mozaikmage

Only read six books each month due to uh. STILL struggling through the Brothers Karamazov lol

Flesh by David Szalay

Started in Jan, finished Feb 1st. Everyone hyping this up was fucking right. Killer last line.

Strange Houses by Uketsu

Worse than Strange Pictures, so probably a good decision to publish that one first in English. I didn’t like how it was all just people explaining things to each other instead of… things happening. But it was still a kind of interesting puzzle thing.

Good Luck, Babe! by Erin Baldwin

The Netgalley arc went kinda viral so I grabbed one. It was okay, but the relationship didn’t work for me: the reason for their rift felt too contrived and poorly resolved.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Read it for friend group book club lol. Also lived up to the hype! I liked reading it. Saved more detailed thoughts for book club.

Heart the Lover by Lily King

I read it half-wondering how it tied into Writers and Lovers and then I got to the reveal and was like Ohhhhhh. Really good, good follow-up/companion/sequel book and good on its own. King is so good at setting up multiple love interests that feel believable as characters the protagonist would be interested in.

Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

Short book that took me forever to read, for some reason. I think I found Lazi’s head difficult to inhabit. Interesting, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it? The crocodile sections were funny, but the dialogue felt kind of stiff (translation casualty?)

Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood

I checked this out because I wanted to learn what the Ali Hazelwood fuss was about but refused to read reskinned Reylo and you know what maybe I should’ve taken my chances on the Reylo. The narrative voice was actually fine. I thought it’d be cringe/overly twee from what I’ve heard about her writing, but I thought it sounded very standard-issue het romance novel.

But oh my god. It’s an age gap romance where instead of the two central characters having character flaws they develop past over the course of the narrative, the two central characters are just perfect for each other and the only, THE ONLY point of conflict is that one of them is older. Not even that he has different values because he’s older. Age in this book is pretty much literally just a number. All their arguments are just “I’m too old 4 u” “no ur not” and it’s so repetitive and so POINTLESS because the age gap has NO CONSEQUENCES. He’s her older brother’s best friend and the older brother doesn’t even object to the relationship!

I did like the Sicily setting and there’s some fun set pieces and comic misfortunes that occur. The side characters are fine. Honestly even the main characters are fine in isolation, I just feel like the whole concept of an age gap romance was fumbled here. The book probably would’ve been better if they were the same age just because that way the author would’ve had to find a more interesting conflict for them. The rest of it mostly worked though!

Season’s Change by Cait Nary

I really liked this book mostly because it reminded me of Crossfire, my favorite fanfiction, except if Miyuki was more traumatized and Sawamura was into yoga and therapy. I also liked Nary’s writing style, much less detailed than AO3 user Kittebasu’s but still very evocative. I think the author and I might have a mutual acquaintance? There was a familiar name in the acknowledgements section. Pretty good friends-to-lovers hockey romance novel, would recommend!

Us by Sara Soler
This was on hold from the QLL on Libby for at least a year and I don’t think it was worth it. Very “Trans 101”, interesting for the Barcelona-specific angle mostly, but I checked it out because I really liked Soler’s art style in the sample pages and I think she has a good graphic-memoir picture-voice. I would read more memoir from her. I like looking at her pictures. Worth maybe a month or two on Libby hold but not nearly a year of Libby hold lol.

Hot Girls with Balls by Benedict Nguyễn

Honestly was not expecting to like this one as much as I did. This is a satire about two Asian American trans girls playing men’s indoor volleyball and being internet influencers, while also being in a relationship with each other and dealing with so many levels of rivalry and jealousy. The no-quotation-marks style really works here, even if it was a little confusing sometimes, because it flattens the social media dialogue, internal dialogue, and spoken dialogue all into one thing, making them all seem equally important. The internet bits felt realistic and believable. It’s trying to do a lot and I think it mostly succeeds. I enjoyed it, actually! Even though there were somehow zero Haikyuu references. Minus half a point for not mentioning Haikyuu</3

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Read this for friend group book club and am thus saving all my best takes for the besties sorry. Reminded me of Sorokin’s work a little, but slightly less gross.

Lucky Bounce by Cait Nary

Finished reading this and then went to Nary’s website to be surprised that this was published after Season’s Change, because it feels like a step down from her earlier book. I liked how colorfully and specifically she described Philly (a town I feel an affinity with because I live near-ish to it lol) but there’s not a whole lot of… plot. I kept waiting for something to happen, like character development for either protagonist, maybe their secret relationship getting discovered or the kid’s mom coming back or something, but nope. Straightforward relationship progression with maybe half a conversation’s worth of friction between sex scenes. It wasn’t an unpleasant reading experience by any means, but it was much less memorable than Season’s Change. The overall story structure reminded me more of fanfiction than anything else I’ve read recently, including the former Reylo BNF.

Last month, I had a lot of time to read books!

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

I started this in November but finished it on the First. I liked it less than Triton and found it harder to read, but parts of it would’ve made an incredible romantasy premise. Imagine there’s a guy who’s the only survivor of a catastrophe that destroyed his ENTIRE PLANET, and he’s your soulmate, and you’re his soulmate… This could totally work as a romantasy premise. I did enjoy the examinations of culture and imperialism and knowledge as power and gender and labor and all of those things, but it was very dense and kind of difficult to get through.

Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian

Love triangle between a grad student, her thesis advisor, and her thesis advisor’s husband. Could’ve been gayer, but I liked the meta layers of the story.

An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 by Adrienne Rich

Well, the title did include the world “difficult,” so perhaps it was on me for expecting to understand these. I ended up skimming some of the poems and then feeling guilty for skimming. Like, they’re poems! It’s not that many words to read! But I don’t think I vibe with Rich’s style. I May Be Stupid.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Insane how much evil these people got away with. I was excited to read this one because I enjoyed Say Nothing so much, and I enjoyed reading this one too, but also I just felt so… aghast, the whole time I was reading, that all of this was allowed to happen, that the pharmaceuticals industry was so corrupted from every direction, and that every single person involved in engineering the opioid crisis is convinced they did nothing wrong?? I like how PRK structured the book.

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

If this was a fanfiction I would have hit the back button about two paragraphs in, but since I checked it out from the library I read the whole thing and was not impressed.

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Ashamed to admit this was actually my first Didion and since I was constantly referencing her Wikipedia page/her daughter’s Wikipedia page/googling various namedropped friends and associates, I feel like I probably should’ve started with something else. But this was the only ready to borrow Didion book at my library, so I read it and it was quite sad.

Marriage of a Thousand Lies by SJ Sindu

Reading this book felt like being trapped in a cardboard box. A closeted lesbian married to a gay man has to watch her best friend with benefits also go through an arranged marriage in the Sri Lankan immigrant community in Boston. Bleak and miserable! But good.

Leap by Simina Popescu

Graphic novel about lesbian contemporary dancers in Romania! I enjoyed it.

Workhorse by Caroline Palmer

I think this book was about twice as long and covered about twice as much time as it needed to. The pitch– Devil Wears Prada meets Talented Mr. Ripley – made me expect a lot more Intrigues and Schemes, but the protagonist presents herself as kind of an incompetent alcoholic who occasionally does something horrible for no reason whatsoever. I think she’s supposed to be an unreliable narrator, but her narrative voice is more annoying than fun to follow. The rich people subplot was extremely depressing and kind of undermined the Ripley side of things to me.

Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake

I couldn’t get through a page of The Atlas Six, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the narrative voice in Girl Dinner. Like, it was fun! It was a fun read! But I was also surprised that Blake called it a “satire” in the afterword, because it didn’t really feel like it was making fun of Sloane or Nina, it felt like the reader was supposed to empathize with them, not mock them. There were some lines that struck me as kind of satirical, but mostly it was just an occasionally funny book. I think it should’ve been picked up by a litfic imprint instead of Tor, though. I feel like it could’ve been a sharper and more interesting critique (or even, like, actually a satire lol), if it’d been edited by a literary editor instead of an SFF one. The SFF element (which is obvious from the title) was probably the weakest aspect overall. The ending felt kind of… unnecessary? Out of nowhere? I didn’t love that part. But I liked it more than I thought I would overall.

The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Fine. I like the publishing inside baseball bits and the thriller bits were also fun. The chapter titles bit was very funny.

The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm

Really interesting. Checked it out based on some post I saw on here that mentioned it, and I really enjoyed reading it. Inspired me to read more Sylvia Plath poetry.

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

I don’t think I like Highsmith’s writing style overall, but I did enjoy… how easily Ripley got away with so much nonsense somehow. Watched the movie with Matt Damon in it also and was amused the movie made him both gayer and more sympathetic/less of a cold-blooded freak. He is much more committed to the bit in the book.

Work Nights by Erica Peplin

Kind of boring, kind of funny, at least it’s gay I guess? Doesn’t seem to be saying anything interesting about anything, but at least it’s about lesbians!

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

This took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to finish reading, but I did enjoy it. I mostly read it because Rebecca was not available on Libby and this was Ready to Borrow lol. Gothic romance set in the 1800s, very… moody, ambiguous. I thought it was fine.

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb

I really loved the art, I thought Tim Sale’s use of spot blacks was really innovative and interesting and the paneling was creative and stylish. However, as I was not inoculated into Cape Fandom as a child, I found it difficult to buy into the basic premise of the Batman rogues gallery. I am trying to be a responsible Comics Person and get Into Capes, but it’s hard, because most cape comics kinda suck in various ways.

Everybody (Else) Is Perfect: How I Survived Hypocrisy, Beauty, Clicks, and Likes by Gabrielle Korn

Kind of interesting, but I think the parts where she was talking about broader societal trends were weaker than the parts that were just about herself and her life/work.

Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton

Maybe if I was an obsessive Beach Boys fan this would’ve worked better for me. I found the epistolary framing confusing and unnecessary. Just write the book in second person, you don’t need the letter framing!

Penitence by Kristin Koval

Unfortunately mostly felt like Beartown but worse, because Backman has a very intentional and interesting writing style and Koval does not. Backman also builds atmosphere and environments very effectively, so that it really feels like all of Beartown is telling you its story together, and Penitence develops… some characters a bit. Didn’t like how we stayed out of Nora’s head pretty much until the last page. Also I guessed the endgame reveal ten pages in, while the characters didn’t even think of it as a theory until two-thirds of the way into the book, which annoyed me.

Absolute Martian Manhunter, Vol. 1: Martian Vision by Deniz Camp

The Martian Vision pages were great and I loved the visuals and colors, but overall… I dunno. I understand why my friend who really liked it really liked it, because it’s the same friend who got me a copy of The Crying of Lot 49. I think reading this so soon after The Long Halloween made me tired of comics about men neglecting their families to fight crimes.

In October I read. 24 books. But at least half of them were graphic novels due to a) Comic Con and b) the annual PW Critic’s Poll landing in my inbox and reminding me I haven’t read anything all year and need to catch up so I can make a good list lol. Anyway, on to the list!

Grand Slam Romance Book 3: Farewell to Babes: A Graphic Novel Volume 3 by Emma Oosterhous and Ollie Hicks

What a fun conclusion to a fun series! It’s frankly criminal this trilogy isn’t the most popular graphic novel series out there, it’s so funny and so gay and fun. I want to make something this fun! Longer review of volume 2 up on WWAC if you wanna see.

Сто лет тому вперёд (A Hundred Years Ago Ahead) by Kir Bulychev

I made my girlfriend watch two episodes of the TV miniseries adaptation A Guest From The Future (ON YOUTUBE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES. We do not speak of the new remake), which made me want to reread the book to remember what they’d changed for the series. It’s a really good children’s book, actually! I feel like Bulychev’s optimistic view of the future really influenced my own science fiction-themed creative work, because this series was my FAVORITE in elementary school. Rereading as an adult, I was really impressed with how realistic and specific each kid character was. There was a whole class of kids and they all felt different but believable. They’re all generally well-meaning but still capable of being petty and jealous and annoying, because they’re literally twelve. They feel believably twelve years old. Even Alisa the supergirl from the future feels like a twelve year old, more or less. And it’s funny!!!

Night in the American Village: Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa by Akemi Johnson

I did not know how much I didn’t know about Okinawa and its relationship to Japan and the U.S. Military. The book is structured as a series of case studies-interviews with different women living in Okinawa, from Okinawan WWII survivors to American military wives to the half-American daughters of local women and military men. Ultimately, Johnson concludes the bases need to go, but it’s surprising how many locals like having them there because of how much the local economy is tied up in those bases. Really informative and engaging book.

Moderation by Elaine Castillo

This was really fun. There were a lot of sentences that struck me as perfect ways to phrase things while I was reading, but then when I tried going back to find examples I couldn’t seem to pinpoint them. Still, Castillo’s writing felt very elegant and controlled, like her main character. The romance worked really well too, the love interest wasn’t too perfect and he and Girlie seemd to fit together well. Also Girlie’s family was really fun. I read it on the train up to NYCC lol.

Breadcrumbs: Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Poland by Kasia Babis

Read this on the train coming down from the First Second/23rd Street party at NYCC lol. Babis’s memoir examines the realities of being a socially conscious young woman in the deeply Catholic, conservative post-Soviet world of early 2000s Poland, looking at her life but also that of her friends and their families. I remember reading some of her short comics on the Nib and enjoying them, but I liked the memoir more. It felt very cohesive and intentional.

How Could You by Ren Strapp

Also read this on the train down from NYCC due to purchasing it directly from the author there lol. Ah, collegiate mess. If you love disaster lesbians causing problems, this is the book for you!

The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei

I remember reading that this got like a 500k advance and a blurb from Kaveh Akhbar and I dunno I thought it was, like, fine. I thought the random lesbian couple Genevieve meets in NZ was weirdly glossed over if she’s coming from Singapore where homosexuality is much less accepted but I guess she’s writing for a Western audience? It might’ve been more interesting with more POV changes, or from Arin’s POV instead of Genevieve. Surprised by the Akhbar blurb considering the prose in this was... pretty bland, mostly. I guess it’s fine for a debut?

The New Girl by Cassandra Calin

I got this at the Scholastic party at NYCC (signed by the author!) and it’s cute! Very standard Middle Grade Autofiction Graphic Novel, elevated by frankly extremely appealing art and slightly unusual personal backstory (Romanian girl moves to Montreal, which stands out amongst all the middle-American new-kid-at-school books in this genre.) I’ve seen some of Calin’s webcomic strips around before, and I was surprised how well she adapted her style to this full color middle grade look. Cuter than pretty much any competitor I can think of right now. Definitely recommend for anyone with a kid in their life.

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku, Vol. 4 by Fujita

Reread, I won the Fujita signing lottery at Kodansha House and then didn’t realize we needed to bring a book to the signing and panic-bought this while waiting for my turn to get a book signed. Then read the whole thing while waiting lol. She drew Hanako in it for me. It’s perfect. I can die happy now.

The Internal Sea: Mare Internum by Der-Shing Helmer

Full review on The Beat. I liked it!

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Heard a lot about this and finally read it! I was not expecting the time travel to be back-and-forth and was not expecting Dana to be able to bring stuff with her when time traveling. I really liked her relationship with her husband, complicated but still loving and supportive. Dana was a fun lead to follow. The escalation of the time jumps was stressful, and the slavery parts were genuinely horrifying. More fun to read than I thought it’d be, though. 

And The Strange & Funky Happenings One Day by Miyazaki Natsujikei

I bought this at MOCCA in March but I am so so bad at finishing short story collections because each short story makes me feel like I’m done reading so this took me forever to finish. It’s fun! Weird, random, charming. I did like it. It was just hard for me to finish it lol.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Sad! Decent mystery, very strong exploration of the dynamics of both a specific place and specific types of people in that place. I think I did like it overall.

A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Discussed in more detail in this post, this ruled.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

I had high expectations for this but it didn’t work for me. Too many random unrelated digressions, too little point. Not that funny. I think I was expecting something closer to Sayers’s Peter Wimsey stories. Might watch the Soviet movie eventually, it’s my cousin’s favorite.

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

Inspired to read by liking Help Wanted and a Substack post about what this Type of Guy could look like in 2025. Tne book seemed very observant. I disagree with the Substack post that this guy is based on Keith Gessen, though: no prominent sibling in a similar field (or unprominent siblings, Nate’s an only child), and Nate’s backstory seems more similar to Waldman’s own than Gessen’s. Also, Nate did not start a magazine at any point in the book lol. Lots of people in media are children of Eastern European immigrants, random Substack guy!

Palestine by Joe Sacco

I think this might actually be my first Sacco book, which is kind of wild because I feel like I’ve read his work before? He did a visiting artist talk at CCS that I remember finding very insightful. His style is interesting, somehow both spontaneously stream of consciousness and extremely laborious. I remember he did talk about how long each page takes him to draw. I do want to read his new book about Gaza and see if he managed to follow up with anyone he interviewed in this one. Definitely informative.

The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

Ok the misogyny was infuriating but I respected that Tokarczuk was doing that on purpose and Going Somewhere With It and boy was she ever. Maybe I should read the Magic Mountain for the full experience. I loved the random images and photos just kind of thrown in there for decoration. I want to do that with a novel someday.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Shorter than I thought it’d be, funnier than I thought it’d be, sadder than I thought it’d be.

They Were 11! by Moto Hagio

First half was great, second half was all interplanetary politics that were much less my thing, but the book design and Hagio’s art were wonderful. Great reissue.

Saint Catherine by Anna Meyer

Pretty Good! A good first title for 23rd street. I liked all the characters and I feel like the themes hung together well.

Smoke gets in your eyes by Anaïs Flogny

My friend Lydia’s first acquisition as an editor at Abrams! So stylish, so pretty, so elegant. Classic Mafia Yaoi but done so, so well, like the most perfect Old-Fashioned from an upscale bar.

Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Life, Taken by Force by Ben Passmore

Really funny and creative, and very informative. I learned a lot about stuff I’d previously heard of in passing or not at all, and the bibliography at the end was very helpful too.

Land vol 1 by Kazumi Yamashita

THIS FUCKING RULED. Made me go “ooooo” out loud. Folk horror! Twins separated at birth! Gods which are real?! Fantasy or science fiction?! Who knows! I need volume 2 like right now or else!
I've been posting a lot on Substack so uh follow me on there for manga analysis and things.  

Link to playlist here.
Fic the playlist is for is here.
Romance ga ariamaru: title drop! The plaintive way Kawatani sings “ariaMAru” just really encapsulated the vibe I was going for with this. And I mean the fic is kind of about going from years of sporadic occasional contact to suddenly spending an Excess of time with each other, so. I like it. I headcanon Kuroo as a gesukiwa liker because they were at their peak of popularity/relevance at around the same time as when he was in college.

Aoi, Koi, Daidaiiro no hi: Everyone I know with the most sophisticated music taste really likes Mass of the Fermenting Dregs. I like them fine, but I headcanon krtsk as having cooler music taste than me, and I do think it makes good train ride music.

Unbelievers: I listened to this a lot when writing my first krtsk fic so putting this on the playlist brings me back to that frame of mind

The stars will stay here: Kino is easily the greatest Russian rock band of all time, but this song’s a bit of a deeper cut for them. I like it! I think it’s fun. The chorus I think is the most relevant (rough TL by me): “I got caught in a net and I can’t get out (doodoodoodooo) / your gaze/ hits me like an electric current/ and the stars, having fallen, will all remain here/forever remain here.”

Yoake no machi de sayonara wo: I like it and having headcanoned kuroo as a gesukiwa fan thought it appropriate to add to the list

Put your camera down (English): I am content with taking in this moment caught in time.

Portugal: another fic’s author notes connected this song to Kagehina which made me scream but also Talking is Hard was my writing soundtrack for most of 2018, and is thus heavily mentally associated with my peak postcanon hq fic production period. Magic spell for making me write.

Watashi igai watashi ja nai no: coke commercial song :sob: but also a fave, and also I think describes Tsukki pretty well.

Do I Wanna Know: AM was my writing soundtrack for my first krtsk fic ever (I associate the album with work because my high school art class always played it start to finish during Work Time lol), for a while the playlist had R U Mine but then I decided this fit better.

Junkie: not thematically relevant I just liked the sound and wanted a Frederic song that wasn’t oddloop lol because they’re a J-indie Band that I think kuroo might like. I guess a little thematically relevant: the fed-up part. 

Take me out: yaoi song

Eve Stepper: underrated hitorie banger. I love the melody, the chorus, wowaka’s voice (rip), it fills me with an intense unnamable forward-propelling energy and thus belongs on a writing playlist for me.

Starship Syncopation: I like to think kuroo listens to things like this when home alone.

The Adults are Talking: they’ll get it right some time.

Shunrai: this was not a j-drama ending theme (though yonezu has done several) but if it was I would’ve watched that drama. I love kenshi yonezu so much. This song is on the playlist because I like it and because of the chorus bit that translates to “to give shape to it, to give voice to it, would be so incredibly fraught…”

Hyperventilation: most interesting radwimps song. I think this is what the inside of tsukki’s head sounds like when he’s stressed out lol.

Senkou Shoujo (Put your camera down but Japanese): The English version isn’t a one-to-one translation, so it has a slightly different vibe in each language, which is why I wanted to include both versions. I like both versions!

Ai Ren Cuo Guo: Not a lyrics-based addition for once, I just like the vibes and like imagining krtsk listening to this on the train. I think it sounds nice :) Placement on the list determined by where it sounded best in the musical flow, not where it appears in the story

Sympathy: “now we’ve got that sympathy, what I’m to you, you are to me, let’s go”

Delusionalism: I like how it sounds after Sympathy.

Melancholy Kitchen: I like how it sounds at this point in the playlist, and it’s an underrated older Yonezu where he sounds a little younger and rougher than in his more recent stuff. The song is about a relationship falling apart due to a communication breakdown and one person cooking things badly, so not that thematically relevant, but I like the fun melody and the way it feels intimate and ultimately optimistic.

Hachimitsu: Spitz was most popular in the 90s so I thought it’d make sense as a band for Kuroo’s dad to be into, and then I listened through this album as a test to see if it made sense for the context in which I mentioned it and decided that yes it is in fact totally perfect.

Not Appearing In This Playlist: Lamp Genso, despite being mentioned in the fic. I do think Tsukki would like them/that album, I just didn’t want to listen to it while writing because it’s too slow and downbeat to keep me typing lol.

As some of you may know, I’ve been getting into rock climbing lately. I’m still not very good at it due to my crippling fear of heights and complete lack of upper body strength, but I’m getting better!

So, what better time to watch Iwa-kakeru: Sport Climbing Girls?

Honestly, I did not watch this show when it aired despite some of my friends talking about it mostly because the vacuum-sealed tank top aesthetic did not appeal to me. And the numerous cleavage shots also did not appeal to me. And then I completely forgot about it for the next five years. But now! I remembered it exists!

And so I watched the first episode and I was not impressed.

We open with a cute little cameo of real-life professional Japanese climber Akiyo Noguchi, who is genuinely super cool and whose youtube video on finger stretches is extremely useful. She does her attempt at the problem and then up next is... Konomi, the protagonist of the show.

We then go back to Konomi’s first year of high school and how she discovers competitive climbing. She was wandering randomly through her school grounds and stumbled on a climbing wall, and is then challenged by Jun, the prodigy first year member of the club who won’t let her join if she’s not serious. Climbing immediately appeals to her because, as a formerly almost-pro puzzle gamer, it’s like solving puzzles in real life! The next day the club upperclassmen help the two of them have a sport-climbing competition, and Konomi just barely loses to Jun, but Jun is impressed enough to let her stay. Which is good for the club because they have a competition the next day!

Fundamentally, I believe it is not a well-constructed first episode, and this is why:

The characters are not introduced to each other and the audience in a memorable way, and the sport is not introduced to the audience and the viewpoint character in a memorable way.

From this first episode, I feel like only Konomi and Jun got any kind of personality, while the upperclassmen are just Upperclassmen (Generic.) Which I’d understand if they were trying to introduce a dozen people at once, but there’s only four people on the team! You can introduce four characters in 22 minutes!

As for Konomi and Jun, Jun is very clearly a girl iteration of The Kageyama Archetype but is also, like, unreasonably harsh. You have three people on the team right now! You can’t really afford to turn newbies away!

What threw me off the most was how immediately good at climbing Konomi was. I’ve seen a lot of types of climbing newbies at the gym since I started, and even the people more naturally advantaged than me (tall, athletic, strategic thinkers) can’t just hop on the wall and move perfectly on their very first day climbing. Even if we accept the premise that Konomi is amazing at route-finding because of her puzzle game expertise, it’s hard for me to buy that she can move her body the way her mind wants it to move right off the bat, even if she did ballet as a kid. Unless she went really, really hard at ballet as a kid, and quit relatively recently... but if she’d been playing video games for all of middle school, there’s no way she wouldn’t have lost some of her strength and mobility.

As a casual go-to-the-bouldering-gym-a-few-times-a-week climber, the lack of explanation of how sport climbing worked was really confusing. I don’t have any experience with that type of lead climbing, and it confused me how Konomi didn’t need anyone to tell her how to clip into the bolts or when to switch over. Why didn’t she ask any questions? Did the harness feel weird to her? What about chalk?!

The speed at which Konomi just starts kicking ass at climbing felt very unrealistic.

The climbing showdown between Konomi and Jun had a sequence of still images with voiceover on top of them that felt very low-budget for a first episode of a new anime. Also. The cleavage shots. I did not care for them. It is not against the rules of climbing for teenagers to wear T-shirts.

There’s a surprising amount of manga about bouldering out there! Rock climbing is fairly popular in Japan. I haven’t read most of it, but I did take a look at the first chapter of Strawberry Canyon and it reminded me of Chihayafuru but with rocks. The Berry Canyon gym sounds a lot more professional and intense than the gym I go to. I would probably be struggling on the Grade 5 wall in there, even if I can flash V3s at my gym now. Seems cute! Still undecided on if I want to spend money to read the whole thing.

But the webcomic I’ve been reading since I started going to the climbing gym is actually a manhwa on webtoon called Deadpoint by MAYORAC, and it rules!

Hoji is okay at rock climbing, but her real special skill is the ability to see other people’s “talent ceiling” – the highest they can go in their field before they fail, an ability she developed after her mother died in a tragic accident. When she unexpectedly befriends climbing prodigy Aseong Chae, the two of them start training together to discover if it might actually be possible to overcome all limitations.

I just love the art- absolutely gorgeous bright colors, dynamic poses, smooth shapes and sleek lines. And the main character gets to wear T-shirts! Hoji’s design is so cute. She is so babey.

I like that she’s competing at a high level but still struggling to send the high-level problems, which makes the comp problems feel legitimately difficult. I also like that her relationship with Aseong Chae is a little toxic and messed up. Adds flavor!

Despite Aseong also being a black-haired sports prodigy, she’s not quite a Kageyama because she’s taking a break from the sport entirely, and is serving more as a coach-mentor type to Hoji than as a rival/deuteragonist. Her true motivations in helping Hoji are still unclear and possibly sinister— she’s really concerned with learning about the “talent ceilings” of her and Hoji’s biggest rivals in the South Korean youth climbing scene, and she’s still thinking about the final hold in that Olympics problem that made her fall. Something’s up, and hopefully, we’ll find out what that is soon enough.

I read a very normal 17 books in July, but mostly because all my ebook holds came in at once and I was too stubborn to postpone 3 of them so I was juggling like 6 books at a time. I returned The Safekeep late and had to extend my hold on Afterparties and stay up late to finish the Chee book on time. But I enjoyed most of them!

In reverse chronological order as usual.

Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See by Bianca Bosker

Impulse-bought thinking it’d be useful for my future art school dark academia idea. This was a very fun read! Bosker is a lively narrator who makes her subjects really interesting, though some of the art history stuff I already knew bc I did take art history classes in school lol. Jack Barrett sounds like she was trying really hard to make him sound less evil than he was, but holy shit you cannot treat an assistant like that even if she is a journalist! I should go to more gallery openings.

Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

Writing style reminded me of the writing style of my own languishing WIP (the draft of which I should be working on now instead of typing up this lol). I liked this Carmilla retelling. The vampirism was more of a metaphor, but I thought it was a very effective metaphor. Plot worked.

Among Friends by Hal Ebbott

I finished reading and then looked up the author to see if he was associated in any way with that one guy that said there’s not enough novels about men and their feelings these days, but apparently not. This is exactly the kind of book I’d imagined that publisher putting out though. I did not find any of the female characters convincing; Retsy and Sophie felt the least distinct to me. Claire and Anna’s mother-daughter relationship did not make sense to me either. Otherwise it was like. Fine. I guess. I will probably forget everything about it in a month.

The Most by Jessica Anthony

Very short but enjoyable. I liked the different perspectives and the surprise title reveal. I think it worked pretty well for me, not sure it would’ve if it was longer.

Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

THAT’S RIGHT I’D MANAGED TO SKIP READING THE SEMINAL YA GRAPHIC NOVEL CLASSIC UP UNTIL NOW. Not as brilliant as their later work imo but a lot of fun things going on in this one too. And even early Jillian Tamaki is so gorgeous.

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

I have a hard time reading collections of shorter works. I think it’s bc each short thing feels complete in itself so there’s less motivation to go on to the next thing. I didn’t really love this collection, I think all of the stories together felt kind of samey/repetitive... Then I looked up the author to see what else he’d done and felt sad (accidental overdose before the book even came out ): ) Banger cover art though.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina Swamidoss McConigley

Read for internship book club lol. Interesting! Not sure if it all gels together smoothly. The section on casting fishing line == caste seemed like a bit of a reach. Goodreads reviewer who said it was confusing the main character called her sister by two different names is a fool. Skill issue. Get good.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

This won a bunch of big awards and I was like no way it’s all that and then I finished reading and goddamn. It sure was. All that. I guessed the twist a little before it happened and screeched through the reveal. Wowee. Possibly book of the year for me.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

As soon as I read this I could feel it changing how I write nonfiction. I have half a draft of my attempt to explain writing reviews and it smells like this now. My usual resistance to collections of short works didn’t apply as much to this one because the essays flowed together so well it was like they were all chapters in a single narrative, even though they were published separately at first and some even years apart. I want to start a rose garden. I want to write good. After I finished the book I kept going to my reading app and trying to open it again thinking oh I want to read more of that. How do I make other people do that with my books.

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

This is what I was talking about with my f/f litfic post. Insanely horny. Unreasonably horny for a relatively short word count. I think I liked it overall.

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

No one told me this classic of lesbian literature started with several pages of an American WASP going on about why Jews have it rough in the world. Very strange. Not as much lesbianism as I was led to believe. Most of the page count is one annoying guy talking a lot. I fear Djuna Barnes may not be my kind of thing after all.

Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum

I’ve never been a huge reality TV person, but I have enjoyed a show or two in my day. Have never seen Survivor but I did watch Endurance when I was a kid which was blatantly ripping it off but for kiddies, lmao. This was really interesting. Very comprehensive, going back to the very first iteration of Candid Microphone (a radio show!) and going forward up until The Apprentice, and actually interested in interrogating the racial and gender dynamics going on onscreen and off unlike in that Disney High book I read a few months ago. I feel like I gained more respect for the medium. Kind of want to try watching more old reality TV now.

The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomizio

I liked this more than I expected because a) I love mess and b) it’s mostly a friendship novel with a romance subplot instead of a romance. The titular Gay Best Friend has to run a bachelor’s and bachelorette party for both halves of one straight couple because the groom’s his childhood bestie and the bride is his adult life bestie, and he is totally cool with everything until he very much isn’t. It’s funny! Very evocative depictions of place and several different, complicated social dynamics. Overall theme of respectability versus staying true to yourself was well-developed.

A Rotten Girl by J. Ursula Topaz

This has some very specific positions on certain internet discourses I do not quite agree with. And then I saw someone I have blocked on Twitter thanked in the acknowledgements and it all made sense. Worse than the discourse though is the way the Twitter conversations are rendered like regular dialogue, and the way absolutely nobody posts like real people post. At least it was short.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Not as paradigm-shifting as Songbirds and Snakes was, though some new details revealed here were very interesting. Haymitch as a narrative voice is very similar to Katniss, which I think is the point bc he did say he saw a lot of himself in her, but also makes this feel repetitive when read after the main trilogy.

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

This book is presented as a (blatantly autobiographical) novel translated by one of the people who appears in the novel, whom the narrator really really hates and whose footnotes get more and more aggrieved as the story goes on. This makes it a very fun reading experience. Even though the narrator is annoying, the translator is more annoyed than I am. It does do that annoying contemporary litfic thing of adding homoerotic undertones for flavor without committing to the bit (like Butter and The Ministry of Time), but at least the object of the homoerotic undertones is married to a woman for once. 

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Easier to read than Le Carre was. Somewhat funnier. Not sure I enjoyed it enough to read the sequels. Maybe eventually.

Personal life updates: My internship is going well and I cannot get a full-time job after it : ) still grinding away at the romantasy redraft, hopefully it’ll be normal-book length in time for DVPit. My friend printed a really nice edition of my minicomic for me! Will show off when I am. Less exhausted.

Last month I read too many long books, so this month I read a lot of really short books! I wrote this up a few days ago but only found the time to post it now rip. Anyway, here we go!

My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig

I… don’t know if I liked it or not. I don’t think I understood it very well. Short, but felt like it took a long time to read.

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

Fun! It’s interesting how much Dorothy Sayers likes her detectives: Wimsey and Harriet are her little blorbos and she thinks they’re so fun and she wants to write about them doing fun things. While Agatha Christie clearly does not really like any of her detective characters as much as she likes her puzzles and mysteries. I feel like it could’ve been shorter though. Still unsure if I wanna try Gaudy Night or not.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

I think Henry's characterization and framing of the interviewing-an-aging-celebrity setup worked better than the same setup in Evelyn Hugo, but the romance was unconvincing and the final twist didn’t land super well. Also Evelyn Hugo did have more Diversity even if it was also very annoying about it (‘being bisexual… is just like being biracial’ was somehow a repeated motif in Evelyn Hugo. which. okay) I guess with straight white women authors you gotta pick your poison huh. The romantic leads did have convincing physical chemistry, even though the sex scenes were more implied than explicit.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I Get It Now. So short and sweet but man. She’s so right. Long live the minimum wage service worker.

Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory

Hm. It keeps telling me these women are sexually attracted to other women but without describing any of them thinking about other women in a sexual manner at all. Both POV characters are constantly saying the other is super hot, without describing what is hot about her. Does she have big boobs, long legs, nice eyes? Who knows! Sometimes their clothes are described at least. It's not even that it's not explicit they're not... in their bodies enough? Not having enough bodily reactions to things, or reacting enough to body things, even when doing body-related events like salsa dancing and attending a burlesque show. The sex scenes felt like Insert Finger A into Hole B, rote lists of events with no emotion attached to them. Remarkably unhorny for a book with multiple sex scenes. Felt like an “eat your vegetables” kind of F/F. Also I found it implausible that Taylor's long string of exes were all just totally fine and cool with no longer dating Taylor and that there were zero lingering messy feelings on anyone's part at all.

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Fun enough, a fairytale twist/retelling. Short and sweet. I wish I was allowed to write novellas.

Cover Story by Celia Laskey

OP said this was originally set in present day and then rewritten to be in 2005 and it was not rewritten hard enough because it does Not feel like 2005 at all. Characters reference memes and fashion trends that did not exist in 2005 and there’s not nearly enough ambient homophobia to be plausible/make the closet thing make any sense, especially with how the characters talk about being gay and out in a very not-2005 kind of way. They weren't even doing Target Pride Collections yet in 2005! I have a weakness for mid-2000s chick lit and that’s why this feels so off to me. It doesn’t sound like the Devil Wears Prada, or Sex and the City, or any of those types of books. But Y2K is in and cool now, OP should’ve leaned into it more! Sex scenes and relationship were both fine enough I guess.
Hilariously the book got one-star bombed by Swifties accusing OP of being a Gaylor which, if that's true, I did not pick up on it because the Celebrity Character read a lot more like a knockoff Kristen Stewart than anyone else.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Very short, but dense. Lots going on. Very clear atmosphere and very direct story.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Very cruel sequel hook, very topical and pointed subject matter. I don’t know if it’s a stylistic choice or the editor just ignored it but none of the dialogue is punctuated correctly? Otherwise the prose is fine and that one Goodreads reviewer was exaggerating. The magic system made sense.

Nicked by M. T. Anderson

FIVE STAR READ: whimsical, funny, entertaining, AND gay. M. T. Anderson is so good at words, the opening and ending both hit so well. Loved, loved, loved. Might have to buy a copy now.

Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire by Ashley Spencer

I stayed up late to inhale this but I don’t know if I’d call this “good,” I was just a disney channel kid at exactly the correct time to be invested in extra lore about my childhood favorite shows. I don’t think the structure worked well, it should’ve been chronological because a lot of the later chapters had overlapping “recurring characters” I guess (like the Jonas Brothers, Miley, Selena, Demi, etc) and that got confusing. The “fall” part in the title happened entirely in a 5 page epilogue, which, lol. Overall feeling was that Disney Channel was really good when the author was at the right age to enjoy it and got worse when they grew out of it. Fortunately this coincided perfectly with the age I was watching it so I had fun reading about things I cared about when I was young.

Like Real People Do by E.L. Massey

Decent fic that doesn’t function as well on its own.

How to Summon a Fairy Godmother by Laura J. Mayo

Not funny but trying very hard to be. Ending was extremely satisfying, but most of the buildup to it was less satisfying. Everyone kept speaking in big paragraphs with no body language or description to break it up, which annoyed me.

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

Read for reference on my romantasy wip and I did enjoy it a lot. Reminded me of Nicked lol. I liked the worldbuilding and the characters.
Personal updates: starting my editorial internship next week aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. hopefully it goes well!

Here’s what I read in April! Not as much as March, unfortunately.

Personal updates: Please Read My Webcomic and also My Yachi/Saeko fanfiction

Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki

This book seemed interminably long for no reason. The fatphobia was so insane, I thought I was losing my mind every time the main character (my height) started going on about how she gained sooooo much weight and everyone was treating her sooo differently because she was just soooo super fat now and then the actual weight she claimed to be is still underweight for our height????? ALSO THE QUEER UNDERTONES THAT WENT NOWHERE?? LIKE. I wish someone told this author that lesbians are real outside of all-girl’s schools too. I think making it gay for real would’ve been the only way to save it.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

I quite liked this. I also think it might’ve been improved with more homosexuality, but I found the endgame het couple(s) pretty endearing and fun to follow, and the setting felt very realized and believable. The characters were all pretty fun, and the questions of class and money weren’t as glossed-over as I was expecting them to be. Pretty good!

After this book there’s a 2-week gap in my storygraph and try as I might I can’t remember if I read anything from my library or otherwise during these 2 weeks. Maybe I had a fanfiction rereading moment. I do remember TWotM took me forever to finish, but surely not two full weeks, right?

The Will of the Many by James Islington

Stupid long, but quite fun. Interesting systems. More of a puzzles book than a characters book, which is fun every once in a while. Only kind of felt like a pitch for a film franchise. I liked it overall, will probably check out the sequel when it drops.

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

PERFECT FICTION FLIPPED EVERY ROMANCE NOVEL SWITCH IN MY BRAIN INHALED IT IN ONE MORNING AND IT GENUINELY MADE ME HAPPY TO BE ALIVE AGAIN.

Perfume & Pain by Anna Dorn

Pretty fun! I enjoyed the antics, but I think they could’ve been even more antical. I liked watching Astrid get her life together. I think Exalted was more fun overall, but it was fun seeing some of those characters get referenced again.

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Harrowing, nauseating. Very short but took me a very long time to read through because I had to keep taking breaks. Effective!

Audition by Katie Kitamura

I’m not sure I’m intellectual enough to Get Katie Kitamura. The central conceit was pretty interesting though.

A Merry Little Meet Cute by Sierra Simone, Julie Murphy

So much fun! Really genuinely funny, really likeable characters who are believably super duper into each other immediately, solid stakes and tension and supporting cast, also almost every named character is queer? Iconic. I genuinely really enjoyed reading this to the point that I bought a paperback copy of it when I saw it in a bookstore on Indie Bookstore Day.

Black-Winged Love by Tomoko Yamashita

A 2008 anthology of short BL one-shots by Yamashita, a mangaka I already like. A theme that pops up in a lot of these one-shots is how being gay affects the characters’ community and families, which is something most BLs tend to not think about. I like that focus on the wider world outside the main couples. Also the “read Mishima” panel was even funnier in context.

Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress

Almost but not quite what I want to do with an art school dark academia. I liked the revolving viewpoint characters and how they all saw each other so differently, I loved Louisa and her thing with Karina, and I found the descriptions of art and art-related stuff very believable. Now I want to write MY art school book lol.

40 Love by Madeleine Wickham

Very good for a first book, but definitely not at the level of her later work. The class and money and Britishness was really interesting, I wish Ella had more of an impact on the plot and didn’t just quietly slip out at the end. She should’ve burned the house down or something. More lesbianism would’ve improved this book also.

A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon

My first time reading a book that desperately wants to be a webtoon. There was no reason for the narrator to not have a name. Very short. Lovely illustrations, though. Should’ve just made the webtoon.

General announcement: succumbed to the siren call of a cash prize and started posting a Webtoon in this year’s contest, please read it and like share subscribe (there will be 5 more episodes, updating every Monday)

I read 16 books in March but it felt like less because each book seemed to take me forever to finish. At least most of them were good this time!