This is absolutely adorable, with two sweet people bumbling through life and dancing around their feelings for one another. It's a slice of life and romance pairing I didn't know I'd enjoy so much. 

 

 This was a very interesting story with some decent horror, but I really disliked the execution. It's basically 75% weirdness, and 25% narrative info dumping at the end that reveals everything and an ending that feels hollow. 

The art was okay, but this will never be my favorite style. I like faces and bodies to be more defined, and for color work to be a little more interesting. The art felt dull. 

 A chilling, close story that follows a small Anishinaabe community during what appears to be the end of the world, but that's not the part that matters. What matters is following the community as they do their best to weather the sudden change and survive winter. Outsiders come in to disrupt their way of life, and the story goes on from there. 

The strength of this story really lies in how close the narrative is to the people at the heart of it. What caused the apocalypse? Don't know. Is it really an apocalypse? Is it world wide? Is anything being done to fix it? Don't know, don't care. This is about the strengths and weaknesses of the families we follow, and it's very quiet in that way. Quiet, and cold. 

I eventually found that the strength of the novel was also a weakness, in a way. It felt very much like a project that was more about a theme - resilience, the survival of an indigenous community, how people help and hurt each other - and less a story that had a start and an end and waypoints in between. The ending felt short and it didn't feel like we got a real climax or resolution. 

But despite that, this was a strong novel in terms of sitting you inside a very specific time and place and with a specific community. I very much recommend this if you want a read that is mostly vibes and feelings. 

DNF @ 32%, this is soooo not for me. It's way more literary and flowery prose than I personally care for, and despite what the plot summary tells you, it focuses way more on Leah and Miri's entire relationship and history of their love. It's like what's happening to Leah is in the background of this story so far, and I was bored. And annoyed by the writing. 

 A collection of short stories following a Cherokee family through the generations, Man Made Monsters is a really cool project. The title works in multiple ways, as each story deals with some sort of paranormal or strange entity, juxtaposed with the very real monstrosity that comes from regular ol' humans. 

There are some really great stories and some okay stories, but I loved the framework of this being a story of a family through time, from the 1800s to the near future. I loved flipping back to the family tree and seeing who we were following, and how they were related to the last story.

I very much enjoyed reading this, and I'll definitely have to check out what else Andrea L. Rogers has to offer. 

 DNF @ 50%. Though I wasn't sure right from the start if I even liked the main character, I'm sure now that I don't. A lot of it has to do with her characterization, but specifically, and this a VERY PERSONAL ISSUE TO ME, she starts smoking cigarettes after years of quitting and loves it. The narrative talks about how much she loves smoking and everything she does is accompanied by smoking. 

Also, this book may be billed as some sort of horror, but I found myself kind of meh about all the supposed horrific imagery. I think that probably comes from the fact that I was so disinterested in the main character from the start.