The series Legal Drug went on hiatus (at least in English) in 2003. Ten years later, the story was picked up in this follow-up series. Kazahaya and Rikuo are sent on a mission that involves meeting Kimihiro Watanuki, their opposite number from the xxxHolic series. He is now confirmed to his shop, in the absence of his boss, and so he sends the pair to an ancient house inhabited by an inebriated and weakened vampire. Their job is not to fight the vampire, but to release him from his prison. Kazahaya falls ill, possessed by the vampire's mental state- Rikuo offers it blood, and in return the vampire gives him a tragic prediction.

They have clearly switched to a new artist for this follow up series, which is a nice change. They are starting to reveal some of the pieces of the character's backstories, but I find myself less and less interested in the prophesied blood-soaked conclusion. Maybe it would be better to imagine the boys as happily working in the stop forever, never facing their destinies.

I read this book for the first time in 2009 and was very impressed. It was one of the first superhero stories I really connected to and it lead me to search out both other weird experimental superhero stuff ( Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., Hellboy, Kabuki ) and other books by Gabriel Ba ( De:Tales, Daytripper). It's gorgeously drawn and colored and absolutely packed with wackiness.

I happened to be hanging out with a friend Netflix surfing the day the new Umbrella Academy TV show, based on elements of both book 1 and 2, was released. We ended up watching all 10 episodes in one day. I love the adaptation they've brought to film- it follows the same basic plot arc, but the emotional relationships between the siblings have all been deepened, and motivations are more fully explained. Their shared trauma and real connection are thrilling and heartbreaking. I spent most of the last episode yelling at the characters to just HUG AND TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS! I cannot recommend the show highly enough- plus it's absolutely gorgeous to look at. Netflix is clearly spending all the money they no longer need to pay in taxes very well.

After watching the show, I picked up the book to read it again (a decade after my first reading). It's still very good, but traitorously.... I like the TV show more. The comic book has all the broad strokes, but the TV version as time to flesh them out and let moments linger. And how I wish they'd linger even longer. I already want season 2.

Lucy Knisley has a way of capturing the day to day moments of life that build an engaging, vivid story even when the subject (as often seen on her blog) is to-do lists and cat behaviors. In this book she has taken on bigger topics: sexual education, miscarriage, pregnancy, and a near fatal experience of bringing a new life into the world. I have know since I was quite young that I never wanted to have children and find most aspects of procreation, frankly, horrifying. Several friends had warned me that there might be parts of this book I'd want to skip. But I read every page, and was grateful for this raw, honest look into a human experience that I will never have. The art is simple but beautifully effective, the writing at times very funny, at times informative or matter of fact, in others deeply emotional.

Finally finished this audio book I've been working on since early December! There were parts I really liked about it, but also sections that really dragged and certain facts/phases that got really repetitive. Schiff doesn't go so hard on explaining WHY citizens of Salem claimed to see and experience witchcraft. She lays out the historical factors that went into making up a very strict and unrelenting court which sentenced more people to death (all of them people who claimed innocence) than any other known witchcraft outbreak. The majority of the book is taken up by a day-by-day breakdown of the incidents of Salem and the surround effected towns, based on every known source. These include diaries, court records and many accounts published after the fact. She admits when things are unknown or lost to history, but that still leaves a lot of blow by blow ravings, accusations, arrests, trials, quotes, and injustices. My least favorite part of the book was her discussion of Native Americans. She essentially quotes the colonial views of the time without examining them, or giving facts that might tell other sides to the story, when talking about "Indian raids" on settlers. It's undisputed that there was violence. This account alone might leave the mistaken impression that settlers were always the victims. However, if you want a very through accounting of the major players of the Salem trials, and the stresses and influences they were under, this does give that.

This book has some pretty strong themes of homophobia and transphobia, but they are handled in possibly the most sensitive way I have ever seen in a comic. The ultimate message of the book is one of joyful self-acceptance and of a family which has been divided for many years by fear and prejudice being healing and reunited. The reason I want to state these facts at the very top of my review is that I almost put the book down after about 40 pages, feeling unsure if I would end up enjoying it. It is very, very worth it to read through the slightly rough opening to the beautiful story it unfolds into.

The lead character, Amanda, is a baseball-loving, church-going high school senior at the local Catholic high school. She has two best friends who couldn't be more different: sexually active, confident, bad-girl Cat and law-abiding Laura. When Amanda overhears a furtive phone call made by her father that seems to suggest he's having an affair, Amanda tells them both. But the family drama is much older, bigger, and stranger than she could ever have predicted. When she gets a letter from an stranger with a photo of a lost relative and an inheritance check for $30,000, she starts to investigate. On the way she uncovers family lies and personal truths which change her life forever- and for the better. The art is absolutely gorgeous, done in traditional inks with light washes. This story is set in 2004, and I appreciated the "historical details"- flip phones, AIM chat, Bush/Cheney signs, etc. Very well done, and highly recommended.

This is only the third novel told in poems I can remember reading (the first two being Love That Dog by Sharon Creech and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson). I am once again impressed by how this author, like those other authors, achieved not only a successful story but also a successful poetry collection. Xiomara Batista is a high school sophomore in Harlem, New York; she is a daughter of religious parents from the Dominican Republic; a twin; a fighter and a poet. Her notebook feels like the only place in the world she can express her true thoughts. In her poems she questions God, defends herself against her overbearing mother, expresses her fury over being constantly catcalled and groped by men, while at the same time curious about what it would be like to kiss a boy she loves. When a supportive teacher invites Xiomara to join a poetry club, she might finally have a place to release her words into the world- though it means sneaking and lying to attend, since she is supposed to spend her afternoons in communion class at church. I do want to add a trigger warning to this book for religious-based slut-shaming/sex negativity, abusive parents, and some background homophobia. However, all of these are things that Xiomara actively struggles and argues against in her writings.

I read a lot of memoir, and this one jumped immediately to the top reaches of my favorites list. Damon Young is a really excellent writer- each chapter could stand alone as an essay with a very satisfying beginning, middle, and end, but read together they tell a nuanced, intimate, hilarious and honest story of his life growing up black and neurotic in Pittsburgh. As a kid, he and his parents navigated lower middle class, a series of near-financial disasters that were always precariously recovered from. Damon shaped his early identity around his love of and talent at basketball, which landed him a full-ride scholarship to Canisius College. It was there his career as a writer began, from the humble beginnings of a series of terrible, semi-plagiarized poems written to woo a long-term crush. The romance was unsuccessful, but the poems sent him in the direction of blogging, back when doing so was still a novelty. Post-college he co-founded a site called Very Smart Brothas, which still runs pop culture reviews and social commentary to this day, and landed a writing job at Ebony magazine. This book entertainingly chronicles his relationships with girlfriends, with barbers, with parents, with the n-word, with friends, with basketball, and his career (both successes and big mistakes). Buy this book and shelve it with Shrill, Sissy, Hunger, She Wants It, and Bad Feminist.