Not a ton to say about this one that I haven't already said about the series in my reviews of previous volumes. Yuu and Touko go on a date to the aquarium in this one, and it's adorable.

Oh, poor Sayaka! The panels just before she confesses to Touko made me cry.

The series conclusion! Emotionally satisfying, tender, and sexy in a way that felt genuine and well-timed. I like how the author maintains the theme of the fear of change and what its inevitability might do to love. By the end I felt that all of the characters had made their peace and accepted the changes of their lives with grace, even poor Sayaka... (I can’t help but ship her with Touko a bit, and to relate to her.)

I came across this series while shelving manga at the library where I work. The art was cute, and I got a sense that it might be kinda gay, so when the Internet confirmed that yes, it is pretty gay, I decided to read it. (It's astonishingly easy to convince me to read a book if a cute lesbian is involved. Just ask my girlfriend how many of her recommendations I've taken. [She'd probably say not enough, and I'm too slow to do so, so maybe don't ask her, actually...])

It's best to have clear expectations going in. The initial set-up is pretty much the entire plot, at least for this volume: An office-worker (Kobayashi) gets drunk, encounters a dragon in distress (Tohru), and offers to let the dragon crash at her place. Much to Kobayashi's surprise, Tohru takes her up on the offer, appearing at her door in full maid regalia, eager to cater to all of Kobayashi's needs.

What follows is a series of episodes in which Tohru and Kobayashi navigate their new living situation. You don't get that much backstory or explanation about Tohru's past, but you do get a lot of her being cute and doing her best to make sense of the human world and make Kobayashi happy. I found Tohru rather endearing and could relate somewhat to her clumsy attempts to do what she thinks she is supposed to. Obviously, I'm not a dragon, but I am autistic, and I think I sometimes find neurotypicals as perplexing as Tohru finds humans.

In terms of tone, expect some bawdy comedy and double entendre with a dash of fanservice. I know that's not to everyone's taste, so it bears noting. From what I've heard, this differs somewhat from the anime, but I've not watched it yet and can't confirm.

I hope that the characters develop a bit more as the series continues, but even if they don't, I would still consider Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid to be an enjoyable read of the brain candy variety.

Much the same as what you get in the first volume. Tohru is still cute. Kobayashi is still a bit problematic when she drinks. Everything is still silly and fanservice-y and fun.

There are, however, some hints that Tohru and Kobayashi's relationship is taking on more depth, both through their shared responsibility for Kanna (a dynamic that's basically a lesbian couple and an adopted child) and Kobayashi's willingness to stand up for Tohru when her past literally comes knocking at their door. I liked these moments of tenderness between them, and I would like to see more of Kobayashi reciprocating Tohru's affection.

One of the more delightful developments in this volume is Fafnir's assimilation into human life by becoming an otaku, going to far as creating his own doujinshi and attending Comiket. (As though it's not enough that his human form clearly rips off Sebastian from Black Butler.)

Much like the sojourns they describe, each installment in the Wayward Children series is magical and painfully short.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy Across the Green Grass Fields as much as I did. I was never really a horse girl per se, growing up adjacent to them, with cousins who were/are involved in the walking horse community, but never being that involved personally. I spent just enough time in the stables to get a sense of horses as beautiful but capricious creatures who seemed to immediately categorize me as small, annoying, and soft enough to bite if they wanted to. So an equine fantasy world would not be the first to which I'd think to escape.

But Seanan McGuire's capable pen produced a Hooflands full of centaurs, kelpies, and other hoofed people that I loved spending time in. She carefully renders her characters with personhood that perfectly serves a book concerned with what makes someone a person, and how personhood can be granted or taken away depending upon various factors: someone's standing in society, who considers them either useless or exploitable, and how they are able (or unable) to communicate with others.

As much as I love novellas, I just wish that the characters and ideas in this book had more space to develop. The twist at the end packs a huge punch that the efficient writing serves well, but I wanted to see how it impacts Hoofland society. And I had other questions, about how the dynamics in Regan's found family develop, and about what happened to Gristle the kelpie and Zephyr the peryton.

I think that my nervousness about the series potentially going on for too long and the magic not being there anymore were unfounded. They're still great comfort reads for me, and I'll be on the holds list for the next one as soon as my library has a copy on-order.

I'm glad that I listened to the audiobook of Jones's memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives, last year, because it was good to have his voice and some biographical knowledge in my head as I read Prelude to Bruise. The poems here are so closely aligned with what I value in poetry that I couldn't help but love them, each one like a small, sharp jewel of the most vivid hue and satisfying cut: careful and unpretentious language, vivid imagery, and unapologetic queerness and Blackness. I could smell the flowers in these poems, feel water on my feet, hear the impact of flesh on flesh. Highly recommended.