I was tagged by @comickergirl to name 5 female characters I enjoy, so here is a highly contested (it was so hard to choose) list.
The original and eternal favorites:
Mina Harker (Dracula) - Every film adaptation has betrayed her. Don't ask me about her or Dracula unless you want to be forced into an unskippable cutscene in real life.
Keladry of Mindelan (Protector of the Small) - Who I always wanted to be when I grew up.
Newer (and newer-ish) faves:
Desscaras (Ichi the Witch) - So arrogant, so powerful, truly dedicated to the aesthetic, her relationships with both her little brothers (blood-related and adopted) make me want to cry.
Han Sooyoung (Omnicient Reader's Viewpoint) - Desperate to hold onto her self-assigned role of villain to try and survive the apocalypse, even as that role wears thinner and thinner.
Haibara Ai/Shiho Miyano (Detective Conan) - Rescuing her from the honorable mentions of @comickergirl's list for the both of us.
And passing it along to anyone who wants to join in!
Let the record show that @thepeculiarbookshelf and I did better than Drawfee on our first Peak run. (...For a bit. Then we died a lot in the tropics. XD)
I got to read an early copy of Flip (bookseller privileges!), and it was absolutely wonderful. Charming, funny, heartfelt, with an ending that only deepened my long-held belief in Ngozi Ukazu's sheer storytelling ability.
You may not need to make a purchase to enter this sweepstakes, but you should buy the book anyway. You absolutely will not regret it.
I love every single one of these idiots (affectionate).
No other manga series has made me laugh so often as Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (Gekkan Shōjo Nozaki-kun) by Izumi Tsubaki.
Where to read: Yen Press/Square Enix
The story follows the titular Umetarou Nozaki, a high school boy who is secretly (only because no one believes him) an extremely popular shoujo romance manga author, and Sakura Chiyo, a talented teenage artist who has an all-consuming crush on him. Their circle of friends (and later their siblings and siblings’ friends) fills out the hilarious cast, many of whom either help with Nozaki’s manga, inspire characters in said manga, or both.
Izumi Tsubaki is herself a successful shoujo (manga aimed at teen girls) author and has spent decades writing the type of stories that Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun both satirizes and celebrates. Her pacing and sense of comedic timing are unparalleled; she knows just how long to hold a joke to hit maximum humor.
But what really makes this series exceptional is how it overturns expectations. Nozaki (alias Sakiko Yumeno) is a former basketball-playing jock with no experience (or apparent interest) in romance who is nonetheless a highly successful creator of love stories for teen girls.
Sakura looks like a normal high schooler but is openly a little…strange…about her crush.
Mikorin, meanwhile, presents himself as a flirty bad boy but loves geeky romance-centric video games and turns beet red when either giving or receiving compliments.
He is also the inspiration for the female protagonist of Nozaki’s series.
In fact, Nozaki uses many of his friends (and frenemies) for inspiration.
So many other stories would mock Nozaki for the genre he writes, but not this one. The experiences, struggles, and joys of teenage girls (and the stories written for them) are treated not just as precious but as worthy of admiration. Nozaki, like his creator, loves shoujo manga, and he gains success, friends, and personal satisfaction as a result.
In the current manga industry, comics written for and by women (and often those that are welcoming to a female audience at all) are given far less recognition than their male-centric counterparts. In the midst of that, Izumi Tsubaki’s works are a wonder.
That they’re also incredibly funny is the icing on the cake.
It’s been a hectic couple of months, so here is a list of all my summer reads! And by summer reads, I mean whatever I happened to read during the summer. AKA, some great graphic novels and historical true crime.
Favorites
A Song for You & I by K. O'Neill
K. O’Niell is truly exceptional at both the atmospheric and the whimsical, and that has never been clearer than in A Song for You & I. This is a quiet and beautiful coming-of-age story about two very different kids realizing they have more to learn from each other than they ever could have expected or imagined.
Alanna: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Tamora Pierce, Sam Beck, and Vita Ayala
It’s a very rare thing for an adaptation to do so right by its source material, but oh boy does this adaptation do right by its source material. I loved the original book with my whole ten-year-old soul, and this new version reminds me why. Shortening a longer book into a graphic novel has got to be tough, but the pacing (alongside everything else) was just right.
The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds
Art history + vivid, beautiful writing? Sign me up! Lucy Steeds describes paintings so well that you don’t even notice that you aren’t truly looking at them; you can see these masterpieces through her words alone. You can absolutely tell that she comes from an art history background, but her characters also feel very real.
Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold
Hallie Rubenhold once again turns a spotlight on the overlooked and disparaged victims of murderers who get more screen time than they deserve. She excels at overturning centuries of deliberate and targeted sensationalism and misogyny to reveal the real story and real people underneath. Research, writing, and pacing are all impeccable.
Every book finished in June-August (in reading order):
The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi — Intriguing enough that I requested the original novel from the library!
✨ A Song for You & I by Kay O'Neill ✨
Anima Rising by Christopher Moore — What if the Bride of Frankenstein were the main character of her own story (in Christopher Moore’s own absurd way)?
✨ Alanna: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Tamora Pierce, Sam Beck, and Vita Ayala ✨
The Words of Kings and Prophets (Gael Song #2) by Shauna Lawless — More books should mix real history with mythology.
Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun by Osamu Nishi — From the writer of Ichi the Witch, one of my favorite manga currently being serialized. This feels like a first series, in that you can see the things that make Nishi unique gradually break through some of the more typical shounen nonsense, until it feels more fully like her own story. Also, found family for the win!
✨The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds✨
Drifting Dragons, Volume 1 by Taku Kuwabara — Like Delicious in Dungeon, this made me deeply crave food that does not exist. Beautiful art, especially of the airships. I can’t wait to read more.
The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa — For all the easy comparisons that can be drawn to other media (Knives Out, Clue, the works of Agatha Christie), this was an utterly unique book and a fun, twisty ride that kept me guessing to the end.
Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint by singNsong, UMI with Sleepy-C (Illustrator) — I admittedly went into this expecting to read maybe three chapters and then quickly drop it. I have instead read the entire thing. (At least what is currently available on Webtoon.)
✨ Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold✨
Between Two Rivers by Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid — Deeply interesting, accessible, and clearly written by an absolute expert.
ellievsbear
titsay
stormborns
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
