Rememberance Day is over so Iâm legally allowed to start getting into Christmas-y books. This month has been weird as hell around here... we sure are still in a series of ongoing global crisis? So books have been holding me in a protective, loving embrace...
Brambleheart
Brambleheart is about a young chipmunk, Twig, who lives in an animal society deep in the woods, who make a living from the nearby human trash, which they repurpose into all sorts of things. Learning how to work with this trash is an important right of passage for the young animals, as it defines their eventual role and status in society. Twig is concerned he wonât earn a respectable place in society and on a long walk away from home he stumbles across a strange, magical egg... Â
This is a book that was cute⌠and not much else. A fun read for an eight year old maybe, and for everyone else itâs just⌠there. And itâs fine! But considering itâs about a trash-based animal society that includes finding a dragon egg, itâs surprisingly basic. Nothing I would go out of my way to read.
A Christmas Carol
I have watched A Christmas Carol basically every year since I was a child, but this is my first time reading the book. The writing is truly phenomenal, itâs clever, funny, and evocative. Iâve read other Dickensâ books that have bored me to tears, but this is one that makes you appreciate why heâs such a beloved author. And, despite seeing it just about every year, it still made me full-on cry during the graveyard scene. Iâm furious that this was apparently written in six weeks.
The Christmas Pig
[Mandatory disclaimer: yes I am aware of the gross politics here, yes I find them abhorrent, however JKR is still an author deeply rooted into my childhood and I canât cull it that easily, so yes I did read her new book. I totally understand anyone that would make the choice to boycott her work and I respect that. Please feel free to scroll on. This review is based off the actual experience of reading the book and nothing else.]
I got this book out of the library, and during out Weird As Hell Week my mom and I took turns reading chapters out loud. It was exactly the sort of soothing comfort I needed. The Christmas Pig was a really enjoyable book. Despite being new, it felt like a Classic Kid Christmas Story. It reads like games I used to play as a child around Christmas time -- there was something incredibly nostalgic about it.Â
The story is about a boy whose life goes through a string of changes. His parentsâ divorce, his father moving away, going to a new school, and finally his mother dating someone new. He manages to weather it all with his beloved toy, Dur Pig, at his side. However tragedy strikes and Dur Pig is lost, and is replaced by a new imposter, the Christmas Pig. He canât accept this, but the magic of Christmas Eve is at work, and the Christmas Pig comes to life and offers to bring the boy down to the Land of the Lost, to find Dur Pig before itâs too late...
A Dogâs Way Home
Sometimes you just need a good, well-written animal adventure. This felt like The Incredible Journey, but for an older audience. An adorable puppy is rescued by a man, and her entire life soon centres around him and their shared love. However things canât stay peaceful, as she finds herself being persecuted for her perceived breed, and is taken away from her human⌠leaving her no choice but to embark on a perilous journey to get back to him.
Hercule Poirot: The Mysterious Affair at Styles // Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
Itâs been long overdue but Iâve finally started reading Agatha Christie! I stared with The Mysterious Affair at Styles and it filled my heart with joy. This is the pinnacle of the âcozy murder mysteryâ genre. I get a funny, fussy little Belgian man, and a good-natured English man who very cheerful and very, very dumb. Absolutely thick as a brick. I relate to him so much and I adore him, bless Captain Hastings. And damn, is it ever clever! The whole way through itâs so thrilling to read a mystery that is slowly being pieced together when you can tell thereâs some very clever machinations behind the screen.Â
I also read the âChristmas Puddingâ short story because Iâm getting into a Christmasy mood! Also very fun, and a little less murdery than Styles which was nice for a festive story.
The Lost World
What Iâd been hoping for â Jurassic Park meets Dinotopia
What I got â Colonialism, Racism, and Genocide: The Novel
We spent way too little time checking out the cool dinosaurs and way too much time trying to commit wholesale mass murder against the indigenous âmonkey peopleâ. Thanks for that Doyle, very cool.
Monster and the Beast v2
Enormous, shy monster, meets shameless monsterfucker. They go on an adventure! The monster is able to hide in the humanâs shadow and see the city for the first time! Try new foods! Meet new people! Heâs excited to be around someone who, for the first time in his life, isnât scared of him and treats him the same as he would treat anyone else. A surprisingly charming series, I canât help but enjoy it; the human is a bit of an asshole and the monster is a sweetheart. Itâs a fun spin on things, Iâm looking forward to reading the third book.
Otter Lagoon
A youth graphic novel series based in the West Coast, with a bit of a Gravity Falls vibe. Itâs about friends in a small island community who run into strange supernatural creatures and struggle with the ethical issues of living alongside them. I really adore this series. The art style is fantastic and unique, and the story feels like itâs doing something interesting with just a teensy bit more edge than a lot of the bubblegum soft kid series that have been coming out these days. In this book, the main character is trying to make up for an earlier mistake but only ends up compromising her own morals and digging her hole deeper...
Pryce and Carterâs Deep Space Survival Procedure & Protocol Manual
The DSSPPM is a fictional manual that exists in the world of Wolf 359 (one of my all-time favourite podcasts) and it was actually written out in its entirety as a part of the Patreon rewards. It has 1001 off-the-walls tips and tricks to survive in deep space on a life-threatening long-term scientific mission without compromising the companyâs bottom line. Along with Doug Eiffelâs helpful commentary written in the margins.
Tintin
I finally invested in getting the entire English series of Tintin. We always had a number of books at home while growing up, we borrowed plenty more from the library, and I have another handful in French, but I wanted to reread in chronological order for the first time and decided I was ready to have them all on hand.
For anyone unfamiliar, Tintin is a Belgian comic (bande dessinĂŠe) about a young reporter who goes on many highflying adventures all around the world. Heâs sincere, kind, and capable of surviving an truly stupendous number of head injuries, gunshot wounds, and blatant attempts at poisoning, maiming, and murder. Tintin is one of my all time favourite series, I passionately adored it as a child and that passion has never once dimmed.
While Iâve read most of them before, this was my first time reading The Land of the Soviets and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I expected all kinds of atrocious given what the early series is like in general (cough*Congo*cough), but blatant propaganda aside it was actually a lot of fun. Just pure silly slapstick goofiness. In America was a nightmare that I wonât be rereading again any time soon. And then we hit Cigars of the Pharaoh and the series starts in earnest, and it honestly only gets better and better from there. Can we all agree that The Crab with the Golden Claws is the best in the series? Captain Haddock, my beloved.
Witch Hat Atelier v1-2
A manga I enjoyed way more than I expected! It really feels like a unique gem. In a very strange way, it reminds me of +Anima... maybe not in story but in art and general vibe. We have a young girl who accidentally stumbles across the secret of magic â that itâs not hereditary, like it has always been claimed, but that it can be drawn by anyone who knows the patterns and has the appropriate ink. However she makes the mistake of experimenting with that, and ends up cursing her mother⌠she now has no choice but to join a senior witch at his atelier and begin to study magic with fellow apprentices, in the hopes of learning how to save her mother.
You Are Asexual
A fun little oddball of a book. Itâs parodying both Choose Your Own Adventure stories, as well as dystopian you-are-assigned-to-a-single-faction ya stories, but this time with sexuality-based factions. Everyone has their sexuality repressed until âOrientation Dayâ when itâs revealed⌠except âyouâ donât notice any change to your attraction. As a âforbidden asexualâ, you then get to go on an adventure of discovery and/or death. Itâs very silly, filled with all the old jokes and memes that used to make up the ace community. It was a sort of lightheartedness I havenât seen since the destruction of the ace community almost a decade ago, so it was a fun read.
