mmm I feel like the depiction of brain damaged Bruce is a little... problematic... but I don't feel qualified to go into it. just a little simplistic for such a complex issue! and very tidily resolved! although the murder mystery was not. Perhaps [b:Hulk, Vol. 2: Omega Hulk|23017953|Hulk, Vol. 2 Omega Hulk|Gerry Duggan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1427558578s/23017953.jpg|42587502].

but, as ever, I'm 500% here for Bruce and Tony being stone-cold bros.

I'd heard good things about Jessica Jones as a character but I was kind of scared to read any of her comics after reading the Wikipedia article about her... her backstory is SO GRIM. But now there's a Netflix show coming out so I was like FINE I'll READ the comics. And! I really enjoyed this. And! This volume doesn't go into her super grim backstory!

Note: I asked our adult graphic novel buyer to get this because the cover says EXPLICIT CONTENT and indeed, I would not recommend this for the teen GN collection for cussing and sexing and stuff.

I wanted to LOVE Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti teaming up to write about teenagers with superpowers, but... I didn't love it. I liked it well enough... there are definitely some interesting powers here and some of them are explored really well. I'm still kind of haunted by Anonymous. But at 500+ pages it definitely felt draggy. It felt like a LOT of set up to later books and the actual plot was a little meh, to me. I could have read like 10 X-Men books in the time it took me to get through this and gotten more out of them.

Still... it's fine, good to hand to kids who like teen heroes, and there's some mob/crime stuff that might be interesting. Also a diverse group of kids (A Latino boy! A blind white girl! A Nigerian-American girl!) I also keep thinking about Animorphs, and about how I like Animorphs more than I like this.

I sought this out, looking for an adventure-type story to booktalk. I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise because I'm not especially drawn to explorer stories? They tend to have to eat dogs and things I don't like to read about. Also, I think what I might potentially like best about a book about Antarctica would be beautiful photographs of icebergs and such, and this is black and white cartoons. Sooo... not that. (They are pretty charming cartoons though.)

This is a fun, quirky sort of book. It's mostly a string of funny/dramatic incidents from Shackleton's logs (and I think other crewmen's logs also) on his Antarctic journey.

If you're into explorers and whatnot... sure, check this out!

I'm booktalking this to 7th/8th grade--I think some of the language/history might be a little complicated but with the illustrations, kids who are interested should be able to figure it out! But also would be good for high schoolers/adults I think.

it took me a long time to get into this book, because I was like, "I don't care about these murder-horses." But then: I did care about the murder-horses???

This seems like a complicated book to sell. It's a lot more brutal than I associate with most "horse books" but it's not myth-heavy enough to be a good Percy Jackson-readalike. I dunno. Kinda Holly Black-y, maybe? Maybe, like me, other people people will back-read her catalog after reading the Raven Cycle?

also, IMPORTANT SPOILER: it seems like a cat gets eaten by a murder-horse but THE CAT IS OKAY

* bonus star awarded for Dirtbag Gambit at Burning Man

but also yessss, Willow Wilson, I love your CHOICES, such as putting the X-Men on EARTH where they BELONG and also really putting the X-Women's TEAMWORK to good use. and having Storm hallucinate a sweet peptalk from ghost Logan. and having Jubilee tell Queen Medusa "bye Felicia." also I cried a little bit at the end.

GOOD CHOICES

I've been a little lukewarm on the adjectiveless all-lady X-Men team thus far even though I REALLY REALLY wanted to love it. but I loved this! And I think you could easily just skip the first 4 volumes and start here. And I think you should do that. I think you should do that right now.

This is really not good on any level.

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-33-the-president-did-me-from-behind-and-i-liked-it/

This metadata isn't even CORRECT it's called I GOT FREAKY WITH SANTA CLAUS AND I LIKED IT.

but I did NOT like it.

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-33-the-president-did-me-from-behind-and-i-liked-it/

I would not be at all surprised if Raven Blackbird was revealed to be 3 tween boys in a trench coat.

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-33-the-president-did-me-from-behind-and-i-liked-it/

I love the podcast, so I definitely wanted to listen to this in audiobook format. In retrospect... I don't know, I think maybe that's not necessary. It was a little jarring that the whole book was narrated by Cecil but only very limited parts were actually Cecil's POV? I think I would have preferred a full-cast narrator, or at least like, one lady to read for Jackie and Diane? But WHATEVER. (* there are a few other guest voices on the audio book in small parts on the radio show excerpts, but it's like 98% Cecil.)

I liked Jackie and Diane and the other new characters a lot. I kept trying to remember the Man in the Tan Jacket bits from the podcast and I legitimately couldn't??

I think the surreal tone of Night Vale worked soo well for a coming of age story--the shapeshifting and the ALWAYS being 19 and the NEVER being 19. It reminds me somewhat of Lemony Snicket, a perfect mixture of black comedy and weirdness and totally fucking poignant lines.

I think there was a challenge getting used to a long-form Night Vale story for both me as a reader/listener and Fink/Cranor as writers? Normally on the podcast these kind of time travel/dimensional things resolve themselves pretty quickly due to the format and so I think, because I was used to that, this dragged a bit at times? Also I zoned out a little bit sometimes because I listened while driving on long, boring roads.

I think this could probably stand alone to someone who hadn't listened to the podcast before, and also is pretty rewarding for someone who has listened to the podcast.

Also, I ordered this for teen because I know some teens here like the podcast and I saw that one of the main characters was 19 (although, it turns out, that is a complicated concept). I don't think it's a YA novel but I think it has appeal for a truly wide range of ages, and also is not inappropriate for teens.