I never really know how to review books where I am clearly not the audience. For example, My Brigadista Year is marketed as Children’s Fiction. Since I like kidlit (well, middle-grade and on more than picture books), I still request such books, but then I read them and am like this isn’t for me, what am I supposed to say?

Plot: Cuba, 1960s. Thirteen year old Lora becomes a literacy volunteer for Castro, going off from Havana into the hinterlands of Cuba to teach campesinos how to read. It’s vaguely inspiring, but the whole thing is so simplistic and flatly rendered, the conflicts either trivially resolved (her father doesn’t want Lora to go, but then a page later relents, some campesino men don’t want to learn to read, a chapter later they decide to learn, etc.) or are related second-hand (other volunteers are killed, the Bay of Pigs happens off-stage) without any real depth. But, then again, it’s a kid book from the perspective of a kid. Can I really expect some sort of deep, moral philosophizing from a child protagonist in a book marketed to children? I mean, obviously, I do expect it, but can I really be surprised when it doesn’t happen?

I just wish that this book was more than it ended up being 🙁

My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson went on sale October 10, 2017.

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

Tesfa did the review for me:

It’s a really cute and adorable book with lots of good ideas for drawing cute things and accessories for cute things.

Real cute!

Kawaii Doodle Class by Zainab Khan went on sale September 1, 2017.

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

A pretty dense information dump of a graphic novel. I’m a sucker for narrative and when narrative is lacking, as it is here, I have trouble focusing. Just page after page of this guy (and I mean guy in the literal sense, since the history of video games, at least in this iteration, is very dong-owning-focused. Obviously Hennessey and Mcgowan can’t rewrite history to include more women, but as a woman who’s been playing video games since 1987, it kind of sucks that the history is so masculine) made this game and then this guy made this other game. Also, no mention of Nethack, which I guess is okay when there are cameos by The King of the Cosmos and his son. I think I’ve been spoiled by Halt and Catch Fire when it comes to technology histories. I want plot and females and stories I can identify with, not just a timeline recounting of what happened when that (inadvertently) makes me feel that I’m always going to be excluded from one of my hobbies. Where are Cameron and Donna when I need them? Mutiny 4 evs!

The Comic Book Story of Video Games by Jonathan Hennessey and Jack Mcgowan went on sale October 3, 2017.

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

Ahhhh…Nostalgia. Plus pretty colours. And I’m going to say that I’m not grown up yet, because I requested 101 Video Games to Play Before You Grow Up from Netgalley for me rather than Tesfa, although when Tesfa looked over my shoulder last night and saw me reading it, she demanded that she get to read it too to make sure Zelda was in there (the book intrigued its actual target audience rather than me — success!) Plus Katamari was in there (first thing I checked). No Nethack though. And as shiny and pretty and colourful as this book is, it can’t change the fact that it’s basically a list of one hundred and one games of male protagonists (obviously there are a few females tossed in, like Samus, but that’s hardly enough). It’s not Bertoli’s fault that video games skew male, but it does put a damper on my reading off all the little video game facts/synopses, especially with Tesfa super-eager to see what video games she might want to play next. So then I ended up sad, instead of cheerfully inspired. Boo patriarchy.

101 Video Games to Play Before You Grow Up by Ben Bertoli went on sale October 1, 2017.

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

I’ve slacked on this review. I finished this book ages ago. Conclusion: the book exists. You get the feeling that it’s meant to be read as a physical copy, poorly bound, in a café, with a cigarette, and other literati around, reading the same or other slim novellas. A few of them are Marxists. Coffee is black and strong. Everything is in black-and-white. There may be berets. Someone should pound their fist on the table.

I, on the other hand, read this book on a kobo on an airplane. So … yeah …

Nothing much happens. I mean, obviously a lot happens if you just list all the things that happen (her parents own a store, they sell their store, they buy another store, they buy a hotel, they move to the country, she goes to university, etc.) but it’s still a nothing happens sort of book. The conflicts are petty (overbearing father, ineffective mother, dismissive sister, loser boyfriend) and unsubstantial. It’s all sort of abstractly interesting, like an art house film. I like some art house films, but I also tend to forget stories without strong plots, and I think The Four Roads Hotel is going to be one of those ones I end up forgetting I even read it.

The Four Roads Hotel by France Théoret went on sale October 1, 2017.

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

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.