Falls under the technically, you told a story category, for me. It’s very oddly written in a way, since Keene is a third person perspective but it’s ostensibly his book? Clearly, it is written by the other person with details supplied by Keene, which makes it odd he’s the predominate name, but I guess it’s more upfront than ghostwriting. It’s just a bit odd at the start as you acclimate.

It’s also fairly self aggrandizing and probably would have been better served just inserting testimonials for those sections. Who cares that he got laid a lot? Most people are probably like me and picking it up because of the tv show, Black Bird, which markets itself as being insider knowledge on Larry Hall, a convicted serial killer. That aspect was fairly interesting, though extremely superficial, with no insights; mostly, it’s just how he went about gaining the convicts trust and subsequent fallout, and then has small exposition at the end.

The audiobook is narrated well and I listened to it at over 2x speed with it sounding natural, making it far quicker than watching the show. Pleasantly surprised to find some of the more dramatized stuff from the show is pulled from this, when it had the look of artificial pacing injected into the script. Sometimes truth is as strange as fiction, I guess.

Not without merit but retreads a lot of ground mentioned in the peripheral whisperings of the first book, only far more granular. I did like the change in tone, to hope, and learn more of the story, both on the personal and macro levels. I can’t say the prose stylizing change-up was welcome, though. It went from incredible, well rendered interiority—to a pared back, plot-driven, multi-perspective, contemporary (boring), and accessible style.

Overall, I don’t think it’s particularly bad, and I can see the drive to pursue beyond the end of the first, but it’s quite safe and the plot isn’t complex or nuanced. It falls into the forgettable, technically you told a story category of books, for me.

Decent production with Ethan Hawke playing the lead of an undercover cop that torpedoes his life, in a dual timeline, fairly short narrative with good production values and descent acting. It’s a fun piece of fiction but doesn’t exceed any expectations.

Rating volumes is always difficult because it’s kind of like short story compilations, except I tend to be more forgiving, probably because of the art. This was back to omnibus two levels of good; not great, but kept my interest and was enjoyable, overall.

The artwork doesn’t have colour but is gorgeous, and you’d think I wouldn’t care much was happening with that kind of quality… but the dialogue especially is really bland and the world building basically doesn’t exist. So, it pretty much ends up being banter and then they need to fight something and then they appreciate each other, which becomes the formula every chapter. It’s fine, not great, and pretty forgettable, unfortunately.

Even better written than the first book. It’s a nice change up, going from frenetic pacing to something that breathes a bit more and introduces more characters. Avasarala, Bobby, and Prax have their own chapters that alternate with Holdens this go around.

The character work, somewhat so-so in the first book, is stellar. Every character is better in the book, and that’s saying something, considering my favourite characters in the show are Avasarala and Bobby. Avasarala is even more bad ass and swears more, and Bobby has a much better story arc that differs pretty heavily from the show.

As with the first book, the major plot beats you’d see in the show are mostly present but everything else is different, and better, in the book. Definitely worth reading even if you’ve watched the show, imo!

This was good. Disturbing and weird. But admittedly good. I won’t be reading on, but the art is almost enough to make me do so. Why the character and his family is little bird people, I’m not quite sure on. But there is enough meat on the bone concerning plot and character work to recognize this as a cut above the rest I’ve been reading. I just am not particularly interested in reading about a sad kid in an abusive household with girl problems, generally.

This creeps up to a 4. I still have no idea about the tower or the world outside of it, other than people take these tests to get to the top and some people live, apparently?, in the tower. But our boy is from outside the tower… another world? Who knows. All we do know is he’s looking for a girl who went into the tower for whatever reason. He got a cool sword from someone. There’s daughters of jahad, possibly the former emperor of the tower… and one of them lent him said sword.

Everything else has just been tests. Buuut it’s now tapped into its inner Naruto. The fights are way cooler in these “tests”. Each person does feel like Naruto. They’ve got like a speciality and a Thing they do, and they just be fighting it out. What do you even get at the top of the tower? Not too sure. But I like the fights enough to round up to a 4. The artwork reminds me of Fiona Staples’ Saga. When the artist takes their time, it’s really fantastic. When it’s rushed, it certainly looked sketchy. More on than off, though, thankfully.

This was alright. The whole anthropomorphizing angle has never been my bag, and I don’t think it really matters here either. Sometimes it works against it, externalizing peoples’ traits into human concepts of their respective animal. It’s very Sherlock-y as well. A detective noir mystery and an underground network of kids. The addition of a friend who is a reporter, who happens to go digging down the wrong hole, is different, but also familiar. It’s predictable but fine, if you’re into this sort of thing. Great art too.