Alison Cochrun has done it again! She’s managed to write a queer romance that emotionally devastated me for days! We meet Rosemary and Logan: childhood best friends…until they weren’t. Ever since an incident that occurred when they were younger, they’ve been arch enemies. Even now, as adults teaching English at the high school they attended, they still loathe each other. The one thing they still have in common? The high school English teacher who shaped their lives and to whom they feel indebted: Joe.

The universe brings them back together at the end of a school year when Joe announces that he’s dying and wants to take a cross-country “death trip” from their small, pacific northwestern town to a seaside cottage he owns in Maine in which he intends to die on his own terms. The catch? He wants Rosemary and Logan to accompany him during the journey and be with him at the end. Will they be able to tolerate each other long enough to get Joe to Maine in one piece? 

This book has everything! Important discussions about death/dying and grief (of all types!), friends to enemies to lovers (!!!), road trip shenanigans, elder queer romance, neurodiversity, and (though it’s not explicitly mentioned or discussed) one of our MCs reads as though she’s on the gray-ace spectrum. If you’re wondering how much ~sexy~ content there is in this book – not much! It’s considerably lighter on the intimate scenes and heavier on the emotional interactions. I was a mess when I finished this book, and I hope you will be too! Don’t forget to check out trigger and content warnings before reading! This material isn’t for the faint of heart.

LOVED THIS. Picked this up for the concept (ghost hunters!) and stayed for the art, characterization, and societal critiques! I’ve really been enjoying juvenile graphic novels lately and I think it’s because they’re often that perfect balance of lightheartedness while still providing accessible social commentary. 10/10 would recommend for fans of ghosts and cute spookiness!

I’ve read most of Tillie Walden’s work at this point and her work never ceases to amaze me. Always thought-provoking, tinged with the sadness of nostalgia/hope/regret, and always ALWAYS beautiful. The art and color schemes are enough to leave you speechless. This work was particularly wonderful because we got to dive back into some of her comic archives and see some previously unpublished work. I will never pass on reading her work. If you’re looking for contemplative, atmospheric, and queer - any of Tillie Walden’s works is for you, and this one is no exception!

I can tell from this first book that this is going to be a series of novellas that I hold dear, much like the Singing Hills Cycle series by Nghi Vo. Similar in style, narrative flow, and characterization, the first book in the Tensorate series follows twins Mokoya and Akeha and their lives in the Grand Monastery as they are raised to pay the debt their mother incurred by asking for the Monastery’s help with suppressing a rebellion. As the children grow, so do their connections to the Slack and their gifts with that. Mokoya has the gift of prophecy, which the Monastery works to develop, in particular, as it turns out it’s impossible to stop any of these events from occurring.

Akeha is there for their sibling after each visceral prophecy, though it eventually starts to tear them apart. When Mokoya reveals that they are preparing to be confirmed as a woman, Akeha’s world shatters. Raised genderless, they choose their gender at 17, but they always assumed their path would be the same as their twin’s. Instead, Akeha must consider their own choice for confirmation and what it means to be separate from their twin.

After they both have their confirmation ceremonies, they part ways. Their mother has no use for Akeha as a son when Mokoya’s gift of prophecy works in her favor. Akeha leaves the world he’s always known to see what else the world has in store. Many adventures and encounters are had, he falls in love, and he ends up being the driving force behind the next Machinist rebellion (those opposing his mother’s rule). We have a bittersweet family reunion and the promise of more familial (and realm-related) drama to come in future novellas. I, for one, can’t wait to get my hands on the next book, and I’m grateful the series is complete so I can binge it!

It simply wasn’t the book I was looking for at this time. It takes a lot for me to be invested in historical fiction, but I wanted more science fiction than was on the pages. 

The Weavers of Alamaxa was a highly-anticipated follow-up to The Daughters of Izdihar for me. Having left the first book on quite a cliffhanger, I tore through my copy of this follow-up as quickly as I could! Elsbai set the scene for this tale of female rage and revenge beautifully in book one and readers get to see the results (and the extent) of it all in book two. She does an excellent job deepening our understanding of the socio-politcal unrest in Alamaxa and beyond its borders, as well as our affection for the main characters, Giorgina and Nehal.

I don’t want to get too spoilery in this review, but there are a few aspects of this book I’d love to highlight as my favorites: the WEAVING! This book goes hard and shows readers more weaving than we saw in book one, which was so much fun! I also really loved watching the relationship dynamic blossom between Giorgina/Nehal, Giorgina/Nico, and Nehal/Malek. And our big bad character was SO GOOD (bad)! I LOVE to hate evil characters.

ANYWAY I really loved this book and the only thing I wish we had seen more of in book two was downtime for our characters. That being said, since it’s only a duology, I understand a faster pacing choice and it was still an extremely enjoyable and satisfying conclusion to Giorgina and Nehal’s stories.