Tag: Illustrated

Books

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

Geoff W

Cover art for "Hearstopper: Volume 1" with Amazon Affiliate linkTo see an updated review (February 2022) click 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

Geoff W

cover art for "Camp Cutlery" with Amazon Affiliate linkIf 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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ARC, Books

Book 674: Am I Ugly? – Siobhan Hill

Geoff W

book cover of "Am I Ugly" with barnes and noble linkWhat 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

Geoff W

book cover of "Fence Vol 3" by C.S. Pacat with amazon affiliate linkI 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 Volume 2 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 Volume 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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Books

Book 669: Are You Listening? – Tillie Walden

Geoff W

cover art for "are you listening" and amazon affiliate linkWhen I picked this up from the library, I had some preconceived notion that it would be more along the lines of Bloom than what it ended up being. I’m not sure why I thought this. They did often appear on Best (LGBT+) Graphic Novels of 2019 lists together, but that shouldn’t really have made me think they’d be as similar as I thought they would be.

I was drawn to the illustration style on the cover as the limited use of colors reminded me of Bloom and the illustration style reminded me of Alison Bechdel’s style in Fun Home (or maybe it’s just the glasses on Lou?). Walden’s story follows Bea as she’s running away from home, we’re not told why at the beginning and Lou, a distant family friend doesn’t ask any questions. A random cat shows up (Diamond) and then the story gets really weird, like magical realism weird. [SPOILERS after the link, including the recommendation.]

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