nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)

1) The Wild Storm, Vol. 1 ★★★★
2) The Wild Storm, Vol. 2 ★★★★

There was a moment when reading this volume that I just starting flailing and had to compose myself before continuing (if you've read it, I'm sure you can guess the moment). This third volume is dealing with the ramifications of the previous volume. IO is starting to crumble, John Lynch is trying to save his old team, and our characters who before had entirely different storylines are finally starting to intersect. And it's fucking awesome. 

Things from the previous volumes that are still amazing: the art (I cannot overstate the fact that this is the best art I've ever seen in comics), the intersecting storylines, the characters, the morality (or lack thereof). 

Something I also cannot overstate is how much this shouldn't work. There are so many characters who are all so integral to the plot, and each volume just keeps adding to the cast. The more characters there are, the more plot lines there are. And yet it never feels like there's a single character or plot that you could miss. All are integral and if you took just one away the comic wouldn't work as well as it does. 

I almost don't want to read the fourth volume because it's the last but I also can't stop. Read! This! Series! Please! 

 1) The Wild Storm, Vol. 1 ★★★★

Man, I really chose the best way to start off my reading year. The second volume is maybe even better than the first, though still not quite at a five star. 

IO and Skywatch are going to war! That's more or less the whole plot of this volume, though there is still some great character stuff in there. The first volume was definitely a kind of prologue to get to the meatier plot that this volume is setting up, but there's still a lot of table setting happening in this volume as well. Despite the already large ensemble, we meet some more characters in this, one of whom is my wife Jenny Mei Sparks, a bi queen who we must all stan. Even with adding a few new characters with their own plot line, this comic series still manages to never feel overstuffed. Every plot has a clear purpose and there isn't a disposable character. That's really hard to do and Ellis does it in a way that seems effortless. 

I gushed about the art in my review of volume one, and everything I said there is still applicable to this volume. Instead of repeating myself I want to talk about the colour for a second because holy crap is it amazing, especially the use of red with blacks, whites, greys, etc. in a style similar to the covers for this series. It genuinely blows my mind how good this series looks because so many comic series, especially the tonally darker ones, look like fucking garbage in an attempt to get across how gritty and serious the comic is. But instead of doing that, this decides to use colour in interesting ways and draw well-choreographed fight scenes to get across the tone. 

This series is amazing and the fact that people won't shut up about loving dark comics but don't pick up ones like these infuriates me. Read this series! It's so good! 

Just adored this so fucking much 😭 Dr Chef is my fave. Lovey and Jenks literally invented love. This would make an amazing mini-series. Paced to perfection. I! Love! Ragtag! Crews! On! A! Spaceship!

There’s nothing wrong with this, I just really wasn’t feeling it right now. Might return to it at a later date. 

Quan is the perfect man. 

I have finally read this. I knew every spoiler, having both read the entirety of The Mortal Instruments as well as just existing on the Internet in the near-decade since this book was released, but my experience was not diminished in the slightest. I can finally tell Gideon and Gabriel apart, and I ended up liking them both. I even really liked Gabriel and Cecily (I care less for Gideon and Sophie, but I still like them). Jessamine, my beloved, returned to me, even if it was brief. Charlotte remains my favourite of this series and she and Henry deserve the fucking world, I love them and their relationship so much.  My love for Will, Tessa and Jem as both individual characters and a unit grew more with every minute. I am now dead because of this book, especially the epilogue. Can't wait to continue catching up on Shadowhunter books and allowing Cassandra Clare to kill me each time. 

super hot and fun!

God I loved this. Way more than I was expecting, to be honest. Going into this I assumed this was going to be focused primarily on Jackson figuring stuff out, with his relationship with Tomas being a prominent subplot that would ultimately just be there to further his journey. The first few chapters supported my theory going in, but then after about a quarter of the way through it shifts its focus to the relationship between the two boys. Their incredibly sweet romance that had me grinning at how goddamn cute it was. This book is exactly what I want out of YA romances honestly, plus having the added factor of being about two Aboriginal boys, something which not only have I never read before, but no other books focusing on that even come to mind. This was such a great debut; I really hope Gary Lonesborough has more books coming in the future, I would pick whatever he wrote up in a heartbeat. 

Essential feminist literature. Intelligent and empathetic musings on masculinity, patriarchy, feminism and love, all written in a really accessible way. Would especially recommend the audiobook.