REVIEW: Four Found Dead (book) by Natalie D. Richards

Four Found Dead is a YA thriller/horror novel. I bought my copy new.

Review:

The mall movie theater is one of the last places that held on after most of the businesses in the Riverview Fashionplace shopping mall closed. It's finally closing, however, and seven employees and one manager are there on its final night, cleaning and locking everything up.

Clayton, the manager, has always been disliked by his employees, but this evening in particular he's jumpy and angry. Then Jo notices that he has a gun on him, and she's instantly terrified - when she was 9, she witnessed her dad get killed in a gas station robbery. 

As the situation in the theater rapidly devolves, one of the employees ends up dead and the rest of them find themselves trapped, locked inside with Clayton (who has the keys, and who took their phones at the beginning of their shifts because no one is supposed to be using their cellphones while working). So begins as tense game of cat-and-mouse as the group tries to figure out how to get to safety.

REVIEW: Velocity Weapon (book) by Megan E. O'Keefe

Velocity Weapon is science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I read this a ridiculously long time ago (June 2023, according to my reading activity) and never got around to reviewing it. I was just about to give up on the review and put it on my "finished" shelves anyway when I found some notes I'd written tucked inside. So, this review is going to happen.

Initially, this follows 3-4 POVs: Alexandra (Ada Prime's founder) and how she came up with gate technology; Jules and her crew of thieves trying to steal drugs and ending up with valuable info; Biran (a young, bright-eyed new Keeper), desperate to find his sister; and Sanda, his sister, waking up on Bero, an enemy AI-piloted ship, and learning that her world was destroyed 200 years ago.

REVIEW: Under the Oak Tree: The Comic (manhwa, vol. 1) art by P, adapted by namu, original story by Suji Kim, translated by Sena

Under the Oak Tree is a fantasy romance comic based on a serialized Korean novel. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Lady Maximilian (Maxi) hasn't seen her husband Riftan in some time - he left to go fight a dragon shortly after they were married, and they barely knew each other. After Riftan defeats the dragon and is hailed as a hero, there are rumors that he'll divorce Maxi and marry the princess. Maxi's father is furious at the possibility and wants Maxi to stop it, but Maxi, who has a stutter, has no idea how she's supposed to accomplish this. 

Then Riftan arrives. He's angry with Maxi for some reason, but rather than divorcing her, he declares that she's going with him back to his castle estate, barely giving her time to pack. Maxi has no idea what's going on and is initially somewhat terrified of her husband - he's intense, somewhat cold, and her memories of their one and only night together after their marriage aren't good. 

However, as gruff as he is, he's gentler and more considerate than she remembers him being. He tells her she's beautiful, doesn't seem to care about her stutter, and wants his knights and servants to treat her well. She becomes determined to stay with him, but it's clear that, mentally, he has her on a pedestal, and she worries that he'll be disappointed when he finally learns that she isn't the elegant and treasured young noble lady that he seems to think her father raised her as. 

REVIEW: Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains (nonfiction book) by Bethany Brookshire

Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I picked this book up because I wrote my undergrad thesis on a similar subject (although my focus was entirely on rats). 

The introduction, which included a rant about "F***ing Kevin," a squirrel (or likely multiple squirrels) that has repeatedly interfered with the author's attempts to garden, had me wondering whether I'd made a mistake. Thankfully, the book did improve.

Initially, it seemed like the text would be organized to cover one animal per chapter. Chapter 1 was rats, chapter 2 was snakes, chapter 3 was mice (I raised an eyebrow at this, since there would inevitably be overlap with info from the rat chapter). The organization scheme slipped a bit in Chapter 4, which started with pigeons but repeatedly slipped into "rabbits in Australia" territory. This happened a lot, to the point where I wondered whether the author had originally wanted to write a book about invasive species in Australia.

REVIEW: The Mist (novella) by Stephen King

The Mist is a horror novella originally published in 1980. I bought my copy new.

Review:

A terrible storm hits western Maine, although thankfully the damage to David and Steff Drayton's home is relatively minor. In the aftermath, David decides to go to the supermarket to pick up a few things. His 5-year-old son Billy comes with him, as does his neighbor, Brent Norton. Steff stays home in order to continue working on cleanup.

Immediately after the storm, a thick fog starts rolling in. By the time David is in line at the supermarket, the fog has swallowed up a good portion of the parking lot, making him uneasy. But the true fear doesn't start until a bloodied man stumbles in from outside, and others try to leave. Something is moving around in the fog, and whatever it is is deadly.

REVIEW: Let's Make Ramen!: A Comic Book Cookbook (nonfiction book) by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan

Let's Make Ramen! is a cookbook. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I'll start by saying that I haven't actually made anything from this cookbook. Also, I'm highly unlikely to ever make even half the components of a bowl of ramen from scratch. But if I ever do, this book will be the reason why.

The food illustrations and graphic novel portions are gorgeous, with rich colors and thick linework. The various bowls of ramen and other recipe illustrations made my mouth water the same way some delicious-looking Studio Ghibli meal might.

The book starts with a brief history of ramen, provides a guide for navigating a Japanese ramen-ya, includes a few pages of ramen pantry staples and cooking equipment, and then gets into recipes, starting with stocks and broths, the noodles, then meats, then accompaniments, and wrapping up with some ramen offshoot recipes like tsukemen, abura soba, mazemen, and more. There are also some tips for using a pressure cooker to speed up parts of the cooking process.

REVIEW: Life and Death (book) by Stephenie Meyer

Life and Death is YA paranormal romance. I bought my copy new.

Review:

In her foreword, Stephenie Meyer writes that this book was inspired by complaints that Bella was too much a "damsel in distress" and too consumed by her feelings for Edward. Meyer was inspired to write this gender-swapped version of Twilight because she felt it would show that the things Bella experienced and the way she reacted wouldn't have changed in the slightest had Bella been male instead of female.

And so we have this book, which follows the same plot as Twilight and even, I'm pretty sure, uses much of the same text word-for-word, with a few pronoun changes. I didn't have a copy of Twilight to compare it to, and it's been years since I last read Twilight, but even I could recognize chunks of text.

The two characters I know for sure weren't gender-swapped are Charlie and Renee, Bella's (or in this case, Beaus's) parents. Meyer explained her reasons for that in her foreword as well, although I think she could have managed to make the change work if she'd really wanted. 

REVIEW: Lout of the Count's Family, Vol. 1 (book) by Yu Ryeo-Han, translated by Henry Shin (MiracleRifle Translations) and Lauren Na

Lout of the Count's Family is an isekai fantasy light novel (or whatever the terminology is for the Korean equivalent). I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Kim Roksu, an ordinary Korean guy who grew up as an orphan, wakes up one day to discover that he is Cale Henituse, the loutish son of Count Henituse in the novel series Birth of a Hero. He's only read up to volume 5 of the series, but it's enough to know that Cale is a very minor character, and he's about to get thoroughly beaten up by the actual hero of the story, Choi Han, a 17-year-old Korean guy who was transported into this fantasy world.

Kim Roksu, as Cale, becomes focused on a single goal: living a peaceful life. As Count Henituse's beloved but loutish son, he should be able to live a life of leisure with all the money he could ever want at his disposal. First, however, he has to avoid getting beaten up by the story's hero, prod the hero and a bunch of other dangerous characters into going elsewhere, and ensure that the Henituse family lands stay as safe as possible.

Getting all those dangerous characters to leave him alone is more difficult than he realizes, however - for some reason, he not only finds himself surrounded by Choi Han and his original entourage, but several additional dangerous characters as well. It's not ideal, but Cale figures that he can at least put all these people to good use, further preparing for his eventual peaceful life while putting himself in as little danger as possible.

REVIEW: Hate Me, But Let Me Stay (manga, vol. 1) by Hijiki, translated by Jacqueline Fung

Hate Me, But Let Me Stay is BL omegaverse manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Naoto, an omega, has been afraid of alphas since a bunch of them raped him when he was in high school. He's convinced himself that he doesn't need a mate - life is hard, sure, but he's determined to protect and provide for his young daughter, Shizuku, on his own. 

Still, when his mother asks him to go to a matchmaking party, he reluctantly attends...and is approached by a waiter, Hazuki, who happens to be an alpha, and who declares Naoto to be his fated mate. Naoto leaves and figures that'll be the end of things. With the help of a kindly mated old alpha, Naoto manages to get a job as a high school janitor, only to discover that the waiter he met at the party is one of the students at the school he's working for.