readingpicnic's reviews
475 reviews

The art is very beautiful, but the story was not very good and felt very rushed. It felt like there were no actual stakes in the story and that there wasn't enough time given to developing the relationship between Blue and Hamal for me to have an emotional investment in them. 

There was a weird little time skip between the Reaper telling Hamal that he had to make up for making an imbalance of life and then suddenly he was at Blue's grave putting a plant heart in his chest with no explanation?? I was sooo confused how we got to that point or how that was the solution, and then it didn't even matter because Blue was alive again by the next page. It was like Cemetery Boys if random chapters and passages were cut out, leaving behind fractions of the story (I liked Cemetery Boys). The excuse that the Reaper brought Blue back to life because she thought they were a cute couple felt too easy and cliche, especially since the main conflict of the story was Hamal using his powers to help flowers grow, apparently causing a huge imbalance, but bringing a whole human back to life is fine? Okay. Then it felt like it was dragging quite a bit at the end just to show a scene of them being together as a human couple.

I still liked the author's mission of creating the representation that they didn't get to see as a child, and I loved the art style dearly. The full page spread where Blue was filled with plant life was my favorite. 

Very intense and thoughtful explorations of gender, sexuality, and race, particularly with biphobia and racism within the queer community. I can see the author starting to explore gender in this piece, I think pre-social transition? I saw this particularly with the constant thought that something was missing or awry in relationships that the main character couldn't put their finger on, even after they had mostly come to terms with their sexuality (enter: gender). The illustrations were incredible and connected very well to the different stories. I liked the blend of mythology with the fictional memoir-esque chapters, and this was overall a stunning book.

I love you, Miss Major. This was such a wonderful book and gave me hope for trans* futures. I adored reading about Miss Major's perspectives on the queer and trans* communities, as well as social justice needing to start from the very bottom with grassroots projects. I recognized a lot of the events and people that she mentioned from taking LGBTQIA+ classes for my WGS minor, so I feel like this book helped me build my knowledge on queer and trans* history from the perspective of someone who was there through it all. Her point about Stonewall not being an end-all-be-all was very true, and I appreciate her bluntness and honesty about how the queer community, especially the white queer community has historically ignored, harassed, and excluded the trans* community, especially trans* people of color (like literally just watch the speech that Sylvia Rivera gave at pride where she was booed off the stage by white queer people for talking about transness). Her openness about what trans* can mean is very refreshing and doesn't exclude or require explicit labels. I also love her emphasis on community and that change has to come from within the community; that they should get to make the decisions about their own lives. She has such a distinct voice that really shines through on the page, and this was overall an incredible start to my Trans* Rights Readathon.

I don't really know how I feel about this book...it has to marinate a bit more. I will say that these are some actually morally gray characters in very fucked up ways, which was fun sometimes. I think I got confused about what was happening at some points in the book, and I didn't really understand the ending, so I almost want to reread it... It did keep me guessing the whole book about what was going on, and most of my theories ended up being wrong lol. The lack of consent in this book was upsetting...I'm not sure if it was because the main characters are meant to be fucked up or if it's romanticizing the SA? Pretty fucked though. They are sooo toxic. I don't think I understood either of the main characters' motivations for the entirety of the book whic lended to my confusion. The atmosphere in this book was so incredibly well done: the oiliest, greasiest, grimiest gay book I've ever read. The body horror was also amazing, with disgusting lines like "curdled genitals" on a dead body. Also, why is Johann literally Addie LaRue? Reading this felt like reading a toxic gay anime fanfiction; like, this is what I imagine Noé and Vanitas fanfics are like from the anime The Case Study of Vanitas.

I'm not really sure what to rate this or if it's inappropriate to rate a true crime book? I didn't know much about Ed Gein, so I learned quite a bit from this, although the authors point out in the back that some of the scenes depicted are dramatized. The explorations of gender were very sad and disturbing, and I don't really know how to feel about them. What do I do with the information that Ed Gein may have been trans? This was just a lot for me honestly.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Titan Books for providing me with a digital ARC of this book.

Firstly, the plant and mushroom descriptions in this book were so incredibly interesting. Seeing the way that the main character built a body with plants that react in different ways to touch was very cool. I love fungal horror books, and I think the premise of this story was very creative and interesting. Although I understand why this book is compared to Mexican Gothic, I think that their similarities end with them both including fungal horror due to some weird racialized comments that I mention later in my review. Mexican Gothic engages with race, eugenics, and colonialism in such a deep and interesting way, whereas this book…does not. 

I did have a lot of issues with this book, mainly with the characters’ actions not making sense to me, or their characters just being inconsistent with how they thought and acted. There were many times when Simon or Gregor would just take a complete 180 in how they view Chloe, and it never made sense to me why their minds had changed so suddenly. The characters also felt pretty flat to me unfortunately, so I felt a disconnect between myself and the story while I was reading, which definitely tamped down my enjoyment. I got the impression while reading that the author wasn’t taking the story that seriously while writing it because it felt so jokey most of the time while I was reading it, even in scenes where that didn’t seem appropriate for the moment. He was also noticeably overusing the word “queer” in a derogatory way, probably as a nod to the queerness in the story, but he did it too much to the point where I got annoyed. The scenes between Chloe and Jennifer were pretty great, and I liked their tension and chemistry, especially in that final scene with them! On the other hand, I sensed no chemistry between Simon and Gregor and their relationship didn’t make much sense to me (which was maybe the point?)

There were also some Orientalist undertones throughout this story with Gregor, a white guy, going to Sumatra to “discover” the magical/sentient fungus that he takes home by tricking a sultan into thinking it’s hallucinogenic (and implying that the sultan may have consumed it and died so that Gregor could steal it)?? He then goes on to exoticize the fungus and Chloe for the remainder of the story, referring to it as the “oriental fungus” and “grotesque arabesque.” There was also a scene where Chloe was trying to sing and he said “her notes were a long way away from Gregor’s Western diatonic major scale. Her warble was heavily ornamented with chromatic grace notes and weird resonances, more at home in an exotic call-to-prayer than in a bel canto singing lesson.” Like…huh? I couldn’t tell if this Orientalism and exoticization was intentional because Gregor is an unlikeable main character, or if the author was just unconsciously including weird colonialist attitudes. Either way, it felt gross to read these types of phrases as the story didn’t seem critical of their use.

I was gifted a digital ARC of this book from the publisher.
I decided to DNF this book at 12% because it was unfortunately not for me. The lack of quote marks with the dialogue was a choice...I ended up being very confused a lot of the time about whether someone was speaking or whether the text was the main character's thoughts. This confusion was really frustrating as I kept rereading passages and getting stuck trying to understand what was being said. The writing was also really throwing me off for some reason, and I couldn't get into it. It felt like the story was trying too hard to be weird with the main character's thoughts, and I usually love a weird and deranged main character, but it just felt a bit off with this book. I'm sad that I couldn't get into this because I was pretty excited for it and have heard good things from other people online. I think fans of Milk Fed, or just Melissa Broder in general, would like this.

I absolutely love these characters, and this is the transmasc t4t romance I needed in my life. This is possibly the most gorgeous graphic novel I have ever read, cover and golden pages included! The art is incredible, the characters are gay and silly, and the tension of what will happen with the fire god is ever present. I stumbled across the artist's twitter, and I'm so glad I did for the animations of scenes from this book! I just need to bask in this book for a while before I can move on; I'm obsessed with these guys.

I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher. 
This book was an emotional rollercoaster for me! The author perfectly captures what it’s like to grow up queer and trans in a small, conservative town, including the quintessential homoerotic best friendship with your girl best friend. The switches between the past and present were done in a very satisfying way that always kept me reading the present chapters in suspense to find out what happened in the past. I love the representations of different generations of trans and queer people in this story and how they interact, such as Max and Sylvia, Max and Dakota, and Max and his students. The present-day chapters have very good reflections and insights into what his family and friends must have been going through in the past that influenced how they treated others or reacted to certain situations, such as Jules and his mom, and this understanding was very refreshing to see, even if he didn’t forgive these people for their actions. Max looks back on his childhood while acknowledging its more problematic aspects or the language that was used, but still honestly depicts what happened and what was said, which I also appreciated. Overall, I just loved the depiction of a little kid being too weird and queer for a small town that can see their queerness before they can, as that’s how I look back on my own childhood with more clarity. The characters also felt incredibly real and complicated.
The present-day chapters introduced lots of interesting commentary on young queer people trying and struggling to interact with older queer people, or queer elders who may not be up to date on newer labels for gender identities and sexualities. I liked seeing Max’s growth in accepting that queer and trans youth are kind of doing their own thing that’s different from how he grew up as a bi trans boy and that he has more to learn, as he did seem too dismissive of newer queer and trans labels for some of the book. The ending was very satisfying, and I am happy with how everything wrapped up with Sylvia and Dakota because I was incredibly nervous for them both for most of the story. 

Very real and unfiltered account of being a late diagnosed autistic woman, with lots of humor throughout. Fern also points out lots of common autistic traits throughout to the reader, to which I realized that so many things I do are shared experiences in the autistic community that I thought were just applicable to me…very validating to read though. The commentary on autistic women becoming strippers and/or sex workers was so interesting and something I’ve never heard before, but it makes sense with how she laid it out coupled with her own experiences. I loved the audiobook narration.