kmbezner's reviews
779 reviews

The Shape of Home by K. Parr, Amber Bliss

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This beautiful collection of stories balances humor and trauma, inspiration and despair, and through many lenses provides so many different answers to the question: Where is home? Though they are fiction, they reflect the histories and realities of women living in the Middle Eastern/North African diaspora.
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Giantess by J.C. Deveney, Núria Tamarit

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

 A wonderful delight. Giantess is a beautiful and compelling adventure tale of a giant woman growing into herself. Lovely illustrations soften the blows of some very real tragedies, but eventually Celeste and her family do get their happily ever after.
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Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

 
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via BookishFirst in exchange for an honest review.

In a coming of age graphic novel reminiscent of The Prince and the Dressmaker, Supper Club, and As the Crow Flies, Claribel A. Ortega and Rose Bousamra deftly and beautifully tackle the injustice surrounding politicized appearances through the story of Marlene and her family.

Marlene has spent her whole life hearing about good hair and bad hair…and her hair is, of course, bad. Meanwhile, everyone else around her, from her best friend Camila to her mom, her beloved aunt Ruby, Glenny at the salon, the bullies at school, and, worst of all, her perfect cousin Diana, all seem to have good hair. And after years of weekly painful salon trips, she can’t figure out how to make her hair behave the way everyone wishes it would, or why she can’t just wear her hair naturally in the first place. Naturally, she takes matters into her own hands with mixed results, eventually learning how to care for and style her hair the way she wants to. This message of choice is doubly punctuated by the background illustrations, which feature characters with a huge variety of hairstyles.

But this book isn’t just about hair because really, it’s never just about hair. Throughout Frizzy, Bousamra’s warm and welcoming illustrations hint at the beginnings of a conversation that isn’t spoken aloud until later in the book: that so many of the folks with good hair look different in other ways too. I was thrilled that, when the time for that conversation did come, the words anti-blackness made it onto the page because that brief but impactful moment between Marlene and her aunt is sure to ripple through anyone who reads it, along with the rest of Tia Ruby’s wise words on self-worth, body autonomy, generational trauma, internalized racism, and microaggressions. And of course, those are complicated issues that take more than a few pages of a book to truly address, but Ortega and Bousamra acknowledge that, and frame it as a beginning and a reminder that in order to battle these things we have to first be aware of them. Frizzy is much more than the heartwarming, neatly packaged resolution in its final pages, it’s the start of something beautiful for Marlene, her mother, and every kid who picks up this book and finds themselves repeating Ruby’s mantra there is no such thing as bad hair. 
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Everything Is OK by Debbie Tung

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dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced
A simple yet relatable collection of short comics through which Tung processes the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of their depression. Many people have gone through what Tung shares in this book, and in illustrating her most vulnerable thoughts and feelings can help others who may be fighting similar battles. It's very easy to digest, and Tung's restrained color palette, with carefully chosen uses of color, reflects the reality of her depression.
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It Took Luke: Overworked & Underpaid by Mark Bouchard, Bayleigh Underwood

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adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A grotesque-beautiful graphic novel that, despite its gritty and horror-laden perspective on literally working yourself to death, still manages to have a dark sense of humor about the whole thing, because ain’t that just how we cope with crunch culture?

 
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Sensory: Life on the Spectrum by Bex Ollerton, Schnumn

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emotional funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

 A great collection of short comics made by autistic folks about their experiences with autism. Despite recent shifts, it can still be hard to find literature that centers autistic voices, and this collection goes beyond that minimum to discuss how autism intersects with race, gender, sexuality, and class. It’s a good mix of personal anecdotes and broader discussions of issues facing the autistic community, including medical bias, access to care and resources, and marginalizing language. But this isn’t just a book about those difficulties! It is also filled with autistic joy, love, hope, and pleasure. 
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Cryptid Club by Sarah Andersen

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funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

Are you shy? Do  you hate having your photo taken? Do you live in the woods and creep through the night, or generally feel misunderstood? Then this cute collection of cryptid comics is for you!

Sarah Andersen is a favorite four panel cartoonist, and much like her vampire collection Fangs, Cryptid Club shares the fun and relatable side of creepy creatures. I love her sense of humor and her simple yet highly expressive character designs. And if you're worried that Bigfoot, Nessie, and Mothman hog the spotlight, don't worry, because Andersen also shares the modern woes of lesser-known and more recently imagined cryptid pals.
Hollow by Branden Boyer-White, Shannon Watters

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adventurous funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A fun, queer retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow you won't lose your head over! 

Hollow is a delightful ghost story about, yes, ghosts, but also about speaking up for what you want, crafting your own future, exploring outside your comfort zone, and making friends (with both the living and the dead). Full of beautiful art and just stunning color, it's a must-read for spooky season! 
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Voices of the Prism by Amber Bliss, Lauren Starnino, Charles Reis, Sarah DeCataldo, A.M.H. Devine, C. H. Kim, Theresa Katin, Lou Blair, Nathan Moore, K. Parr

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Betrayal by Harold Pinter

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4.0