Wrapping Up September 2018

Welcome to Autumn, the season of pumpkin spice everything and the gearing up for Halloween! September is coming to an end, and Freeform is advertising its 31 Nights of Halloween. That means it’s time for me to wrap up September.

I’m currently reading The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black, on audiobook and Summer of the Mariposas, by Guadalupe Garcia McCall. After three months, I finally finished The Cruel Prince audiobook, so I will be posting the review for that book in October. Let’s move on to what I did review this month.

This was a month where I posted a lot of graphic novel reviews, and these pushed me. My first review of the month was Not Simple by Natsume Ono. If you use the term “problem novel,” that is exactly what this book is with its shocking reveal of abuse in this kid’s family.

I also read three short webcomics over a few days and decided to review them together. Hearts for Sale, by Miyuli (Julia K.), is heart-warming with its story about fixing broken hearts. Between the Raindrops, by DaughterOfOwls (Tashina Kalmbach), is fairy-tale-like story about a tiger who is in love with the prince who is trying to kill him. DaughterOfOwls was with her thoughtful choices on the color palettes. Näkki, by Jeny-jen94 (Jenni Välimäki), is a short horror story that follows along the moral of “listen to your parents.”

The last graphic novel review of the month was the Scary Godmother omnibus by Jill Thompson, which I read a couple years ago but never reviewed. Halloween is coming up after now, and it fits the tradition of stores to push Halloween at least one month early.

I also wrote a couple of reviews for two YA novels. The first one of the month was Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake. This one is focused on a girl who has to deal with the fact that her twin brother raped one of her closest friends while he goes on denying it. It is a beautiful book that’s worth reading. The second YA novel is Entwined by Heather Dixon. It’s an okay retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” with mostly a twist on the circumstances of their dancing in secret and who the antagonist is.

My other posts included one about the two bikers who are in New Moon and my experience reading the ten fairy tales that four Hans Christian Andersen anthologies had in common.

 

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Interesting Finds

Writing for #Augvocacy2018, Kate @ The Backwards Bookshelf writes about “The Myopia of the Book Community.” It talks about book piracy and privilege in access to books, especially as a Filipino.

I also read a post about how other people’s reviews can bias us that was written by Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight.

Early this year, Inside My Library Mind wrote a discussion post on “The Pressure on Diverse Books and How the Book Community Handles It.” It starts with a discussion about the reviews about Leah on the Offbeat, and then the post talks about why it is so hard to get more F/F romance represented in YA books. And it comes down to marketability and the pressure to be perfect.

Speaking of a pressure to be perfect, Neko Neha @ BiblioNyan wrote about “The Superfluous Stigma of DNFing Books.” They write about their experiences with DNFing and what they have learned about the subject from blogging.

Through one of Neko Neha’s round up posts, I found “The Significance of Holding Hands” by Luminous Mongoose @ Otaku Essays and Analyses. I suppose on a subconscious level that I’ve known hand holding, especially in anime, is different, but I never knew how significant those differences could be.

Mark Walsh wrote an article for Education Week which draws attention to mass shootings appearing in YA literature. On top of this article recognizing that teens are interested in current events and subjects that affect them, it also lists several YA books that are about mass shootings.

With all of the new movies and adaptations that have been released in the last year or two, the discussion post on Girl with her Head in a Book titled “Exploding the Canon” is relevant. What are your thoughts on expanding established franchises?

Brittani @ Hope, Faith and Books tells us how she conquered her TBR pile and how we can conquer ours too. I think I’ll need to take her advice where it applies to the books I own.

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That’s it for this month. I’ll be back with another post on Monday. Thank you for reading, liking, commenting on and sharing my posts.