simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)

I received an ARC through NetGalley and this is my voluntary and honest review.

Okay, this graphic novel pulled me in. I'm not Catholic or religious myself, so your mileage may vary. This book is about a Catholic boy's self-discovery journey, who finds comfort and community in his church, but also realizes he's gay, and has trouble reconciling those two facts.

The graphic novel leads us through the discovery featuring Catholic saints and people from the Bible who defied gender norms or had devoted love with members of their own sex, while also being devoutly religious. It tells us that the Bible can have several interpretations, and if the interpretation you choose teaches you to hate, that tells you more about yourself than about God and Jesus. It also features present-time queer people, including a nonbinary drag performer who struggles with their own relationship to church and their late mother.

It is also very catchy and approachable to a modern audience, although it's been a while since I was a teenager. The colors are beautiful, the people really look like people - I'm in love with Mark's freckles on his arms in particular, such a lovely detail. 

Occasionally went a bit over the line into cringe, but still an amazing Chanuka romcom story. Ben's brother sets him up on 8 blind dates for Chanuka, and they all go spectacularly wrong, but he is rescued by the super cute bartender, Nova.

Nearly screamed when it turned out the vampire character was Hungarian, lmao. We're everywhere.

I might reread this later because I wasn't really in the mood for the sex scenes I think, but the characters were A+. Established, bit codependent couple gets entangled with a very lonely vampire.

A quick and interesting read, with Seanan's tell-tale style. I feel like this could have been a longer, more developed novel, but also I've been itching to read something short, so if it had been longer I probably would have waited to read it. A dilemma.

This is a very personal book for me. I don't know yet if it made me feel better or worse.

this is nice and all but if anything happens to Emily Roland I'll riot

lots of conflict between Navy vs aviators in this one. Also, it's awesome to see how differently dragons are treated in China, but there would need to be very big changes to make that possible in England. Like, centuries of changes.

Only 4 stars because I'm not vibing with the war and tactics that much, but A+ for dragon bonding.

I would describe this as "good, but not as good as the first one". The war continues, Iris and Roman are on different sides but must find their ways back to each other, we see Iris's brother a bit, etc.

I admit the ending hurt, in several ways. I knew it wasn't realistic for everyone to survive the war, but still. And Dacre isn't the only one committing war crimes.

Modern Hades and Persephone in a world where the gods run nightclubs, and Persephone is a journalist. There were a couple of interesting ideas, like the gods having horns, but overall it was kind of cliché and I was often bored. Just didn't have the spark for me. Also, maybe I have different standards, but it's interesting what a wide range of books are categorized as "dark romance". For me this was like, barely dark.