Speed Round

I’ve inhaled a lot of amazingness the last few weeks and I can’t wait to share. No further ado:

Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma

Every culture is different. Duh. If you don’t know that, I can’t help you. That said, there are certain similarities between immigrant communities that have always stood out to me whether due to close proximity when I was growing up or some other factor I haven’t discovered yet. Let me say at the outset that here be generalizations. I generally try to avoid those but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to run with it in this case. I am aware that this is what I am doing. Please know I’d rather not but needs must. Okay.

I grew up Jewish. I still consider myself a cultural Jew though my religious practice has fallen by the wayside. This is a thing that happens with relative frequency in our community and it’s actually a pretty rad and singular thing. If people are interested in the mechanics, let me know, I’d be happy to explain further. My parents and grandparents (even one of my great-grandparents) were born here, which is unusual for an Ashekenazi Jewish family but, make no mistake, we’re still part of an immigrant community; those sort of ethnic memories don’t just fade away.

Why am I bringing this up in a review of a book by Nisha Sharma? Because while I’m not of the same immigrant group, I feel at home in her books. While I’m not a reader of color, there’s a connection in that I’ve felt the weight of expectation. That we, as the descendants of people who came here for a better life, we owe those ancestors, however far back in the line they may be, the culmination of their dreams, lives built on what they think is important, and relationships forged on the same foundations upon which they forged theirs.

At the same time, our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, wanted us to be American. And America tells us we have freedom. Freedom to do whatever we want, to be whomever we want, to throw expectation and tradition in the garbage and live the way we want. As though it’s simple. As though obligation is so easy to put away. As though debts are so easily defaulted upon.

One of the reasons I loved Dating Dr. Dil (it’s 360+ pages and I read it in one sitting) is the romance. It’s… a romance novel. I wouldn’t have read it if I didn’t want that. But another reason I loved it is that it captures the experience, the balance, the challenge of being a member of an immigrant community, of trying to be everything everyone wants you to be… and fucking failing. And failing and failing and failing again. And eventually realizing that failure is inevitable. That you can’t be everything to everyone and that’s okay. It’s okay to prioritize. It’s okay to be something to everyone and let them find the other things they need in other people.

And it’s okay to be something to yourself.

Dick Fight Island, Vol. 2 by Ike Reibun

I know you’ll don’t believe me but the romances in Dick Fight Island really are top tier. While there is far less actual combat in this second installment, it remains explicit so if there are kids in the house, you may want to be aware of surroundings while reading and where you leave it laying around unless they’re ready for in-depth anatomical lessons.

That said, this book is a lovely and delightful trope-fest of epic proportions: roommates to lovers, there’s only one bed in a snowstorm, my older brother still hates you but let’s get married anyway, and we’re 100% wrong together but so, so right. Now with perfect butts.

Heaven Official’s Blessing, Vol 2 by MXTX

Due respect to Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, which was my first, and Scum’s Villain’s Self-Saving System, which has the courage to be exactly what it is which is 100% bananas, I think Heaven Official’s Blessing is my favorite of MXTX’s novels. Why? Because it’s about people.

Which may sound weird in that it spends a great deal of time dealing with matters in, and concerning the heavenly and demonic courts (very different than Western concepts and cosmologies, do yourself a study) and that our main couple is comprised of a god (however humble) and a ghost king (however calamitous). But as someone said on Twitter recently, “Isn’t it beautiful that Hua Cheng fell in love with a god and by the end, is in love with a person?”

And it’s that crux upon which the book pivots and the thing that makes it so special. In the beginning, Xie Lian has everything; he’s a prince, beloved of the heavens, rich, beautiful, a literal object of worship. He ascends at seventeen because he’s too good for the world, to pure for his feet to even touch its ground (which as we all know, Hua Cheng continues to believe).

When they meet again 800 years later, everything has changed. It’s Hua Cheng who has the power, the money, the notoriety. It’s he who rules. Xie Lian has almost nothing, has to borrow energy to work even small spells, spends his days collecting scrap for a sad temple and a tiny town. And not only does Hua Cheng accept him, he embraces that life, if only for a little while. Everything he has is only to sustain him until he finds Xie Lian again, whomever it turns out Xie Lian has become. And he stays, even as truths start to emerge that aren’t so savory, that mar the white Daoist robes with dust and even some mud.

It’s easy to love a god. It’s hard to love a man.

Hua Cheng doesn’t care. That’s why I love his story the most.

So This is Every After by FT Leukens

I am a sucker for, “… and then…” stories. I love comics that give readers a glimpse of what happens between or after missions (Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, anyone?) and those side quest episodes of The Witcher that give the characters some room to stretch and play with their roles and relationships.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to get So This is Ever After. A story about what happens after the fantasy big-bad goes down and then hero is on the throne? Sign me up.

Sign me up even more for an LGBTQ+ Romance version.

And it was as delightful and queer as I hoped. I laughed a lot. I snort-laughed several times. I rooted for Arek. I adored the way Leukens played with fantasy tropes - which was to stand them on their heads, spin them around, and let them kiss whomever the dagger was pointing at when they landed - but hewed close enough that the mockery hit at an adoring point rather than a mean one. The lack of toxic masculinity was entirely refreshing (I want to go to King and Knight’s wine and paint night, y’all) and the fact that every single character, even the minor ones had dimensionality and personality while remaining perfectly in balance to their place in the story was really very impressive.

The story knew when to linger and when to move, the world building was perfectly seeded throughout the action and wonderfully organic, never detracted from the story, and I, who almost never read books a second time, can definitely see myself grabbing it off the shelf on future occasions. I’m also very excited to share it with my non-binary nine who is definitely edging toward interest in romance but thinks too much “kissy stuff” is “gross.”

The Haunted Bookstore, Vol. 1 by Shinobomaru and Medamayaki

I should not be allowed on manga publisher newsletters unsupervised.

Two of the three words in that title are my jam and the other one is “the” so it was inevitable that The Haunted Bookstore was getting ordered and kiddo #2 and I are hooked after 1 volume so… buying another bookshelf, I guess. May legit be time for that one shaped like a coffin so they can just bury me in the backyard when I die under the weight of my TBR.

The Haunted Bookstore is reminiscent of Clamp’s XXXHolic in that the story pivots around a supernatural shop though this one is a bookstore in the spirit realm (again, different connotations in Japanese mythology) where various denizens can come to trade things for books and stories they want to need. The shop’s owner is a writer and his adopted daughter was once human but abandoned and now has a spirit’s heart. One day, a young man, an exorcist, falls into the spirit realm and after rescuing him, the shop owner and the girl take him in while he continues his quest to find a specific spirit for reasons he won’t reveal.

This book is mostly adorable and also, a little bit sad. Both of these kids have been through a lot of loss and there’s trauma that comes along with it but they also find joy in the magic around them (as much as young mister exorcist is loathe to admit it). I mean, how can you not when your best friends are twin crow tengu and you get to deliver books gods read to giants so they can fall asleep with Mt. Fuji as their pillow? I love the way manga wraps legend into modern story, reminds us, here and now, that what we loved as children still has merit and value even when we’re busy and overwhelmed - maybe especially when we are. That it’s okay to hold on to magic for as long as we need it.

Call Me Nathan by Catherine Castro and Quentin Zuitton

I want to start out by saying I am not own voices on this one. Neither is the author nor the artist. The author did consult with a specific young man during his transition and with his family - Call Me Nathan is a fictionalized account of Nathan’s transition. I did put out a call to own voices friends to see if any of then had taken a look at the book yet and had opinions.

This is an honest book. It’s a difficult book, I imagine, for trans folx in many ways. To me, it also seemed like a beautiful book in that, in the end, though the journey was difficult for Nathan, and in some ways just starting, he had the support he needed to find his path.

I also think it’s an important book, especially right now. It’s important that it exist. It’s important that we read it so we can understand what it’s like for kids who feel as though they have to hide who they are to keep their families happy or, worse yet, tragically, because they’re afraid. You’ll see, in these pages, that Nathan cuts himself because he doesn’t feel he has any other way to express his pain. Imagine living in a state where the law of the land prevents you from even speaking the truth of who you are, where your life is under threat if any hint of your true self gets out? What will those kids do? How can we sit here and allow that to happen?

It’s a book. I know that. But having this book on your shelf, posting it on your social media, talking about it, having it in your classroom? That signals to a child, or a teenager, or even another adult that they are safe with you. That you’ll make sure no one will hurt them. That they can be their authentic self with you.

So put it on your shelf.

What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo

Horror, humor, weird, weird shit.

I love it.

I love when women write horror and all of their anger and rage and snark and vitriol just spills out and becomes a writhing mass of crows and wolves and demons and zombies and dark stuff. I wish it happened more often.

Scream, writhe, scratch, bite.

Throw blood at the walls.

Or let Rose Szabo do it for you.

Told you there was good stuff.

Enjoy!