Books! Some With Pictures!

[netgirl_y2k]

Comics

Poison Ivy: Mourning Sickness - The G. Willow Wilson Poison Ivy series continues to be my favourite ongoing comic - though by volume three it does feel like it's outgrown its origin as a miniseries without quite having found its feet as an ongoing - I am quite delighted by the kinda, sorta Ivy/Harley/Janet from HR love triangle.

Wonder Woman: Outlaw - I liked this more than most people did, I think because I have lingering fond feelings for Tom King based on his Supergirl run. It's no Wonder Woman: Historia, but what is?

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant - I think it's extremely cool that Iman Vellani got to write Ms. Marvel, I probably won't read any more, because I have never succeeded in caring about the X-Men, but this is cute and I'm happy it exists.

Fiction

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell - Aw, man, this was so disappointing. I so wanted to like this f/f monster romance between a human woman and a shape shifting, carnivorous, flesh monster. But all it is, is the monster character thinking things like 'It is it ethical to implant my eggs in the chest of the woman I love without her consent?' And that's it, that's the joke. It never changes tone, the plot never feels urgent, just one indifferent joke stretched over three hundred pages.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore - A mystery about a teenage girl who goes missing at the same summer camp where her brother went missing a decade earlier. It's one of those...what's a way to say literary that doesn't sound so sniffy? Anyway, it's one of those. I think if you like, like, Tana French or Jane Harper you'd like this.

The Duke's Sister and I by Emma Claire Sunday - A regency lady being courted by a duke falls for his sister. Sounds like it should be right up my alley, right? But the writing was so blah that it was just impossible to care.

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens - Okay, now this, this, I loved. It's a queer western about a woman who moves from being an orphan to a whore to a gunslinger, and it's probably my favourite thing I've read this year.

Non-Fiction

Black Pill by Elle Reeve - Reeve was one of the Vice journalists who reported from Charlottesville, and is easily the best chronicler of the online (and increasingly offline) far right cesspool. But it's so dispiriting to have read this narrative more than once and for still no one to have any concrete ideas about what to do about it, because clearly shining a light on it isn't enough.

Pairs well with,

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac - The really frustrating thing about Elmo is him being too rich for consequences, because there really ought to be meaningful consequences for being this bad at running a company.

Like I keep saying, normal way to run an economy, nothing to see here, for sure won't have unforeseen consequences, etc.

Anyone read anything good recently? I'm blanking on what to read next.

Comments

[garonne]

Ooh, I've had Lucky Red on my to-buy-some-day list for ages, but couldn't remember why. (I just had it listed with a load of other Westerns.) Just moved it to the top of the list after reading your post!

[netgirl_y2k]

It's really good, especially for a first novel! I hope you enjoy it

[lyr]

Well, currently I'm reading Sweet Sting of Salt, so thanks for that. I've been on a historical kick lately, so before that I started the Shardlake Tudor-era mystery series, and also knocked out the Viking historical fiction Golden Wolf Saga trilogy. All of that was excellent. And did I get the idea to read Julia Ember's Seafarer duology from you? If so, thanks. If not, I think you'd like it.

[netgirl_y2k]

I've never read the Shardlake books, but I did quite like the show earlier this year.

I'd never heard of the Seafarer duology, but you're right, it looks right up my alley.

[rachelmanija]

Thanks for warning me off the Wiswell. But Lucky Red sounds great and I never read it before!

I loved House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland.

[netgirl_y2k]

The Wiswell takes one joke, that would have been hard pushed to sustain a novella and drags it out over a whole (not short!) novel. I am quite cross that I wasted my time on it.

Thanks for the recs, they look more like it!

[rachelmanija]

PS. You might enjoy these: https://mariecardno.com/

[chestnut_pod]

I recently enjoyed the graphic novel Shubeik Lubeik, by Deena Mohamed. In Cairo, three people from very different walks of life each buy a powerful "first class" djinn wish and set about deciding what their heart's desire is -- and then how to ask for it. Interesting art style, fun city-scapes, lively frame narrative. Some discussion of suicide, domestic abuse, prison, but I'd say that overall it's actually not a very sad book, and it ends on a high up-note.

[netgirl_y2k]

Ooh, I really like the look of that art style, and I am trying to branch out from Superheros, graphic novel wise.

[chestnut_pod]

There are also some absolutely beautiful calligrams worked into the art!

[dhampyresa]

it's so dispiriting to have read this narrative more than once and for still no one to have any concrete ideas about what to do about it, because clearly shining a light on it isn't enough.

Ain't that a fucking mood!

[netgirl_y2k]

Sometimes sunlight isn't the best disinfectant; sometimes industrial fucking bleach is the best disinfectant.