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1109 reviews
Fool Night Vol 01 by Kasumi Yasuda, Kasumi Yasuda
3.5
a very interesting premise but I'm unsure how it'll sustain itself for the amount of volumes it has so far. the story in this one wasn't the most engaging already, outside of learning about the entire human-turning-into-flowers process. really dig the art style.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
2.5
2.5 stars
this book was a bit out of my wheelhouse with its heavy focus on romance and a medieval fantasy setting, but I wanted to give it a try because the monster at the heart of it sounded so up my alley that I thought the rest of it would work itself out. And in the beginning, I was super into this! It starts with such a bang, and when we're first learning about Shesheshen I was super invested. But then... cracks started to show, and the pacing ground to a halt about halfway through and never picked back up. it's such a shame because there are so many elements that I love in this, but the big picture never coheres into something meaningful enough to justify the very dragged out plot and dreadful pacing.
Nearly every scene focused on Shesheshen's killing and the way her body works and how she chooses to shift it to accommodate situations were great. I really related and was intrigued by so much with Shesheshen's anatomy, especially from a disability perspective (the author is physically disabled and that element shone through to me in how her pain and shapeshifting was presented). The gore is top notch and the contrast between that and the more wholesome elements could be fun! There were a lot of times the humor worked for me, especially with how Shesheshen interacted with humans, but it quickly lost its shine when the character writing started to fall apart.
To put it simply, Shesheshen's emotional maturity and deep understanding of human relationships made little sense. She herself talked often of barely being around humans and how much she hated social norms and how bad she was at following them (I think it's easy to put a neurodivergent and specifically autistic read on the character if one is so inclined), but she was able to so quickly understand the complicated feelings between Homily and her family as well as a myriad of human relationships that most humans would be ignorant to! I think the intention was that Shesheshen could cut through the bullshit of social niceties to the actual truth of the matter, but I was still amazed at her understanding of things like consent, cyclical abuse and the coping methods Homily created for herself. The way she also seemed to have class consciousness and an understanding of the politics in the world plus leaned towards abolitionist tendencies was very confusing when she claimed to never care about humans until she met Homily.
Another element of this is the author's desire to build an inclusive world, which is not a bad thing at its core. Where he fumbled is in simply slapping modern day terminology onto a medieval fantasy world and having the monster character understand terms that I struggled to grasp how she would have even heard, let alone understand enough to employ how she did.
The biggest offender is her sneering condescension of "allosexual virgins", a term that is so mired in exhausting online ace discource that I nearly dropped the book when I got to the paragraph that contained it. The context of this is that Shesheshen does not seem to have physical desire in the way "allosexual" humans do, and clearly believes that any human that says someone feels sparks when kissing or touching is just making things up and is a virgin with little experience. But... how would Shesheshen even know these complexities, let alone have an opinion on humans that feel that way? Where the hell would she have picked up the word "allosexual", a term that is impossible to remove from the internet context in which it is so often employed? And why is she (and honestly, it feels like the author as well) so quick to discount other people's feelings when it comes to sexual attraction and desire? The whole thing reminds me of how many people in the asexual community are far too eager to discount the importance of sexuality in many people's lives and especially in the gay community where we have been demonized for decades for our attraction. I think it's great that both Shesheshen and Homily have different expectations and desires for their relationship (like not enjoying kissing and seemingly not being interested in sex at all) but hated how anyone who feels differently was painted as an "allosexual virgin".
The other point that nagged at me was how the author used the word "enby". I already am not a fan of the term, especially used in a more formal context like a book, but the way it was used in the text really rubbed me the wrong way. There would be descriptions of background characters, and instead of using "man" or "woman" for some of them, the word "enby" is deployed instead. But... why not use "person"? Every sentence "enby" is used in contains they/them pronouns, so the point still gets across without making "enby" into the third gender it is not meant to be. "Enby" or nonbinary cannot be used in the same way "man" or "woman" can. It is not meant to be used that way! And using it that way aligns far too closely with the idea of creating another box to put people in instead of the expansive umbrella term it is meant to be. I also do not understand the idea of looking at a group of people and being able to clock that some of them are nonbinary. I am nonbinary myself, and if I was described in a crowd as "the young enby" or "the disabled enby", I would be very offended. It was a very inelegant solution to the author's desire to include nonbinary people in the world, and was jarring each time it popped up. It also feels like a regressive path to take - instead of immediately gendering every person we see, shouldn't we start from a neutral space and then move into whatever terms the person prefers? That is certainly more complicated to employ in a book, but I truly think if you wanted to have nonbinary background characters, simply using the term "person" is much easier and less offensive than "enby". There is, of course, also the issue that Shesheshen is aware of nonbinary identities + can ascertain who has one just from looking at them, another element that clashes with her initial character writing.
The above I maybe could have written off easier if the rest of the book was very good. Unfortunately, it was not. The pacing really slows to a crawl halfway through, and by the end I was skimming sentences just so I could finish it. The final epilogue section felt completely unnecessary and could have been cut entirely. So many characters were two-dimensional and uninteresting, and I desperately wanted to move away from the scenes we were in and pick up a different plot entirely. This was so disappointing after how intrigued and engaged I was with the earlier parts of the book.
It's a shame because like I said earlier, there are elements of this book I deeply enjoyed! One of those is that Homily, the love interest, is fat (arguably very fat as well based on descriptions, not simply chubby or small fat) and the way her body is described is very affirming. I enjoyed that the author didn't shy away from describing her large arms and her rolls. The fact that Shesheshen is attracted to her because of her fat body was nice to see. There was a small detail that I had never seen in a book before that is true to my experience as a very fat person in a relationship with someone thinner than me, and I felt very seen many times. It was gratifying to read how appreciated and loved Homily's body was by Shesheshen. It's a shame the cover artist didn't seem to get the message, since Homily is drawn much smaller than she is described.
In the end, a great concept for a book was dragged down by poor writing, odd world building and abysmal pacing. I'm sure I will still feel fondly for the entire concept of Shesheshen's shapeshifter nature and how she used her environment to build her body the way she wished, as well as her love and admiration for Homily. I just wish it could been used in a better story.
this book was a bit out of my wheelhouse with its heavy focus on romance and a medieval fantasy setting, but I wanted to give it a try because the monster at the heart of it sounded so up my alley that I thought the rest of it would work itself out. And in the beginning, I was super into this! It starts with such a bang, and when we're first learning about Shesheshen I was super invested. But then... cracks started to show, and the pacing ground to a halt about halfway through and never picked back up. it's such a shame because there are so many elements that I love in this, but the big picture never coheres into something meaningful enough to justify the very dragged out plot and dreadful pacing.
Nearly every scene focused on Shesheshen's killing and the way her body works and how she chooses to shift it to accommodate situations were great. I really related and was intrigued by so much with Shesheshen's anatomy, especially from a disability perspective (the author is physically disabled and that element shone through to me in how her pain and shapeshifting was presented). The gore is top notch and the contrast between that and the more wholesome elements could be fun! There were a lot of times the humor worked for me, especially with how Shesheshen interacted with humans, but it quickly lost its shine when the character writing started to fall apart.
To put it simply, Shesheshen's emotional maturity and deep understanding of human relationships made little sense. She herself talked often of barely being around humans and how much she hated social norms and how bad she was at following them (I think it's easy to put a neurodivergent and specifically autistic read on the character if one is so inclined), but she was able to so quickly understand the complicated feelings between Homily and her family as well as a myriad of human relationships that most humans would be ignorant to! I think the intention was that Shesheshen could cut through the bullshit of social niceties to the actual truth of the matter, but I was still amazed at her understanding of things like consent, cyclical abuse and the coping methods Homily created for herself. The way she also seemed to have class consciousness and an understanding of the politics in the world plus leaned towards abolitionist tendencies was very confusing when she claimed to never care about humans until she met Homily.
Another element of this is the author's desire to build an inclusive world, which is not a bad thing at its core. Where he fumbled is in simply slapping modern day terminology onto a medieval fantasy world and having the monster character understand terms that I struggled to grasp how she would have even heard, let alone understand enough to employ how she did.
The biggest offender is her sneering condescension of "allosexual virgins", a term that is so mired in exhausting online ace discource that I nearly dropped the book when I got to the paragraph that contained it. The context of this is that Shesheshen does not seem to have physical desire in the way "allosexual" humans do, and clearly believes that any human that says someone feels sparks when kissing or touching is just making things up and is a virgin with little experience. But... how would Shesheshen even know these complexities, let alone have an opinion on humans that feel that way? Where the hell would she have picked up the word "allosexual", a term that is impossible to remove from the internet context in which it is so often employed? And why is she (and honestly, it feels like the author as well) so quick to discount other people's feelings when it comes to sexual attraction and desire? The whole thing reminds me of how many people in the asexual community are far too eager to discount the importance of sexuality in many people's lives and especially in the gay community where we have been demonized for decades for our attraction. I think it's great that both Shesheshen and Homily have different expectations and desires for their relationship (like not enjoying kissing and seemingly not being interested in sex at all) but hated how anyone who feels differently was painted as an "allosexual virgin".
The other point that nagged at me was how the author used the word "enby". I already am not a fan of the term, especially used in a more formal context like a book, but the way it was used in the text really rubbed me the wrong way. There would be descriptions of background characters, and instead of using "man" or "woman" for some of them, the word "enby" is deployed instead. But... why not use "person"? Every sentence "enby" is used in contains they/them pronouns, so the point still gets across without making "enby" into the third gender it is not meant to be. "Enby" or nonbinary cannot be used in the same way "man" or "woman" can. It is not meant to be used that way! And using it that way aligns far too closely with the idea of creating another box to put people in instead of the expansive umbrella term it is meant to be. I also do not understand the idea of looking at a group of people and being able to clock that some of them are nonbinary. I am nonbinary myself, and if I was described in a crowd as "the young enby" or "the disabled enby", I would be very offended. It was a very inelegant solution to the author's desire to include nonbinary people in the world, and was jarring each time it popped up. It also feels like a regressive path to take - instead of immediately gendering every person we see, shouldn't we start from a neutral space and then move into whatever terms the person prefers? That is certainly more complicated to employ in a book, but I truly think if you wanted to have nonbinary background characters, simply using the term "person" is much easier and less offensive than "enby". There is, of course, also the issue that Shesheshen is aware of nonbinary identities + can ascertain who has one just from looking at them, another element that clashes with her initial character writing.
The above I maybe could have written off easier if the rest of the book was very good. Unfortunately, it was not. The pacing really slows to a crawl halfway through, and by the end I was skimming sentences just so I could finish it. The final epilogue section felt completely unnecessary and could have been cut entirely. So many characters were two-dimensional and uninteresting, and I desperately wanted to move away from the scenes we were in and pick up a different plot entirely. This was so disappointing after how intrigued and engaged I was with the earlier parts of the book.
It's a shame because like I said earlier, there are elements of this book I deeply enjoyed! One of those is that Homily, the love interest, is fat (arguably very fat as well based on descriptions, not simply chubby or small fat) and the way her body is described is very affirming. I enjoyed that the author didn't shy away from describing her large arms and her rolls. The fact that Shesheshen is attracted to her because of her fat body was nice to see. There was a small detail that I had never seen in a book before that is true to my experience as a very fat person in a relationship with someone thinner than me, and I felt very seen many times. It was gratifying to read how appreciated and loved Homily's body was by Shesheshen. It's a shame the cover artist didn't seem to get the message, since Homily is drawn much smaller than she is described.
In the end, a great concept for a book was dragged down by poor writing, odd world building and abysmal pacing. I'm sure I will still feel fondly for the entire concept of Shesheshen's shapeshifter nature and how she used her environment to build her body the way she wished, as well as her love and admiration for Homily. I just wish it could been used in a better story.
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
2.0
i was really digging this but in the end it turned into way more of a cheap thriller than the horror i wanted. hated the late-stage "twist"/explanation which is ultimately what really soured the whole book for me. feels like the author was really scrambling to wrap things up and it was very unsatisfying. the plot thread w/ the woman in her class she obviously had a crush on was also very underexplored and dropped pretty quickly to get to the end of the story. i think if this had a little more wiggle room and had stretched things a bit farther and not relied on bad cliches it would have really been something good!
After We Gazed at the Starry Sky by Bisco Kida
0.5
man it is so fucking disappointing to put ur hopes into seeing good rep of ur relationship and then reading some of the worst depictions and contrived writing possible. even without the piss poor depiction of how to treat a partner who uses a wheelchair, the romance moves way too quickly and feels extremely shallow. the characters are almost nonexistent and the way they're characterized is an ableist trope that continues to be a thorn in my side.
the wheelchair user, subaru, lives in a small bubble. he has been too afraid to try new things (his whole life i guess? and even with his parents help and encouragement he chose not to do anything?). that all changes when he meets his ablebodied love interest, tougo, who upon their first meeting pushes subaru in his chair without asking AND takes subaru OUT OF his chair entirely and sets him on the floor (subaru is paralyzed from the knees down and cannot walk) without even talking about it with subaru at all. and the whole time subaru is blushing and giggling about it. it was very disturbing to read.
after that, tougo springs a trip on subaru and proceeds to lecture him about how he's seen tons of other disabled people out and about and subaru just needs to get over his fears and go on the trip (which includes flying in a plane for the first time). subaru listens to him and then we kinda just hard cut to him being on the plane and oohing and aahing over it. ive flown with my wheelchair before and its a fucking terrifying experience. it is extremely common for wheelchairs to be damaged or destroyed by airlines. there are a lot of procedures one has to go through that most people would never consider. and i guess the mangaka didn't think about it either cause none of this is touched on whatsoever! in fact, there is very little ableism shown throughout the manga. the bigger problems are always subaru and him needing to be lectured by his ablebodied partner that obviously knows so much more than he does. and we're supposed to see this as romantic!
any time there could be an issue with how society is literally structured to be inaccessible, it's brushed over. this is meant to be fluffy, so i guess the mangaka didn't want to deal with any of that. they just wanted to depict a very gross relationship w/ a mixed ability couple instead. literally subaru could have just had an anxiety disorder but otherwise be ablebodied and the story would hardly change. and i get it, talking about this shit sucks, and some disabled people just want to immerse themselves in a romance where that isn't a thing. but, sorry, i'm not one of them and i don't think this work should get a pass because of that. the entire thing felt extremely ignorant to the lives of wheelchair users and came across very offensive because of that.
im just rlly fucking tired of picking up these manga with disabled characters, hoping for something good, and instead getting shitty stereotypes and poorly-written characters from people that seem very ignorant to how disabled peoples lives are structured.
the wheelchair user, subaru, lives in a small bubble. he has been too afraid to try new things (his whole life i guess? and even with his parents help and encouragement he chose not to do anything?). that all changes when he meets his ablebodied love interest, tougo, who upon their first meeting pushes subaru in his chair without asking AND takes subaru OUT OF his chair entirely and sets him on the floor (subaru is paralyzed from the knees down and cannot walk) without even talking about it with subaru at all. and the whole time subaru is blushing and giggling about it. it was very disturbing to read.
after that, tougo springs a trip on subaru and proceeds to lecture him about how he's seen tons of other disabled people out and about and subaru just needs to get over his fears and go on the trip (which includes flying in a plane for the first time). subaru listens to him and then we kinda just hard cut to him being on the plane and oohing and aahing over it. ive flown with my wheelchair before and its a fucking terrifying experience. it is extremely common for wheelchairs to be damaged or destroyed by airlines. there are a lot of procedures one has to go through that most people would never consider. and i guess the mangaka didn't think about it either cause none of this is touched on whatsoever! in fact, there is very little ableism shown throughout the manga. the bigger problems are always subaru and him needing to be lectured by his ablebodied partner that obviously knows so much more than he does. and we're supposed to see this as romantic!
any time there could be an issue with how society is literally structured to be inaccessible, it's brushed over. this is meant to be fluffy, so i guess the mangaka didn't want to deal with any of that. they just wanted to depict a very gross relationship w/ a mixed ability couple instead. literally subaru could have just had an anxiety disorder but otherwise be ablebodied and the story would hardly change. and i get it, talking about this shit sucks, and some disabled people just want to immerse themselves in a romance where that isn't a thing. but, sorry, i'm not one of them and i don't think this work should get a pass because of that. the entire thing felt extremely ignorant to the lives of wheelchair users and came across very offensive because of that.
im just rlly fucking tired of picking up these manga with disabled characters, hoping for something good, and instead getting shitty stereotypes and poorly-written characters from people that seem very ignorant to how disabled peoples lives are structured.