howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

The Scott Pilgrim books are cute, but this is one of those almost nonexistent situations where I prefer the film adaptation. (Don't throw bricks at me!)

This was so gorgeous and sweet! I'll be honest, I'm not big on kid or teen detective plotlines, so the story was a little out of my usual tastes, but the art was so pretty and the characters were so lovable, I still enjoyed it a lot and would definitely continue the series. I especially dug how fantastically diverse the character cast was, and that little beginning of a romance at the end was adorable! ♥

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things in the world was Sailor Moon. I was too young to enjoy the manga at the time (this was in the 90s, when I was a teensy thing!), but I was obsessed with the anime and adored the characters and plot. A bunch of young girls running around, transforming into superheroes and saving the day?! Heck yeah! (Let's not even get into how much of my affinity for it probably relied on my unbeknownst-to-me crush on Sailor Mars...)

I went on to check out the manga in my preteen/early teen years, but this is my first time revisiting the series in so long, and it was such a fun blast from the past. This Eternal Edition is gorgeous and beautifully updated, and the story is still silly and action-packed and enjoyable. It wasn't as amazing as little-kid Destiny found it to be, of course, but I had so much fun rereading this and will definitely be picking up #2 of the Eternal Edition set ASAP!

First of all, if you're a big fan of professional dancing, let me go ahead and say I strongly believe you'll enjoy this more than I did. It's clear that the creator knows what they're talking about, as there's a lot of detail spent on both the technical details of dance as well as the world of professional dancing competitively, and the impact that world has on its residents. I was impressed, but it was overly detailed sometimes to the point where it fully removed me from the story, and that wasn't enjoyable for me.

As far as the story goes, however... I honestly don't even know half of what was going on because this was so difficult to follow. It jumps from scene to scene with weird transitions, the characters are constantly randomly changing the topic too abruptly to make any sense, and I swear it took the first half of the book just for me to keep track of who's who because the two leading men's names are almost the same (Suguki Shinya and Suzuki Shinya). What a strange (and inefficient) writing choice...

Even if I had been able to fully get into the story, the characters don't help. Suzuki Shinya is horribly unlikeable and an absolute brat, while Suguki Shinya is bland as hell (and has a few really problematic remarks near the end about Latinx people). This entire manga was a bit of a disaster for me, sadly. I definitely won't be continuing the series and I can't see myself reaching for anything else by this author, either.

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

The audacity of a child's
demands for love
are only matched
by the ridiculous depths
of the love their parents
have for them.

Dear Mother wasn't exactly what I was expecting, in good ways and bad. Having followed the author on Facebook for the last couple of years, I'm used to her hilarious, crude, weird status updates, so I honestly expected this to be a funny collection of anecdotes about her kids and her reactions to their zaniness. Instead, I got a collection that was 10% humor, 90% utter seriousness.

to make a two-year-old,
combine one puppy
one incontinent octopus
and a single juice box-loving gangster
mix until it starts slapping

The humorous parts, short as they were, were pretty good, though not on par with her everyday updates — to be fair, I guess it's not easy to write side-splitting poetry! That said, there were a few gems that made me smile (or laugh out loud, like the quote above).

dear mother,

no
they would not
be better off
without
you

While I was mostly disappointed to see how serious it was, there were a few poems (like this one) that really hit me in the gut and made me sit still and soak it in for a minute, and I appreciated those moments tremendously. I always heard people say parenthood was the hardest job you could have, and I thought it was an exaggeration until I started living it. The guilt and feelings of self-inadequacy I live with every single day? Those are hard to breathe through. Bunmi gets it, though, and she offers some incredible reassurances that ended up being exactly what I needed to hear today.

All in all, it's not my favorite book I've read on life as a parent, and it's nothing ground-breaking, but it's got a lot of enjoyable poems and I think most mothers, or parents in general, will find it easy to relate to.

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Vol. 1 ★★★★★
Vol. 2 ★★★★☆

I kind of adored this. The artwork is beautiful, the characters are lovable and flawed and sweet, and the romance is slow but simple and precious. There's definitely a lot that doesn't get explained in Niko's back story here, but I'm hoping that's going to be explored further in the next volume. Bits of the story are surprisingly bittersweet (like the secrecy behind Niko's scar and his home life, or Zoe's deep love for Fynn despite their breakup), and it definitely adds to the depth of the book overall. I can't wait for Volume 2. ♥

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

This is absolutely going to be a must-read for anyone who loves Minecraft, but especially middle grade and early YA readers! As someone who has loved Minecraft for a long time but hasn't played it very recently, reading this totally made me want to dive into a new game. It's such a fun story, and it adds in some great additional elements, like how hard moving to a new place is, the way distance can affect friendships (and what we can do to help our friends not feel alone or neglected), and how valuable it can be to add new friends to the mix, too. These characters are really sweet and I enjoyed how diverse the cast is, with multiple POC characters, a minor f/f relationship blossoming, and a character who goes by they/them pronouns. I can't wait to add this to our collection!

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

DNF @ pg 87

This is probably the most disappointing, upsetting DNF review I've written in all of 2018 (with the year almost over, at that), but I can't continue this.

When I requested this ARC, it was pitched to me as YA authors writing fictional stories in response to teens' letters about heartbreak—not nonfiction self-help columns, which is what I got. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, if that's what you're looking for, but I can't stand self-help columns, so that was very jarring for me. That said, I enjoy a lot of the authors involves, so I went into it with an open mind and open heart.

If my only issue with these pieces was that it wasn't what it had been marketed to me as, I would not be giving this collection a rating, but it is a mess. As much as I love Heather Demetrios, I am literally pained over the fact that her name is attached to this, because some of the authors replying to these letters are downright irresponsible.

Of the pieces I read, I only enjoyed Becky Albertalli's (ironic, since I don't enjoy her fiction much), and the rest were "meh" at best and problematic as hell at worst.

→ Nina LaCour's was shockingly tone-deaf; after receiving a letter where the writer complained of feeling unwanted and suffering from FOMO, Nina went on a tangent about what a popular, beautiful, cool teenager she had been, which felt like page upon page of blatant humble-bragging with little to no advice.

→ Adi Alsaid's was okay but gave advice that felt super sketchy to be giving teens (such as recommending a teen find strangers online in their city to meet up with—I could understand suggesting this to grown adults, but the protective mother in me cringes at the thought of a 15-year-old reading this and running off to Craigslist to find some creepy pervert)

→ Libby Bray's had a lot of good advice and was humorous, but I genuinely hope the final edits clean up some of the immensely gendered language. I'm 100% sure it's just second nature and Libby meant no harm, but if the email writer is anonymous, it seems super unfair to me to assume that you're talking to a cishet girl just based on their mention of seeking a boyfriend? :(

→ Kim Liggett's advice was the final straw for me. This letter was from someone seeking advice on how to heal from sexual assault and mentioning how they haven't moved past the rawness of it, yet Kim goes on to describe their own rape as a teen in detail that... I don't know how to explain this, because it wasn't over the top explicit, but the way it was described was immensely triggering for me as a survivor. I'm not saying you can't give advice on healing from assault while mentioning your own, because solidarity and empathy can go a long way, but I think trigger warnings and tact would have gone even further.

So, that's it—this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year due to wrong marketing, and I'm a little broken up over how disappointed I am in this collection. I really wanted to keep going and see if it got better, but the lack of care going into some of these stories tells me that, even if I were to continue reading it, I don't foresee my rating improving from its current state.

Thank you so much to Henry Holt & Co for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those classics I'd been meaning to read forever, but never seemed to get around to. When I saw it was available as one of the Manga Classics re-imaginings, I was pretty excited, as these renditions always make the classics a little easier for me to get through; they tell the same story in a condensed version, and the art is always so lovely and fun to read through.

Thankfully, this was no exception, and was actually one of my favorites yet as far as the artwork went! The Count himself is drawn in that classic style of the handsome hero you'd expect to see in a shoujo manga, which was really fun, even if it does kind of disregard his age. I kept forgetting that he'd be in his 40s or 50s by the time the bulk of the story takes place... but either way, it was a really enjoyable way to read the story and I can see how The Count of Monte Cristo would've taken people by storm at the time with its morally grey protagonist and vengeance-filled plot.

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