Books

Book 714: Heartstopper, Vol. 1 (Heartstopper #1) – Alice Oseman

[Check out my updated February 2022 review here.]

I pre-ordered this at the same time I pre-ordered Sticks & Scones. I’d seen it on all the British book bloggers pages and was curious because it looked adorable and the tag line “Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love.” was just too much for my sappy heart to handle. (Obviously.)

What I didn’t realize is there are four volumes currently published and one forthcoming in 2022! And this doesn’t even include the OG appearance of protagonists Charlie and Nick from Oseman’s debut novel Solitaire, which I obviously will be reading. But, OMG it will be worth the read (and the wait)!

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Books

Book 682: Camp Cutlery – Robin Carnilius

If you’re a fan of McTucky Fried High, Carnilius’ hilariously poignant YouTube series about anthropomorphized food surviving high school, you’ll definitely appreciate this one. (If you’re not familiar with McTucky, I included the teaser for Season 1 below.) When they reached out with a review copy of the book, I recognized the name and my response was “definitely!” to reviewing this one.*

Camp Cutlery: A Hunger for Justice picks up not long after the McTucky Fried High series ends and it follows Peanut, a transgender social justice warrior, through their journey at a correctional facility. The biggest challenge by far of reading a work that is a continuation of another work is the pre-set expectations and frankly, no author, can do anything about those. This being said, this story definitely works on most levels, but for me a good portion of the charm was lost from the animated series.

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Book 676: Sense of Wonder – Bill Schelley

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I said I’d take a look at this after the publisher reached out to me about a review copy.* As much as I love the MCU and the various graphic novels I read (especially LGBTQ+ ones), I haven’t read comics since the early 1990s when I read a ton of Star Wars comics at the local Borders, I was going into this blind when it came to comic fandom.

Sense of Wonder is a deep dive into comic fandom from its earliest moments to the colossal behemoth it has become today all through the lens of Schelly’s life and experiences. I had no idea that fanzines were a thing back in the 1960s (oh hey, internet generation) and thanks in part to Schelly’s wonderful writing style and the methodical yet meandering journey he takes you on in this work, I now long for the days of pre-internet community building via snail mail, rides from parents to other parts of town, and collect phone calls.

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Book 674: Am I Ugly? – Siobhan Hill

What a fun quirky read! When the author reached out about reviewing the book* I had some hesitations as it’s self published and I haven’t had great luck with that in the past, but I realized as a graphic artist I could check out her site and get a taste of her style to see if I’d like it. I took a look liked what I saw and said sure, and that was definitely the right decision.

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Books

Book 673: Fence Vol. 3 (Fence #3) – C.S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad, and Joana Lafuente

I wasn’t obsessively looking forward to this since I had issues with my timing of reading the first two volumes, but when I went to grab Go for it, Nakamura! from the library and saw this was available, I grabbed it too.

This picks up right where Fence, Vol. 2 left off and there’s no recap or anything as these were originally being released periodically and read as periodic comics. Like I said in the last review about the timing between Fence, Vol. 1 and Volume 2. I should’ve just waited and read them back-to-back. It would’ve been a more rewarding experience and I doubt I would’ve been quite so disappointed in this one.

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