talk about short stories without giving away the entire story, so instead of reviewing each individual short, I'll just say that the collection is wonderful. If you prefer the recurring characters, you might be disappointed in this collection, as there were many stories with characters I hadn't seen in Newford before. If you just love Newford and seeing its world expand, then you'll likely love this collection.



View all my reviews

Review: The Knitting Circle

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It took me until 5AM, but I read this entire book in one sitting.

The Knitting Circle was sad but engaging. While some feel that the fact that every one of the women has some sort of tragic past is unrealistic, I think it speaks to the unknown stories of the women in our lives. We all have our secrets and our regrets.

I cried my way through the book, which I believe does an excellent job of addressing grief and loss and the way people express the feelings that come with that. Anger, helplessness, hopelessness.

At times, it almost reads like multiple short stories, as each woman talks about what happened to her. This doesn't completely work - it feels a tad cheesy at times - but it doesn't detract too much.

While not going to win any major literary awards, or going to go down as a classic, The Knitting Circle is still a good story that deserves reading.





View all my reviews

Review: Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Hyperbole and a Half was one of the better blogs I had stumbled across in my journeys across the Internet - clever, funny, and entirely relatable for (I think) a lot of the Internet generation - and Allie's book does a fantastic job of carrying over her blogging style from an electronic to print medium.

Full colour, with each section separated by different coloured pages, and with the same goofy drawings that punctuate her blog posts, "Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened" is one of the best Blog-to-Book ventures I've seen yet.

The book contains a few of the favourites from the blog, such as "The Simple Dog", "The God of Cake", and "Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving", as well as parts one and two of her piece on depression, the driving factor between the sudden lack of new posts on her blog. The book would have been amiss without these included; it's lovely to have them in a print format so you can read them without being online.

However, rather than just transcribing the entire blog to a book, the book also contains new stories not featured on Hyperbole and a Half. They are true to her style and definitely make the book worth having in your hands.

If you're a fan of Allie Brosh and Hyperbole and a Half, this book is for you. If you're a fan of cleverly told personal stories, silly drawings, and sometimes being struck with how sad and weird and hard life can be, than this book is for you. If you have no idea who Allie Brosh is, I suggest you visit the Hyperbole and a Half blog (Google will take you there) to get a taste of what Allie has to offer.



View all my reviews