essjay's Reviews (635)

The story was cute, and I wanted to like the art, but the design choices for Claire were so bizarre.

I don't even know how to rate this. It was fine, felt v Twilight with dragons and sex. 

I wish there had been less action and more of the slice of life aspects. The bookshop bits were cozy and delightful, but I didn't care about the rest, really. 

I kept trying to puzzle out the authors' names with their IRL analogues (thanks, Walter Moers), but don't think there were any. 

Also just kind of over cishet dudes writing queer women, in general. 

So relatable. The future of comics. 

In all seriousness, I don't know how to talk about this bc every page was like someone was standing on my chest. 

The art in this was absolutely gorgeous. Just the right amount of darkness for Spooky Season reading. Kind of hate reading this so soon after release bc it means I have to wait even longer for the next volume. Going to be pushing this on everyone I know, though. 

[eta] Read this a second time and noticed a few things at the beginning that I'd missed/not  realized  were significant the first time around. Bumping up to 5 stars.

Wtf did I just read. 

I'mma start off with saying that I genuinely love that indigenous horror is having a moment, and that it's long overdue.

I am not even sure I remember requesting Green Fuse Burning on NetGalley, and since I'm not really reading blurbs, all I was going on was a cover that looked like it might have some sporror elements (which are really only second to zombies and cannibals in my book). 

What I was not expecting was an exploration of trauma and grief through an artist's lens (with, yes, some mild sporror thrown in for flavour). I cried multiple times during the two hours it took to read this, and had to keep putting it down for days at a time bc I was really struggling to process how it made me feel. 

I highlighted several passages that I will never share bc they are too personal and felt like something I might have written myself. 

More like this, please. 

This whole book felt like one long r/HobbyDrama post for a fandom I'm not part of. 

This is something that definitely won't work for everyone (see other reviews for evidence of that), but it hit me exactly right. I thought it was hilarious, and even though I'm significantly older, goddamn was Jane relatable.  Funny that I was reading this at the same time as Charlotte Stroud's piece about cool girls/silly women was making the rounds bc this was exactly the sort of book she was dismissing.

I can see myself loving this at another point in time, but for now I am just not in the mood.