This is just as silly and entertaining as the first volume, but I do wish that some of the chapters were a little longer. Each situation Tatsu the Yazuka-turned-househusband ends up resolves in the same neat way within the same short page count. I'd like to see a longer problem that takes some twists and turns before it's solved.

Have you been looking for a cheesy Western with queer and nonbinary characters riding hippopotami on a gun-slinging adventure on the Mississippi river? If yes, then this is the book for you! I can't say that it was good, exactly, but it was entertaining. I liked hearing they/them pronouns used in a historical fiction novel, but story couldn't seem to fully commit to whether i's characters were anti-heroes or villains and the highly silly premise required a bit more suspension of disbelief that I have to offer at the moment so I probably won't continue the series.

This book blew me away, and I will be thinking about it for a long time. I am so grateful to the friend who lent it to me, because I'm not sure if I would have picked it up on my own and I'd hate to have missed out on it. Chanel Miller is a writer, activist, artist in multiple medias including comics, and an occasional standup comedian. In January 2015 she was raped on the Stanford college campus in her hometown of Palo Alto. She decided to press charges and got dragged into a court case which lasted for years and was highly publicized in California. The name of the rapist, Brock Turner, was released, but she was known as Emily Doe in the press. In June 2016 the Victim's Impact statement which Miller read at the sentencing was published on Buzzfeed and went viral. I remember reading it, sitting at my desk, at work on a different college campus about an hour from Stanford. I remember the pure unflinching honesty of the piece, the kind of diamond hard truth that cuts through bullshit like a sword. And yet, despite Brock Turner being found guilty of three felonies by a unanimous jury, he was sentenced to only three months jail time, and the appeals process dragged out for six further months. Despite the heavy subject this book is a pleasure to read, funny, enraging, moving and meditative by turns. I am in love with Miller's writing. I really hope she publishes more books in the future, as I will pick up anything she writes, fiction or nonfiction. For now I will enjoy the short work she posts on instagram and recommend this book to everyone.

Originally published in Japanese in 1937, I was reading an English translation from the late 1950s. This short novel of disconnection and depression is written in from the point of view of Yozo, a man who seems unable to connect emotionally with other humans. My 2021 brain kept wondering if the character was neurodivergent, but lacked any language to define his experience. It manifested as an extreme fear of people's bewildering and unknowable emotions. Yozo developed the personality of a class clown in childhood as a way to control people's reactions to him. He had ambitions to be a painter but ended up working primarily as a cartoonist later in life between bouts of alcoholism, drug addition, two suicide attempts and numerous affairs. Yozo is very susceptible to peer pressure and when he fell in with a bad friend, he was never really able to turn his around. The book left me thinking about will power, and how important it is to define what you want, and follow your own path even when it runs contrary to the general pattern of society. I'm unlikely to recommend this book to anyone though.

This is a difficult book to read, because it's painful to picture this kind of violence, sexual abuse, and bullying happening to any child. And it's hard to read because I am friends with the author, and I hate that these things happened to him when he was young. But I went into this memoir already knowing the happy ending: that Joel grew up to build a loving family, to become an Associate Professor of Illustration at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and to write and illustrate multiple successful graphic novels and picture books. This book exists for other young people also surviving violence, and as a reminder to adults who work with children that kids who starts fights often lack options, resources, mentorship, safety-- what they need is support, not punishment.

An enjoyable, entertaining, and occasionally quite moving collection of essays on growing up Black, gay, and Christian before coming into your own on the internet. Thomas writes about a powerful high school friendship; about attending and failing out of Columbia; about stalking the queer student group before he was willing to publicly join; about dating, race, writing, and self-discovery. I definitely recommend the audiobook, which is read by the author.

A beautiful young adult comic which starts out light and then snuck up on me with a rising tide of emotions. Tiến is a first generation American son of Vietnamese immigrants, who wants to come out to his parents as gay, but isn't sure how to say it. He bonds with his mother through their shared love of fairy tales- throughout the book they read several stories to each other which wind through their own family narrative. The narratives of Tatterhood, the Little Mermaid and a Vietnamese version of Cinderella are beautiful illustrated and woven powerfully into the main storyline. Highly recommend.

PI Ivy Gamble has a twin sister who was born with magic, left in their teenage years to attend a magic boarding school, and is now a tenured teacher at another prestigious magic academy. Ivy has no magic, and suffered bitterness, jealousy and depression after her sister left and her mother died of cancer. Ivy tries to even avoid thinking about magic, or remember that it exists... until she is hired to solve a murder at the school where her twin teaches. The book's murder mystery is satisfying, something with enough quirks to keep me intrigued but enough clues that I was able to mostly solve it slightly ahead of the narrative. However, Ivy isn't a very likeable main character (she isn't mean to be) and her constant self-sabotaging and borderline alcoholism was a bit frustrating. Still, it is a unique take on the magic-school genre. If you like somewhat pulpy murder mysteries, or mysteries with supernatural twists, you will likely enjoy this.

Yadriel is a member of a magical Latinx community in East LA, blessed by Lady Death with the powers to see and hear spirits of the dead. On their quences, girls of the family gain the power to heal physical wounds and boys gain the power to safely release spirts into the afterlife. Yadriel's quences has been delayed because he threatens the ancient traditions of the family- he's trans, and knows he is meant to work with spirits, not heal. His cousin Maritza helps him perform the brujo coming of age ritual in secret- the same night that a member of their family is murdered. In trying to help solve the mystery around the death, Yadriel accidently summons the spirit of Julian Diaz, a teen boy from his high school who has also been recently killed. Now Yadriel feels compelled to solve his murder as well. There's so much to love in this book- great queer characters, magic deeply rooted in specific cultures, very rich imagery- but there were small things about it that frustrated me. Mainly the fact that some pieces of plot information were explained three or four times, which felt a little repetitive since I listened to the whole audiobook over just a few days. I was able to guess the major piece of the climax about 1/3 of the way into the story, because the foreshadowing was very strong. But I still loved the main characters and would absolutely recommend this book, especially to teen readers.

How even to describe this book? It's as mysterious, addictive, and strange as most of Helen Oyeyemi's work but this time packed with even more queer characters than ever! Xavier and Otto Shin are given tickets to a train called The Lucky Day for their sort-of honeymoon. They step aboard with their pet mongoose, Arpad XXX, without knowing their route or destination and by a mishap leave half of their luggage behind on the station. The Lucky Day is the permanent residence of a reclusive musician, Ava Kapoor, and two others... all of whom have somewhat odd and seemingly coincidental connections to Xavier and Otto's pasts. As the couple explore the train's many exquisitely decorated carriages (including a library, kitchen, garden, sauna, post-office and many guest rooms) they begin to unravel pieces of the puzzle behind the presence of every being on the train, and the troubling consequences of staying on it for too long. I've now read seven of Oyeyemi's books and I think this one is my second favorite after the short story collection What Is Not Yours is Not Yours!