sometimes_samantha_reads's Reviews (283)

Beautiful water color! Adorable story with a great index/glossary in the back with Indonesian words, recipes, an some lore about gods.

A really cute coming of age story that tackles ablism, climate change, and friendship.

I liked it! The beginning was slow but the ending was thrilling. I didn't cry like everyone else seems to have done but I really thought the ending fit the story well. 

Cute, funny, and informative. I enjoyed it!

I haven't read a mystery quite like this one... ever! I'm not one for horror but this book captivated me on each and every page. First of all, the cover is absolutely stunning! And the writing has a good balance os creepy, dark, whimsical, and humor. Each character was different and fun in their own way and the world building was neat. The idea of a dark fairytale with changelings was really cool. It ended with so much mystery. I long to know more! 

I was intrigued by this book because I was unfamiliar with any Native American folktales or stories and wanted to know more. I wholeheartedly appreciate that the comics included in this anthology were all from Native people. Though, I personally only enjoyed about half of the comics in the book....

Art is very important in a graphic novel and some of the comics had beautiful or otherwise unique artwork that was appealing to me personally. The rest I thought looked like something that would be published in a Sunday newspaper - which there's nothing inherently wrong about that but I was looking for something more than simple newspaper comic art. Some of the panels were placed weirdly as well, making some of the stories hard to follow.

The stories were fun though. I liked how some of the morals ended up being "you snooze you loose" or "and the trickster tricked everyone and got away with it because he was smart and cunning". 

I wouldn't read it again, but it was mostly enjoyable to read through it.

I'm not trans or nonbinary, but I'm pan. I really identified with the constriction of the binary when reading this and considering the protagonist. I appreciated the realness the book provided with so many what ifs and anxiety as well as the happy moments. Also, the book was funny! It balanced the sobering and plain sad/angry moments with some very funny ones! 

One thing I struggled with was the name of the protagonist. It bothered me that once the dead name was shirked by the protagonist, other characters would consistently dead name them. To be fair, it was shown in a very real way, mainly used by parents of the protagonist who were learning, but still. Same with the use of particular pronouns. There was a lot of floundering with them which seemed annoying to me because the protagonist claims their name and pronouns at a very particular point in the story and the name and pronouns are not used consistently even after they expressly asked for them. 

Eventually it all worked our as the protagonist identified with both male and female pronouns, but I was annoyed that when they asked for she/her pronouns, it was often met with "he, well now, she". 

Otherwise I truly did enjoy the book!

I've been listening to Welcome to Nightvale since 2012 and it became a ritual to listen to episodes on the marching band bus, to and from competitions. The novels are just as wonderfully bizarre and uniquely insightful. They are full of social commentary wrapped up in weirdness and I love it. I only wish I hadn'  taken so long to get to this book! The ending was sad for me, but I appreciated the realness in it. 

As always, Cecil Baldwin is an amazing narrator and I loved experiencing this novel as if it were a prolonged podcast episode. 

This one just wasn't for me... I was pretty excited about it based on the summary and I tend to enjoy magical realism, but after Part One I started to get lost. There were multiple speakers/narrators so the point of view (1st, 2nd, and 3rd!) was constantly changing and I was confused about who was talking. The time shifted a lot too and it wasn't always clear if we were in the past or present because there was a lot of mixing past and present tense writing within the same chapters. The magical realism was one element that could have been implemented earlier because it seemed it was "tacked on" toward the middle of the book. 

I appreciated the authors sentiment in the afterward about how she went back to revise and added extra bits for some of the characters but I think it made the story more muddled and hard to follow (though I didn't read the original publication). 

The ending, I thought, was way too tidy for how chaotic the rest of the book was. I was disappointed in it. I tries really hard to understand and enjoy this one, but unfortunately it just wasn't my thing. 

I learned so much from this book. I sincerely appreciated the history and culture index at the end. The art was lovely but also harsh. This book was challenging to read because of the violent events depicted but I felt proud for Nisrin when she took a stance for herself and for her culture. There are too many feelings in my head and chest right now since I just finished the book. I can't articulate them all but this was a swift reminder to love and protect the diversity of people in this world.

Super cute! I've picked it up a few times to look at it from the library and I finally read it this weekend. 

It was funny but also had real-life parallels to insidious governments and who is a true villain. The ending was bittersweet. I love a good bittersweet ending!