howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

This was absolutely INCREDIBLE. I knew I would love it from the moment I heard of it, but I didn't know I would love it this much. Wayward Sisters is, as the full title explains, an anthology of monstrous women, but it's more than that, too: it's a collection of graphic novel shorts, all written and illustrated by different creators (all of whom are women and trans people!). Each story features a different woman (or trans individual, I think) who's "monstrous" in their own way, whether they're a werewolf, a siren, a zombie, or something a bit more subtle.

There are a lot of separate stories in here, so I won't go through them all, but I did want to mention my favorites. It was a tough list to narrow down, because honestly, it could've easily been most of the anthology, but these were the top-tier picks for me that I just adored so much:

→ Low Tide — M. Blankier & Helen Robinson:
Miss Clara's new nursery charge has a strange secret, but Clara's going to do whatever she must to take care of this odd little girl.

→ Zira and the Little Fire — Katie Shanahan:
Life as an orc has been hard for Zira — she's just so hungry all the time, and people keep running her out of their towns for the way she looks! — but things get a lot more cheery when a little fire spirit befriends her and convinces her that the villagers aren't the only ones being mean to Zira.

→ Tinseltown — Allison O'Toole & Emmanuelle Chateauneuf:
Old Hollywood isn't known for its fair treatment of women (especially women of color), but one upcoming actress is going to make it right in the only way she knows how: by force.

→ Lost & Found — Saffron Aurora:
An adorable, hard-working Franken-girl is so busy with her new job, she's forgotten to take care of herself, until she loses one of her hands!

→ Bad Hair Day — Cassandra Khaw & C. Ann Gordon:
Ladies supporting ladies, metaphors for depression, and what I feel is the beginning of a beautiful queer romance? *swoon* Soo Ying wants to make friends, but the monster living in her hair has convinced her nobody can ever care about her — until a beautiful, bold woman named Siti teaches her something entirely new.

→ Best Boo — Megan Kearney:
A couple of young girls wind up at the cemetery late at night to conjure up a spirit, but there's a really precious twist. Girls supporting girls forever, please.

→ Date Night — Allison Bannister, Ronnie Ritchie, & Meaghan Carter:
Dating isn't easy when you're a gigantic lizard-lady and your date is some boring, basic guy who can't appreciate your rockin' bod or your amazing robot-defeating skills. Luckily for this dino, someone else has their eye on her.

→ Light Pollution — iguanamouth:
I can't even describe this one, because it has no dialogue, no real plot to speak of, and whatever's happening is... vague and a little strange? But it has beautiful art and one of the cutest little alien-type things I've ever seen in my life, and something about it was just so heartwarming.

Thank you so much to TO Comix for providing me with this GORGEOUS finished copy in exchange for an honest review!

There wasn't anything necessarily wrong with Little Pills, it just left me feeling like something was missing. I didn't really enjoy the dramatic narrative towards the end (how it would suddenly change to all caps and overusage of punctuation — I understand the idea behind it, but it didn't make me feel a sense of urgency as much as stronger phrasing would have), and the ending reminded me too much of the ending of Crank by Ellen Hopkins, which made it feel a little ripoff-y. Maybe I'm being unfair and wouldn't have felt that way if I hadn't read Crank, but it's hard not to compare the two a little bit.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

What a fantastic collection of short stories! I adore positive queer rep in books, especially happy queer rep written by queer authors, so I jumped at the chance to read this anthology and I adored every moment of it. There are so many talented creators involved in the making of Shout Out, and so many lovable stories within it. I won't go into detail of every single story, but I would like to name off my favorites:

→ Amaranthine —
In the introductory story, a garden spirit receives an unexpected visitor who decides to stay around a while. The art was so lovely in this, and I thought it was the perfect introduction to the collection.

→ How to Summon a Demon —
In contrast, this one was hilarious and cute; a boy summons a demon to ask for practice kissing, so he can learn whether or not he really is attracted to other boys. I loved this.

→ Ergi —
A sickly Viking wants to die in battle so that he can join his recently deceased lover in Valhalla, despite the priest's insistence that homosexuals cannot enter Valhalla. There's a bit of a twist ending that I didn't see coming, and I adored it.

→ Fifteen Minutes or Less —
This was so fun, and would make a really cute animated short. It follows two best friends/coworkers as they go on a "pizza-noodle" food delivery run, but get caught up fighting off one of the friends' ex-girlfriends through a sci-fi kickboxing match!

→ Shine So Bright —
While most of the stories were just happy and cute, this one actually choked me up and really made me think. It's set in the 1920s (I think) and follows a "couple" who are both secretly queer and only pretending to be together. They visit a private LGBTQ+ nightclub, and there's just something really simultaneously sad and heartwarming about it.

→ Manicita & the Songkeeper —
As far as the art goes by itself, this may have been my favorite of the anthology. It's so gorgeous! It tells of a young island girl who meets the 'Songkeeper', who explains to her that many women have existed in their culture who loved other women. It's just positively stunning and feels so rich and sweet.

While these were my top favorites, there wasn't a single bad piece in the whole collection. If you enjoy queer stories by queer creators, with loads of happy endings and heartwarming, mushy moments (especially some rep that we don't see much in media, like queerplatonic relationships, aro-ace people, loads of trans rep, and more), you absolutely can't afford to miss out on Shout Out!

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was really lovely! The art was fun, the characters were likable, and I thought the world was remarkably well-developed for such a short story. I especially loved how effortlessly diverse the cast was, with the Dares being Latinx, the oldest sibling being a queer girl, and the awesome themes revolving around adoption and recognizing that family is what you make of it. Oh, and Sunny? I need a Sunny in my life. ♥

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was cute enough, but I guess it just didn't really do anything for me. There are so many webcomic creators in the world doing these slice-of-life comics about their relationships right now that you really need to have something unique to set yourself apart, I think. The portrayals of the author and her partner as foods was a cute and unique thing, but everything else just felt so similar to comics I'd seen done ages ago by other artists that I guess it made it hard to get invested.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'll be upfront and say that I somehow missed the "erotica" tag on Netgalley when I first downloaded this graphic novel, so it did take me off-guard a little bit to see how explicit the scenes were! I wasn't going to mention that in this review until I noticed some other reviewers saying they had similar experiences, so I just want to point that out for anyone who may not be comfortable viewing explicit materials. It didn't bother me, it just surprised me a little. 😅

With that out of the way, Super Fun Sexy Times is an absolutely gorgeous, adorable, and inclusive AS HELL anthology about superheroes and their romantic escapades. There is just such a wide variety of rep in here — we've got characters of varying races, sexualities, identities, and body types — and they're all so soft and sweet and lovable. There's a bit of exploration into some kinks, and what I loved most of all is how consent-focused the stories were. In some of the stories, the romantic partners literally sit down, fully clothed and non-sexual, to discuss things ahead of time, and I thought that was such a fantastic representation of what consent talks need to look like for a lot of couples (especially when kinks and exploration are involved!).

All in all, I just thought this was such an important, necessarily, lovely, and well-crafted graphic novel and I'm really appreciative that I had the chance to read it. ♥

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Vol. 1 ★★★★★
Vol. 2 ★★★★☆

The first volume of this series was absolutely adorable perfection, but this one didn't quite live up to the same level for me! I felt like there was a lot of unnecessary drama, and honestly, this volume made it hard to like Niko as much as I liked him to begin with, because, while I do totally get that his family life has gone to hell and he's in a lot of pain, the way he treats Fynn at times is really unfair.

All of that said, I still love Fynn, I valued the emphasis on safe sex and the fact that Niko never gave Fynn a hard time when he wasn't ready, and I think these two lil' beans are super precious so I really wish there was going to be a volume 3. 💔

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Deep down she knew what she had seen was real, but the tale was taking an even stranger turn than what she'd expected. How far could the known reality stretch before the fabric tore and someone was flung out into space, or madness?

The Town That Feared Dusk is one of those short stories that manages to pack such a punch in so few pages, I was beyond impressed by its impact. Calvin Demmer is a pro at flash fiction, and I've loved everything I've read by him so far, so I knew Dusk would be good, but I didn't know it would tell such a complex story so effortlessly.

When Sylvia's colleague takes his own life in the middle of researching a place called the Suicide Bridge, she's convinced that something odd is going on and decides it's a scoop she can't miss out on. Once she arrives, she finds that things are not at all what they seem. With this being such a short story, I can't say more than that about the plot, but I can tell you that it was a tremendously fun read! Not only does it build up a fantastic backstory and setting, but the events are so suspenseful and intriguing. It's no surprise that Calvin Demmer has earned yet another five-star rating from me.

Thank you so much to the author for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

I never read Elfen Lied when it was first made popular, so I thought now would be a great chance to finally pick up the series. Sadly, I was immediately turned off from the story by how ridiculously over-sexualized certain characters are: specifically, a girl who's described as looking like she can't possibly be over 15 years old, and another girl who says she's 12. It was just all a little too cringe-inducing for me, and on top of that, almost all of the characters were tremendously unlikable and the plot was hard to follow.

It seemed like the author kept introducing more random details to the mutants' natures that made no sense and came totally out of left field, just to keep the drama up. I pushed through the rest of the omnibus to see if it ever got any better, but it honestly felt like the entire story consistently went further downhill as it went on.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Reading Quirks is a collection of comics about what it is to be a book lover. I enjoyed this collection so much! I think any book lover will find so many things to relate to in here, plus some of the strips are just incredibly endearing and heartwarming (one of my favorites being the "hug your librarian" page, for obvious reasons). The art is really cute and there's some lovely inclusion (such as a few panels including characters in wheelchairs, hijabi characters, and queer couples!) as an added bonus. I just cherished this entire book so much and would love to get a print copy for my shelves, as I think it would be a great addition to any book lover's library.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!