REVIEW: The Awakening (book) by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti

The Awakening is the first book in the Zodiac Academy series. It's marketed as fantasy romance, part of the "bully romance" subgenre. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Darcy and Tory are twin orphans who were raised in various awful foster homes. They were promptly kicked out of their final foster home when they turned 18. The only problem? Their secret savings stash is still in the house. They're able to get their hands on it, but their lives are almost immediately upended by the arrival of Professor Orion, a hot-looking guy who claims they're both Fae, Changelings who were swapped with human twins when they were babies. They have powers linked to the elements and their Zodiac sign, Gemini.

It's a lot to take in, but there's some appeal to going with Professor Orion (plus, he doesn't really give them much of a choice) - if they can graduate from Zodiac Academy, they'll inherit a sizeable inheritance and finally have the freedom and security they've always wanted. They'll also have the chance to reclaim their parents' throne - this, unfortunately, makes them a target of the Celestial Heirs, the young Fae men who've been raised on the understanding that they'll share the task of ruling over Solaria, the land of the Fae, together.

Right from the start, the twins are separated, required to be in different Houses. Although they still share a lot of classes, they're generally surrounded by potential enemies. It's tough to tell who they can trust, and it doesn't help that at least one of the Heirs may be keeping secrets from the others. 

REVIEW: Character Design Quarterly, 23 (magazine issue)

Character Design Quarterly is a magazine, although each issue has its own ISBN and it's possible to purchase individual issues, which is how I ended up with this one.

Review:

I enjoyed the other issue of this publication that I read, so I decided to pick up a few more. This issue features:

- An interview with Kenneth Anderson about his art and career
- A step-by-step look at Kenneth Anderson's process for creating the cover art
- A step-by-step look at Angel Ren's process for creating a white lion rock guitarist
- An interview with Dave Guertin
- A step-by-step tutorial on Kaining Wang's process for creating a pair of characters meant to work together as a team in an ongoing narrative
- A tutorial from Nathanna Érica focused on color schemes
- A gallery of artwork by Raahat Kaduji, Paige McMorrow, and Maxine Vee
- A character design tutorial from Michaela Nienaber, focused on the creation of a stylized anthropomorphic character using the keywords "engineer, plant, excite."
- An interview with Jackie Droujko
- A tutorial from Eléonore Pelluau on the creation of an anthropomorphic vegetable character intended for a younger audience
- A step-by-step look at Marjolaine Roller's process for creating a reimagining of the Bluebeard character for a younger audience
- Insider the cover flap, there's a tutorial from Lorenzo Etherington on creating flip-shape characters

I don't have anything new to say about this. As usual, it's got great artwork and a nice look at several different artists' process for creating various kinds of characters.

REVIEW: Here (graphic novel) by Richard McGuire

Here is an experimental graphic novel. It doesn't really fit into any genres, although it has elements of historical fiction, domestic fiction, and science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This is a very experimental graphic novel. Apparently it started off as just a six-page work and was later expanded. The story, such as it is, is presently nonlinearly, through glimpses of a single room (or location, since the room doesn't always exist) over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. Several time periods are shown simultaneously, via little slices of the overall picture. We see how things are in the room's location before people exist. We see history happen in that location (I think the one character is Ben Franklin?), we see the house get built in 1907, and we see people grow, live, and die there. The house itself is destroyed in 2111, but things continue to happen in that same location.

REVIEW: Unicorn Vs. Goblins: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure (graphic novel) by Dana Simpson

Unicorn Vs. Goblins is the third Phoebe and Her Unicorn comics collection. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Phoebe goes to music camp for a week during the summer. Dakota has some issues with her magical hair gaining a mind of its own - this eventually results in problems with goblins. We meet Marigold's sister, Florence Unfortunate Nostrils. Then it's time to go back to school. Phoebe accidentally becomes briefly famous for being Marigold's friend. She worries about PE and really looks up to Sam, an older student she thinks is cool.

I don't really have anything new to say about this series. It's just a nice, fun, low-stress read with enjoyable, slightly flawed characters. I love the character designs - the new little goblins are cute.

Extras:

An introduction by Cory Doctorow (with Poesy Taylor Doctorow, age 7, his daughter). Also, instructions for drawing various supporting characters, a recipe for "Questing Mix" (trail mix), and a page on the appearance of a unicorn in the original Alice in Wonderland.

REVIEW: Multiverse: The Art of Aleksi Briclot (nonfiction book)

Multiverse: The Art of Aleksi Briclot is an art book. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This was an impulse purchase inspired by the little sliver with Deadpool on the cover. I didn't recognize Aleksi Briclot's name, although I'm sure I've seen his art a bunch of times - he's done concept art for several Marvel movies, Magic: The Gathering (he apparently designed the five planeswalkers of Lorwyn), a game called Remember Me (which I've never played, although I recognized the related artwork in this book immediately), and more.

The book starts with a section on Briclot's movie-related artwork, then moves into graphic novels and book covers, then game art, and finally artwork Briclot has mostly done for himself or that is otherwise less conventional. The artwork is all accompanied by text written by Briclot (in parallel French and English).

One thing I wish had been given a little more attention was Briclot's mindmaps, sketchbook pages in which he worked through ideas for characters and projects. Several mindmaps were included in the book, but they were always small enough that it was difficult to really read through them. I did appreciate that Briclot discussed his mindmaps in part of the text, though.

Overall, this was a really nice art book.

REVIEW: The Wild Robot Protects (book) by Peter Brown

The Wild Robot Protects is the third book in Peter Brown's middle grade sci-fi series. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Roz is back on her beloved island, and life seems good until an injured seal washes ashore and warns everyone of something called the "poison tide." When the poison tide reaches the island, everyone realizes how horrible it truly is. Roz does her best to save any animals in immediate danger and comes up with a plan to provide everyone with fresh water, but those are only temporary solutions. When Roz discovers that she's immune to the poison tide, she decides to go on a journey to find the Ancient Shark, who many say is the only one who knows how to defeat the poison tide.

REVIEW: Marvel Meow (graphic novel) by Nao Fuji, text by Shunsuke Nakazawa

Marvel Meow is a short collection of comics, some previously posted on Marvel's official Instagram. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I saw the cover for this and thought it looked cute. Plus, I'm generally a fan of comics/stories focused on superheroes living their everyday lives.

Apparently some of this volume was previously posted on Marvel's official Instagram, with additional pages created specifically for this release. I don't follow Marvel on Instagram and couldn't say how much of this was new.

Captain Marvel's pet, Chewie, (who is not a cat but rather a flerken, an alien that looks like a cat) spends time with various Marvel superheroes. Every few pages, there's a brief breakdown of the superheroes Chewie has spent time with, along with some basic info about who they are/what their powers are.

This was sort of cute and occasionally mildly amusing, but not as good as I'd hoped it would be. The action/events depicted were sometimes a little hard to follow. I had also hoped that there would be more playing with the fact that Chewie is a flerken, but Chewie might as well have been an ordinary cat for all these pages showed.

REVIEW: Studio Ghibli: The Complete Works (nonfiction book) editorial work by Kodansha, editorial supervision by Studio Ghibli, translated by Shizuka Otake

Studio Ghibli: The Complete Works is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book covers every Studio Ghibli film from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind to Earwig and the Witch (with some mentions of The Boy and the Heron, which was still in production when this book was being written).

Every one of those movies, except Earwig and the Witch, gets approximately four full pages devoted to it, including information such as the year of release, a description, credits, plot summary, work on which the film was based (when applicable), main characters, a character relationship diagram, noteworthy scenes and trivia, posters and newspaper advertisements from the film's release (including international posters), and a few behind-the-scenes details.

Earwig and the Witch gets a whole 8-page section of its own at the beginning of the book, including an interview with director Goro Miyazaki. That's followed by a history and timeline of Studio Ghibli. The book wraps up with theatrical pamphlet or planning document text for each of the movies.