Tag: graphic novels

Kate’s Review: “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up”

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Book: “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” by Elizabeth Agyemang

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the author

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: TRON meets sixth grade in this heartfelt and fantastical graphic novel where a pixelated quest helps one girl navigate grief, friendship, and the wilds of middle school.

Sixth grade. The game just got real. For Lexie, this year was supposed to be all about joining clubs, claiming the perfect lunch spot, and gaming after school with her best friends. But shifting friendships and the grief of losing her beloved grandfather make middle school feel more like someone switched her life to hard mode.

Then Lexie discovers a mysterious journal tucked inside her grandfather’s things. It’s filled with cryptic notes and cheat codes from an unfinished video game he was Warrior’s Quest. When Lexie and her older sister, Eunice, are suddenly transported into the game’s pixelated world, the line between reality and fantasy starts to blur. Can Lexie and her sister level up and face the monsters in the game—and in real life—or is it game over for good?

Review: Thank you to Elizabeth Agyemang for sending me an eARC of this graphic novel!

I have lots of fond memories of playing computer games with my sister and/or the neighbor kids after school when I was a kid. We would play games like “Oregon Trail”, “Are You Afraid of the Dark: Orpheo’s Curse”, “The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain”, and more that I can’t remember the names of. When Elizabeth Agyemang reached out to me with “The Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” these memories definitely bubbled up, and when I read that the premise was not only kids being sucked into a video game and having to find their way out, but also kids dealing with real life anxieties, I was on board to give it a try.

Taking into account the target audience I found “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” to be a fun fantasy/Sci-Fi tale with a good premise of kids being sucked into a video game and having to find their way out. Our main character is Lexie, who is dealing with starting sixth grade and the stresses that come with that as well as the recent death of her grandfather, a video game designer that she misses very much, and how she and some friends become part of a mysterious game they find in his belongings. The description makes reference to “Tron” and it definitely fits, and made me think a bit about “Jumanji” as well. I enjoyed seeing Lexie and her friends have to solve the game mechanics and how it makes literal villains out of the mean girls that Lexie and her friend Mika have been dealing with while also making an escapist game seem like a way to get away from the real world problems she’s been going through (more on that in a bit). The game itself felt pretty realistic, and this elder Millennial was hit with a full on nostalgia bomb of playing CD ROM games with friends.

The strongest aspect of this book, however, was how Agyemang tackles real life issues that may be relevant to the intended audience, aka middle grade kids who are experiencing life changes as they get older. Whether it is the grief that Lexie and Eunice are experiencing in the aftermath of their grandfather’s death (and their opposite ways of dealing with said grief), or the growing pains of entering a new school environment and how that can cause issues between friends, or the difficulties of dealing with other kids who aren’t so great, or racism, and so forth, we have a story about a girl who is going through a LOT and is having a hard time dealing. It’s presented in an empathetic way without being overly melodramatic, and I definitely think that some of the things Lexie is going through would be relatable to middle grade readers. Lexie herself is an enjoyable protagonist who misses her grandfather so much, and her grief and awkwardness about her new school life are realistic to be sure.

“A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” is a cute graphic novel that will be fun for kids who may be navigating some tougher issues and who happen to enjoy a nice video game!

Rating 8: A cute middle grade tale about school growing pains, grief, and teamwork in life and video games.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” is included on the Goodreads list “Middle Grade Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Book Club Review: “As I Dream of You”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing book club running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club! This season’s theme is books with specific colored covers where we all drew a color and matched it with a book.

Book: “As I Dream of You” by Jennifer Lee & LeUyen Pham (Ill.)

Publishing Info: First Second, May 2026

Where Did We Get This Book: Kate owns it

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Prompt Color: Blue

Book Description: Franny and Sam are each other’s entire world. So what do you do when your world ends? Frozen’s Jennifer Lee and Lunar New Year Love Story’s LeUyen Pham deliver a tour de force young adult romance with a supernatural twist.

Falling in love is supposed to hurt. That’s what Franny and Sam, two cynical teenagers raised on tales of heartbreak and loss, have come to understand. Yet when they fall for each other, they find the reality of love is something else it’s electrifying, all-encompassing, and easy. Theirs is a love that can conquer anything…perhaps even death.

But Franny and Sam’s quest to stay together—no matter the cost—soon blurs the line between reality and fantasy, and their shared dream threatens to turn into a nightmare.

Kate’s Thoughts

While I’ve been a Greek Mythology fan for practically my entire life, I highly enjoy Greek Myth retellings/reimaginings (given how much I’ve praised “Lore Olympus” on this blog the past few years this is probably not shocking). I’m always looking out for new ones, but I hadn’t heard of “As I Dream of You” by Jennifer Lee and LeUyen Pham until it was picked for Book Club. I don’t know if it’s because the Orpheus and Euridyce myth has never been a top myth for me, or because I just wasn’t as in touch, but I was definitely down to read it when I realized what it was.

And while it’s not a direct retelling/reimagining, the themes are there, and I thought that it was a nice foundation for the broader story at hand. After all, the heart of Orpheus and Euridyce is grief and the inability to let go. We have Sam and Franny, two teenagers who have difficult home lives but find love, passion, and companionship in each other. But after a fatal car accident separates them, they realize that they can see each other again through lucid dreaming, and keep running to each other, unable to let go, even though it becomes more and more dangerous as they hop between their worlds. The original myth definitely has themes, but I did like how Lee finds ways to tweak it and take it to places I didn’t expect. It’s emotional and incredibly sad, and I really enjoyed the themes of grief and trauma and being unable to stop looking back at the what ifs and the loss.

And I loved the artwork by LeUyen Pham. The use of colors were haunting and fit the theme perfectly, and I liked how before the accident things were uniform but still had splashes of color, but then after it was far more subdued and solemn as Franny and Sam were desperate to reconnect by doing so was causing damage and decay. I have seen Pham’s artwork before, but I feel like this was her at her very best. This just captured all of the emotions perfectly.

I enjoyed “As I Dream of You”! If you like Greek Myth retellings, seek it out.

Kate’s Rating 8: A bittersweet and aesthetically lovely reimagining of Orpheus and Euridyce with themes of love and grief and the inability to let go.

Book Club Questions

  1. What did you think of the art style in this book? Did you feel like it matched the tone?
  2. The Orpheus and Euridyce myth is a huge theme in this book. Once it was set up did it play out in the way that you expected it to?
  3. Did the nurse character that Sam meets over and over work for you? Why or why not?
  4. What did you think of the astral projection and astral plane and how it changed as the story went on?
  5. Do you feel like the two brother characters that Franny and Sam meet played an important part of the story?
  6. Have you every done lucid dreaming or had any other strange dream experiences?

Reader’s Advisory

“As I Dream of You” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Next Book Club Pick: “The Unicorn Hunters” by Katherine Arden

Kate’s Review: “The Night Mother: Volume One”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert & Alexa Sharpe (Ill.)

Publishing Info: Oni Press, October 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a copy at ALAAC26

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Endless night befalls a sleepy seaside town, leaving it to young Madeline Tock to save her community from a threat known only as the Night Mother . . .

The moon is stuck like a broken clock in the midnight sky, the sun a distant memory. No one in this quiet seaside town can remember how long this unnatural darkness has lasted. No one, that is, except for the curious girl who lives in the graveyard, caring for the dead: twelve-year-old Madeline Tock. In gratitude, the departed whisper their worries to her, sounding just like her overprotective but loving father: beware this endless night and she who causes it.

Because there’s someone else who can hear the whispers, too . . . someone whose gown is a map of the cosmos, hair a tangled constellation, eyes like the lights of faraway stars. The Night Mother. Her elemental duty is to gather the souls of the dead in her lantern, then send them to their eternal rest as beautiful moonlight. But when her hunger for power drives her to take souls from the living, Madeline bravely stands up to defend her town and those she loves. Can Madeline help bring back the sun, or will she be lured by the starry promises of this mysterious woman?

Review: Thank you to Oni Press for giving me a copy of this graphic novel at ALAAC26!

My personal goal I made for myself this reading year was trying to do more graphic novels, as I feel like last year I didn’t really do as many as I could have. I made sure to pass by some of my favorite comic publishers while I was at ALA this summer, and a pile of comics caught my eye: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert and Alexa Sharpe (Ill.) had such a captivating cover I had to grab it. It just looked so interesting! And I’m happy to say that when I picked it up, it grabbed my attention almost immediately.

The premise of the story is very unique. In a world where the moon has stopped as it has been taken over by a cruel being called The Night Mother, leaving the world in darkness, a little girl named Madeline Tock can hear the voices of the dead and tries to help them in any way she can. Her adoptive father Barnabus keeps them isolated and keeps her by his side in an overprotective manner, and when a stranger arrives and says that Madeline is the key to stopping The Night Mother, she has to go on a journey to try and save her home and community. For a first volume it has a lot of foundation to lay, and it does so in a very readable manner and in a straight forward way. I got a good sense of the seaside community, of Madeline and her relationship with her father, and the threat that is The Night Mother and how the magical systems in the book work with the moon, the souls of the dead, and the Night Mother herself. The audience of this book is probably on the younger teenage side, so it’s simple, but that simplicity doesn’t take away from the story.

I also liked the characters in this book, from intrepid Madeline to devoted Barnabus to the mysterious newcomer Nura, who has been sent to Madeline to warn her of danger and to help lead her to her destiny. I also have liked what we’ve seen of The Night Mother thus far, as she is scary and ethereal in her darkness and corruption. We haven’t really delved into all of them to much just yet, but I am hoping that now that we have a clear framework of where the story is going to go that in the following volumes we get to really delve into what makes them tick.

And the art in this comic fits the vibe so perfectly. I have seen some works of Alexa Sharpe before, and her style works well with this dreamy and somewhat dark story.

(source)

“The Night Mother: Volume One” is a solid start to a fantasy comic series! I am definitely interested in seeing where it goes from here.

Rating 8: A promising start to a new to me fantasy YA graphic series, “The Night Mother” is dreamy and ethereal with a strong premise and some well done world building.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Night Mother: Volume One” isn’t on many Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Fantasy Comics Books”.

Kate’s Review: “Love Bites: Volume 1”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Love Bites: Volume One” by Alicia Wallace (creator) and Ele (adaptor)

Publishing Info: WEBTOON Unscrolled, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC at ALAAC26

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: As a teenage vampire, Kieran has always been warned to stay away from werewolves, but everything changes when he falls for Mason—the Alpha’s son.

What started off as disdain, lines drawn in the sand between two opposing sides, quickly turns to fascination after the two share one fateful kiss.

Kieran and Mason know they can’t be together, their communities would never approve. And with every hidden kiss and rendezvous, keeping their secret takes on a whole new set of problems.

Avoiding the eyes of both society and Kieran’s extremist family grows more and more challenging, and as silver blades sharpen, the two must choose to stand up for a love worth fighting for.

Review: Thank you to WEBTOON Unscrolled for giving me an ARC at ALAAC26!

Whenever ALA Annual is coming up I start perusing authors and signings a couple of months in advance, always on the look out for horror and thriller names that I know, as well as titles that could fit within those categories. That was how I discovered “Love Bites: Volume 1”, a graphic series based on the Alicia Wallace book “Bite Me”, adapted by ELE, as the title intrigued me and lo and behold it was a paranormal MLM YA romance about a vampire and a werewolf! I figured that maybe I’m not in the age demo, and maybe I have thoughts about vampire romance, but at the same time it looked kind of cute and I know that I do like a fun and not high stakes read every once in awhile. So I grabbed it!

And I have no regrets because it’s pretty cute (source)

As a paranormal romance story, this has elements that I like in a romance. I enjoy enemies to lovers tropes, and while it’s not a top trope for me I do find the occasional forbidden lovers story to be enjoyable because usually it means LONGING. In “Love Bites” we get both, as teenage vampire Kieran and teenage werewolf Mason find themselves drawn to each other even though the relationships between werewolves and vampires are tenuous at best and deadly at worst. There is tension from the jump as Kieran decides he doesn’t like Mason even without knowing his background, but then it gets even more complicated because Kieran’s mother was killed by werewolves when he was a child, so his trauma, grief, and anger are all twisting his judgement a bit. This is really Kieran’s story so far as he grapples with his emotions, as well as his anxiety at home with a stoic father and angry older brother, but the seeds and laid for the romance to start building with angry banter, sexual tension, and an impulsive kiss. I like both Kieran and Mason, though I will say that the other characters thus far, like Kieran’s best friend/Mason’s maybe girlfriend Cella, are kind of static and two dimensional as of now. There is obviously room to grow, but it’s too bad that thus far the girl who seems to be cool and full of potential may be a road block for Kieran and Mason. There are also some pacing issues that feel stilted, as Kieran being antagonistic from the jump without even knowing Mason is a vampire felt pretty fast and maybe not super well earned. But for the target audience who just wants a fun read, I’m sure it will be easy to overlook (I mean, I had fun!).

I also enjoyed the vampire and werewolf lore and world building that we get in this story. It may have been easy to just rely on well known beats and tropes, but instead we have two distinct groups that have their own rules, mythology, and characteristics. We haven’t seen much of the werewolves yet, but we have a fair amount of info about the vampires thanks to Kieran’s perspective, from the pact that the vampires and werewolves made to keep the peace, to the different kinds of vampirism you can take depending on your decisions and innate skills, and the way that family lines work. I imagine we will learn more about Mason’s family as the story goes on, as right now we just know that he’s the son of an alpha and is dealing with some issues with his wolfiness. I enjoyed the mythos quite a bit, which made up for some of the flat characterizations seen outside of the main characters.

I will definitely be going forward with the “Love Bites” graphic novels as they come out! It’s cute and fluffy and sometimes ya just gotta lean into the fluff.

Rating 7: A promising start to a supernatural enemies to lovers romance series, “Love Bites: Volume 1” has some potential to be a fun story arc for a vampire and a werewolf who are drawn to each other despite being on opposite sides of a conflict.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Love Bites: Volume 1” is included on the Goodreads list “Best Comics and Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” by Tom King & Bilquis Evely (Ill.)

Publishing Info: DC, July 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: It’s Supergirl like you’ve never seen her before, in a character-defining sci-fi/fantasy masterpiece from Mister Miracle writer Tom King and Wonder Woman artist Bilquis Evely!

Kara Zor-El has seen some epic adventures over the years, but she now finds her life without meaning or purpose. Here she is, a young woman who saw her planet destroyed and was sent to Earth to protect a baby cousin who ended up not needing her. What was it all for? Wherever she goes, people only see her through the lens of Superman’s fame.

Just when Supergirl thinks she’s had enough, everything changes. An alien girl seeks her out for a vicious mission. Her world has been destroyed, and the bad guys responsible are still out there. She wants revenge, and if Supergirl doesn’t help her, she’ll do it herself, whatever the cost. Now a Kryptonian, a dog, and an angry, heartbroken child head out into space on a journey that will shake them to their very core.

Review: With the new “Supergirl” movie coming out this week I thought it would be fun to read and review the story that inspired the upcoming film/the DCU’s iteration of Supergirl. After all, when she showed up at the end of “Superman” drunk, disheveled, and a hot mess, I was like ‘okay, WHAT is going on with this version of Kara and WHY do I love it so much?’. And it’s probably pretty clear to most people who have seen my reviews/the characters that I really love that I probably love this version of Kara because she is such a mess. I LOVE a messy character with a traumatic backstory and unhealthy coping mechanisms. So that is why I decided to take on Tom King’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”, because the concept of a Kara Zor-El so ravaged with trauma and PTSD she is a walking disaster is so uniquely human, and I had to dive in before seeing it on the big screen.

While this is certainly a Supergirl tale, and while King absolutely nails this take on Kara, this story feels like it goes above and beyond and creates a story that is not only about Supergirl unpacking her trauma, but also about the way that trauma drives us for better or for worse. But the center of the tale is a girl named Ruthye Marye Knoll, a girl living on a distant planet who is seeking out vengeance for her father’s murder at the hands of the violent Krem of the Yellow Hills. While on her search she meets Kara, who is going from planet to planet, dimension to dimension, trying to cope with her own inner demons, and the two of them team up to hunt Krem across the universe. It’s such an interesting take on Supergirl because it doesn’ really center her, but I also feel like King really understands the inherent tragedy of Kara and brings it to a poignant hero’s journey while trying to help a girl who is driven by despair and rage. As they hop across plants and dimensions and universes they learn a lot from each other, and start to find commonalities and the beginnings of healing and growth. It is such a charming and lovely coming of age tale for Ruthye, while also being such an emotional tale for Kara, who feels like her purpose is gone and who feels incredibly alone. I loved the friendship that Ruthye and Kara build as they go on their journey, and how much King draws from both of them to create a narrative that needs them both to work.

I also just enjoyed the world jumping in this story, whether it’s in bars and dives that would feel right at home on Earth, or on a planet with strife between warring factions, or on a planet with a green sun that renders Kara basically down and out due to the pain and puts Ruthye in a fighting position she has ached for but hasn’t really understood. King has so many interesting worlds to explore as the two women chase Krem, and it almost feels like a series of vignettes sometimes because of the attention and diligence that each story within the story gets.

And finally the artwork. Bilquis Evely is an artist that I was unfamiliar with when I picked this up, but I really liked the art design of this series. It just sets a tone that is frenetic and busy, but always feels grounded somehow.

(source)

I now feel ready to go see “Supergirl” when it hits theaters, because “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” is a thrilling and somewhat emotional story that gives Kara a unique path. Definitely a must read for any Supergirl fan!

Rating 8: A unique and vibrant take on Supergirl and the weight of being super.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” is included on the Goodreads list “Ladies of DC”.

Kate’s Review: “Lore Olympus: Volume Ten”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Lore Olympus: Volume Ten” by Rachel Smythe

Publishing Info: Inklore, June 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: “The Mortal Realm—it’s dying.”

After years of yearning, the big day has finally arrived: Hades and Persephone are getting married! It’s the ceremony of the century, and practically all the gods are invited to celebrate the happy couple. The wedding, full of love and joy, provides a much-needed respite for the pantheon . . . but the newlyweds have no time for a honeymoon.

The king and queen of the Underworld begin unprecedented dives into the dream world to find the god that Kronos took hostage—and, hopefully, to get answers on defeating the furious titan once and for all. During their explorations, they begin to suspect that Persephone’s powers over spring may have been altered. Their theory is proven correct with deadly consequences: When Persephone returns to the Mortal Realm, she ushers in not the regular change of seasons, but a never-ending winter.

And while the gods worry about the total annihilation of the Mortal Realm, Apollo uses the chaos as cover for an attempt to kill Zeus. He claims his dying father’s throne and decrees that the only way to save the Mortal Realm is if Persephone—and her power—belong to him. The others reject his outrageous demand, proposing instead that whoever can fix the failing seasons will be named interim ruler of Olympus. Hope now rests with the struggling goddess to find a way to stop the treacherous Apollo and save humankind—or else be separated from Hades forever.

Review: It’s been a couple of years since I started my “Lore Olympus” journey, and I can’t believe that we are nearing the end of the series, ten volumes in. It’s been a wild and fulfilling ride and has given me all of the feelings as I’ve read it, and we are now at “Lore Olympus: Volume Ten”, with only one more to go after it. I feel like we have so much to address, but I’m still soaking it all in. And “Volume Ten” continues the streak of magnificence.

First and foremost, for the Persephone/Hades fangirl who has lived within me since I was a kid, THEY ARE FINALLY GETTING MARRIED!!! This volume kicks off with their decision and their wedding, and it’s everything I had hoped it would be. Smythe made it romantic, gentle, and captured the excitement as well as the haste given that they are marrying because they love each other AND to combine their partnership to help run the Underworld, which is still dealing with a vengeful Kronos who has kidnapped a mystery deity and is holding them hostage deep in the depths, so much so that they have to use Morpheus to help try and dream dive to track them down. We also have some new crazy developments regarding Zeus’s philandering ways, and how Persephone gets roped into helping him with the consequences of some of them (and we also get to meet Dionysus; if you know, you know). There are some bumps in the road here and there, but it’s never drawn out for melodrama’s sake and it feels real and reasonable. It’s also interesting to see them work as a team in trying to parse out where to find Kronos and this mysterious entity.

I will admit that it took a bit longer than I expected for us to get to the second half of the original myth, with Persephone’s absence setting off an eternal winter and therein explaining the turning of the seasons, and I was curious to see how, exactly, Smythe planned to do it. But I enjoyed the way that it all starts to unfold in this volume (still, really close to the end? There’s just one volume left, right?) and how it relates to Persephone’s new role and the active choices she has made for herself up until this point. One of the biggest gripes I’ve seen about “Lore Olympus” (or any kind of Persephone/Hades retelling that isn’t steeped in trauma) is the romance and relationship between Persephone and Hades being romanticized while demonizing Demeter when she is merely a ‘grieving mother’ whose daughter was kidnapped to be a bride against her will in the original story, and that centering the romance element is wrong or damaging and removes agency. Which I’ve never agreed with (I actually helped write a literary analysis with my friend David critiquing a thesis about this very thing), and in “Lore Olympus” specifically I have felt that Smythe has done a really good job of making Persephone’s agency a priority. The way that the original myth gets reimagined here with Persephone realizing her Spring bringing powers have been taken from her due to her own (positive, mind you!) actions as opposed to it merely being a grieving Demeter continues to bolster that, and it sets up higher stakes and a last gambit by Apollo, whose coup is now fully underway with an assassination attempt on Zeus, and who still wants to possess Persephone because he feels entitled to her. As we are setting up the final arc to take down Apollo (and Ouranos, who is encouraging all of this). Does it seem a little crammed in? Yeah, maybe a little, especially since there was such a long arc previously in regards to Kronos, but at the same time I’d argue that Apollo has to be the final big bad in this, even if Ouranos has been shoehorned in a bit. Everything has been put in place, the players are all there, and this penultimate volume has set it up properly.

Now it’s time for the Hera report, as Hera is my favorite in this series and I can tell you that she, too, is going through it. She is still hearing Kronos in her head, and she finally has to come to terms with her lingering trauma in regards to the part she had to play with him and how she has a trauma bond with him to a degree because of it. I really love what this comic has done with Hera, and now we are finally, FINALLY, seeing her open up a little bit and start to try and unpack all of that baggage when Kronos keeps nipping at her heels and when Zeus is down for the count and other people she loves are in danger. Hera’s journey has been just as gratifying as those of Persephone and Hades, and I’m just as invested in her outcome as I am in theirs.

We are nearing the end of “Lore Olympus” and Volume Ten has gone into the last storylines strong. Can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

Rating 9: We are nearing the end of the series and we get a great mix of romance, emotional unpacking, and a set up for a final showdown for power, with Persephone and Hades in the middle of it all.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Lore Olympus: Volume Ten” is included on the Goodreads list “Best Comics and Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “To The Last Gram”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “To The Last Gram” by Shreya Davies & Vanessa Wong (Ill.)

Publishing Info: Difference Engine, April 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Through her school days, where she must negotiate a precarious balancing act between her culture and fitting in, to her teenage years where appetites must be managed to keep up appearances, to her early adulthood where responsibilities feel overwhelming, Divya journeys from feelings of emptiness to finally finding fulfillment within.

To the Last Gram is an honest and hopeful story of feeling at odds with and finding a home in one’s community, family, and body, and of the yet-unfurling journey to embrace the fullness of life.

Review: Thank you to Difference Engine for sending me an eARC of this graphic novel!

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to lose some weight. I’ve always had a tricky relationship with my body, and while I had found myself feeling generally okay for a long time, in the past few years I’ve been more self conscious as having a child, being in my early 40s, and probably being in perimenopause or on the verge of it has made my body change in ways that felt upsetting to me as an elder Millennial who absolutely has self perception issues. So I signed up for a diet plan that touted itself as being flexible, giving you a calorie range to fall into to lose weight but still be able to maintain a healthy caloric intake. Well, me being me decided ‘why not just shave a few hundred calories off of that and never get in the range and always stay below it?! That’s the ticket!’ Spoiler alert: it was not the ticket and I found myself in a bad place mentally and verging on physically, and dropped the program. I came to the conclusion that I’m a little too susceptible to disordered eating and quit while I was ahead. I kept thinking about this moment in time while I was reading “To The Last Gram” by Shreya Davies. Because while I have never found myself dealing with a full blown eating disorder, the fact that it can and does happen doesn’t shock me. I went into this book steeling myself for an emotional story, and it absolutely was.

This is a fictional tale, but one gets the sense that it’s a bit personal as well. We follow Divya, a teenager girl who is trying to fit in at school in a culture that she isn’t familiar with, and who stands out not only due to her skin color but also because of her body size. She’s larger than her peers, she stands out in her gymnastics class, and even her pediatrician says that she’s obese and needs to eat better even though her mother prepares pretty typical homemade meals. As she tries to conform more to the beauty standards her new home finds acceptable, and as she becomes a teenager, she starts greatly restricting her caloric intake, and starts exercising excessively, until she is in full blown anorexia and fully obsessed about her weight. Divya’s story is incredibly emotional at times, but never treads into exploitative or (and I hate to say it in regards to EDs but I can’t think of another word) melodramatic, making it very easy to relate to Divya and to understand how she got to the point where she is alarmingly thin. Davies portrays the obsessiveness in a really well done way, whether it’s Divya shrinking before our eyes during work out montages or the imagery of food looking evil and scary in her mind’s eye. It definitely captures the complicated nature of EDs and how it is also a mental struggle that a person can get caught in.

I also appreciated that this story is fairly realistic and candid about eating disorders and how difficult they can be to work through, and that recovery isn’t always linear. We see the origins of Divya’s anorexia as a way she hopes to fit in and be more well liked, dropping calories and obsessing over exercise, but it isn’t a straight forward ‘she loses weight, develops anorexia, gets help, and lives happily ever after’. If anything it shows that she struggles with her disordered eating and body image on and off, sometimes falling back into anorexia, sometimes being able to stave it off for a bit, but never being fully ‘cured’. I felt like it reflects the reality of eating disorders, and while I’m sure that there are people who feel like they have been able to leave it behind, there are probably others who feel like it’s going to be a constant issue that needs mitigating and attention. I thought that showing this aspect gave the book a nice mix of hope and bittersweetness.

And finally, the artwork by Vanessa Wong worked pretty well for me. It’s a very unique style that I thought at first wouldn’t fit in with the topic, but it became pretty clear that it was going to capture the tone well with the designs and color schemes.

(source: Difference Engine)

“To the Last Gram” is a candid and hopeful graphic novel. It’s an emotional one too, but that makes it all the better.

Rating 8: A thoughtful and bittersweet but hopeful story about disordered eating, a search for belonging, and the non-linear path of healing from an eating disorder.

Reader’s Advisory:

“To the Last Gram” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of yet, but it would fit in on “Body Image in Graphic Lit”.

Kate’s Review: “Welcome to Hell”

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Book: “Welcome to Hell: From the West Bank to Gaza” by Mohammad Sabaaneh

Publishing Info: Street Noise Books, June 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A new graphic novel memoir chronicling the recent horrific days in Palestine, from Mohammad Sabaaneh, the winner of the Palestine Book Award.

This powerful graphic novel sheds light on the reality of life in both the West Bank and Gaza during this terrifying time. Told from the perspective of the author’s brother’s experience in prison and that of those in Gaza struggling to survive displacement, starvation, and attack.

In October of 2023, Sabaaneh went on a tour in Europe to promote his book about life under occupation in Palestine. Whether a Palestinian is inside a detention center or in any city or village, they are all in a big prison. The book ends with one message: ‘we will not leave.’ Upon his return to Palestine, he was trapped within the walls of his home—unable to see his aging parents, or his brother, who was locked away in an Israeli detention center.

So begins this vital story of struggle and survival.

Review: Thank you to Street Noise Books for sending me an eARC of this graphic memoir!

Memoirs are always a bit harder for me to evaluate because I never feel super comfortable critiquing a person’s lived experience, but what I do like to look for his how candid a memoir is and how it makes me feel. And because of this it’s probably not super surprising that many of the books that I’ve read about the Israel/Palestine conflict over the years that have resonated with me have been in graphic memoir or journalism form. Whether it was Joe Saccos’s book “Palestine”, or, interestingly enough, two books by “American Splendor’s Harvey Pekar, “Our Cancer Year” (written with his wife Joyce Brabner) and “Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me” (which was published after his death), I’ve found comics to be the things that have resonated most with this topic. So I was eager to check out “Welcome to Hell” by Mohammad Sabaaneh, expecting it to have a similar impact as the previous ones, and I was mostly right. Perhaps even more as this was written by a man who has been living the current genocide first hand, and speaks the truth that he, his family, and many others are facing at the moment.

“Welcome to Hell” is a short book, but within it’s fewer pages are a lot of gut punches and a lot of truths that are difficult to digest but also important to acknowledge. Sabaaneh is telling two different stories here; the first is that of his brother Thamer, who is a prisoner in an Israeli prison, and the second is that of numerous Palestinian families living in Gaza during the bombings done by Israel after October 7th, 2023. Sabaaneh draws comparisons between the way that his brother has to live in the literal prison, with violence, starvation, torture, and abuse being heaped upon him and his fellow prisoners, and the constant movement, starvation, fear, and violence that civilians living their lives in Gaza have to face, showing that the two realities aren’t terribly different and both are horrific. It’s not a very long graphic memoir, but Sabaaneh doesn’t waste a page and has a lot of important and devastating things to say, and does so effectively. Sabaaneh centers his brother as well as other people, though he does address his own experiences after October 7th and how getting home was perilous and then how restricted he was as well, unable to visit his family for months. It’s a harrowing and incredibly personal story, and it was a difficult read even though it’s absolutely a necessary one, especially as things just keep escalating in the Middle East at the moment and the death toll going up.

The art in this book is so incredibly unique it immediately stood out. It’s very much a cubist style, which makes the Israeli IDF/guards at the prison all the more surrealistic and monstrous, but also finds a way to find the vulnerability of Thamer and others who are being abused and displaced. At first I didn’t really know what I thought of the style (I am not a person who has a lot of knowledge of or connection to the cubist style and its history), but as the story went on and through my various revisits before reviewing it really grew on me. It made some of the violence less graphic, but didn’t take away the emotional impact.

(source: Street Noise Books)

“Welcome to Hell” is a timely and powerful graphic memoir. It’s a difficult read, but one that feels incredibly necessary to understand and reckon with.

Rating 9: A powerful and deeply personal read about the people of Palestine who experience trauma, violence, and displacement at the hands of an oppressive regime and their fight to survive.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Welcome to Hell” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of yet, but it would fit in on “Palestine Reading List”.

Kate’s Review: “Ducks”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” by Kate Beaton

Publishing Info: Drawn and Quarterly, September 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. After university, Beaton heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Beaton will be far more than she anticipates.

Arriving in Fort McMurray, Beaton finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. She encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. Her wounds may never heal.

Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full-length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.

Review: In February I ended up going to see “Les Miserables” with my husband and some friends, and as I always do when seeing “Les Mis” I mentioned to the group my favorite “Hark, a Vagrant!” comic set that has Javert at the forefront. There’s just something about him burning down the Life Café in “Rent” that just tickles me. One of my friends mentioned Beaton’s graphic memoir “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands”, saying that he really enjoyed it and that I should check it out. I had intended to do so back when it first came out a few years ago, but for whatever reason I didn’t get around to it, but made a note to head to the library and get it as soon as I could. And shortly thereafter I had it in hand and was ready to dive in, not totally sure what to expect but certain it would be something different from the whimsical cartoons I’ve known Beaton for over the years. And I have to say, my friend was right, it was very good.

“Ducks” is the story of Kate Beaton’s time after college where, worried about a lack of financial opportunities in her home of Cape Breton Island and the looming student loans post college, she took a job in the oil sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta, knowing the pay would be higher and the time to getting out of debt would be faster. While she isn’t prepared at all for what the oil sands will be like, she has to adjust to a huge change in her life, with jarring experiences, harsh conditions, and an experience unlike anything she’s had until this point. I found her story to be incredibly poignant and sobering, as while she finds connection and does seem to find her groove, she has to deal with cold management, misogynistic male co-workers (made all the worse due to a huge lack of other women, making her even more of a target), and grueling yet monotonous work. Throw in the bleakness of the way the beauty of the natural world around her is being stripped down and exploited for oil profits and we have an unflinching account of climate destruction that also brings financial opportunities to so many who are in desperate need of it. I don’t know that much about Canada and its history with oil and natural resources, but I felt like I learned a fair amount from this book in a way that was very accessible.

What I really loved the most about this memoir is that Beaton is very measured and thoughtful when telling her story, and is able to acknowledge the nuances of the oil sands and her time there while also examining and holding multiple truths. It’s true that the oil sands provided financial opportunities that she was having a hard time achieving elsewhere after her education was through and her student loans were looming, but it’s also true that she had some horrific experiences with misogyny, gross comments, and even sexual assault that went unacknowledged and without justice. She does a good job of showing the terrible men that she worked with there who objectified and wounded her, but also shows the good people there who did their best and supported her. She acknowledges the horrible climate and environmental harms that these oil sands bring to Alberta, with chemical spills, higher cancer rates, and nasty day to day symptoms, while showing the great beauty of being out in that part of the world and in the nature surrounding it. She shows the gross men and doesn’t excuse their vile behaviors and the sometimes all too unfortunate ways they would turn to drugs to get through their shifts, but also acknowledges how hard it can be for the workers who are so isolated from greater society that regression is almost unpreventable. She also takes great care to address the way that these oil sands affect Indigenous communities, be it how it can infect their water and affect their environment, or the way that Indigenous women can be so vulnerable to violence from the people who work there. It’s all very heavy and the themes are difficult, but the conversations surrounding it are necessary and I appreciate how she was able to parse out all of the nuance that comes with it.

And the art is what I would expect from Beaton, while also capturing some really well done emotional beats and some lovely depictions of the place that was such a pivotal moment in her life.

(source)

“Ducks” is a fantastic and personal graphic memoir that I highly recommend. I learned so much about a very specific aspect of Canada that leaks into greater realities, and I thought it was simply sublime.

Rating 9: A deeply personal and nuanced graphic memoir that tells a story of financial opportunity that comes with a cost, climate destruction, and Canada itself, “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” was informative, interesting, and emotional.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ducks” is included on the Goodreads lists “Graphic Memoirs”, and “Oh, Canada!”.

Book Club Review: “The Magic Fish”


This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing book club running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. Re-visiting some of our past themes, we’re once again pulling random words from and finding a book that matches the prompts. For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club!

Book: “The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen

Publishing Info: Random House Graphic, October 2020

Where Did We Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Prompt Words: Asian, Voyage

Book Description: Tiến loves his family and his friends…but Tiến has a secret he’s been keeping from them, and it might change everything. An amazing YA graphic novel that deals with the complexity of family and how stories can bring us together.

Real life isn’t a fairytale.

But Tiến still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It’s hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tiến, he doesn’t even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he’s going through?

Is there a way to tell them he’s gay?

A beautifully illustrated story by Trung Le Nguyen that follows a young boy as he tries to navigate life through fairytales, an instant classic that shows us how we are all connected. The Magic Fish tackles tough subjects in a way that accessible with readers of all ages, and teaches us that no matter what—we can all have our own happy endings.

Kate’s Thoughts

This is my second time reading “The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen, and this was actually my pick for book club after pulling the phrases ‘Asian’ and ‘Voyage’ from the hat. I had to think about it a bit, and decided that this would be a good fit to fill the prompts. It had been a bit since I had first read it, so going back in had some surprises that I hadn’t remembered.

I still really enjoyed this book on the second time around. Tiến’s story and how it juxtaposes with his mother Hiền’s story, as well as three fairy tales with commonalities, is still very sweet, sometimes sad, and really moving. We have Tiế, who is contemplating coming out to his family and feeling nervous and hesitant about doing so. And we also have his mother Hiến, who has to return home to Viet Nam after years of being away after she and her husband left after the war, leaving family behind for a new life, one that puts in place a barrier to her life before. We both see their anxieties and their sadness, whether it is Tiến being Othered by greater society and fearing his family’s rejection, or Hiến who made a choice to leave her family behind, and then didn’t have them in her life, and the worries about how they viewed her choice. I also found more appreciation for the themes of communication and stories as a universal connector, as both mother and son connect via fairy tales, and how the fairy tales they connect with reflect their own feelings and thoughts within the moment.

And yes, I still love the artwork. It harkens to manga a bit, and it is so ethereal and beautiful. I also appreciated more of the details this time around, really noticing the coloring corresponding to the timeline and the storyline at hand, which was subtle and clever and a really neat choice to make.

It was great revisiting “The Magic Fish”! It’s still a lovely coming of age novel with sprinkles of fairy tale magic.

Serena’s Thoughts

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: one of the best things about being in a bookclub is that it will encourage you to read outside of your usual genres or formats. I hardly ever pick up graphic novels on my own, but it’s great having a bookclub full of people who know how to pick them, so that when I do read one, it’s always so great! Kate actually gifted me this book years ago and, sadly, I hadn’t gotten around to reading it until now. But she has now done the job of not only getting me the book but also placing it physically on the top of my TBR through bookclub!

This is a great example of a graphic novel where the art and subject matter come across in a lovely way. The art itself was beautiful and it paired so nicely with the deeper things of family and identity. There were several pages that I just lingered over, appreciating the depth of detail and beauty.

Of course, I love everything having to do with fairytales as well! And the inclusion of tales from both Eastern and Western cultures were beautifully woven through the story, reflecting the themes that were being explored in the primary story. Each tale on its own was lovely, and I think the way they tied into our main character’s struggles with his identity, his fears and sense of “otherness” was perfect.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one! The artwork itself is the true standout for me, but I also think the story is charming in pretty much every way!

Kate’s Rating 9: A charming and gentle coming of age tale that seamlessly incorporates fairy tale magic into the pages.

Serena’s Rating 8: A lovely pairing of fairytale magic alongside a heart-felt story about identity and family.

Book Club Questions

  1. How familiar were you with the three fairy tales that Nguyen picked to contrast the story at hand? Did you felt like they lined up well with the story of Tiến and his mother?
  2. Since one of the prompts was ‘voyage’, let’s focus on the immigration voyage that Hien took from Vietnam and the new life she made and the life she left behind. What did you think of her story compared to that of Tiến’s?
  3. Language and communication is another huge theme in this book. What kinds of examples of language or communication are portrayed either as a gap or a bridge between characters?
  4. What were your thoughts on the tweaks and changes that Nguyen made to the fairy tales?
  5. What did you think of the use of colors to communicate timelines and story lines?
  6. What were your thoughts on Tiến’s coming out to his mom and the ending in general?

Reader’s Advisory

“The Magic Fish” is included on the Goodreads lists “YA Pride Graphic Novels”, and “Queer Books by AAPI Authors”.

Next Book Club Pick: “Girls Made of Snow and Glass” by Melissa Bashardoust