Sweet and fun with good representation! Loved the geeky references and silliness from the parents. It was a bit clunky, in the diologue and a bit of shoehorning info at times. But still a cute read! 

In this first volume, you are thrown directly in the middle of a world with supernatural happenings and our main character who is being thrown in the middle of assisting to solve a potentially dangerous supernatural problem. 

I am intrigued and definitely want to continue reading the other volumes. It's a bit difficult to rate individual issues because there is so much more of the story to come. This went by pretty quickly, but I would have liked to get to know the characters a bit more. The art has scary elements, though I get the feeling that the real scary parts are to come.

I was given this copy by the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

3.5? I feel like this is a weird thing to rate.

The Kurt Cobain journals are something I've been interested in for a while, but just now got to. And I came out of it with pretty mixed feelings. 

This was mostly photocopied pages of his journals and other papers. It had rough drafts of songs, weird sketches, music video ideas, playlists, and best album lists. There were also letters (some sent and some never sent), beginnings of dark short stories, and journal entries. Some context was given about parts, but it was pretty minimal. The journals didn't even have an introduction or discussion of who had put these documents together. 

The biggest thing I did get out of this was seeing more about his experience with stomach issues and chronic pain. He describes the toll that this took on his mental health and was the catalyst for his addiction. In a similar vein, it was profound and disturbing to see how he was treated by the press amidst these issues. It gave me a lot of perspective on the things I've heard about him, especially towards the end of his life. 

However, seeing so much in the book with little context made me really question whether or not this should have even been published like this. Like if someone found my partial rough drafts of stories that I wrote when I was 20, I would not want them to be photocopied and spread around posthumously. There were also several things that just would have really benefited from more context or explanation than was given in the notes at the end. I wonder how much of it he would reword and rework, give context to, or omit altogether (especially with bits like the ableism in many parts; he did have big moral convictions around social injustice so I can't help but wonder what he would change or correct if he'd had proper education about it).

It was an interesting read, dark, hard to be in his head (the poor guy had mostly water placements all over his astrology chart). I'm interested to know more about him as a person and artist, but the jury is still out on whether or not this is a really good way to learn about it.

This book, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper, goes in detail, not just about the groundbreaking album, but into the band itself. We see how they met, moved apart, and came back together. There is even a good bit on On Avery Island, the album before Aeroplane. Later in the book, there is also a breakdown of each song in the album as well as chapters on the tour, album art, and subsequent haitus of the band (though since its publication in 2005, there has been a tour and some songs and demos released). 

There really was something so genuine, nearly magical, about how they were able to make their music projects. The care and collaboration that went into these projects is quite amazing and the environment is something that I don't think could be recreated. It's certainly not something that could have existed under a large label (and for the better for the mental health of the members, it seems). 

My main issue was some very weird, outdated language choices (an unfortunately common misuse of schizophrenia and the g-slur -- both completely unnecessary to get the point across) in the small section about the first song of the album, which did sour that chapter for me a bit. But for the most part, this was a really solid and interesting read. If you are enamored with the album like I am or if you are a musician or interested in the creative process, I would recommend this.

In My Body is Distant, Paige Maylott goes back and forth throughout her life, revealing a lot about her relationship with technology, transition, disability, and other people in her life.  At face value, this book is right in my wheelhouse, but under the surface there's even more that I loved.

Not only is it a trans narrative with interweaving themes, it's very messy and queer. There was also so much about technology that I thought was really profound. And if I try to really lay out my thoughts, I will go well beyond what people want to read in an online book review. Not only is her relationship with technology somehow both incredibly niche and so quinessentially of-the-time, there is also so much about it that is *very* trans (and I say that, not only as a trans person in online spaces, but as a sociologist who has looked at other niche online spaces and the role they have played for queer and trans people). 

Then, I loved a lot about the narrative itself. The non-chronological structure along with the choice to narrate online scenes just as fluidly as the Real Life scenes made the reading experience interesting certainly, but it also made the parallel scenes that much more impactful. 

There is just so much I really enjoyed and I can't stop thinking about it. So, if you're into nonlinear narrative, queer books, themes around technology and self, and aren't afraid of a little furry smut, this is one to look out for.

(I received a review copy of this from the publisher to give an honest review)

I picked up The Moth Keeper by K. O'Neill because I have read Princess Princess Ever After and liked it, then heared good things about The Tea Dragon Society. So, I expected this would be good but it ended up being even better than I expected. 

This is the story of Anya, who has a crucial job in her community but sometimes dreams of something different. While that concise, non-spoilery summary sounds like something that's been done in different ways before, so much of this was not what I expected at all (in the best way). At its core, this book is about community and lonliness - and it permiates parts of the story in ways I could not have anticipated. I have so many thoughts around this, but to articulate many of them would require spoilers. 

This book is soft without being primarily fluffy. The characters are well-developed, especially for a middle grade standalone graphic novel. The art is incredible and just so cozy to me in a way I have a hard time really explaining. It was also a neat world and it was cool to see the inspiration for it was based on actual places - and actual plants and bugs with intertwined relationships.

The whole thing just really struck me in my core in a way that, again, I can't articulate verbally yet but rest assured, I was a crying mess by the end (and it's not even a sad story like that). 

What does it take to make a self improvement curriculum into a cult with an even more sick cult inside of it? It starts with one man with too much stock in a sketchy self-administered IQ test and an obsession with psychogical manipulation, MLMs, and Ayn Rand, but couldn't be realized without an intense social network. 

The writing itself is very engaging and this is thoroughly researched. There was intense background on Raniere along with the full scope of his network and how it grew, but Berman also interviewed many women who were in NXIVM and used information from the court case to show their stories. 

The events of what happened are truely wild. At a few points, I had to take a break from it and even considered stopping about 3/4 of the way in because as horrid as things had been at that point, there were a few really intense experiences that they went into. But I'm glad I did finish it. I didn't plan it this way, but I think this was a good bridge from Hey Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson into some of the books on Scientology that are on my TBR (yes, Raniere was clearly inspired by both Amway and L Ron Hubbard, though he denies clearly being inspired by dianetics).

If you're interested in cults or social psychology (and are ready for the sort of content that is present when talking about such awful groups), I would definitely recommend this. 

This had me ALL THE WAY in my feelings!

This is the story of Clem and Kye. Clem just moved to Mars to study AI under the person who created Kye. There is absolutely a friendship and romance story in this, but it's much more than that. This story is about dealing with trauma and getting out of abusive relationships, about realizing your own humanity. The story is also about community in so many ways. There's the need for connection, the issues that loneliness creates, and how community care can actually work. 

I read this with 3 other graphic novels in the same day and, while they were all incredible in their own ways, this one just really got to me. It was my favorite of the day (and a contender for my favorite graphic novel of the year).