A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions

REVIEW: You and I Are Polar Opposites (manga, vol. 2) story and art by Kocha Agasawa, translated by Dan Luffey

2026-04-06T01:59:00.000-05:00

You and I Are Polar Opposites is a high school romance manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

In this volume, we meet Nishi, a super shy girl who enjoys listening in on conversations but who can't bring herself to participate. Her efforts to hide her laughter at funny things that come up in others' conversations attracts the attention of Yamada, Suzuki and Tani's hyper friendly classmate. Meanwhile, Tani and Suzuki spend more time together, which results in Suzuki getting to see Tani's home. Then it's time for the school's cultural festival...and a teeny tiny bit of drama, as Suzuki's ex-boyfriend (sort of?) from middle school stops by.

These characters are so cute.

In this volume, we have several instances of characters nervously trying to approach things in various roundabout ways, along with a few refreshing and much more direct approaches (although, as an awkward shy person, I totally get the allure of roundabout approaches!).

Unsurprisingly, it generally works best for everyone when they actually talk about what they're feeling and say what they really want to say. Which didn't keep me from enjoying the bonus "before the start of volume 1" story, in which Suzuki engineered a situation in which she could believably ask Tani for his contact info without actually telling him that she was interested in him.

REVIEW: You and I Are Polar Opposites (manga, vol. 1) story and art by Kocha Agasawa, translated by Dan Luffey

2026-04-06T01:32:00.001-05:00

You and I Are Polar Opposites is a high school romance manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Suzuki is a bubbly girl who's loud and friendly. She secretly has a crush on Tani, a quiet but direct classmate of hers, and the only way she can think to handle it is by being hyper friendly to him, including him in conversations even when the topics (like mascara) likely don't interest him.

Something about the cover art style puts me off and is part of the reason I wasn't really originally drawn to this series. Maybe Suzuki's eyes are a tad too sharp? But then I heard it was getting an anime, read a bit more about it, and decided to give it a try.

This is a really nice, fluffy high school romance. There's a minimum of drama: when Suzuki says something that she realizes Tani might misinterpret and be hurt by, she's finally honest about her feelings and clears things up with Tani as quickly as she can. While there are a few who are surprised when they become a couple, everyone mostly just accepts it and starts expanding their social circles to include Tani more.

Taira, a moody side character, is the closest thing the series has to a negative personality so far, and even he quickly realizes that all his bitter thoughts about social hierarchies are more an internal problem he's got to work on than an actual issue at his school. Then there's Azuma, a jaded girl who has a bad habit of being drawn to bad boys who turn out to be horrible boyfriends.

Tani and Suzuki's movie date was super cute. Tani was the one who remembered all the basic story details, like characters' names, while Suzuki was the one who noticed all the little details in the background that underscored the movie's emotional aspects.

All in all, enjoyable. I'm glad I gave it a shot.

REVIEW: Untitled Goose Game (nonfiction book) by James O'Connor

2026-04-06T00:30:00.002-05:00

Untitled Goose Game is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book looks at the developers behind the game Untitled Goose Game, the creation of the game itself, and aspects of the Australian game development scene.

This is probably the most "feel good" game development book I've ever read. The author and basically everyone he interviewed while creating this book had nothing but good things to say about the four guys who make up House House, the developer behind Untitled Goose Game and Push Me Pull You (also covered somewhat in this book). They're a solid friend group that gets along, enjoys spending time together, and communicates with each other really effectively, with little-to-no drama or competing egos. If there was anything about this book that was a bit repetitive, it was all the mentions of how great these guys were and how well they got along together. That said, I genuinely hope it was all true.

The book covers how the guys of House House first met and became friends, the development of their first game (Push Me Pull You), and the ideas that came together and eventually spawned Untitled Goose Game. There were a bunch of details I found interesting, like the location scouting they did using Google Maps Street View, and the process for making the game music reactive to player/goose behavior.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read about a fun little game.

REVIEW: Rising Stars Compendium (graphic novel, vol. 1) created and written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by various

2026-04-05T22:31:00.000-05:00

Rising Stars Compendium Vol. 1 collects Rising Stars issues #0, #1/2, #1-24, Prelude, the short story Initiations, Bright issues #1-2, Voices of the Dead issues #1-6, and Untouchable issues #1-5. This is a superhero comics series. I bought my copy of this compendium new.

Review:

In the world of this series, a mysterious light called "the flash" hits near Pederson, Illinois sometime in the 1960s. Sometime later, the 113 children conceived in Pederson around the time of the flash started showing evidence of superpowers. After some panicking and scrambling, the group as a whole was sent to a special camp where they would spend most of their time until they turned 18, going to school, being tested and evaluated, and learning about their powers.

Several decades after the flash, Peter Dawson, a special whose primary power is invulnerability is found murdered, suffocated to death. Peter wasn't the first special to be killed - and whoever the murderer is is likely affiliated with the specials group somehow, because they seem to know everyone's weaknesses.

The bulk of the main story is told by John, also known as the Poet, one of those 113 "specials." John has always kept himself apart from the other specials, believing himself to be the only one who can stop another special if they go bad, and it seems as though his abilities are now needed. Who's killing the other specials, and why?

Which makes it sound like this might be a murder mystery featuring superheroes, but that isn't really the case. Instead, the comics explore the lives, relationships, and psyches of multiple specials, as well as how various governments and individuals reacted to them. The specials eventually realize their overall purpose, but it takes a while to get there.

I bought the first few issues of this series when they first came out, but I didn't have the money and memory necessary to keep going to the store at the right time to pick up individual issues. I think I stopped reading about four or so issues in.

This series' premise and the way it handled superheroes probably doesn't seem all that special now, what with the existence of Heroes, The 4400, and The Boys, but I recall it seeming really original at the time. It was exciting to finally get my hands on an omnibus copy that would let me read the full main story in one go.

This series was at its best, I think, when it focused on particular specials for extended periods of time. Sure, it was cool and interesting when the scope was widened to a worldwide and, eventually, cosmic level, but I found I wasn't nearly as interested in the reason behind the flash as I was in the lives of Matthew Bright, Jason Miller, Lionel Zerb, and more. Unfortunately, the time needed to tell the larger story meant that some of the characters that interested me didn't get as much page-time as I might've liked. The side stories at the end of the compendium helped somewhat, but still.

There were a lot of characters, and at times it felt like it was harder to keep people straight than it should have been. Some of that was, unfortunately, due to the artwork. John and Randy were easy to mix up, and guys with brown or blond hair who were easy to tell apart on one page weren't always easy to tell apart a few pages later.

Overall, I'm glad I finally got to read the full series (I think - for some reason, even though everything I find says that this volume has the entire main story, the compendium says volume 1 on it). While parts of the story were harder to follow than they should have been (Joshua's secrets were so coyly handled that I had to double check online to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting things), and the specials' fixes for various domestic and international problems occasionally seemed a bit simplistic, there were a few really well-told tragic stories in the mix as well.

While getting this compendium volume was the easiest and most cost-effective way for me to read the series, this 1000+ page monster was physically challenging to read. In order to keep from breaking the spine or hurting my wrists, I usually relied on a setup that involved a pillow on my lap and multiple arguments with my cat. Even then, as careful as I was, I still ended up with the first few pages of this volume detaching.

REVIEW: Extinct & Endangered: Insects in Peril (nonfiction book) photographs by Levon Biss

2026-03-30T01:58:00.000-05:00

Extinct & Endangered is nonfiction, primarily a photo book. I bought my copy used.

Review:

This collection features photographs of 40 extinct or endangered insect species, using specimens from the American Museum of Natural History. Some only include one full-body photograph, while others include extreme close-ups of particular features.

Each insect includes a couple paragraphs of text to provide some context - whether the insects are extinct or endangered, where they can be found, what we know about why they're extinct or endangered, etc.

I got this for the photographs, and the photographs delivered. Literally the only complaint I could think of was that it would have been nice for the specimens to have included scale rulers. It would have interrupted the lovely black backgrounds, though, so I would also have accepted an approximate size mentioned in the accompanying text. Some specimens included this, but many didn't.

I need to check out Levon Biss's other photograph collections at some point.

REVIEW: Komi Can't Communicate: Making Friends and Not Scaring People (nonfiction book) by Natalie Schriefer, original manga by Tomohito Oda

2026-03-30T01:28:00.000-05:00

Making Friends and Not Scaring People is nonfiction that illustrates concepts using pages and panels from the manga Komi Can't Communicate. I bought my copy new.

Review:

If you enjoy the manga Komi Can't Communicate and, like Komi, would like to make friends but aren't really sure how to go about it, then this book is for you.

I've seen the anime and read, I think, the first couple volumes of the manga. This book uses pages and panels from the manga to illustrate concepts and what to do (or not do) in particular situations. Sometimes there was enough context for the references to make sense, even though I didn't get far into the manga, and sometimes I just accepted that certain references were weird little mysteries. (When the weird little mysteries involved Yamai, I decided I was probably happier not knowing more.)

The tone of the text was very reassuring, and the advice was solid, if not particularly groundbreaking. Sometimes when you're anxious about doing something, it's helpful to have the steps you can take laid out in an easy to follow way. This book definitely did that.

REVIEW: Everything You Need to Ace Biology in One Big Fat Notebook: The Complete High School Study Guide (nonfiction book) by Matthew Brown

2026-03-30T00:47:00.001-05:00

Everything You Need to Ace Biology in One Big Fat Notebook is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I'll start by saying that I am definitely not a high school student. I picked this up because I was curious about the format - if I enjoyed it, I figured I might try tackling one of the volumes on a subject I was shakier on.

This is divided into 12 units ("Basics of Biology," "The Chemistry of Life," "Cell Theory," "Bacteria, Viruses, Prions, and Viroids," "Protists," "Fungi," "Plants," "Animals," "The Human Body," "Genetics," "Life on Earth," and "Ecosystems and Habitats"). The text is set up to look like notes someone took on lined paper, with occasional highlighted bits, drawings in the margins, underlined portions, etc. Each chapter ends with review questions and answers.

My overall opinion of this is: meh. My eyes glazed over at about the same points where I generally had trouble in school (I'm looking at you, Unit 2). My favorite chapters were probably the ones on algae, molds, and fungi, because they covered info I don't recall learning before. That said, there are probably better, more memorable books out there on those topics for someone like myself, who is reading for enjoyment rather than to study for a test.

Speaking of the study guide aspects: I doubt just reading this book would ever have helped me much when I was a student, even if I forced myself to do the review questions. I did best with notes I actually took myself. This book also missed a bunch of opportunities to explicitly connect concepts mentioned across multiple chapters (not even a brief "remember, [Topic] was discussed in more detail back in Chapter X" - yes, there's an index, but in-text recognition of the relatedness of subjects would have been nice).

Assuming the other volumes are similar to this one, I don't think I'll be seeking out the rest.

REVIEW: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Comic Book (graphic novel) stories and art by various

2026-03-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

Dream Daddy is a graphic novel collection of stories featuring the characters from the Dream Daddy dating simulator game. I checked my copy out from the library.

Review:

I'll start by saying that, although I tried Dream Daddy, I never got very far into it. The idea of it was fun, but I loathed the character creation process at the start, wasn't a fan of the mini games, and eventually just sort of lost interest in the whole thing. According to my notes, I started off by trying to romance Mat, the coffee shop owner, but my memories are so fuzzy that I suspect I never even finished that one route.

All of which is to say, you don't need to have played the game much in order to enjoy this. I generally had fun while reading this. It read like the aspects of the game I enjoyed, minus the stuff I didn't.

Anyway, on to the individual stories.

"Much Abird About Nothing" written by Wendy Xu, illustrated by Ryan Maniulit

The unnamed player character and Craig (Fitness Dad) go to their college reunion together and have a nice evening that wraps up with a bit of mild adventure.

This was very sweet and wholesome. Not much story, but I didn't really mind.

"Let the Right Dad In" written by Lee C.A., illustrated by Jack Gross

Robert (Bad Dad) lives in a drunken fantasy world in which he's convinced that Damien (Goth Dad) is a vampire. This gets to the point where Robert bursts in on Damien and Mary while brandishing a stake, but it ends on a positive note.

This reminded me that Joseph wasn't the only dad in Dream Daddy that didn't appeal to me. But hey, reading this didn't require me to try to romance Robert, and goodness knows his alcohol-fueled fantasies at least keep things from being boring.

"Dream Ad-y" written by Vernon Shaw and Leighton Gray, illustrated by Jarrett Williams

Business at Mat's coffee shop has been so slow that he's been practicing the theremin in the back to pass the time, so Robert, the player character, and others agree to shoot a commercial for him.

The artwork in all the previous stories was stylistically close enough to the game artwork and Kris Anka's cover art to not be too jarring. Not so with this story. While I wasn't a fan of the artwork, I did at least enjoy the story, which was another nice and heartwarming entry.

"Fair Deal" written by C. Spike Trotman, illustrated by Drew Green

Brian (Rival Dad) and Joseph (Cool Youth Minister Dad) are helping their kids prepare for the science fair, which happens to be tomorrow. The whole group heads to the library, where the two dads get extremely competitive while their kids try to hide from it all before eventually working out a plan together.

Another one in which the art style was radically different from original game's style - it kind of reminded me of Steven Universe. I really liked this story. Poor Daisy, just wanting to put minimal effort into her project in order to save herself some grief later. And Joseph's twins were fantastic little gremlins.

"Dungeons & Daddies" written by Josh Trujillo, illustrated by D.J. Kirkland

All of the dads get together to play a TTRPG. From the sounds of things, Damien is normally the DM, but this time around it's Hugo (Teacher Dad). Everyone seems to want to do their own thing and Hugo, who has ideas about how he thinks this campaign should go, gets increasingly frustrated.

Granted, my TTRPG experience is super limited, but this felt like something that could actually happen, complete with a healthy side discussion between the experienced and newbie DMs.

The volume ends with creator commentary for each of the stories, from both the authors and the artists. Kris Anka (the cover artist) and Hassan Ostmane-Elhaou (letterer) also got their own commentary sections.

REVIEW: Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees (nonfiction book) by Thor Hanson

2026-03-23T01:02:47.110-05:00

Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Hanson starts this book off with an author's note that basically says "while honeybees are mentioned here, they were not my focus." Since honeybees are so often the first kind of bee people think about when they think about bees, I appreciated Hanson's broader look.

Hanson starts by looking at what we know about how bees evolved and what the earliest bees were like. Then he looks at bees and their relationship with flowers, bees and their relationship with us, and bee conservation efforts. Throughout all that, there are mentions of Hanson and his son watching and trying to attract local bees near their home, Hanson taking a course on catching, pinning, and identifying various bee species, and more.

As with Hanson's book on feathers, I occasionally found myself wishing this book included color photos. The lack of color photos wasn't a deal-breaker though - this was still an excellent read. I particularly enjoyed learning more about the ways in which bees are used in agriculture, and about efforts to encourage the return of native bees and hopefully reduce agriculture's reliance on having to bring in rented hives (which then have to deal with the stress of being transported and the nutritional issues brought about by having access to limited types of plants).

REVIEW: Birds of the Photo Ark (nonfiction book) text by Noah Strycker, photographs by Joel Sartore

2026-03-22T23:29:54.258-05:00

Birds of the Photo Ark is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Text-wise, there's not much here. This is primarily a photo book, so it's a quick read.

The photographs were gorgeous. Many of them were of the entire bird, but several were portraits or close-ups of particular features, such as feet or particularly striking feathers. Photographs included captions that identified the species depicted, their IUCN status, and, since these were all captive birds, pages at the end mentioned where the particular birds were located.

One thing I wished the captions had included was information, when possible, about the sex of the birds in the photographs. The only captions that included this information were the ones in the "Gender" section at the beginning of the "Next Generation" chapter.

There's a short section at the end in which Joel Sartore, the photographer, explained the process of photographing the birds. I'm always a fan of "process" sections in books like these, even if they're brief.

REVIEW: Bible Adventures (nonfiction book) by Gabe Durham

2026-03-22T22:57:00.898-05:00

Bible Adventures is Boss Fight Books' seventh book, each of which focuses on a particular video game. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book wasn't initially on my personal list of Boss Fight Books to read - I was more focused on games I'd played or games that interested me but that I knew I wasn't going to play. However, at some point while reading reviews, I came across some positive mentions of this book and decided to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.

Durham looks at Color Dreams (a game development company), Wisdom Tree (Color Dreams' Christian games offshoot), the various people involved, and the games they made. I'd never heard of any of these companies or games, but it was interesting to read about how aspects of early Nintendo history I'd read about in other books resulted in the creation of Color Dreams, which developed and published unlicensed games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Although most of the people involved in Color Dreams were either atheists or agnostics, Wisdom Tree was born from business savvy - Christian games were an untapped market with zero competition, and Christian stores turned out to be the perfect place to sell unlicensed Nintendo games. Although the developers themselves mostly weren't Christians, the company hired salespeople who were.

It was fascinating, reading about how the companies functioned and the kinds of games they made. Although this was mostly focused on Wisdom Tree's games rather than Color Dreams', in some cases they were practically the same thing - some Wisdom Tree games were literally just Color Dreams games with a few tweaks and some bible stuff thrown in. No screenshots for any of it, unfortunately, although I was able to easily find some online (Durham's descriptions of the animal stacking in Bible Adventure's "Noah's Ark" and all the baby Moses stuff in "Baby Moses" were better than the screenshots alone would have been, anyway).

There were moments, especially later in Wisdom Tree's history, that were just wild - at one point, for example, Color Dreams got the Hellraiser movie game rights, prepared for the creation of that game by paying to use Wolfenstein 3D's engine, and then, when the Hellraiser game didn't pan out, squeezed some money out of it all by having Wisdom Tree release Super 3D Noah's Ark, which was essentially Wolfenstein 3D but with a slingshot instead of guns, angry animals instead of Nazis, and fruit instead of bullets.

In addition to the game stuff, I also appreciated Durham's examination of his feelings about faith and belief, and the way Color Dreams founder Dan Lawton's regret about convincing Dan Burke (a Color Dreams developer) to become an atheist mirrored his own feelings about trying to convert other people to Christianity.

All in all, this was a great read.

REVIEW: We Love to Entertain (book) by Sarah Strohmeyer

2026-03-10T00:45:00.002-05:00

We Love to Entertain may look like a domestic thriller, but it'd probably be more accurate to call it suspense fiction. At times, it also almost feels like a cozy mystery. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is told from a couple different POVs, with some blog posts sprinkled throughout. The blog posts are by the couple at the center of this book, while the POVs are Erika and her mother, Kim.

Holly and Robert are contestants on a reality show competition about house flipping. While working on their competition entry, an eco-conscious home makeover in a small Vermont town, they fell in love and are planning on getting married close to the end of the competition. It's the kind of stuff publicity dreams are made of. Erika is their assistant, a local pariah who desperately wants to make up for it by doing well in this job. Erika's intense loyalty to Holly and Robert is helped along by her unrequited (?) crush on Robert. It gives her a little thrill, knowing that Robert asks her help for things he doesn't always tell Holly about.

Something's had Robert on edge for a while, but the wedding goes without a hitch. That evening, though, Robert shows up at Erika's place out of the blue, asking to temporarily trade his Tesla for her much cheaper car, so that he and Holly can take a sudden honeymoon trip. Erika isn't great at saying no to Robert, something she soon has reason to regret, as Robert and Holly become suddenly unreachable during the important last days of the competition.

Meanwhile, Kim, Erika's mother and the town clerk, is experiencing some guilt over the way Holly and Robert got the house in the first place, and she's determined to set things right, even it means she's forced to resign.

This really was not the domestic thriller I expected it to be. It took ages for Holly and Robert to be declared missing, and I felt like a huge chunk of the book was hints of the overall problem/mystery (the angry former owner of the house, Holly having lots of personal details she wants to keep secret, Robert getting threatening mail, etc.) and a bunch of really boring home renovation stuff. Holly and Robert's entry sucked, by the way. Yeah, sure, it was eco-conscious and all, but not in a way that was doable without boatloads of money, which they were already spending like it'd never run out on luxuries like a kitchen table and a fancy stove they never planned to use.

I wish this had both leaned into its cozy mystery aspects more, and that it had been marketed accurately. Maybe if I'd gone into this with different expectations, I might have enjoyed it more. As it was, I just wanted it to be over.

REVIEW: Banned Book (picture book) by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Gary Kelley

2026-03-09T23:52:00.002-05:00

Banned Book could technically be considered a dystopian fiction picture book, since the censorship group is fictional and the situation doesn't take place anywhere in particular. I bought it new.

Review:

A book about book banning, filled with censorship bars. The number of censorship bars increases until, gradually, even the reasons for censorship are censored.

As a children's book, I'm not sure how well this would work, and I expect it would be difficult to figure out how to read it aloud. Plus, there'd be the issue of explaining it if there wasn't some sort of active censorship case going on at the child's school.

However, as an art piece about censorship, I thought this was effective. I bought it new, and it arrived wrapped in plastic, with a black paper strip over the title. Combine that with the actual content of the book, and the whole thing was pretty on point.

REVIEW: Super Chill: A Year of Living Anxiously (graphic novel) by Adam Ellis

2026-03-09T22:58:00.002-05:00

Super Chill is a collection of humorous comics. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This reminded me of Sarah Andersen's Adulthood is a Myth stuff - a lot of the same worries/anxieties.

The laugh that took me most by surprise was the "Am I happy now?" comic in which Ellis burst into flames in the sun.

There was one comic that was designed to be more autobiographical than funny, a bit about Ellis leaving his job at Buzzfeed.

Overall, this was enjoyable.

REVIEW: Oops! Rabbit (picture book) by Jo Ham

2026-03-09T22:46:00.000-05:00

Oops! Rabbit is a humorous children's picture book. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Most of this book is composed of a set of "Rabbit on" pages, followed by "Oops!" pages in which the scenario goes wrong, and then a set of "Rabbit off" pages (the disaster's aftermath).

This was a very simple read, with only one surprise moment at the end. I did really like the design aspect, with the clean, sharp silhouette artwork and occasional use of pink - the art was a large part of what drew me to this.

REVIEW: Creepy Crayon! (picture book) words by Aaron Reynolds, pictures by Peter Brown

2026-03-09T22:26:00.000-05:00

Creepy Crayon! is a children's horror comedy picture book. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Jasper is bad at math and spelling, and only good at art. Then he finds a perfect and pointy purple crayon, and suddenly he's getting straight A's in everything! It's great. Until the crayon even tries to interfere with his artwork.

I loved the over-the-top ominousness of the grayscale artwork, in which the only color was the purple used for the crayon-created lines.

This was set up a lot like a horror movie, complete with the main character having a nightmare, waking up, and discovering that the crayon has made it real somehow.

Even as an adult, I thought this was fun and amusingly dramatic.

REVIEW: Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug (picture book) by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrated by Jay Fleck

2026-03-09T22:09:00.000-05:00

Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug is a children's picture book. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Tiny's friend Pointy feels sad, so Tiny wants to figure out how to hug his friend despite having such tiny arms. He goes to several family members for advice and even has a training montage.

I was drawn to this one by Tiny's incredibly cute design. Pointy (a stegosaurus) was also pretty cute.

I loved the dry humor in this. At one point, Tiny's mother tells him some uplifting stuff, and his response is hilariously practical: "I cannot hug with my heart."

If there was one thing that vaguely bugged me about this, it was that Tiny never once asked Pointy what was wrong. Still, the story was amusing, and Tiny's efforts were at least appreciated by his friend.

REVIEW: Let Me In Your Window: Horror Stories (graphic novel) by Adam Ellis

2026-03-09T21:53:00.001-05:00

Let Me In Your Window is a collection of short horror comics. I bought my volume new.

Review:

This is a collection of ten short horror comics. As I usually do with anthologies, I'll tackle each story separately.

"Little Kingdom"

There's a little island some people moved to in order to start a sort of commune, except that when they had children, something was wrong with them. The kids are gray and strange and never develop speech. The POV character makes a documentary about it, and it's an instant hit. Unable to make anything that popular again, the documentary filmmaker decides to do a sequel. Unfortunately, the situation has changed since the first documentary was made, and things rapidly go wrong.

I had forgotten how disturbing Ellis's horror could occasionally be. It probably helps that creepy children make my skin crawl. This story has them in spades.

"Hello Charlie"

Charlie is alone in his hotel room. He realizes he has his playlist on party mode when some stranger starts adding songs to it. The two of them chat via song titles. Things get a bit flirty, and then a lot creepy.

Spooky stalker vibes, set to max.

"Apple Head"

Three girls have a sleepover. One of them has purchased some fresh fruit for the night, which is forbidden. This confuses one girl in the group, who's new in town, so she's told the story of Apple Head, a serial killer with an odd origin story.

This was simultaneously creepy and absolutely ridiculous. One of the characters even says so. It's like Ellis was daring himself to make the dumbest premise he could think of as spooky as possible.

"Old Machines"

A guy's dead sister communicates with him via a Twitter bot.

This was reasonably spooky, but it didn't quite feel finished. Maybe it stopped too soon? Or not soon enough? Not sure, but this was the first story in the collection to leave me feeling a bit disappointed.

"Sleepwalker"

Two brothers are staying in different rooms at a hostel. The eldest of the two is drunk when he gets back that evening, and has a history of sleepwalking. The younger one wakes up that night to thumping on his door, sees his brother through the peephole, and opts not to open the door. In the morning, he finds out more about what happened.

So, while this was indeed creepy, my suspension of disbelief was broken by the thought that the hostel staff would never have shown the younger brother that footage.

"Rumble Queen"

A couple goes to an art park for their third date and read a pamphlet about the artist and her rich husband, who funded the park but died before it was completed.

Well, this one was kind of insane. And a bit much.

"Don't Look"

This one's about a guy who's haunted by a clown he sees in every mirror around him.

The ending was gruesome and really effective.

"Sunken Express"

There's an urban legend that there's train that will take you to any place and time, no return trip, in exchange for an important sacrifice on your part. A guy does it and finds something unexpected: another passenger, sharing his ride with him.

This one left me with a lot of questions. I think I understood what Ellis was going for, but it was still more confusing than I would have preferred.

"Gospel of the Dead Moon"

All I'll say about this one is that it reminded me of a less insane version of Junji Ito's Remina. In this case, it's all eerie visuals, not much story.

"ReBrand"

A mysterious digital billboard prompts the main character of this story to check out a vlogger with, at first, only one video - surprising, since who'd go to the effort to pay for advertisement when they have so little content to share?

This one was fun, although I couldn't help but wonder how many people would actually be caught by this. Am I the only one who still manually types stuff out?

All in all, I really enjoyed this collection.

REVIEW: Dewdrop (graphic novel) by K. O'Neill

2026-03-09T15:21:00.002-05:00

Dewdrop is either a fantasy graphic novel or a fantasy children's picture book (or both?). I bought my copy new.

Review:

Everyone is preparing for the upcoming Sports Fair...and starting to feel a little discouraged. Dewdrop the axolotl uses his cheerleading skills to boost everyone's mood and get them to focus on relaxing and just doing the best they personally can.

Man, I'm such a cynical adult. This was maybe a bit too chirpy and simple for me. That said, I'm not the target audience. I suspect that children would probably enjoy Dewdrop's energy and positive approach to life. Cynical old me did think that the character designs were super cute.

The volume ends with a nice environmental message and some facts about the four different animals (axolotl, yellow-bellied slider, newt, and minnow) featured throughout the story.

REVIEW: Space Battle Lunchtime, Vol. 3: A Dish Best Served Cold (graphic novel, vol. 3) by Natalie Riess

2026-03-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

Space Battle Lunchtime is a science fiction graphic novel. I bought this volume used.

Review:

Peony has been hired to cater a party held by a semi-deity space empress. Great news! Unfortunately, while she's handling the desserts, her former Space Battle Lunchtime rival, Melonhead, is handling the meal. But they're both professionals. Surely they can handle one party without problems?

Then the space empress falls over dead while eating one of Peony's desserts...and for some reason Neptunia is the one instantly considered a suspect by the empress's guard (who happens to be Neptunia's sister). Peony somehow has to find the true culprit in order to prove her girlfriend's innocence and save her catering business.

I'll start by saying that a person could easily read the first couple volumes of this series and then stop there. There's a complete story there, as well as a reasonably satisfying ending. Even so, I'm glad I took the time to hunt down and read this volume. It was great to see Peony and Nep again. This volume had so many "Nep is head over heels for Peony" moments - my joy, it was great. I love it when badass fighter romantic leads are stupidly in love with their less badass partners.

All in all, this was a delightful read.

Additional note: I really like the space empress's design.

Extras:

Examples of Riess's color scripts, a few concept sketches, and a couple cute full-page illustrations of Peony and Neptunia.

REVIEW: Mooncop (graphic novel) by Tom Gauld

2026-03-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Mooncop is a science fiction graphic novel. I bought my copy used.

Review:

This takes place on a moon base with a population in the single digits. A lunar cop goes about his day, waking up, getting a donut and coffee, driving around, and taking care of the few things that need him. His crime-solving rate is 100% because there are no crimes, and as more people leave the colony, there's even less for him to do.

This was mostly about loneliness, with a dash of dark work humor of the "useless jobs with useless metrics" sort. That said, even with things generally changing for the worse, with no actual end in sight, the story's main character somehow found things to appreciate.

Brief, kind of sad, and weirdly gentle? I'm not quite sure what to think about this graphic novel.

REVIEW: Katamari Damacy (nonfiction book) by L.E. Hall

2026-03-08T23:43:00.001-05:00

Katamari Damacy is nonfiction, volume 17 from Boss Fight Books. I bought my copy new.

Review:

If you look at Boss Fight Books' website in the paperback bundles section, you'll see that this book is listed as being in the "Historical Bundle" and the "Creator Access Bundle." Through research and interviews with people like Keita Takahashi (the creator of the Katamari Damacy franchise and the director of the first two games) and others, this book takes an in-depth look at how Katamari Damacy came to be created and how it was subsequently received by players and critics.

I didn't actually bother looking at info about this book before starting to read it, so all I knew was that it was very different from my favorite Boss Fight Books entry so far, Mike Drucker's Silent Hill 2. Where that book included Drucker's personal reactions and interpretations of the game as well as info more generally about the game itself, Katamari Damacy was much less focused on the personal and, at times, came across as being somewhat drier because of this.

Still, I appreciated learning more about Keita Takahashi and his unconventional journey towards working for Namco and designing Katamari Damacy. It surprised me to learn that he hadn't initially planned to become a game designer. Instead, his interests lay more in sculpture and design. It was fascinating to see how those interests ended up shaping the game.

Considering how many sequels the original game ended up spawning, it was also somewhat surprising to read that Takahashi was so focused on doing something fresh and original. I hadn't initially realized that he was only involved in the first couple games.

It was easier to get sidetracked while reading this than it was when I was reading the Silent Hill 2 volume, but I still enjoyed this, albeit in a different way.

REVIEW: Shark: The Illustrated Biography (nonfiction book) by Daniel C. Abel & Sophie A. Maycock, illustrations by Adam Hook

2026-03-08T23:10:00.000-05:00

Shark: The Illustrated Biography is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book looks at what sharks are, how they evolved, and what their lives are like (reproduction, juvenile vs. adult life, dietary needs, etc.), and efforts at shark conservation.

Early on, the authors said they'd focus primarily on four species - the Great White Shark, Smallspotted Catshark, Sandbar Shark, and Spiny Dogfish - although I will admit that I eventually forgot that these four species were supposed to be the focus of their specific examples, because so many examples were mentioned throughout.

There were a few moments here and there where I found my eyes glazing over a bit as I read this, but the authors were so clearly enthusiastic about their topic that they soon snapped me out of it. I can't find the bit right now, but I recall one somewhat dry section suddenly being interrupted by the authors mentioning how cute they thought a particular species of shark was.

I learned a lot while reading this, although I don't know that I'd remember exactly which species of shark the particular details belonged to if you asked me. My favorite section was probably the one on shark reproduction - I hadn't realized quite how varied it could be, although, to be fair, I suppose I didn't really think about sharks much prior to reading this.

Adam Hook's illustrations were plentiful and beautiful. I appreciated the ones that included information about scale, because there were times I'd definitely have assumed that certain sharks were much larger than they actually were.

REVIEW: That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America (nonfiction book) by Amanda Jones

2026-03-08T22:34:00.001-05:00

That Librarian is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

When I have a big new task ahead of me or a topic that's weighing heavily on my mind for whatever reason, my instinct is often to read about it. That's how I ended up coming across this book. I wanted to read more about recent efforts at book banning and challenging in US libraries. What I really wanted was something focused on academic libraries, but one thing I immediately noticed was that most of what I was finding was focused on school and public libraries.

Anyway, in this book, Amanda Jones writes about attending a public hearing about "book content" at her local public library in 2022. As a concerned citizen and librarian, she spoke in support of library collections that meet the needs of all members of her local community and warned against the harm that censorship could cause. Her whole speech is included in the last chapter of the book.

Although Jones wasn't the only one who spoke out, Citizens for a New Louisiana used this as an opportunity to target and defame her, saying that she was fighting to keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the children's section of the library, despite none of that ever coming up in her speech. Jones writes about the emotional impact of having members of her small community who she'd known and previously been friendly with turn on her and believe everything that was written. Then there was the pain of those who tried not to get involved, out of fear that they themselves might become targets, and those who privately supported her but couldn't bring themselves to do so publicly.

She also writes about her efforts to sue those who harassed and defamed her, about book banning efforts in Louisiana in particular and the US in general, and the work that she's done to try to support other librarians going through similar situations.

Jones' efforts to grapple with her emotions were palpable and at times took over the book a bit. As she frequently said, she was trying to focus on the positives and those who'd supported her in whatever ways they could, but she'd grown up in this community and was enormously emotionally invested in it. Having people who'd previously praised her work with their children turn on her and coworkers she thought she could count on give her a cold shoulder shook her to her core.

One thing that this book did for me (besides remind me that hateful mobs are terrifying and that depression drains your soul) was remind me how libraries are generally supposed to deal with book challenges. It was a bit of a gut punch, honestly, a reminder of how different my own library's approach has been.

One of the reasons I went into academic librarianship rather than public or school was because I naively figured that book challenges and censorship wouldn't be as much of an issue. Seeing as how Jones herself only ever brought up public and school libraries, it's an assumption that many may hold. Things are changing, however, and another thing this book did for me was remind me that academic libraries could stand to learn a lot from the decades that public and school libraries have spent dealing with these issues and fighting these battles.

This could have been more tightly written, and it wasn't exactly an enjoyable read, but I'm still glad I read it.

REVIEW: Revenge of the Librarians (graphic novel) by Tom Gauld

2026-03-08T21:22:00.000-05:00

Revenge of the Librarians is more a collection of comics than a graphic novel. I got my volume from the library.

Review:

The comics in this collection are about reading, authorship, libraries, and books. As usual, I enjoyed some more than others.

I had fun with the "[blank] generator" style comics, like the "eccentric family generator for novelists" and the "thriller concept generator." I also got a kick out of some of the comics that poked fun at particular series/books, as well as the ones about writing in general. I winced a bit at some of the ones about personal book collections and book buying habits (guilty as charged, for just about all of them).

All in all, this was an enjoyable collection.