jaina8851's reviews
534 reviews

I do dearly wish that whoever wrote the summaries for these collections took into account that there might be people reading them for the very first time on digital platforms, because I am SO tired of getting spoiled before I even have a chance to read the issues 😞

This volume contained so many things that I really liked. Having never read any of the Avengers, I was totally blown away by Carol's story in Avengers Annual #10.

I thought in the beginning of the issue that they were doing the exact thing that had apparently been done to her in the Avengers series with downplaying the impact that a surprise accelerated SA pregnancy would have on a person, and the ending just knocked my socks off with her actually calling the Avengers out and telling them off. I totally expected this to be another baddie of the month, everything goes back to normal issue, and was so impressed and surprised with how dark and serious it was.

Come to find out that this is a pretty famous issue and I was unsurprisingly not the only one who felt strongly about how this topic was handled!

I also absolutely *loved* the Kitty Bedtime Story, it was such a cute delight and I loved the little references to past moments as well. 

Wow I am so incredibly delighted by this book. It is really challenging my years-long stance of "life is too short for books you're not enjoying, DNF and move on." I would have quit this book at around 30% if it weren't for the fact that I was reading it for book club (less critical, I've DNFed books for book club before, but I do prefer to push myself to finish for discussion) and moreso that one of my partner's highly recommended it. I wanted to understand why he loves it so much, so I persevered through the chunk that really wasn't working for me, and I am SO GLAD that I did.

I thought that I was a person who doesn't like metafiction, but I no longer think that's true. Despite being very different books, this book reminds me in some ways of The Spear Cuts Through Water in that they both have absolutely gorgeous prose and an atmospheric stories within stories "I don't entirely know what is going on right now but I trust the author to pull it all together" vibe. I struggled with that vibe in the first half of the book, but once some of the puzzle pieces started sliding into place with a satisfying click, I got totally hooked in and couldn't put the book down. Do I entirely understand all of the sliding and coalescing layers and threads? Nope, not completely. But I for sure don't care, because the ride was incredible.

The actual writing of this book was so incredibly gorgeous. I was really impressed, even in the chunk of the book that was a bit of a struggle for me, about what a different feeling and quality the real-world chapters had compared with the storybook chapters. The real world felt like I could step into the page right alongside the characters because it was so full of rich tiny details about our-actual-real-world authors and pop culture references and what the characters were doing with their hands and the beverages they were drinking, and the storybook chapters all were dreamy and ethereal. And as the chapters collapsed and the story all became one, it somehow was sharp and dreamy at the same time. Masterful work.

I'm going to be thinking about this book for a while, and rethinking how I feel about DNFs. I probably still will have a pretty low bar for DNFing, but in this case, I just am so so glad that I saw it through to it's beautiful end.

This just keeps getting better and better. The finale of the Dark Phoenix arc is as incredible as I was told it would be. I really appreciated the recap issue, since I hadn't read any of the stories about the OG X-Men. And I'm really enjoying the introduction of Kitty Pryde, excited to see where her story takes her.

It's really fun to see how the dynamics and relationships of the characters are evolving as they become more of a team, and the breakneck pace of the trouble that they are getting into kept me turning pages as fast as I could. Can't wait to see what happens next.

This was excellent! I didn't know anything about this story going into it and was surprised and delighted by the fact that it was a monster girl story. The characters and world were so well developed and the art was gorgeous. Really great!

Absolutely adored this book and getting to listen to Robin Wall Kimmerer read it was an absolute delight. Her use of language is so beautiful and inspiring, I know I'll listen to this again and again.

Kind of meh. For once, I really wasn't interested in hearing Michael Pollan's over-embellished experience of a thing and really just wanted to hear about the science. Less "is this what ADHD feels like?!" and more caffeinated bees. There were a couple of interesting tidbits in here, and as someone who can't consume coffee at all due to some weird combo of synesthesia or a potential allergy, I really wish I could somehow go and consume the fruit of the coffee plant like he did to see if it is a compound in coffee itself that makes my mouth feel like it is filled with sand, or something that changes during the brewing process.

Continuing on with my "I've never read or seen any X-Men content before, ever" read of this series. I found this volume much more confusing than the previous one because it felt like it was throwing in a lot more outer space and other characters with barely any context, but it was still a fun ride. Cool to see Magneto on page for the first time, that's a name I've definitely heard before but had no idea who he was. Excited to read more!

This story is haunting and sad, but I wish I had read it with my eyes. It was hard to keep track of who each section was about and what time it was happening, because the section header would be read and then we'd move on and I'd feel adrift. I think I'd like to revisit this book at some point and read it as a print version.