Review – The Doomster’s Monolithic Pocket Alphabet

The Doomster's Monothlithic Pocket Alphabet
By: Theo Prasidis
Illustrator: Maarten Donders
Release Date: November 21, 2017
Publisher: Image Comics
Received From: Publisher
(All reviews are our own, honest opinions.)
Rating:


Some people pick up books based on the front cover. Me? I tend to pick book based on the title. One of the last graphic novels I read based on the title was this one. The Doomster’s Monolithic Pocket Alphabet written by Theo Prasidis and with art by Maarten Donders is a love letter to doomsters. It’s short, it’s fun, and it’s cute (not necessarily a word I every expected to use in regard to doom metal, but hey).

Review – Food Wars! Vol. 2 by Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

Food Wars! Vol. 2
By: Yuto Tsukuda
Illustrator: Shun Saeki
Translator: Adrienne Beck
Release Date: October 7, 2014
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Series: Food Wars! (Shokugeki no Soma)
Rating:


It’s going to be a long road while trying to catch up to the current chapters of Food Wars! in Weekly Shonen Jump, but it’s guaranteed to a be a road filled with cooking battles and boys clad only in aprons. A fantastic follow up to the first volume, Food Wars! Vol 2 by Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki is a shonen manga following Soma, the newest student at a prestigious cooking school that boasts a whopping 10% graduation rate. Only the best of the best survive at Totsuki Culinary Academy.

Review – Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti: The Night Masquerade
By: Nnedi Okorafor
Website: http://www.nnedi.com/
Release Date: January 18, 2018
Publisher: Tor.com
Series: Binti
Received From: Publisher
(All reviews are our own, honest opinions.)
Rating:


The last book in the acclaimed Binti series has been released. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor is the third and last book in the Binti series, a great conclusion to a wonderful series.

Review – Tales of the Abyss: Asch The Bloody by Hana Saito and Rin Niyjo

Tales of the Abyss: Asch the Bloody Vol 1
By: Hana Saito; Rin Niyjo
Release Date: August 23, 2011
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment
Series: Tales of the Abyss: Asch the Bloody
Rating:


I’ll be honest. I think I may have actually squealed out loud when I discovered Tales of the Abyss: Asch the Bloody in their manga collection. I have been a fan of the ‘Tales of’ games for a long time, and Tales of the Abyss remains my favorite of the franchise. Though I initially picked it up out of pure fandom, I found myself intrigued upon reading the description. Tales of the Abyss: Asch the Bloody by Hana Saito and Rin Niyjo follows the story set in the game not from the point of view of Luke, the original main character, but that of Asch, one of the villains and someone very close to Luke.

Review – RWBY by Shiro Miwa

RWBY
By: Shirow Miwa; Rooster Teeth Productions; Monty Oum
Translator: Joe Yamazaki
Release Date: January 16, 2018
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Rating:


I cannot describe how excited I was when the RWBY manga appeared at my door. I love the anime and I wanted to see how the story was handled within the anime. Unfortunately, RWBY by Shirow Miwa ignored much of the animated versions strengths to the manga’s detriment.

Review – Down Among The Sticks And Bones by Seanan McGuire

Down Among the Sticks and Bones
By: Seanan McGuire
Website: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450908-down-among-the-sticks-and-bones
Release Date: June 13, 2017
Publisher: Tor.com
Series: Wayward Children #2
Rating:


I have always loved portal fantasies, those books where a group of children fall through the back of a wardrobe and enter a world of fantasy and magic. Last year, Every Heart A Doorway piqued my interest based on its new spin on this familiar scenario – what happens when someone comes back to our world? Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire is dark, stunningly written, and utterly beautiful.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones has some of the loveliest prose I have read in quite some time. It’s the sort of writing that normally makes my father look fondly at the book in hand and say ‘people don’t write like this anymore’. Reading McGuire’s work is a real treat. I devoured this book; it was a one sitting read.

Review – Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

Dreamland Burning
By: Jennifer Latham
Release Date: February 21, 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rating:


It has been a long time since a book has struck me in the sort of way Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham struck me. It’s the sort of book that is devoured, read with the sort of all-consuming fervor that makes a person look up bewildered when the phone rings, or wondering when exactly the sun set. I loved this book. This book is important. It matters.

Review – The Novel of the Tumpinamba Indian by E. F. Granell

The Novel of the Tumpinamba Indian
By: E. F. Granell
Translator: David Coulter
Release Date: December 12, 2017
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Rating:


When I heard that a novel written by a surrealist artist was being published in English for the first time, I knew I needed to read it. I was fascinated, both by the subject matter and the writer. The Novel of the Tumpinamba Indian is a surrealist take on the Spanish Civil War and was written by E. F. Granell, artist and revolutionary.

Review – Juana and the Dragonewts’ Seven Kingdoms Volume 1 by Kiyohisa Tanaka

Juana and the Dragonewts' Seven Kingdoms Vol. 1
By: Kiyohisa Tanaka
Translator: Adrienne Beck
Release Date: (English) January 16, 2018; (original)
Publisher: Seven Seas
Series: Juana and the Dragonewts' Seven Kingdoms
Received From: Publisher
(All reviews are our own, honest opinions.)
Rating:


I’m always looking for a new fantasy story, a genre which has been just a little bit hard to find these last few years as the isekai genre has taken over just about everything. Juana and the Dragonewts’ Seven Kingdoms by Kiyohisa Tanaka is a beautiful, fun fantasy with a lot of heart. I’ve heard it related to the Ancient Magus’ Bride, and while I’m not completely up to date with either the manga releases or the anime, I can see why. This is a fantasy story, one where a human girl, maybe the last one, finds herself amid a realm of dragon like creatures. But instead of being from the point of view of a human suddenly plunged into a fantastical world, we are given the opposite – a fantastical creature living in a fantastical world finds a human without fully knowing what it is or what to do with it.

New Year, New To Be Read Pile

Every year bookworms everywhere take stock of the books they finished reading over the last 365 days and make a new goal for what they hope to accomplish this upcoming year. I am no different but I must admit I was disappointed in myself this past year as I barely reached my minimal reading goal and definitely did not write enough reviews this past year either. The reason for all of this? Reading slumps. What did I do to try and break out of this? Keep reading to find out!

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