I'm so glad the main character finally confronted her husband on his careless homophobic remarks! Also I loved the story like of Hiroki getting into a girl idol group named Soup=Soup, what a perfect name for a group. If this is the last book of the series I am satisfied :) If there are more I will read them! 

The plot of this book is engaging, but the prose is bad. Mickey Barnes is an "expendable" on a terraforming human colony mission on a cold, icy planet. Before the mission left, his entire consciousness was scanned and uploaded to a server, and his biology encoded so the mission can print new versions of him as needed. He is the only member of the roughly 200 person colony who has received this treatment, and it's his duty to do jobs that require a human but will likely get them killed, such as fixing the nuclear reactor, testing out medical procedures, or exploring the system of crevasses and caves below the ice- which happen to be full of insect-like alien species of unknown intelligence levels. This book has some very fun world building and clever twists, but the main character himself is an idiot who regularly makes mistakes that could have been easily avoided with even just a modicum of advanced planning. I would describe the writing as workman-like, just competent enough to get the story told, but often undercutting the emotional impact of the events with quips and fairly shallow character work. I haven't seen the movie but I have a feeling it might be better than the book, a rarity. 

Set in 1993, and heavily based on the author's lived experience, this graphic novel follows Janey's very unusual fourth grade year. Her parents own and live on a 40-foot steel sailing ship. They've been mooring in Miami, Florida, and Janey has been attending a regular public school where she has made a best friend, Rae. But Janey's parents want to set to sea again, so Janey and her cat Sassa are off to the Caribbean. There are many wonderful things about sailing- new islands, new food, new views every morning- but it's lonely too. Janey sends letters to Rae but can only receive them when the family stays in a port long enough to get a PO box. She's often bored, doesn't want to do her homework, wishes she had any friends near by. Finally the family's boat, the Merrimaid, stops St Thomas for a while, where her parents get part time jobs. Janey spots a girl only a little older living on another boat in the harbor. Astrid is aloof, challenging, mysterious, and knows a lot of places on the island where kids can get into trouble. Janey is entranced by her, but too young to see the precarious and potentially abusive situation Astrid is living in. This book is BEAUTIFULLY drawn, bright and sharp. I was completely drawn in to Janey's world and the struggles she faces with her parents and her two very different friends, Rae and Astrid. This book brought back how hard it was to maintain a long distance friendship in the 90s, and also pointed out how easy it is for kids without responsible adults in their lives to disappear off the map. It's more challenging and dark than the colorful cover suggests but I HIGHLY recommend it. 

Tomoko is such a wonderful and loving parent to her two probably queer sons. The elder son is dealing with the very normal high school rejection of his crush starting to date someone else, and the younger feels more and more aro-ace and maybe even agender. This is such a gentle, soft parenting story with a lot of sweetness and humor.

The cast of characters is slowly expanding! A neighbor, who probably has a crush on her gay son Hiroki, starts at Hiroki's high school. I like that we are starting to learn more about Hiroki's younger brother Yuri, who at the moment reads like a very aro-ace character. The main tension point is Tomoko's husband, who has some really basic homophobic beliefs and occasionally says shitty things without seeming to realize they might be hurtful. Tomoko is more patient with him that I would be. 

This gentle slice of life story continues. Tomoko, mother of two sons, one or both of whom might be queer, borrows a gay manga series to read from a friend and leaves it in the living room for her possibly queer teen to find. She also learns that one of her co-works at work is gay, and open to answering some questions. I really enjoy the slow, realistic journey of a parent figuring out how to be supportive of her kids.  

A very gentle slice of life story, told from the POV of a mother of two teen boys. She suspects her older son, in high school, is probably gay and has a crush on one of his classmates. She begins trying to support him in subtle ways and slowly educates herself more about the queer community, while wondering how to share this information with her husband (who is often away on work trips and sees their children less often than she does). The chapters are very short and often silly, giving the book overall a very light tone.

This serious continues to be SO CHARMING! Nomoto and Kasuga continue to house hunt, but run into difficulties on renting together as a same sex couple. Their friends are there to cheer lead, and offer resources and support. I love these foodie lesbians! 

This is a WONDERFUL short story collection, nine stories, each with some kind of speculative or fantasy element, and nearly all with a queer or trans main character. The stories gained momentum as they went a long, many of them making me exclaim "how did you think of that?" A few of the longer pieces are particular standouts- "The Shape of My Name",  in which a trans man recons with his family's history of time travel; "Presque Vu", in which the inhabitants of a town connect over their shared personal hauntings (the main character coughs up old keys); and "Before We Disperse Like Star Stuff" in which a queer friend group of academics deals with the fall out of a massive archeological discovery, and the way one of them ran away with the story to publish without the other two, leading a breakup and also a Smithsonian documentary. Nino Cipri is on my immediate-read list!

The majority of this book outlines some very interesting animal research on the effects of domestication, specifically self-domestication, over time. The Russian "friendly foxes" project, a silver fox breeding program where the only trait selected for was friendliness/openness to humans, is one of the main studies discussed and I enjoyed learning more about it. Over generations, the foxes selected for friendliness started to show surprising physical changes- wider variety of coat colors, curlier tails, smaller teeth, and increased social communication skills. The authors combine this with studies on bonobo monkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, and human fossil skulls, to present an argument that it was friendliness and cooperation, not strength or "fitness", that lead to humans dominance over other early human species such as neanderthals. The last quarter of the book then tries to turn this research into an explanation on how and why humans also dehumanize each other and how in-groups give rise to fascism. I wasn't as sold on the contemporary political theorizing, but I still think this book is worth a read.