raven1358's reviews
126 reviews

Habibi by Craig Thompson

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

I am being so real when I say this but I don’t understand what the end goal of this graphic novel was , literally confused from beginning to end. Also I’m not sure I’m fully comfortable with the idea of a white man from Michigan being the one illustrating and writing about stories from the Qu’ran , when I first started reading it I honestly didn’t know who the author is until I saw that I had read another graphic novel by him and I also disliked that novel as well. The complete nudity that only the women in this book were subjected to also didn’t sit right with me as well because a lot of it was honestly so unnecessary and added absolutely nothing to the storyline. Tbh the only thing I like about this was the art work , everything else was subpar and it’s quite obvious that this author isn’t for me , I don’t recommend what so ever.

Prosper's Demon by K.J. Parker

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I honestly don’t know how to feel about this book, I had no expectations going into it and to be honest it was just there , not the biggest fan of medieval times books so yeah but that ending tho was mind blowing literally caught me off guard fr. Would recommend tho if you need a book to read for spooky/fall season although there isn’t really anything scary about it, just very unsettling 

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

dark tense fast-paced

3.0

I honestly don’t know how to feel about this , never really knew anything about Jeff Dahmer apart from here about the show so I really don’t know what to think right now . I don’t know what pisses me off more the “obliviousness” of the adults or the “stupidity” of the kids , I will never understand the whole never report on a fellow kid because me personally if I see something or someone acting weird I am going to say something about it because you honestly never know. Just because it’s “normal” or “common “ for kids to grow up in dysfunctional families doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least try to help. But hey what do I know 🤷🏾‍♀️ I wasn’t born during those times so I can’t really say anything . The drawing style also helped make this way more creepy , I might consider watching the show who knows? 

New Kid by Jerry Craft

informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a cute middle grade graphic novel that spoke about racism as a black kid and also talks about fitting in a new environment. I loved the fact that it addressed the tiny micro aggressions that black people face such as calling you another black person’s name because “you look alike” or the stereotypes of black people being athletic or loving basketball and also the belief that all black people come from the slums and have dysfunctional families and once you don’t have that you are considered an “Oreo” which means like you are black on the outside but white inside which perpetuates the horrible stereotype that black people cant have good homes. An amazing book would recommend parents to get this for their kids to read so they understand and speak up for themselves against these stereotypes 

The Frolicking by Grant Wamack

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

4.0

Thank you to BookSirens for access to this book, this is my completely honest review.


👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾Amazing book , like I literally didn’t know what to expect at all , at first I thought it was going to be like a book about a cult or something because typically for some reason books about bunnies end being cult related. 
This is the definition of mindfuck because you are just constantly in the state of confusion and I love that . 
My only issue is Victoria I personally wanted her to fucking die because what?????!! Who fucking does that to people ?? Like I understand that you went through trauma and all that but you would think that with the shit you went through , you would be nicer to people. 
I love Skylar he is a hero and I love him and Elyse’s relationship even though it’s a bit weird but honestly everything in this book was weird. I feel like it could have been longer though because I feel like there are a few unanswered questions that I have but overall amazing book 

Just Between Us by Anysah Grace

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Thank you to BookSprout  for giving me access to this book 

So this was a good book very well written, I loved how mature their conversations were although I wasn’t a fan of them hiding things from each other but at least it was all resolved at the end. The one thing I didn’t like was the random time skips in between paragraphs, got very confusing at times . Also for a book that has smut , it never fully went into as much detail as I would like or expect. Like the smut scenes were like they were cut in half , started but never finished but overall a really good book would recommend

Uzumaki: Notebook (3-in-1 Deluxe Edition) (Junji Ito) manga by Junji Ito

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Juno it does it again , having me question is sanity fr , like who looks at a spiral and thinks yeahhh I know how to make this the most fucked up manga ever . Like the last time I ever like saw and acknowledged a spiral was when I was learning about the Fibonacci in uni and I never really much about but now anytime I look at something I started thinking of how it would look like as a spiral ( 😱I hope I haven’t been infected by the spiral lol) yeahhh definitely recommend if you want to literally feel shudders down your spine every page you turn and need something for spooky season

Gyo by Junji Ito

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I have always been fascinated by the brain that Junji Ito has because how does he come up with stuff like this???? Like what goes on in your head for you to have ideas like this , you literally never knew what to expect , the fine details was so crazy and unsettling and just mind blowing because you didn’t even know what to think. All you could think about how can he make this more unsettling and he shows you that he can. Definitely starting off the Fall/spooky season off right fr

A Light in the Dark by Miranda Sapphire

challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Omggg I don’t even know where to start with this book, I loved it it was mind blowing . maybe I should be taking recs from Pinterest more often because this was amazing . Like once I started I couldn’t put it down fr , and even when I did I kept thinking about and thinking about when I can go back to reading. I think maybe because I’m used to reading young adult books but this book was very adult like the conversations were so well thought out and sound like conversations mature adults would have , there was third act breakup or any unnecessary fights that could have been easily fixed by fucking communicating , everything was just perfect . I loved the fact that the woman was the more dominant one in the relationship because you don’t see that very often, Sam was just a cuddly bear and Claire was just amazing , I loved how rational she was at all times even during times where her emotions could have gotten the best of her , she always took the time to pause and think about things before she reacted. I love the lore of the story how well thought out everything was and how everything just clicked and made so much sense like they were no unanswered questions about anything , the ending was seamless and beautiful, I know I’m going to have a hard time reading monster romances now because I’m going to keep refer back to this book uggghhhhh I definitely recommend everyone to read especially fans of monster romance 

Corrupt Saint by Cora Kent

dark fast-paced

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

2.25

Thank you to the author Cora Kent for giving me access to this prequel from her newsletter , typically I don’t usually read prequels because they don’t really do much for me in terms of the actual story and this is no different, tbh I think it even gave me a spoiler to the main story which I’m not a fan of, it’s an okay story a lot of timeline skips which made me so confused because it felt so incomplete, we just jumped from Lucia being a kid to her being an adult and apparently she is a teacher which I don’t know how that works because she is a mafia princess , I don’t know which school would be comfortable with her being there. There was just a lot of holes which I feel could have just been added but hey maybe that’s just me 🤷🏾‍♀️