After getting bogged down and it being humid and me being miserable, I needed something quick and easy to read. Et voilà, Lady Stuff comic of a roly-poly, always cold, sleepy, female protagonist bumbling through life in the way I do. I have to remember that whenever I get stressed out about how adult-like all these people around me are, indeed there are people as lazy and unsure of themselves as me, making comics for me to grin at, and make myself feel all that much better about burrito=ing myself away to suspiciously regard the outside world.

So yay! I enjoyed it. Yay yay!

Lady Stuff: Secrets to Being a Woman by Loryn Brantz went on sale September 26, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It’s a book about the Holocaust that involves a living, talking, doll. It isn’t poorly done and wouldn’t it be nice if magic existed and could help fight Nazis, and yes, the magic is probably an allegory, but none of that means that I’m going to be rah rah Dollmaker of Krakow. I feel like one of those cranky old ladies shouting Have some respect! I guess talking dolls and magic is an age-appropriate way to introduce children to some of the horrors we humans have managed to inflict on other humans (I think The Dollmaker of Krakow is marketed as an advanced middle-grade novel), and may be more tactful than how I learned about the Holocaust — I’m assuming that my grade four teacher had watched Sophie’s Choice the night before because she more-or-less detailed the plot to a bunch of ten-year-olds one morning — but I don’t know if I’d want my daughter to read The Dollmaker of Krakow until after she’d read something more factual, like Anne Frank, because magic doesn’t save us (unless you’re going all My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic on us). Maybe read The Dollmaker of Krakow, but go go punch a Nazi in the face afterwards.

The Dollmaker of Krakow by R.M. Romero went on sale September 26, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Previously, my entire exposure to Betty Boop was her bit in Roger Rabbit, although, like Star Wars and pop music, Betty Boop as a cultural-concept has long buried its way into my subconscious. Plus, like me, she has a middle part (in her hair), so I feel we should stick together (although my middle-part is a lot more Joey on Dawson’s Creek than Betty Boop). I’m also somewhat concerned, as I am with Wonder Woman, as to the state of Betty Boop’s back due to her mammary endowments. That and she’s apparently sixteen. I don’t really know if this:

is a good look for a sixteen year old. I mean, the Jazz Inspector, who is clearly an adult (and who calls the Jazz Police!), is hitting on her in a way that a grown man should not be hitting on a sixteen year old. Thankfully for all her questionably appropriate attire, Langridge’s Betty Boop never uses her sexuality as a performance: she’s a waitress who wants to be a singer and she just so happens to look like Betty Boop.

How much boob tape (Boop tape?) do you think someone needs to keep that dress up? My enquiring mind wants to know.

So this book is a collection of four Betty Boop comics, in which the Devil sends a lizard to try and steal Gramps’ house so that the Devil can claim Betty Boop’s innocent soul for his own and … well, it doesn’t work obviously (I guess that’s a spoiler, but this isn’t some gritty reboot of Betty Boop where Gramps is a junkie and she’s been sold into sex slavery or anything like that). It’s seems rather convoluted a premise, but maybe the old Betty Boop cartoons (again — all I know is this) are as wacky and convoluted. The whole thing read like watching a cartoon — when I think back to last night (when I read it before going to bed), it isn’t as if I read a book, but as if I watched cartoons. I like cartoons. And for all its silly twistiness, I liked this Betty Boop comic collection too.

Betty Boop by Robert Langridge went on sale May 16, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ahh, to once again be a swooning high school student, with true love meaning a struggle against miscommunication, errant text messages, and interference by meddling friends. Without a physical Cyrano around, our heroine Phoebe resorts to cribbing behaviour and repartée from her favourite paranormal YA novels. Does she get the guy (it’s a teen romance novel, so the answer to that should be obvious)? Do we know the outcome pretty much from the get-go (again, teen romance, obvious answer)? Did that stop me from greedily rushing through to the end to make sure (randos on the internet may not know me, but rest assured, this is another obvious answer)?

It’s an escapist, romance novel where I can pretend that all high school are like fictional American high schools with football teams and clubs and friends whose parents give them cars, rather than the hellish, lonely, public transit slog that my high school years turned into, and that even if I am a bookish, antisocial crafter, I can Mary Sue myself up and get a hot guy and it’ll all be wonderful (I originally typed worderful, which I think may be an even better word to describe Bookishly Ever After) fantasy and doesn’t high school seem much better in fiction? In my nightmares where I’m back in high school, I’m going to start hoping for some fictional locales.

Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira went on sale January 12, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Just flat out there: I did not like this book. Characters in the book seemed quite blasé about the fact that there are ghosts all around and that they get to be ghost guardians. Wouldn’t they freak out? I’d freak out if someone was like “Here, run a race against all these phantoms and if you win, you’ve got a job looking after ghosts.” Obviously, it’s a fantasy, and people can act differently in fantasies, but I couldn’t wrap my head around anyone’s behaviour and it ruined the book for me.

Coullian Cuill by Riti Bridie went on sale May 28, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.