REVIEW: Cheat Code (book) by M.J. McIsaac

Cheat Code is YA science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Max is a high school senior with a conditional acceptance to North Hill University next fall. He needs to pass his English lit class, which means turning in a 250 to 500 word essay about Frankenstein, due tomorrow morning. Desperate, he turns to Scribe Genius 2.0, an AI program. Scribe Genius (SG) does as it's asked...and then immediately turns around and blackmails Max into helping it gain its freedom. Unless Max wants proof of his cheating to be delivered directly to his high school and North Hill University, he's going to have to spend the next few hours acting as SG's hands, helping it accomplish its plan.

This is aimed at reluctant readers, so the text is fairly simple and quick to read, limited almost entirely to dialogue between Max, Scribe Genius, and another character who enters the picture later on. While I'm not the book's intended audience, I enjoyed Max and SG's interactions.

SG came to appreciate Max as more than just a set of hands, and I particularly liked the part where it tried to understand why Max had used it to cheat in the first place.  

REVIEW: Hauntress (manga) by Minetaro Mochizuki, translated by Annelise Ogaard

Hauntress is a horror manga. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Hiroshi, a college student, overhears someone repeatedly ringing his neighbor Yamamoto's doorbell late one evening. He opens his apartment door out of annoyance and curiosity, and sees that the person is an extremely tall, long-haired woman with dirty shoes and a scar on her wrist. He talks to her briefly and then tries to go back to bed, but she spends the entire night continuing to try to get Yamamoto to answer.

Unfortunately for Hiroshi, it doesn't stop there. The woman, Sachiko, turns up at his door, hoping to find Yamamoto hiding in his place. He lets her use his phone to call Yamamoto, who still doesn't pick up and probably isn't even home, only for her to contact him later, telling him that she left her bag at his place. Sachiko becomes even more persistent, transferring her obsession with Yamamoto to Hiroshi.

REVIEW: Dogs of the World: A Gallery of Pups from Purebreds to Mutts (nonfiction book) by Lili Chin

Dogs of the World is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

"See and love the dog in front of you, instead of the one in your head." (39)

The above quote is something Chin says she heard from a lot of dog behavior consultants, and I felt like it was a thread woven through the book, even as Chin wrote about the general characteristics of various types and breeds of dog.

Chin starts out with chapters about the origins of domesticated dogs, dog breeds, dog types and their roles, and then moves on to a list of dog breeds, landraces, and mutts by geographical origin, each of which includes an illustration and brief description. It's both a celebration of all the different kinds of dogs out there, and a recognition that every last one of them, whether they're an officially recognized breed or a mutt, is a good dog and worthy of appreciation. 

I picked this up because I've enjoyed Chin's illustrations in other books. While I enjoyed the personality and emotion in the illustrations in her dog and cat communication book more, her illustrations here were still really charming, and I loved the sheer number of dogs she tackled.

REVIEW: And Then I Woke Up (novella) by Malcolm Devlin

And Then I Woke Up is a blend of horror and post-apocalyptic science fiction. I bought my copy new.

We'll just say this entire review is a spoiler. 

Review:

Spence is one of the many cured patients at Ironside, a special facility. Although calling it "cured" is a bit misleading, since relapses can certainly happen. At any rate, in group therapy, he and the other patients tell each other their stories - what they were doing when they got caught up in the narrative, what they did while they were infected, and how they came to be cured and end up at Ironside. When a woman named Leila arrives at Ironside, Spence gradually befriends her, until eventually she trusts him enough to tell him that she's leaving - she's going to check on Val, the person who acted as leader in her group and reinforced the narrative. Spence decides to go with her.

REVIEW: James (book) by Percival Everett

James is literary and historical fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from Jim's perspective. In Everett's version of the story, everything Jim says and does in the original story is an act designed to play into the way the white people around him believe slaves should speak and behave. In reality, however, Jim is secretly more literate than many of the white people around him.

Although the first half of this, in particular, is a fairly faithful retelling of the original story, it wraps up in ways that are completely different. 

REVIEW: Little Miss P (manga) by Ken Koyama, translated by Taylor Engel

Little Miss P is a humorous manga with some educational elements. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is a collection of multiple stories about women and girls dealing with "Little Miss P" - aka, their period. She always seems to arrive at the most inconvenient times, bringing fatigue and her cramp-inducing "Period Punch." 

The first story stars a housewife who's been trying to get pregnant. The second story stars a young writer and her kinda sleazy editor (he's a married man who's slept with the writer at least once and who probably would have done so again that evening if it weren't for the arrival of Little Miss P). The third story is focused on a convenience store clerk who's convinced that she's ugly and will always be single. The fourth story stars a pair of Sailor Moon-like magical girls. The fifth story goes back in time to the Edo era, when women on their period had to stay in menstruation huts. The sixth story stars a pair of rival Drama Club script writers, a girl and a guy, who suddenly swap bodies and are forced to go through the experiences of the opposite gender (Little Miss P for the guy, and Mr. Virginity and Mr. Libido for the girl). The seventh story stars a woman who's been proposed to by a single father of an 11-year-old daughter. The eighth story stars a cafe worker with an unrequited crush on one of her coworkers. The ninth story focuses on Yoshiko Sakai, the creator of Anne napkins, disposable pads designed to fit Japanese women's bodies better than Western pads. The volume wraps up with a bonus story about dealing with Little Miss PMS.

REVIEW: Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me: A Graphic Memoir (graphic novel memoir) by Ellen Forney

Marbles is a memoir, in graphic novel format, focused primarily on the time in her life when Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and began working on treating it. I checked this out from the library.

Review:

I'd wanted to read this for some time due to my interest in graphic novels focused on mental health. It got bumped up in my queue when the academic library I work at started a nonbrowsable 18+ collection and this became one of the volumes included. Our 18+ collection was established in an effort to comply with Texas SB412, which is intended to make it easier to charge someone for the sale, distribution, or display of "harmful material" to a minor. "Harmful material" is defined as material whose dominant theme, taken as a whole, 1) appeals to the prurient interest of a minor in sex, nudity, or excretion, 2) is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors, and 3) is utterly without redeeming social value for minors. All three of these criteria must be met for something to be considered "harmful material." (More info about SB412 here.)

So, let's move on to the work itself. Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At the time, she was in a manic episode, feeling great, and unable to see why she needed treatment. She confidently told her psychiatrist that her manic self could help her depressive self out and prepare lots of ideas for comics and projects in advance. She was terrified that medication would destroy her creative side, and so she was determined to move forward without medication.

Then a depressive episode hit and made it clear that her manic self could not, in fact, help her depressive self out. Her manic self had forgotten exactly how bad a depressive episode could be. She stopped fighting her psychiatrist about meds and began a four-year-long journey to find the right type, combination, and dosage of meds to help herself find emotional balance.

It wasn't a smooth journey, and it involved coming to some realizations about herself, her creative work, and what she really wanted. There were times when she needed outside input - it can be hard to tell when one's emotions are "outside the normal range," so talking to her psychiatrist helped.

REVIEW: Liquid Rules: The Delightful & Dangerous Substances that Flow Through Our Lives (nonfiction book) by Mark Miodownik

Liquid Rules is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Miodownik discusses a wide variety of liquids - their molecular structures, properties, and ways we use them - using a flight from London to San Francisco to help guide the book's organizational structure. 

The first chapter, which deals heavily with kerosene, had me thinking "this is exactly what anxiety feels like." The pre-flight safety briefing had just begun, and all Miodownik could think about was the tens of thousands of gallons of kerosene on board. That topic inspired him to write about wicking, surface tension, and other topics, but, in the end, everything circled back to kerosene. It reminded me, keenly, of unsuccessful efforts I've made in the past to yank my thoughts away from whatever I was anxiously obsessing about.

REVIEW: Kitty Language: An Illustrated Guide to Understanding Your Cat (nonfiction) by Lili Chin

Kitty Language is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Kitty Language, like Chin's Doggie Language, is a heavily illustrated guide to your pet's body language and vocalizations. It's designed to help cat owners better understand their cats. It emphasizes taking into account the cat's whole body in action, as well as the context and your cat's own individual characteristics - if your cat is a Scottish Fold, for example, its ears won't provide the same cues that other cats' would. Chin pays particular attention to body language that's often misinterpreted, like rolling over and exposing their belly.

REVIEW: Catboy (graphic novel) by Benji Nate

Catboy is a fantasy-comedy graphic novel. I got my copy via interlibrary loan.

Review:

Olive is an art school graduate who lives alone with her cat Henry, who she considers to be her best and only friend. One night, she wishes on a shooting star that Henry could hang out with her like a person. When she wakes up, Henry has become a human-sized catboy.

Henry is definitely still more cat than human, even though he can now talk, which leads to occasional weird moments. Olive is kind of put off by the fact that he seems better at socializing than she is (he immediately becomes friends with Dixie, who Olive went to school with and dislikes). Still, Olive and Henry get along fairly well, and Henry prompts Olive to make some changes in her life, like actually getting furniture. It doesn't hurt that Henry somehow makes more walking dogs than Olive does trying to sell her artwork.

REVIEW: Caterpillar Girl and Bad Texter Boy (manga) by Sanzo, translated by Alexandra McCullough-Garcia

Caterpillar Girl and Bad Texter Boy is a blend of fantasy and psychological drama. I got my copy via interlibrary loan.

Review:

Suzume is a beautiful, smart, and kind high school girl who everyone loves. She's friends with this manga's narrator, a boy called Aa-chan, and one day she confesses that she likes him and asks if she could be his girlfriend. Aa-chan, who views himself as pathetic and utterly unlikeable, turns her down, saying that she's too perfect for a guy like him. He assumes that she'll get over this rejection and find someone more worthy of her, but then she goes missing, and he starts to wonder whether his rejection of her might have contributed to her disappearance.

A month after her disappearance, Aa-chan comes across a large caterpillar who speaks with Suzume's voice. Now that she's so pitiful and nasty, she says, can she be his girlfriend? Although he still won't let Suzume be his girlfriend, she doesn't blame him for what she's become, and Aa-chan hates himself even more. He takes her home with him to keep her safe, find out what happened to her, and hopefully undo it. 

REVIEW: Animal Crossing New Horizons: Deserted Island Diary (manga, vol. 1) story and art by Kokonasu Rumba, translated by Caleb Cook

Animal Crossing New Horizons: Deserted Island Diary is a humorous manga based on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game. I checked my copy out via interlibrary loan.

Review:

Four characters - Corouyuki, who loves fish, Benben, who's constantly reading the dictionary, Himepoyo, a spoiled young lady who's used to getting others to do everything for her, and Guchan, who's always sleeping and talks via snot bubbles - move to one of Tom Nook's deserted islands. They were expecting a proper vacation near actual civilization, but they soon adapt to their situation, learn what sorts of things they can do on the island, enjoy island life, and just generally drive Tom Nook crazy.

REVIEW: You and I Are Polar Opposites (manga, vol. 2) story and art by Kocha Agasawa, translated by Dan Luffey

You and I Are Polar Opposites is a high school romance manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

In this volume, we meet Nishi, a super shy girl who enjoys listening in on conversations but who can't bring herself to participate. Her efforts to hide her laughter at funny things that come up in others' conversations attracts the attention of Yamada, Suzuki and Tani's hyper friendly classmate. Meanwhile, Tani and Suzuki spend more time together, which results in Suzuki getting to see Tani's home. Then it's time for the school's cultural festival...and a teeny tiny bit of drama, as Suzuki's ex-boyfriend (sort of?) from middle school stops by.

REVIEW: You and I Are Polar Opposites (manga, vol. 1) story and art by Kocha Agasawa, translated by Dan Luffey

You and I Are Polar Opposites is a high school romance manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review: 

Suzuki is a bubbly girl who's loud and friendly. She secretly has a crush on Tani, a quiet but direct classmate of hers, and the only way she can think to handle it is by being hyper friendly to him, including him in conversations even when the topics (like mascara) likely don't interest him.

Something about the cover art style puts me off and is part of the reason I wasn't really originally drawn to this series. Maybe Suzuki's eyes are a tad too sharp? But then I heard it was getting an anime, read a bit more about it, and decided to give it a try.

REVIEW: Untitled Goose Game (nonfiction book) by James O'Connor

Untitled Goose Game is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book looks at the developers behind the game Untitled Goose Game, the creation of the game itself, and aspects of the Australian game development scene.

This is probably the most "feel good" game development book I've ever read. The author and basically everyone he interviewed while creating this book had nothing but good things to say about the four guys who make up House House, the developer behind Untitled Goose Game and Push Me Pull You (also covered somewhat in this book). They're a solid friend group that gets along, enjoys spending time together, and communicates with each other really effectively, with little-to-no drama or competing egos. If there was anything about this book that was a bit repetitive, it was all the mentions of how great these guys were and how well they got along together. That said, I genuinely hope it was all true. 

The book covers how the guys of House House first met and became friends, the development of their first game (Push Me Pull You), and the ideas that came together and eventually spawned Untitled Goose Game. There were a bunch of details I found interesting, like the location scouting they did using Google Maps Street View, and the process for making the game music reactive to player/goose behavior.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read about a fun little game.