Title: Squad
Author: Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Illustrator: Lisa Sterle
Published: Greenwillow Books, 2021
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 215
Total Page Count: 512,635
Text Number: 1852
Read Because: reviewed by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starshipfox, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: On one hand, exactly what I would expect from "Mean Girls but sapphic werewolves"; on the other: it's Mean Girls, but sapphic werewolves, and I'm here for that. In striking a tonal balance, horror-but-fun, and cleaving to a single-volume length, this of course raises issues it never resolves, and those are so much less palatable and more interesting than the werewolves = hunger = anger = teen girl experience metaphor we get, which is resonant but broad; I wish fewer pages were stolen by the sweet but simple resolution. But taken within its limitations, this is delightful. Solid art, even if I don't love the wolves, fun reading experience, well constrained.
Title: Skin Deep
Author: Flo Woolley
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2024
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 512,665
Text Number: 1853
Read Because: browsing Hoopla for horror + standalone, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Reminiscent of Carroll in pacing and tone, with a moody blue and green color palette and a sinuous style, exploring the want to be with/want to be like of queer desire and the performance of beauty. Lovely! Also turned me on to Silver Sprocket, which publishes a number of short graphic novels with similar queer + (body) horror vibes.
Title: Prokaryote Season
Author: Leo Fox
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 165
Total Page Count: 513,760
Text Number: 1858
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library c/o Hoopla
Review: Obsessed and brimming with resentment, Sydney wishes for their best friend to need them - a wish that comes true in the worst way when that friend develops the fatal forest sickness. This kind of slightly whimsical, painfully earnest millennial angst ("I'm terrible queer representation") is cringe pressed and bound, and normally makes me recoil; and this did make me recoil, and yet... Too neat a resolution, as required in every narrative about learning self-love, but the specificity of its relatable anxieties, the dark whimsy with touches of abjection, and particularly the ugly honesty of insecurity in the shape of desire, possess craft and movement that works with these themes usually lack. I'm not fond of the art style and the font used for Trip's dialog is actively hostile, but the dense panels have that same sort of movement. This is a productive, energetic, naked wallowing; I don't know if I really like it so much as I'm impressed I didn't actively hate it, but with this kind of confrontational, too-real content ... that's kind of the same thing?
Author: Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Illustrator: Lisa Sterle
Published: Greenwillow Books, 2021
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 215
Total Page Count: 512,635
Text Number: 1852
Read Because: reviewed by
starshipfox, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: On one hand, exactly what I would expect from "Mean Girls but sapphic werewolves"; on the other: it's Mean Girls, but sapphic werewolves, and I'm here for that. In striking a tonal balance, horror-but-fun, and cleaving to a single-volume length, this of course raises issues it never resolves, and those are so much less palatable and more interesting than the werewolves = hunger = anger = teen girl experience metaphor we get, which is resonant but broad; I wish fewer pages were stolen by the sweet but simple resolution. But taken within its limitations, this is delightful. Solid art, even if I don't love the wolves, fun reading experience, well constrained.
Title: Skin Deep
Author: Flo Woolley
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2024
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 512,665
Text Number: 1853
Read Because: browsing Hoopla for horror + standalone, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Reminiscent of Carroll in pacing and tone, with a moody blue and green color palette and a sinuous style, exploring the want to be with/want to be like of queer desire and the performance of beauty. Lovely! Also turned me on to Silver Sprocket, which publishes a number of short graphic novels with similar queer + (body) horror vibes.
Title: Prokaryote Season
Author: Leo Fox
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 165
Total Page Count: 513,760
Text Number: 1858
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library c/o Hoopla
Review: Obsessed and brimming with resentment, Sydney wishes for their best friend to need them - a wish that comes true in the worst way when that friend develops the fatal forest sickness. This kind of slightly whimsical, painfully earnest millennial angst ("I'm terrible queer representation") is cringe pressed and bound, and normally makes me recoil; and this did make me recoil, and yet... Too neat a resolution, as required in every narrative about learning self-love, but the specificity of its relatable anxieties, the dark whimsy with touches of abjection, and particularly the ugly honesty of insecurity in the shape of desire, possess craft and movement that works with these themes usually lack. I'm not fond of the art style and the font used for Trip's dialog is actively hostile, but the dense panels have that same sort of movement. This is a productive, energetic, naked wallowing; I don't know if I really like it so much as I'm impressed I didn't actively hate it, but with this kind of confrontational, too-real content ... that's kind of the same thing?
