Review: Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Mia Corvere has spent the six years since her father’s execution transforming herself into an instrument of vengeance aimed at the men who branded him a traitor rather than a hero. She’s good, but she knows only a Blade of Niah, dark goddess of assassins, could hope to achieve her aims. And the brutal test for admittance to Niah’s school beneath the Silent Mountain is nothing compared to the trials teachers and students alike have in store for her.

Here’s the thing: I want to tell you all about NEVERNIGHT [Amazon | The Book Depository] because I loved it deep in my soul--but the books I love the most are also the books I most struggle to talk about. So I’m gonna ramble, and I’m not gonna say nearly enough, and I’m gonna pray what I do say is enough to convince the fantasy-readers among you to seek out NEVERNIGHT as soon as ever you can.

It’s one of those glorious books that spoke both to my current self and to the me who discovered adult-marketed fantasy just over twenty years before the day when I plucked NEVERNIGHT off my library pile and dove in. The timing made it feel like more than simply a great read. It was a fucking amazing anniversary present.

Diverse Reads On Scribd

As promised, here's a selection of diverse-authored books available on Scribd to go with my list of 37 inexpensive diverse-authored books!

Scribd is an electronic reading service that provides subscribers with three monthly ebook credits and one monthly audio credit to spend on titles from participating publishers. There's also a large, rotating selection of Unlimited books and audios available without a credit. While many large, mainstream publishers put their books on Scribd, the service is especially valuable to anyone interested in exploring work from smaller and/or niche publishers, like those who publish books by and about marginalized people. These sorts of books are less likely to show up in public libraries, and they often carry a high price tag even in ebook format. Scribd makes them more accessible to readers with smaller budgets or sparser librarians.

If you aren't already using Scribd, you can try it free for two months.

The books listed below are available at the time of this writing (September 14th, 2016), mostly within the credit selection, but the publishers who put their books on Scribd do sometimes change out their offerings so I can't guarantee how long these titles will be up. On the plus side, they may also be rotated into one of the monthly Unlimited pools, removing the need for a credit!

Once again, I've limited this list to books I've personally read and enjoyed, to the first book in a series where relevant, to books available in Canada (Scribd imposes geographic restrictions, so I can't see material available in other territories), and to authors who I can identify as diverse based on photos, bios, and public discussions I've witnessed. I'd love to hear your own recommendations in the comments, particularly where openly queer authors are concerned. I'm sure I've left many wonderful writers off the list because I don't know they're queer.

Starting with prose fiction by genre and moving along to audiobooks, I recommend:

Tremontaine Season Two, Episode One: Convocation by Ellen Kushner

Review copy provided by the publisher, who has kindly accepted me into the TremonTEAM (ie, the Tremontaine street team).

Friends, the premiere episode of TREMONTAINE S2 might as well have been written with my wishlist in mind. I devoured it in a state of great excitement that I must now share with you in the hopes that you, too, will pick it up upon its release next month.

If you’ve missed my previous gushing on the matter, TREMONTAINE is a serial set in the same world as Ellen Kushner’s Riverside books: SWORDSPOINT, THE PRIVILEGE OF THE SWORD (one of my favourite books ever), and THE FALL OF THE KINGS (coauthored with Delia Sherman). The serial begins somewhat more than fifteen years before SWORDSPOINT and follows a diverse group of nobles, merchants, scholars, and lowlifes through an unnamed city in a secondary fantasy world that ditched its wizards, and its kings, a few hundred years back. A duchess seeks to repair her family’s shattered fortune and protect her darkest secret. A foreign trader struggles to redeem herself after an affair of the heart gone wrong. Mathematicians search for the calculations that’ll allow their country’s navigators to venture further afield. And the chocolate trade ties them all together.

It’s my favourite.

Diverse Books For Less

Today marks the start of the #Diverseathon, a week-long celebration of books by diverse authors. Many, many people in my Twitter feed have expressed interest in supporting people of colour and queer authors by buying their books, so I thought I'd compile a list of things I've enjoyed that you can get for less than $5 on Amazon, or for less than $10 where omnibus editions are concerned.

This list is far from exhaustive. I kept it to books I've read and rated 3.5 stars or above (my "I really liked this" rating"), and I included only the first book in a series even if subsequent releases also met my price limit. In the case of queer authors, I stuck to people I've seen talk openly about their identity, either on Twitter or through their official bios. I've likely missed many fabulous queer writers with $5-or-under releases, either because I haven't read them yet or I couldn't definitively identify them.

I hope at least some of the 37 titles I found will strike your fancy and fit your budget! I plan to do a list of diverse-authored books on Scribd in the near future, too, as tons of more expensive titles are available on there either in their unlimited selection or for a credit.

All prices are correct as of September 12th, 2016, but be sure to check that they're still in effect before you make a purchase.

Television: Three Korean Dramas

When Tasha suggested Korean dramas would be very much in my wheelhouse, I assumed I was in for quite the time commitment. A quick Netflix search showed me how wrong I was. Yeah, Korean television produces a fair number of shows on the same model as UK and North American TV--ie, 10- or 20-episode seasons of 40- to 60-minute episodes—but I was surprised to discover that many of the series in my Netflix list were refreshingly short by my standards. And as an added bonus, each of them was a complete story with a proper ending.

I dove in, and quickly discovered Tasha was right. The Korean drama industry knows exactly what I want from my television. If you, too, are looking to experiment with K-Dramas, I highly recommend the three I started with:

Review: Yotsuba&! Volumes 1-12 by Kiyohiko Azuma

The Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Version:

OMG you guys YOTSUBA&! is my new favourite I love everything about it it’s the sweetest comic in the entire world and just thinking about it makes my heart happy Yotsuba is the best and so are all her friends I love that they’re GENUINE friends too in defiance of all the tropes that ruled my childhood reading list comics needs more of this especially children’s comics oh man do I ever wish I’d had YOTSUBA&! when I was a kid she enjoys everything and she’s so determined to see the wonder in the world and maybe that’s because she’s an alien but the series hasn’t touched on that in ages so let’s just treat her as a small girl the art is so expressive and motion-filled and I looooove all Yotsuba’s obsessions she gets REALLY REALLY INTO THINGS and the older people in her life are awesome at nurturing whatever she’s currently into and helping her discover new interests too I basically just wanna be like !!!!!!!!!!!!! whenever it comes time to rec this comic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because it’s so awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it’s my new favourite !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I’m a giant pile of feels !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you're sighted please read it then come find me and tell me how much you loved it because you’re gonna love it unless you hate kids and/or you have no soul it is THAT GREAT I'm making it a near-universal rec I'M GOING THERE AND I NEVER GO THERE.

The Sensical Version:

When the world gets really, really heavy, I go in search of some fictional relief from it all. I often turn to the sort of books that leave me a quivering wreck, since I appreciate the chance to cry over something outside my everyday experience, but on rare occasions I’m lucky enough to find something that’s uplifting and genuinely nice.

I count myself incredibly lucky to have discovered YOTSUBA&! in June, right as I reached the point where I had to disengage myself from a certain nearby country's news media lest it destroy my mental health.

Review: Monstress Volume One: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takada

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Marjorie Liu and Sana Takada’s MONSTRESS [Amazon | The Book Depository] was one of my most anticipated trade collections of 2016. I loved the creators’ work on X-23, a Marvel property about young Wolverine clone Laura Kinney, and I couldn’t wait to see what they’d come up with in a creator-owned title, free from publishers’ restrictions and established canon.

Turns out, the results are impressive indeed.

MONSTRESS takes place in an alternate, matriarchal version of early twentieth century Asia. The war between Arcanics and humans is currently stalled thanks to a devastating weapon the Arcanics unleashed during the last major battle. The Cumaea, an order of scientist-nuns, are desperate to find a way to harness this technology for themselves and have stepped up their experiments on enslaved Arcanics, partly in search of answers and partly to mine the Arcanic essence that grants them their greatest power.

Maika, a teenage Arcanic, needs answers of her own, so she arranges to have herself sold to the Cumaea as a slave. But her bloody foray through their compound complicates everything and sends her on a journey in company with a fox-aspected young Arcanic and a two-tailed talking cat, plus a dark force that’s lodged itself in her soul.

It’s possible MONSTRESS isn’t entirely unique on the world’s stage, but I don’t believe anyone else working in English has put together a comic quite like this. Liu and Takada tackle concepts and issues that receive little thoughtful page time in mainstream comics, and they do so against a stunningly gorgeous backdrop.

Review: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

I was unfamiliar with Pam Muñoz Ryan until I saw her most recent release, ECHO, mentioned as one of the few diverse-authored books honoured at this year’s Audie Awards. I immediately investigated it, borrowed it from Hoopla, and started listening.

That was one of my better choices. ECHO is my sixth five-star book of 2016 and the best children’s novel I’ve read (or listened to) in years.

The book explores four slightly interrelated storylines, each separated by years and miles. We begin long ago in the Black Forest with Otto, a young boy who meets three women who bear an eerie resemblance to the characters in the book he’s reading. Prompted by his story’s plot, he invites them to each play a tune on his harmonica, setting in motion a spell that could change their fate even as it links several children who're yet to be born.

Germany, 1932. Friedrich desperately wants to become a conductor, but he’s got a facial birthmark, a history of epilepsy, and a father and uncle who vocally disagree with the Nazis. He’s got one shot to prove his worth: ace his Conservatory audition on his extremely non-German harmonica.

Pennsylvania, 1935. Mike promised his grandmother he and his younger brother would always stay together; a prospect that’s all but impossible given the adoption climate at their orphanage. Mike dreams instead of joining a traveling harmonica orchestra so his brother can find a new home without worrying about Mike, but his plans change when a wealthy yet standoffish woman enters their lives.

California, 1942. Ivy’s family relocates in the hopes of finally earning their own home. Ivy makes the best of the sudden move by caring for an abandoned house and teaching her neighbor to play the harmonica, but her new town's racism threatens to derail her optimism.

Ryan introduces us to each of the main characters in fraught circumstances that push them in highly personal ways: a solo walk across a potentially hostile town; a new opportunity for adoption; a dream quashed, yet quickly replaced by a bright chance. These are all highly empathic struggles that tie into fears many children--many people--experience every day. Will I be too different? Will anyone ever love me? Will I have to abandon my aspirations so someone else can achieve theirs?

Television: Aldnoah.Zero

Last year, I decided to start watching more foreign TV as a counterpoint to my excessive CW consumption. I wasn't out to watch a different kind of TV, mind; I just figured subtitles might lend an air of legitimacy to the usual faked deaths and Secret Babies.

I asked Netflix what they had for me, and Netflix was like, "We think you should watch some anime. Here's a well-rated SFnal thing called ALDNOAH.ZERO."

A this point, I’d watched one anime in my whole life (SKIP BEAT!, based on the manga of the same name) and that wasn’t even on Netflix, but I was like, "Okay." Because Netflix has learned what I like, and the whole no-anime thing was situational rather than preferential. When I was a young person, anime was super expensive and hard to find, so I didn’t bother. Netflix is relatively cheap and easy to access, so I figured it was time to explore the medium.

I generally give new shows two or three episodes to hook me. ALDNOAH.ZERO managed the feat inside of ten minutes.

Review: Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake

Y’all know the Basic Buffy Plot (hereafter BBP). Destined monster hunter arrives somewhere new, befriends local youths, turns them into allies, and ends up falling in love with one (or more) individuals their job demands they treat as enemies. It worked beautifully for Buffy, but it’s everywhere now and I no longer find it fresh enough for my tastes.

And yet, I adored ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD [Amazon | The Book Depository], a book that hits every beat of the BBP.

Theseus Cassio Lowood--better known as Cas--is the only person in the world who can kill ghosts. He sends them to the other side with the athame he inherited from his father; the athame that’s only a knife in anyone else’s hands. He and his mother move from place to place whenever someone in Cas’s network of informants gives him a promising new lead, and now they’ve ventured to Thunder Bay, Ontario, for the ultimate prize.

Anna Korlov became Anna Dressed In Blood after she was brutally murdered by an assailant who was never found. She’s spent the last sixty-odd years ripping people to shreds when they venture into the Victorian boarding house her mother once ran. And yet, she lets Cas leave unharmed.

Intrigued, Cas sets out to discover what makes Anna so powerful, and so different from every other ghost he’s ended.

You see the BBP there, yes? The parallels only strengthen as Cas settles in to his new home and allies himself with the usual suspects: a nervous yet personable young witch who’s also a social outcast, a Queen Bee who’s more than a stereotype, and a guy named Will Rosenberg.

Then, of course, there’s the dangerous entity he really should kill without hesitation, but with whom he forms a strong, and perhaps even loving, bond because she calls to him like no one else.

And somehow, it all works. Instead of shunting me out of the story as the BBP usually does, it pulled me further in and left to desperate to wallow in Cas’s world.

Review: Bitch Planet vol 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

If you’ve spent time on even the very fringes of comics fandom, you’ve surely heart about Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro’s BITCH PLANET. It made a huge splash on Twitter as soon as it was announced, and the first issue was barely out before I started seeing non-compliant tattoos. Everyone was abuzz about the third issue. And people like me, who don’t have room in their budget for single issues, chaffed to get our hands on the trade.

The wait is over! The first volume, EXTRAORDINARY MACHINE [Amazon | The Book Depository | comiXology], is now available digitally or from your favourite purveyor of print books. Go forth and purchase, friends! (Or ask your library to handle the purchasing so everyone in your town or city can benefit.) You want this book.

Female compliance is totes the most important thing in the world of the future. Not calm enough? Not pretty enough? Unwilling to accommodate the men in your life in every little way? You’re a prime candidate for removal to the Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, better known as Bitch Planet, where your rehabilitation is the patriarchy’s priority.

Kamau Kogo used to be a professional athlete, but she has no more status than any other prisoner on Bitch Planet until the board lights on a new idea to increase revenue at the expense of the women they’ve taken in hand. They want Kam to form an all-prisoner Megaton team to feed demand for the world’s most popular, and most violent, sport. And hey, if one or more of the women should happen to die on live TV, that’s just the way things roll.

Kam may not have many options, but she won’t stand by and let her jailers call all the shots. With the help of her new teammates, she sets out to subvert the system--unless the powers that be get to her first.

My Year With Marvel: POC Artists, Part I

The other week, we talked about four POC who’ve written for Marvel. This week I want to look at four Asian-descended artists, with a post on artists of ethnicities to follow at a later date.

The majority of my diverse Marvel reading comes from the art department as Marvel does far better with hiring POC artists than they do with POC writers. From the late 90s on--ie, from the advent of the internet--non-American artists also account for a decent percentage of the company’s bullpen. I’m continually surprised at the sheer number of South American, Asian, and European artists I encounter. (No one from Africa has shown up on my reading list yet.) And many, though certainly not all, of these artists are people of colour. Added to the non-white American artists on the company's payroll, they form a creative pool that helps dictate Marvel’s look, albeit not without editorial challenges.

As was the case with the writers I highlighted earlier, the recs list below is a sample only. I encourage you to explore A More Diverse Marvel Universe for a broader (but still incomplete) list of other POC artists who’ve worked for Marvel.

From HAWKEYE #14

American artist Annie Wu’s most prominent Marvel attachment involves my very favouritest Marvel title: HAWKEYE, which I consider one of the comics and want you to read in the worst possible way.

Wu drew the bulk of the series’ third arc, L.A. WOMAN [Marvel Unlimited | Amazon | The Book Depository], in which Kate Bishop (light of my heart; breath in my lungs) moves to Los Angeles and becomes a private detective. Wu's skill at conveying attitude with a scant few lines makes her the perfect fit for intrepid Kate. Her panels are full of telling body language and a stellar sense of movement that drives the story forward even during its quietest moments.

Watch for her as the primary artist on DC’s BLACK CANARY, too.

Shiny New Books

Fabulous news, friends--Jenny and I now cowrite a column on young adult fiction for Shiny New Books!

Our first spotlight went live today and features six recent YA titles we're superduper excited about. Half of our picks would be great for Diversiverse, so those of you committed to reading diversely should totally pop on over there and read our take on 'em.

Diversiverse: Canadian Women of Colour

A More Diverse Universe (aka Diversiverse) is now underway. This two-week reading period centres on books by people of colour, and I’ve committed to providing recs lists that highlight a few of my favourite authors.

Today I want to turn the spotlight on four Canadian women of colour. Two of them write SFF. Two of them don’t (or maybe just haven’t yet).

Karin Lowachee

I discovered Karin Lowachee late last year, thanks to a rec from Kristen. She’s since become one of my most recommended authors.

Lowachee’s first book, WARCHILD [review | Amazon | The Book Depository], is the start of a science fiction series that’s everything my younger, SF-averse self never dared to hope science fiction could be. The settings are rich and complex, whether Lowachee takes us to an alien world or deep into the heart of a human space station that’s a planet in its own right. The characters are as multifaceted as the worlds they inhabit. And the things Lowachee does with narrative; with the sheer possibility she unlocks in mixing first person with second and third, past tense with present... oy. These books are a master class in how technical wizardry can enhance every element of the story.

If you only seek out one new-to-you SF author this year, make it Karin Lowachee. Please be aware, though, that her books travel to dark places and may be triggering for some readers.

WARCHILD is followed by BURNDIVE [review | Amazon | The Book Depository] and CAGEBIRD [Amazon | The Book Depository], with a fourth book, THE WARBOY, to come. The paperbacks are a terrible price, but the ebook editions are fairly reasonable. Lowachee has also written a fantasy called THE GASLIGHT DOGS [Amazon], but I haven’t read it yet and so can't comment on it.

My Year With Marvel: POC Writers For Diversiverse

We’re now mere days away from the start of A More Diverse Universe, a reading event focused on people of colour. Organizer Aarti asks participants to read and review at least one book by a non-white author during the event.

As Aarti always says (and I always quote, because it's always true):

Reading diversely may require you to change your book-finding habits. It ABSOLUTELY does not require you to change your book reading habits.

Book-finding is the kicker in the comics industry, where white creators get a hell of a lot more opportunities--and the press that goes along with them--than their POC counterparts. It's rare for a non-white writer to get as much press as Ta-Nehisi Coates received surrounding his upcoming (and, sadly, limited) run on BLACK PANTHER.

This is at least partly because Marvel, to their shame, has hired relatively few POC writers over their history. (We’ll talk about POC artists next week.) They exist, but you’ve gotta dig through extensive yet unspecific resources like the the Cartoonists of Colour Database or more focused but less search engine-friendly resources like individual bloggers’ recs lists to hunt ‘em out.

And even once you've compiled a halfway decent reading list, the majority of this small minority are men. As far as I can tell, Marvel has never hired a black woman writer, and they’re horribly light on WOC of other ethnicities. Numerous searches gave me far more information about WOC characters than the women who’ve (hopefully) written them, and Marjorie Liu is the only WOC writer I’ve personally encountered in the year since I started bingeing on Marvel.

Which is to say: this wee recs list of POC Marvel writers whose work I’ve enjoyed is no more gender balanced than it is exhaustive. It's a highlights reel designed to reflect some comics that stood out to me, not a comprehensive resource.

In many cases, too, these writers have published a lot more than what I've talked about here. I’ll also point you towards A More Diverse Marvel Universe, my own contribution to the wealth of unspecific information out there, for further reading. Alas, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve had the time or the mental energy to update the list, so it remains incomplete, but I hope you’ll find some more stuff to explore.

Diversiverse: Manga Recs

A More Diverse Universe (aka Diversiverse) is a two-week reading period centred on books by people of colour. Organizer Aarti challenges participants to read and blog about at least one qualifying title between October 4-17.

No matter what you like to read, POC write it. As Aarti always says:

Reading diversely may require you to change your book-finding habits. It ABSOLUTELY does not require you to change your book reading habits.

Book-finding is, of course, the kicker. Save for a select few titles, books by white people get far more of a marketing push than books by POC.

Recs lists and word of mouth can be vitally important when you hunt for books by non-white writers and artists, so I want to highlight a few of my favourite titles as we count down to the event’s official start date. Let's start with manga, a form that's become dear to me over the last couple of years.

Manga is Japan's comics tradition, though I'll caution you not to assume every mangaka (manga creator) is Japanese. Many original English language manga are created by white people, so make sure you google everyone before you count them as diverse.

That said, mangka create manga for everyone from high-powered business executives to preteen kids. It runs the gamut from fluffy to horrific, sometimes within the same title. Most manga is published serially in anthology magazines like Shōnen Jump before it’s collected in numbered volumes, a strategy western comics aficionados are well used to; however, manga story arcs are often much longer than the four- to six-issue runs western comics employ. With some of the more involved series, arcs can stretch across four to six volumes.

This being the case, I recommend you check your local library for manga with several volumes already published in English so you can get a good feel for whether or not you’ll like the story. The following four series all fit the bill and would be a good place to start--and as an added bonus, they’re all written and drawn by women.

Review: Alex + Ada Volume 3 by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Friends, I fear the rumours are true. ALEX + ADA is a limited series. Fifteen issues; three tight volumes; one hell of a resolution.

Since this is the series’ third and final instalment, we shall forgo any attempt at a volume-specific plot summary. If you’re new to ALEX + ADA, I’ll refer you to my review of Volume One; or, if you’d rather not wade through all that, what you need to know is this: the comic is set in a nearish future where ubiquitous androids have their sentience suppressed due to public outcry and fearmongering. Alex, a young office worker, receives Ada, an android, for his birthday and sets out to unlock her sentience, with consequences both uplifting and dire.

I revisited the first two volumes directly before I read this one, and I’m beyond impressed with how the series gets deeper and meatier and better every time I reread it. Vaughn and Luna pack so much into each page. Luna’s deceptively simple layouts take us through each emotion in a subtle, truthful fashion that also invites us into the frame as a direct participant. The clean lines and muted colours effectively render the comic a canvas into which we can paint ourselves, even as we experience the characters’ every jolt.

Review: The Far-Reaching Tentacles of N'rygoth by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, and Stjepan Šejić

Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

You recall my love for SASS AND SORCERY, yes? The premiere volume of RAT QUEENS, which you’ve all read because you make good life choices?

If you don’t make good life choices (or if you haven’t gotten around to reading the comic yet, which is perfectly understandable), I’ll remind you the series quickly proved itself to be the fantasy comic I never knew I wanted: firmly rooted in the sort of RPG-inspired material I devoured when I was twelve, but with a more inclusive slant on it all.

RAT QUEENS features a variety of women in nonstereotypical positions of authority. It has non-white people. It has queer people. Everyone swears a lot. It’s like they made it just for me.

Volume two, THE FAR-REACHING TENTACLES OF N’RYGOTH, expands on the first volume’s brand of juicy goodness even as it takes a small step back from the wider story. There’s plenty of exciting, life-threatening stuff going on, but the very nature of the excitement forces characters and reader alike to pause for a moment. Who are the Rat Queens, really? What were their lives like before they banded together and formed a profitable adventuring company? What secrets do they harbour?

Review: Skip Beat! vols 1-34 by Yoshiki Nakamura

A little more than a month ago, I toddled off to my local library and plucked SKIP BEAT! off the shelf. I’d never heard of it before, but it met my two important criteria for the comics I choose on a whim: it was the first volume in a series, and it was written and drawn by a woman¹.

It changed my entire world.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have no doubt noticed my feels-laden tweets about it all. SKIP BEAT! quickly joined the likes of SAGA, BONE, and STRANGERS IN PARADISE as one of the comics; a lovely, rare occurrence, and something to gush about from the rooftops.

Which, fair warning, is what I’m about to do, at great length and with the occasional gif from the anime or elsewhere.

But perhaps you're clueless as to what SKIP BEAT is all about. Fear not! I can explain!

Sixteen-year-old Kyoko Mogami² follows her childhood friend and uber-crush, Sho, to Tokyo so she can help him on the road to stardom. She buys all his albums, stokes his ego by hanging his posters all over their apartment, and works two jobs so she can keep him in the manner to which he’s become accustomed (because heaven forbid Mr Big Singer Man should dip into his own pay cheque once in a while). Blinded by love, Kyoko is happy to accept a few scraps of affection from him--until she overhears his true opinion of her and realizes he’s been using her all along.

Enraged, Kyoko swears off love and vows to get revenge against Sho in his own sphere: showbiz!

Easy to say; hard to do. Kyoko soon realizes it’s tough to become famous, even if you’re willing to dress up in a chicken suit and/or join the number one talent agency’s deathly embarrassing Love Me Section, a group devoted to developing its members' loving instincts by assigning them odd jobs that let them give back to the showbiz community. Things only grow more awkward for her when she begins working with Ren Tsuruga, the agency’s top star, who takes acting very seriously and has nothing but disdain for someone with Kyoko’s motives.

The next thirty-four volumes are THE BEST THING EVER OMG.

They’re so very much THE BEST THING EVER OMG that right here, right now, for the first time in the history of the world, I’m going to write three reviews.

I think Lory, Kyoko’s boss, would be proud of me for such flamboyant excess, not to mention my deep and enduring love for all things SKIP BEAT!.

We shall begin, of course, with a Short, Gushy, Ungrammatical Review so’s you can get an at-a-glance idea of what SKIP BEAT is all about. From there, we’ll run through a List of Things You'll Find In SKIP BEAT in case you ain’t much for short, gushy, ungrammatical paragraphs. And finally, for the main event, I present to you a Sensical Review in which I gush for an ungodly number of words.

It is not for the faint of heart.

Review: March, Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Until two hours before I began the first volume, I thought MARCH [Amazon | The Book Depository], was a LITTLE WOMEN spin-off about the girls’ father’s time as a soldier.

In my weak defense, I’d only ever seen the cover in thumnbail form, rendering the people vaguely Civil War-ish. Also, the friends who raved about the book on Twitter are mostly the sort who do like LITTLE WOMEN and/or contemporary works that explore side storylines from classic lit. No one said much as to what the book was actually about; and, as a non-American, I wasn’t familiar with the author's reputation.

As you may have gathered, MARCH is not about Mr March from LITTLE WOMEN. It’s US Congressman John Lewis’s graphic memoir of his work during the Civil Rights Movement.

I might have remained ignorant until the very moment I opened the book (which I read through Scribd; hence the whole no-cover-larger-than-a-thumbnail thing), were I not in the habit of googling each writer and artist whose work I read. I manage my reading to ensure I don’t OD on white creators and/or books that ignore non-white experiences, so googling is an essential step.

Imagine my surprise when a quick search for "John Lewis comics" turned up not a veteran comics writer with a string of original graphic novels (and perhaps the odd superhero title) beneath his Wikipedia widget but a politician.

There had to be a problem with my google-fu. Surely politicians didn’t write comics. Surely all politicians were Very Serious People who dismissed comics as a medium for kids and individuals who refuse to grow up.

Nope. No mistake. John Lewis is a US Congressman, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, and the writer of a comic that chronicles his experiences in the 1960s.