It's going down ("it" is not my tbr number)

A young protagonist/cast of characters does not make a book YA or MG

A young protagonist/cast of characters does not make a book YA or MG

A young protagonist/cast of characters does not make a book YA or MG

Genre fiction written by a woman does not make a book YA or MG

Genre fiction written by a woman does not make a book YA or MG

Genre fiction written by a woman does not make a book YA or MG

Genre fiction written by a woman does not make a book YA or MG

Yes, I was tearing through books constantly, and talking to this teacher at least weekly. Because even though I always loved reading as a kid, literature was always a very weak subject for me in terms of a teaching-to-standardized-test school setting (I just do awful on "what color were the curtains" type multiple choice questions. Those details don't stick in my memory THEY JUST DON'T). But that didn't matter for this class. I could just read my way out of any bad test score. I have always had fond memories of how I "fudged" my way through that class and "abused' the extra credit policy.

Trigun/Trigun Maximum (Yasuhiro Nightow)

Space Cowboys/Pacifism/My-fave-just-read-it

2 + 14 volumes

MC lives on a desert planet hostile to human life, where the strongest rule by the power of their guns, but despite him being the best shot out there, he is determined to remain a pacifist and not kill anyone. He is causing chaos everywhere he goes, though, and ends up being classified a local disaster, with two insurance agents tasked with following him around to do damage reports.

+ despite the fun premise it's actually tackling pretty deep philosophical ramifications

+ a dual character arc that still makes me cry after reading the whole thing eight times

+ complex characters including a trans woman who is not just there to be the butt of a joke

TW sexual assault

- some of the early volumes had bits of random homophobia despite the subtext of the series being very, very gay

- lots of christian imagery repurposed in a way that might bother people

Fullmetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa)

Brotherhood/Alchemy

27 volumes

MC and his little brother try to bring their mother back from the dead but in the process he loses an arm and a leg, and his brother his entire body, so all that remains of him is his soul, tied to a big armor. Their mother is still dead, too. They go on a quest to at least restore their bodies, and to do so, MC joins the army to get access to more alchemical secrets.

+ good mix of humor and tragedy

+ in depth discussion of disability and the impact of having heavy protheses

+ in depth discussion of war, war crimes, the absence of heroes, and the trauma from it all

- nothing, honestly. Like I wouldn't say it is perfect, but it is a massively good story and deserves its cult status

Jujutsu Kaisen (Gege Akutami)

Adventure/Pirates/Friendship

30 volumes

MC ends up mixed up with sorcerers after eating the severed finger of a demon in a bid to save his friends from other monsters. Instead of being condemned to death, as he now hosts the consciousness of a powerful demon, he is tasked with finding the other 19 fingers from the demon and absorb them all so they can get rid of the demon once and for all.

+ plays a lot with the tropes of the genre

+ there are no real good guys, they are all in shades of grey

+ very good character design of the female characters that somehow manages not to sexualize teenage girls (gods the bar is on the goddamn floor when it comes to shonen manga)

+ excellent flashback arcs

- final arc is... controversial

- the author kinda overshadowed their own MC by having the teacher side character being way too interesting and powerful

Claymore (Norihiro Yagi)

Monster hunting/Women warriors

27 volumes

MC meets a Claymore, one of the women warriors tasked with hunting monsters than can hide under human disguises. He learns the secret of their order, starting with the fact that the Claymores are half monster themselves...

+ pure dark fantasy

+ fascinating characters enmeshed in complicated dynamics

Books of 2026: A LONG GAME: NOTES ON WRITING FICTION by Elizabeth McCracken.

I attended a writing class Eden Robins taught called "Fail On Purpose." She quoted a passage out of this book, which came out last year, and out of another one called WRITING AND FAILURE, which is tiny and I have not yet read but is up soon. I'm willing to buy untried writing books in paperback but not hardback, so I was Most Pleased that my library had a copy.

However!: I will in fact be pre-ordering the paperback, because I loved the hell out of this. It really is a collection of notes (280 numbered entries over 180 tiny pages)(I'm glad I didn't buy the hardback, it's not a lot of book for $27), where some notes are a couple lines and others are a page or two. It's very conversational, very bite-sized, and she covers a lot of ground, hugely A Little Bit Of Everything Style. I wasn't sure I was going to vibe with it because her first few pages were very heavy on "yeah IDK how I feel about craft books," which--from a writer and writing teacher who wrote a craft-adjacent book--felt like a weird take, but once I settled into her voice and sense of humor, I enjoyed it.

McCracken is hilarious, and a lot of what she says really resonates (I want a copy so I can go back through with flaggies and a pencil and underline stuff). In parts, it feels like the tonal polar opposite of the CREATIVITY book I've been reading, and of AROUND THE WRITER'S BLOCK, which I finished earlier this month. Where CREATIVITY and WRITER'S BLOCK are both supportive cheerleaders of books, practical but gentle, LONG GAME is hilarious, upfront, brusque, and direct. Also imminently practical and insightful (you can definitely tell that she's been teaching writing for a long long time), but one reviewer called it "edgier," and that's the closest description I can find to encompass the differences (check out the editorial reviews for more eloquent takes).