REVIEW: The Essential Anime Guide: 50 Iconic Films, Standout Series, and Cult Masterpieces (nonfiction book) by Patrick Macias and Samuel Sattin, illustrated by DenQ

The Essential Anime Guide is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

While there are works that most people with a broad knowledge of anime would agree should probably be listed or at least mentioned in a book about "essential" anime, there will always be disagreements. And different people have different areas of expertise and blind spots - in their introduction, Macias and Sattin mention bringing in some additional writers who could speak with more authority about various movies and series than they could. Even with other authors handling those chapters, Macias and Sattin were presumably still the people choosing the 50 works the books would be focusing on. As someone who's been a big shoujo and slice-of-life fan, there were works I'd have picked that didn't match up with what the authors chose, although in many cases, works I might have featured were at least mentioned in passing in info boxes or during chapters focused primarily on other works.

So yeah, I figured, going in, that I'd find myself questioning some of the authors' choices. I don't recall wildly disagreeing with any of the inclusions (except maybe the choice of Naruto Shippuden rather than Naruto), and all of it made for interesting reading. And boy did the nostalgia occasionally hit me strongly. It's been ages since I last thought about Tekkonkinkreet.

There are no screenshots of anything, so you do miss out on the visual aspect of these series/movies, but overall I thought this was a pretty good read. 

REVIEW: Nefertiti the Spidernaut: The Jumping Spider Who Learned to Hunt in Space (nonfiction picture book) written by Darcy Pattison, illustrated by Valeria Tisnés

Nefertiti the Spidernaut is a nonfiction children's book. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I think I might have found out about this book during a period of time when Facebook's algorithms decided that posts about jumping spiders might interest me. Or maybe someone mentioned Nefertiti and I found this book while looking for more information about her? Children's nonfiction is great for interesting little niche nonfiction topics.

This starts with Stefanie Countryman receiving a Johnson jumping spider egg sac in February 2012. Four spiders from that egg sac survive, and Nefertiti is the one selected to go to the International Space Station in order to test a hypothesis that jumping spiders wouldn't be able to hunt in microgravity. There are details about how Nefertiti's suitability for space was tested, what her habitat on the space station was like, how the experiment went, etc. The book continues until Nefertiti's eventual death a few months after returning to Earth.

This was an interesting read that got across all the necessary basic information. The end of the book included slightly more detailed sections about Johnson jumping spiders and the work that went into creating Nefertiti's space station habitat. I particularly liked reading more about the creation of Nefertiti's habitat, since I'd wondered how her fruit fly supply worked. 

REVIEW: How to Survive as a Maid in a Horror Game (manhwa, vol. 1) art by SINcere, adapted by SUCH, original story by Kim Yom Yum, translated by KRM

How to Survive as a Maid in a Horror Game is marked as "romance fantasy" on Tapas and other places I've checked, although in this first volume it's more of a fantasy comedy. I bought my copy new.

Review:

The main character of this story is an ordinary woman who's started playing a new horror game, "The Murderer of Pfaltzgraff Manor," one evening while drunk. She'd heard that it was horrible and ridiculously difficult, and now that she's trying it herself, she's kind of considering returning it. She decides to give it one last go but ends up drifting off to sleep...and waking up as Hilda, one of the maids in the game.

In the original game, you play as Adrian, the sickly young master of the manor. Adrian is actually the reincarnation of the devil, cursed to inhabit a sickly mortal body unless he can secretly kill off enough people. Especially at the start of the game, his most accessible and easiest victims are his maids. Like Hilda.

And she can't even avoid Adrian, because she's the maid assigned to bring him his daily medication. Somehow, though, she's determined to survive and escape the manor.

REVIEW: Orbital (book) by Samantha Harvey

Orbital is literary fiction with a very light tint of science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Orbital follows six astronauts and cosmonauts as they go about one day, 16 orbits of the Earth, in their space station. We get little glimpses of their thoughts and lives, as well as a few glimpses of how things are going on Earth, where a typhoon is developing. The science fiction aspect is very light - as these people on the space station are going about their day, other astronauts are about to land on the Moon a second time (I think? it was either that or a Mars mission - I didn't note down the details).

REVIEW: Science Comics: Crows: Genius Birds (graphic novel) by Kyla Vanderklugt

Crows: Genius Birds is an entry in the Science Comics series, which presents educational content in an entertaining way. I checked my copy out from the library.

Review:

A mischievous and very intelligent crow convinces Buddy the dog to leave his yard (thereby allowing all the crow's crow friends an opportunity to get in the house and eat Buddy's food) and join him on a snack-finding adventure. Together, the find food in various places as the crow teaches Buddy about crows and the research that's been done on their cognitive abilities.

There wasn't a lot here that I hadn't already read or heard about elsewhere, but I was expecting that, considering this is aimed at a younger audience. This was a delightful read regardless - the street-smart crow was a good teacher, and Buddy was an adorable, sweet cinnamon roll of a student. The information about crows was presented in a clear, easy-to-digest way, and the art was great.

Sensitive readers might be bothered by a few moments - the crow snacks on a dead pigeon in one bit, and there are some panels depicting dead crows during the part about crow "funerals" - but it's all handled in a matter-of-fact way. 

REVIEW: Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House (book) by R.L. Stine

Welcome to Dead House is the first of the Goosebumps books. I don't think I ever read it.

Review: 

Twelve-year-old Amanda and her younger brother Josh are upset to be moving to a house in Dark Falls, four hours away from their old home. It's a bigger place, but it's dark and somehow menacing. Amanda keeps thinking she sees a boy in the house, and her bedroom's curtains billow in a breeze that doesn't exist. Things come to a head when their dog Petey escapes and Josh becomes convinced he went to the cemetery.

REVIEW: Murder in the Age of Enlightenment: Essential Stories (short story anthology) by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, translated by Bryan Karetnyk

Murder in the Age of Enlightenment is a collection of Akutagawa's short stories. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book contains 7 short stories. Overall, I found this collection to be very readable and strangely intriguing, even though I wasn't always sure what the author was trying to get at.

My favorites were probably "In a Grove" (in which we see a crime from multiple POVs and are never told which version is the truth) and "Madonna in Black" (a creepy story about a possibly cursed statue).

I can't say I necessarily enjoyed it, but "Hell Screen" (about a painter who insisted that he needed to see horrors in order to properly paint them) was certainly compelling. 

REVIEW: Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask (book) by R.L. Stine

The Haunted Mask is one of the earlier entries in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps horror series for kids. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Eleven-year-old Carly Beth is easily scared, which Steve and Chuck, two boys at her school, take full advantage of, doing things like giving her a sandwich with a worm in it and tricking her into thinking she's being bitten by a tarantula. She's so upset that she decides she needs a super scary costume for Halloween in order to properly get back at them.

I vaguely recall reading some of the first Goosebumps books, including this one, and deciding that I was probably too old for them. As with Christopher Pike's books, the original covers were, in a lot of ways, more memorable than the books themselves. Although this was technically a reread, I'd forgotten pretty much everything except the very end.

REVIEW: I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls (novella) by Ben Farthing

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls is horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Johnny and his cousin Brittany are at their grandpa's New York apartment, preparing to clear out his things after he was legally dead due to being missing for a year. The apartment is a renovated TV studio, the place where their grandpa once worked as a puppeteer for a Sesame Street-like children's show.

Johnny wakes up one night to find Swoomie, his grandpa's old puppet, standing over him and watching him. Only Swoomie's right side moves, the side that Johnny's grandpa controlled. Swoomie somehow disappears into the apartment's walls, and Johnny becomes obsessed with figuring out what's going on. Whatever it is, he's sure it's linked to his grandpa's disappearance. Brittany isn't convinced he saw what he thought he saw, but, as a superfan of her grandpa's show, she's excited about the thought that their grandpa might have stored the old puppets inside the apartment's walls.

REVIEW: Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six (book) by Lisa Unger

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six is a thriller. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This jumps between a few characters and time periods. On the one hand, we have Hannah. Growing up, she was the "sensible one" who cleaned up after her brother Mako's messes and comforted her friend Cricket whenever he broke her heart. In the book's present, Hannah's thoughts revolve around her young daughter, Gigi, and her husband Bruce, who she's worried might be cheating on her. When Hannah's brother, the CEO of a game development company, invites Hannah, her husband, Cricket, and Cricket's boyfriend Joshua to come stay at a luxurious and secluded cabin he's rented, Hannah reluctantly agrees. She's worried about being away from Gigi for the first time, but this trip will hopefully give her and Bruce some much needed time to themselves.

Hannah's chapters alternate with chapters from the POV of Henry, who, years ago, was left an orphan when his troubled and skittish mother was killed. 

REVIEW: My Secret Admirer (book) by Carol Ellis

My Secret Admirer is a YA thriller/horror novel originally published in 1989. I got my copy via interlibrary loan.

This review includes mild spoilers. 

Review:

Jenny's parents are adventurous and enjoy living lives that involve moving from one place to the next in a relatively short amount of time. Jenny, on the other hand, would like it if they just stayed put for a while. She'd really like a chance to get to know people, make friends, and put down roots.

Jenny's not really sure that the latest town they've moved to will be a good fit for her - the rimrocks near their new home make her a little anxious, and it seems like everyone at her new school has known each other their whole lives. Still, she does her best to settle in, and it's not long before Sally, a teen who's both an extrovert and a chatterbox, is introducing her to everyone. Jenny instantly finds herself a little drawn to David, the guy she's teamed up with during a scavenger hunt. She's also intrigued by a secret admirer she seems to have acquired, a guy who confesses his feelings for her via a message on her answering machine but who isn't quite brave enough to talk to her in person. 

Everyone and everything around Jenny starts to take on a more sinister feeling when Diana, the school's queen bee, is injured in an apparent accident at the cliffs. She doesn't actually know any of these people, their relationships with each other, or what they're really like. Can she really trust her new friends? 

REVIEW: Bad Men (book) by Julie Mae Cohen

Bad Men is a darkly humorous thriller. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Saffy Huntley-Oliver is 12 years old when she drowns her stepfather in the pool where he'd been sexually abusing her since she was 5. He'd been preparing to start abusing Saffy's beloved younger sister, Susie, as well, and she absolutely could not let that happen.

Seventeen years later, Saffy is a gorgeous, wealthy, and outgoing socialite. She's still fiercely protective of her younger sister...who has no idea that Saffy is now an experienced serial killer who targets bad men. Lately, Saffy has found herself drawn to Jonathan Desrosiers, a successful true crime podcaster who genuinely believes in bringing justice to victims and closure to their families. He seems like a great guy. It's too bad he's married.

Jonathan has just wrapped up a signing for his book when he finds out that his wife is leaving him. As if that wasn't bad enough, he wakes up the next morning to find a garbage bag on his doorstep containing a chopped up body missing its head and hands. Jonathan is immediately reminded of the Bin Bag Killer. Unfortunately, his subsequent investigation and discoveries lead to him being scarred both physically and emotionally.

Will Saffy manage to overcome Jonathan's doubts about his work investigating and podcasting about true crime, Jonathan's lingering feelings for his soon-to-be ex-wife, the police suspecting Jonathan of murder, and creepy threats in order to achieve her very own storybook romance with a good guy?

REVIEW: Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea! (graphic novel) by Ben Clanton

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea is a children's graphic novel. I checked my copy out from my library.

Review:

This includes three Narwhal and Jelly stories, with some miscellaneous stuff in between each. In the first story, Narwhal and Jelly meet for the first time, and both think the other may be imaginary. In the second story, Narwhal learns on the internet that they're supposed to be part of a pod, but, since Jelly has never seen any other narwhals, Narwhal goes around inviting a bunch of other sea creatures to put on a horn (or tusk-tooth) and become part of their pod. In the third story, Narwhal is reading a book...that happens to be blank. Using their imaginations, Narwhal and Jelly turn that blank book into an awesome story about a waffle and its strawberry sidekick.

The miscellaneous bits in between each story include: some narwhal and jellyfish facts and the Narwhal Song.

Narwhal and Jelly could sort of be considered a mismatched pair - not quite grumpy sunshine, but close. Narwhal is goofy, happy, and has a positive attitude about everything, while Jelly is a little more serious and prone to more negative emotions, like annoyance or jealousy. Through it all, though, they get along and stay friends.

This was cute, with a sketchy, simple art style. 

REVIEW: Operation: True Love (manhwa, vol. 1) by kkokkalee, illustrated by Dledumb

Operation: True Love is a contemporary-set manhwa with fantasy elements. I assume there will be romance in the future, based on the title.

Review:

Su-ae has been dating her boyfriend Minu for a while. Even though he's regularly dismissive or even outright mean to her, she's always ready and willing to forgive him. Literally everyone, even Su-ae to a certain extent, can see how toxic this is. For some reason, Su-ae is only really bothered by one person's judgment of her decision to keep putting up with Minu. Minu's best friend, Eunhyeok, always seems to be looking at her like he thinks she's pathetic.

Then one day Su-ae finds a mysterious Jellypop flip phone that keeps sending her snide texts about her relationship with Minu. She assumes the phone is Eunhyeok's and that he's the one who's texting her, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

REVIEW: Vigilance (novella) by Robert Jackson Bennett

Vigilance is science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

In this near-future America, mass shootings have been monetized and turned into entertainment. John McDean executive produces Vigilance, a game show supposedly designed to keep Americans vigilant against all threats. At unspecified intervals, a public space is selected and several contestants (the active shooters) are set up at various entrances with weapons of their choice and all the ammo they could want. There are monetary prizes for contestants who manage to kill all the civilians and survive, for civilians who manage to kill a contestant, and more. 

McDean is a marketing wizard who has all of this down to a science. He knows who his Ideal Person, his target audience is, and he knows exactly what they want. He's so good at what he does, in fact, that his bosses have used his work to train a new AI, Perseph, to do what he does, only better, and Perseph is set to debut at the height of the most recent Vigilance.