Tootfinder

Just finished "Leap" by Simina Popescu. A really wonderful queer teen graphic novel that weaves romantic and platonic relationships together into a beautiful and hopeful story. The way Popescu captures choreography on an illustrated page is kinda magical, and since the whole book is set in a ballet school, we get to see plenty of it.
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Just finished "Punk Rock Karaoke" by Bianca Xunise. It's a really cool graphic novel about a high school punk band's journey as they graduate and try to juggle shifting responsibilities. It's #OwnVoices with a Black queer protagonist and has a relentless optimism and no-nonsense vibe, plus great facts about racism in music history, and probably if you are into punk music, a cool discography woven throughout (I hasn't rally heard of any of the songs mentioned to set the mood, but then again I'm not exactly a punk aficionado).
#AmReading #Punk

Just finished "Love, Hate, and Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed. I was worried near the beginning it would be pretty shallow, but having read some of Ahmed's other stuff, I wasn't surprised when it turned into a page-turner. Her books have a lot of similarities, but staying close to her own experience makes them better, I suspect. This was a good book.
---SPOILERS---
Had a much-better-than-average college-separation-induced highschool-romance-ending in my opinion.
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It's not complicated or difficult, either. #amreading

Just finished "The Songbird and the Rambutan Tree" by Lucille Abendanon. It's a pretty good and engaging work of historical fiction set in Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies) during World War II, with a 12-year-old Dutch girl who grew up locally as the protagonist.
It's written to be accessible to a pre-teen audience, despite the fairly grim backdrop. I think it does an okay if not stellar job dealing with the complicated colonial situation for a young audience. Overall, I like it.
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Need to add this book to my TBR list. #amreading #amwriting

Just finished "Ash's Cabin" by Jen Wang. It's a wonderful graphic novel, with so many lovely scenes of northern California, a gripping plot built on largely intrapersonal drama, and some cool points to make about nature and humans, even if I wish it had made them more forcefully or in a slightly different way. I also wish it had unpacked more of the interpersonal stuff, but I can see there wasn't room for that and it wasn't necessary for *this* story to work.
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Just finished "Look on the Bright Side" by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann. Sequel to "Go With the Flow" about a group of highschool friends who become activists to get their school to stock free mensuration products. I really enjoyed the first book, and this one was also great, with some discussion of LGBTQI issues and a but more focus on romance. As with the first book, there's a layer of explicit pedagogical material included that makes summer scenes a but less natural, but that's fine and useful. As with the first book, it models making & growing past mistakes, which is great.
I find myself drawing a comparison to "Does my Body Offend You?" by Mayra Cuevas. Both deal with highschool friends doing feminist activism to change their schools, by where Cuevas deals more directly with topics like sex, sexual assault, and racism, Williams & Schneemann avoid those topics while still including a lot of the same friendship struggles.
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Just finished "Tall Water" written by SJ Sindu and illustrated by Dion MBD. An excellent semi-autobiographical graphic novel about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Sri Lankan civil war, and parental estrangement.
Absolutely beautiful illustrations and a gripping plot had me tear through it in just an hour or so, though it's by no means short for a graphic novel. If my list of authors I deeply respect grows too fast, I'll just have to keep posting in my other thread indefinitely.
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Just finished "Thief of the Heights" written by Son M. and illustrated by Robin Yao. It's a very cool graphic novel about the illusions of meritocracy and loyalty to one's roots, with an interesting setting and better politics than most stuff out there, even if the plotting is a little rough and perhaps a bit too straightforward. The neat ending and reliance on heroism are themes I don't love in these kinds of tales, but I'm grateful for more stories in this category to exist in the first place, so I can't complain too much.
It's got disability, queer, and POC representation and some of that is #OwnVoices, which is cool, although those dimensions of the work aren't its focus.
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Finished "Blankets" by Craig Thompson, yet another riveting graphic memoir dealing with child abuse and Christianity (mostly separately). It's got pain but also beauty, and (somewhat obviously for a memoir) a non-tragic ending.
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Never good for a bookstore to close. #Oklahoma #bookstore #amreading

Losing a place for community: Fulton Street Books & Coffee announces closure
Tulsa’s only Black-owned bookstore opened in 2020 amid protests against police brutality. Now, Oklahoma politics are causing it to close.

Finished "Hungry Ghost" by Victoria Ying. A beautiful graphic novel dealing with disordered eating via an unintentionally abusive parent, plus loss of a parent. It's #OwnVoices and has a gentle ending. I enjoyed the body- and food-positive takeaways.
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Just finished "Lunar New Year Love Story" written by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by LeUyen Pham. Despite having just written a big thread about what media get wrong about love and finding a share of those same issues here, I enjoyed it a lot. I've been reading a lot of romance these days and it's got above-average advice, plus lovely illustrations and a mix of interesting Asian-American cultures.
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Everything is better at the #library. #amreading #books

Just finished "Animus" by Antoine Revy. Wonderful art and lovely creativity in the plot & world. Didn't quite "get" the ending, but I'm not going to criticize it because I think that was on me.
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I finished "Dear Wendy" by Ann Zhao a few days ago. It's a lovely platonic "romance" that deals explicitly with aro/ace identity, post-coming-out identity work as opposed to the initial realization journey, and Wellesley College student culture (although if unlike me that's not relevant to you, it's not like you need to be interested in this to enjoy the book).
It felt slightly weird to be reading a book by someone who I'm pretty sure could have been in one of my classes (but as far as I am remember wasn't). Probably would not have read it were it a normal romance, because that would have made character empathy super awkward. In any case, it feels useful to get an inside perspective on almost-contemporary student culture, especially the part that's a reminder of how many students love the liberal and progressive aspects of said culture, despite its flaws.
Super enjoyable and honestly pretty cozy book.
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Isles of the Emberdark 10/10 so far. #BrandonSanderson #Cosmere #bookstodon #amreading

Just finished "Hilda and the Bird Parade" by Luke Pearson, and as usual with Pearson's "Hilda" books, it's tremendous! A lovely magical world, childhood curiosity paired with responsibility, and that touch of each parental love.
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Refugees, intergenerational trauma, child death, abusive family
Also just finished "The Best We Could Do" by Thi Bui, which is the second memoir I've stumbled upon recently that deals with the Vietnamese exodus after the end of the war (House Without Walls by Ching Yeung Russel is the other one, which is written in verse, not illustrated). Bui traces more of the political landscape and history of Vietnam through the stories of both of her parents, and also unpacks a lot of intergenerational trauma, but has less focus on the boat trip out and refugee camp experience, presumably because hers were easier than Russel's.
My thoughts after reading this return repeatedly to all of the impacts that patriarchy and toxic masculinity had on her father, from setting up his father and grandfather to be abusive towards him and the women in their lives, to pushing him deep into depression when he feels unable to fulfill the role of a protective husband, ironically leaving his wife to pick up the slack and ultimately ruining their relationship, to how it teaches him to despise and shirk the caregiver role he's left with, ultimately passing on some measure of trauma to his children. For sure war, abusive family, and child death can happen in the absence of patriarchy and those are in some ways perhaps bigger factors here, but at the same time, Bui's mom copes with most of the same factors in healthier ways.
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Finished "Homebody" by Theo Parish last night. It's a lovely non-fiction graphic novel about Theo's journey of gender discovery as a trans nonbinary person. Has wonderfully comfy art, and it's still encouraging to see such a positive story of self-discovery. Was interesting to compare it to "Genderqueer" by Maia Kobabe: Maia's journey seems to have been a bit rougher (or they're just more comfortable sharing more of the rough parts), and Maia gets more into stuff about sex and genitals, which Theo either didn't deal with as much or avoids discussing.
#AmReading #trans #nonbinary

Just finished "Witchy" by Ariel Slamet Ries. It was a random pick from my local library, but now I see it's a webcomic and I'm looking forward to reading beyond the end of volume 1. It's got cool worldbuilding and a main character who grapples with state oppression, both of which I appreciated.
Lots of interesting use of movement blur in various panels too.
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Just finished "Concrete Rose" by Angie Thomas (I haven't yet read "The Hate U Give" but that's now high on my list of things to find). It's excellent, and in particular, an excellent treatise on positive masculinity in fiction form. It's not a super easy book to read emotionally, but is excellently written and deeply immersive. I don't have the perspective to know how it might land among teens like those it portrays, but I have a feeling it's true enough to life, and it held a lot of great wisdom for me.
CW for the book include murder, hard drugs, and parental abandonment.
I caught myself in a racist/classist habit of thought while reading that others night appreciate hearing about: early on I was mentally comparing it to "All my Rage" by Sabaa Tahir and wondering if/when we'd see the human cost of the drug dealing to the junkies, thinking that it would weaken the book not to include that angle. Why is that racist/classist? Because I'm always expecting books with hard drug dealers in them to show the ugly side of their business since it's been drilled into me that they're evil for the harm they cause, yet I never expect the same of characters who are bankers, financial analysts, health insurance claims adjudicators, police officers, etc. (Okay, maybe I do now look for that in police narratives). The point is, our society includes many people who as part of their jobs directly immiserate others, so why and I only concerned about that misery being brought up when it's drug dealers?
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Just finished "Dust" by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. A heavy but engrossing book, interwoven through a rich tapestry of Kenyan history. I learned a lot and was inspired to look up more, though that doesn't say much given my previous practically nonexistent knowledge of Kenyan history. Owuor's characters are complex and deeply interwoven, and her choices about what to reveal, when, and through whose voice, are immaculate. There is wisdom in this book, like Ajany's thought that we may each be born with a portion of madness to work through.
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Just finished reading "Theory of Water" by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. It's a departure from a lot of the other stuff I've read lately (mostly unchallenging fiction), but it's really great, and hits hard in this specific political moment. It's an Indigenous anarchist theory book, published this year, and unsurprisingly holds a lot of truths I found valuable to hear. Highly recommend it if you're feeling nihilistic.
#AmReading #Anarchist #Theory

Indirect CW: religious abuse, divorce
Just finished "Visitations" by Corey Egbert, a really powerful fictionalized graphic autobiography about a kid growing up in a cult-adjacent situation. It's more about his specific parent than the Mormon Church, but of course his mom's problems are symbiotic with and amplified through faith.
Spoilers:
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Has a positive ending, thank goodness.
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Just finished "Captivated, by You" by Yama Wayama. An excellent "funny off-beat highschool vignettes" manga with a focus on social interactions between weird boys. Thought I'd be getting a romance from the cover, but couldn't be more satisfied with the unexpected actuality. Great examples of non-toxic masculinity.
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Just finished "Barda" by Ngozu Ukadi. I don't normally grab classic comics or their modern successors from the library, and this exception to that rule has reminded me why I prefer to stick with other stuff, especially indie graphic novels: the stories are just so blocky & uninspired. I don't say "childish" since there are plenty of great books in the kids graphic novel section that I've enjoyed. It's also true that *some* of the classic stuff is deeper than the rest. But the average "comic" is not going to be very high on my list of stuff I enjoy, and this, while passable, was no exception to that generalization.
Still might look for other stuff by this author, since I'm pretty sure a lot of the issues with mainline comics can be publisher-dictated.
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Just finished "The Courageous Princess" by Rod Espinosa. It's... bad. I was really looking forward to it because I recently read "Castle Waiting" by Linda Medley, and it seemed from the cover like it might be from a similar epoch in comics and/or have similar vibes, but it's both a very bland story, and extremely into royalty apologetics, which is the opposite of Castle Waiting and which galls me immensely. It breaks exactly one genre convention (the princess gets fed up with waiting for a prince and rescues herself) but doesn't systematize that into even an ounce of feminism.
"Dealing With Dragon"s by Patricia Wrede is the actually amazing version of this story, although it's not a graphic novel.
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Just finished "Get a Life, Chloe Brown" by Talia Hibbert. It's... much less chaste than most of the other romances I've been reading, but also incredibly sweet and positive, so I enjoyed it a lot.
My one reservation is that it does the thing a lot of romance novels do where they equate physical desire with romantic desire, and physical flirtations/advances with actual communication, and yes people equate those things in the real world all the time, by it's often really harmful when they do that.
This novel does better with consent than 99% of the field probably, and legitimately deserves props for that, so this isn't the harsh criticism I'd level if it seriously broke the "would this be okay if we didn't have access to interior monologues" test, but it skirts the edges of that a bit.
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I'm reading Witch Hat Atelier right now (checked out of my local library) and it's top-notch amazing, including the plot, world-building, ethics, character designs, and of course three staggering artistic quality, both in raw illustration quality and artful compositions. It's not shy with playing with the manga form either, with lots of stunning unique panels and active gutters. I also just realized the "shounen manga for girls" formula I've been looking for (which is a formulation that's nearly as important for boys to have access to as girls). But I also really love the humor, including ridiculous puns that are often well-translated. In this scene, the main character Coco has forgotten she's using a mist form spell and ends up blowing away her mist-form body even as age rushes into a chaotic situation, leading to this pun.
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Just finished "Go With the Flow" by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann. It's a great graphic novel about period equity and teen activism, with a lot of depth through a variety of intertwined sub-plots.
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Just finished "The Melancholy of Summer" by Louisa Onomé. It's an excellent book about parental abandonment, rejecting and accepting help, and friendship, set in Toronto. There were a few threads that didn't quite get wrapped up by the end, but the ending wasn't dissatisfying, and the writing is excellent, particularly TV gee dialogue and the narration of Summer's thoughts. I felt like the strategic use of stutters both gave the main character extra vulnerability, but also helped subtly clue the reader into moments where Summer's perception of her interlocutors doesn't match their real feelings. Between this and "Like Home", I feel like Onomé's novels are a bit rough around the edges, yet they're still some of the most enjoyable books I've been reading, probably because she's pours so much humanity into her characters and lets their honest desire for something better rub off on the audience.
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I just finished "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir. I picked it up because I found her non-fantasy novel "All My Rage" extremely compelling, and I enjoyed fantasy a lot as a genre in my youth but as my politics have changed I'm too disappointed to enjoy a lot of fantasy any more but I thought Tahir might not fall into that.
Although I don't think Ember in the Ashes is bad, it's definitely not what I was looking for, and I don't think I'll pursue the sequels, at least not right now.
Overall the writing was weaker in a lot of ways than All My Rage, and in terms of basic fantasy quality, the worldbuilding was noticeably lacking, the romantic subplot felt stilted, and the politics were a bit murky. Compared to what I felt was Tahir's deft, delicate, and very meaningful handling of trauma in All My Rage, trauma in Ember felt overused and thin.
I also recently finished "Black Panther Red Wolf" by Marlon James, which had excellent world building and (to me) a much more nuance in both romance and in handling trauma. The politics felt a bit off for this one too I guess, but for me it was an overall more enjoyable (if much more difficult) read.
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Just finished "Once For Yes" by Allie Millington. A phenomenal book dealing with tragedy, gentrification, grief, and community, it's preposterously poetic, but unfortunately has a twisted neoliberal politics lurking behind the scenes that makes me hesitate to recommend it. I enjoyed it greatly, especially the tightly choreographed prose, and the plot was both very well-paced and touching. It's fun for adults but also written for kids, which makes it all the more frustrating that despite touching on gentrification, it valorizes someone who is objectively a pretty scummy landlord, and fails to interrogate land ownership or rent in the slightest. It wouldn't be nearly the same story without the way things wrap up, but that doesn't make me comfortable with the larger messages it's sending, even if I think its messaging about grief is good, including for children.
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Just finished "Forest Hills Bootleg Society" by Dave Baker and Nicole Goux. It's a very interesting queer teen graphic novel that's got a complicated plot. It also does some excellent things with the comic medium that I haven't seen elsewhere, letting us get glimpses of the inner lives of dozens of background characters.
I'm definitely interested in reading more from these authors.
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Just finished "Donuts and Doom" by Balazs Lorinczi. A lovely queer romance graphic novel featuring a witch and a rock star.
I like the way the book builds their romance through different stages, even if the plot is fairly basic. The world building is also fun.
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Indirect content warning for parental abuse, conversion "therapy," and homelessness.
Just finished "A World Worth Saving" by Kyle Lukoff. It's a gripping teen contemporary fantasy that has a Jewish trans protagonist, deals firmly with some dark stuff, and does an excellent job not only avoiding but confronting the problems with heroism as a literary theme. A truly excellent book, even if it doesn't transcend its YA genre as completely as something like Le Guin's Earthsea series IMO.
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Just finished "Freshman Year" by Sarah Mai. It's a pretty good autobiographical fiction graphic novel about the first year of college, and instead of trying to make things fit into a plot, it lets them float apart and remain unresolved, which is nice. Not so much explicit wisdom, but in offering a realistic picture of the personal struggles & emotional moments of the college transition, I feel like it's pretty valuable.
#AmReading #GraphicNovel

Just finished "Be That Way" by Hope Larson. An excellent semi-graphic-novel about highschool friendships & romances, written as a diary including many illustrations but also a lot of prose. Has a pretty open ending just like "Freshman Year" did, and it's interesting how they both hit a lot of the same themes, despite their differences. Despite being from a slightly younger age group, and having had a totally different highschool experience, a lot of the '90s elements resonated with me.
#AmReading #GraphicNovel

Just finished "Decelerate Blue" written by Adam Rapp and illustrated by Mike Cavallaro. It's a dystopian graphic novel that I found... not that great. Maybe the best thing about it was the world-building around the propaganda language everyone is forced to speak, but overall I found the plot construction and characters to be underwhelming.
Despite being a book about resistance to fascist oppression, it doesn't meaningfully engage with any major axes of oppression like patriarchy, racism, capitalism, or colonialism, and it doesn't offer an interesting lessons on how to conduct resistance or what long-term outcomes one might hope for.
First graphic novel I've checked out in a while that I didn't really like that much.
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Just finished "Lulu and Milagro's Search for Clarity" by Angela Velez. It's an excellent #OwnVoices Latinx teen drama about big questions like dating and college, and it's very well plotted, with lots of balls in the air that get caught and thrown again beautifully and which all come down nicely at the end. Reminded me of "Far From the Tree" by Robin Benway, which also had three siblings and which also juggled dramatic irony beautifully across multiple perspectives. A less skilled author could have told a similar story with more straightforward perspective trading, but Velez manages to create a lovely relay race of tensions that pass their batons to each other so neatly you're always eagerly awaiting the next development.
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