juushika

Title: The Bonshaker (Arcane 1)
Author: Kate Milford
Illustrator: Andrea Offermann (Illustrator)
Published: Clarion Books, 2010
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 533,290
Text Number: 1953
Read Because: reading more of the author/world, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A traveling medicine show comes to town, and our protagonist is must unravel its secrets to protect her home and family. This took me two months, and I would have DNF'd except that I liked Greenglass House (my review) and hold out hope for reading other books in this world. But this didn't do it for me. It's a lot of story, and the scale of town saga and deal with the devil sits uneasy against fairly standard MG characterization/arcs; the fabulist historical fiction with automata/carnival aesthetic touches is very visual, setpiecey and aphantasia-unfriendly. This is a debut, so I expect it to be rough, but I think Arcane as a setting just isn't for me.

Title: September House
Author: Carissa Orlando
Published: Berkley, 2023
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 530,380
Text Number: 1943
Read Because: reviewed by rachelmanija, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist's house is haunted, and every September ramps up to a total horror show; and she stays, and copes, because it's her home. What a premise, right? It's a fun exploration of, confrontation of, many classic horror tropes and questions, with a lively dark humor that reminds me of T. Kingfisher, toned back. But the question "why stay in a bad home" naturally becomes an extremely literal metaphor for abuse, and then graduates to painfully belabored real-or-delusional section, complete with police and the threat of involuntary commitment. Here are the spoilers I wish I'd had: the protagonist isn't committed; the haunting is "real"; the climax is speculative.

I'm a sucker for the realistic consequences of a speculative concept, and the practical approach to a haunting scratches that itch. But the fun dies as the plot progresses and later sections are frustrating and, for me, triggering. Does the text pay back the pain? Not really; the tone's too mishmash, and for all the trope-awareness in the horror premise, all the later reveals are tropey and flat, down to the silly climax.

Title: Entangled with You: The Garden of 100 Grasses
Author: Aki Aoi
Published: Seven Seas, 2022
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 185
Total Page Count: 529,725
Text Number: 1941
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: 2.5 stars, bumped up for my favorite. One novella-equivalent with a Beauty & the Beast vibe and a few short story-equivalents, all gentle BL. Very gentle: tender, sexless dynamics, that, without either heat or friction, are a little bland. The exception is "Corrosion," which is weird and embodied and much more memorable. The art is beautiful, especially (and somewhat ironically) the loving, detailed backgrounds against which vaguely undifferentiated pretty boys wander. All told, I'm not wild about this.

Title: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr
Author: Ram V.
Illustrator: Filipe Andrade
Published: BOOM! Studios, 2022
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 529,000
Text Number: 1938
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: The god of death is fired and sent to live on earth when the baby who will invent immortality is born. The art here has a stretchy, caricatured flow and vibrant colorwork, celebrating the setting (Mumbai) & related cultural imagery. But the plot bores me. It's a meditation on the fear of & inevitability of death and doesn't offer anything new to that well-tread ground: chose to value life in the face of death; okay. When short comics are released in individual issues, I think they suffer; the beats (introducing/dismissing supporting characters; tackling the resolution) are too regular & often rushed. The big takeaway, and one day I'll internalize this, is that American comics tend not to work for me.

Title: Cloud Hotel
Author: Julian Hanshaw
Published: Top Shelf Productions, 2018
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 528,340
Text Number: 1934
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: When he disappears in the woods, a boy ends up at a strange hotel that he can reenter at will—as long as he refuses to answer the lobby's ringing phone. Weird premise, right? And the tone sometimes sells it: the protagonist escaping into the surreal, refusing to step fully into either realm, has a particular melancholy-but-intriguing vibe.

Unfortunately, that's the best of it. The mundane plot he endeavors to escape is conventional, the speculative half is set-piecey without real depth, and the art is bad, with incoherent movement between panels and awful stylization: children look like middle-aged men, adults look like bobbleheads, and blocky shadows around the eye render every character interchangeable. I love a weird graphic novel, but this manages to be weird in a tedious way.

Title: Monster Blood (Goosebumps Book 3)
Author: R.L. Stine
Narrator: Kirby Heyborne
Published: Scholastic Audio, 2015 (1992)
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 527,830
Text Number: 1932
Read Because: browsing available now horror on audio, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Stranded with his strange great aunt for a few days, our protagonist buys a slime toy ... with dire results. I didn't like this as much as The Werewolf of Fever Swamp. Multiple factors, I think: the initial delight of nostalgia has worn off; this is less atmospheric, although the monster blood's varying qualities are evocative and gross; there's a lot of animal imperilment with a side of soft ableism, which saps my fun. Consensus seems to be that this is one of the weaker Goosebumps books; seems likely, but I think I've exhausted my interest in rereading.

Title: Crema
Author: Johnnie Christmas
Illustrator: Dante Luiz
Published: Dark Horse Books, 2020
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 526,935
Text Number: 1929
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., paperback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: When caffeinated, our protagonist can see ghosts; then she meets the owner of the coffee shop where she works. The all coffee all the time aesthetic is gimmicky, but I like the complementary warm wash over the art. This takes inspiration from telenovelas to justify its big, tropey plot beats; an admirable effort. Nonetheless: unrefined, predictable, with an undifferentiated whirlwind romance and hasty, oversized ghost story. Give this a miss.

Title: Infidel
Author: Pornsak Pichetshote
Translator: Aaron Campbell, José Villarrubia
Published: Image Comics, 2018
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 526,425
Text Number: 1925
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., paperback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Racism as horror: after what appears to be an extremist attack in her building, a young Muslim woman is haunted by the angers that reside there. The paratext attests that horror & politics in comics are rare and rarely successful, so I guess I'm glad this is making strides with its WoC leads. Otherwise, I'm not impressed: my takeaway from most American comics is that I don't like comics, and this is no exception; I should have DNF'd, but instead struggled through the art and typesetting, and found no scares here, which left just talky politics not strong enough to support the narrative.

Title: Natural Beauty
Author: Ling Ling Huang
Published: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 524,010
Text Number: 1905
Read Because: my TBR notes say "queer UIR/horror, jank but cannibalism" but don't note a heard-of-this-from source and I think it was Goodread's also-liked feature, but wow I wish those notes were as accurate in tone as they are in a list of vague impressions from other reviews, because: yes! all those things are true! but almost not at all in a sexy way; anyway, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I didn't love this when it felt like a hyperbolic satire of the beauty industry, but that was mostly a personal disconnect between tone and reader; I liked this less when it developed a speculative plot, which exchanges the oversized strangeness for overexplained answers. It's still fine. The focus on race elevates it, providing what character and depth of commentary there is. But this is a debut and feels like it: interesting style, but clumsy execution.

Trying to get back in the habit of posting individual reviews so that my tags can actually mean something!


Title: Don't Let the Forest In
Author: C.G. Drews
Narrator: Michael Crouch
Published: Recorded Books, 2024
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 521,435
Text Number: 1897
Read Because: more horror available now on audio, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Best friends at boarding school are hounded by monsters born of their art. This unforgivably overwritten, with one extra adjective in every sentence and dialog that apes that narrative voice, everything tortured metaphors about forest thorns and unrequited love and the monstrous self. I desperately want it to be scaled back: that language; the talky identity issues, which overflow with convenient GSA meetings and coming-outs where our protagonist explains he's this type of ace but all ace people are different and valid!!, the twist and ( spoiler ) resolution.

Because there's a kernel of something here which I adore. It's at the heart of that tortured artist forest prince nonsense and it's in the way that asexual desire scales back the importance of sex to focus instead on other forms of ardent expression: violence, entwinement, codependent need. It doesn't have to be less cringe to be good reading—the cringe, the raw idealization and projection, is a strength—but it has to be better written. I find this a lot when I dip my toe into YA: the clumsy balance of captivating dynamic to poor writing breaks my heart. This makes me want to reread The Wicker King, which is incredibly similar in premise & dynamic but which I remember fondly.