The seemingly never-ending list of books to review continues. I made a huge mistake in requesting so many from NetGalley, at this point my blog is all reviews and nothing else. In truth, I'm actually working on a few large projects for work, and I'll talk about those as soon as I get the okay from my employers. For now, let's see how many reviews I can knock out in one go.
Title: Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre
Author/Illustrator: Tom Scioli
Rating: 5/5
Published by IDW and available July 22, 2025, Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre is another entry in IDW's mission of "Let's see how many crazy situations we can put Godzilla in before someone calls the cops on us" and I am all for it. I actually got one of the individual issues at a local comic store earlier this year so I'm excited to see the full collection released. The first thing you notice is the art-- it's reminiscent of Golden Age comics and it really fits the subject of Godzilla interacting with classic literary characters. Even my dad commented on how it looks like an old comic. Then we get to the story. Jay Gatsby's party is interrupted by a Godzilla attack. Sherlock Holmes, now retired, and Jules Verne (who's a cyborg, naturally), join Gatsby and his G-Force in fighting the monster. And then Dracula appears, the Mummy, werewolves, Frankenstein... I sound crazy trying to explain it in a review but just believe me it's a fun monster mash that takes the premise seriously. It'll appeal to fans of the classic literature portrayed, as well as goofy reworkings of familiar stories.
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Title: How To Be a Saint
Author: Kate Sidley
Rating: 5/5
Bruce Springsteen once said "It's hard to be a saint in the city". Kate Sedley's new book, published by Sourcebooks and available August 19, 2025, demonstrates how hard it is to be a saint anywhere else. I was immediately laughing out loud at this book, which was specifically written for me-- alongside my years of religious studies training and specialty in Christianity (including my bachelor's thesis on medieval heresy), I love humorous nonfiction. This book is both a delight to read (it calls 2 Maccabees "Attack of the Clones" and spends a whole chapter on good ways to die to achieve sainthood, as just two examples) and a solid introduction to the doctrines of canonization and Christian hagiography. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. However, it doesn't mention that St. Christopher had the head of a dog, so unfortunately it's worthless. Just kidding.
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Title: Demon With Benefits
Author: Aurora Ascher
Rating: 1/5
Published by Kensington Books and available July 29, 2025, I requested this book solely because the demon character's name is Meph (short for Mephistopheles, the demon from the Faust legend. There are only a few references to Faust and Meph doesn't at all act like his mythological counterpart) and I wanted to see how bad it would be. It's a bog-standard straight bad boy romance with a lot of informed character traits (the author clearly has never heard of "show, don't tell") and some truly dire lines. The story and romance are boring but the writing in places got so unhinged I kept reading just to see what insane descriptors the characters would use next -- Meph, our bad boy demon, in the middle of sex thinks about The Lion King. This book isn't particularly good as a paranormal romance since the demons and witches rarely act like they have any powers. At one point the heroine is tied up by the villain, a powerful demon, with literal rope. Why doesn't he use magic? The worldbuilding is almost nonexistent and the main relationship isn't engaging. I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this to. It's not objectionable, just incredibly boring and weirdly written.
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Title: The Girl, The Priest, and The Devil
Author: Theo Prasidis
Illustrator: Staša Gacpar
Rating: 4/5
Published by Dead Sky Publishing and available September 23, 2025, this graphic novel caught my attention because of my interest in folktales and the Devil, and for its unique setting -- Ottoman Greece. The titular girl, Daphne, is ostracized by her village and called a witch thanks to the corrupt local priest, and she receives no support from her father. The priest is a tyrannical presence who gladly collaborates with his Ottoman overlords, even as his parish struggles under the harsher taxes imposed on non-Muslim subjects. The plot is a little hard to summarize without spoiling it, so I'll just leave it at this -- the Devil isn't the character you expect it to be. The art is dark and gorgeous and I love the caprine devil design. It's also really gruesome in places, so content warning for a brutal execution and the killing of an animal -- but the violence never feels gratuitous, it works with the story. I really enjoyed this comic, though I have a couple issues. First, it's rather short, at just 112 pages, and I felt there were things that could be expanded upon -- the altar boy Angelos, for example, could use a background, and we never see any explanation for Daphne's ability to talk to animals, which would be really fascinating to expand upon. Second, I would have liked a glossary of the Greek and Turkish words used, but that's because I'm a word nerd. Overall, this is a great horror comic that combines the historical and the supernatural.
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Title: History Matters
Author: David McCullough
Rating: 5/5
Published by Simon & Schuster and available September 16, 2025, History Matters is a collection of essays, speeches, and interviews by the beloved late American historian David McCullough (the voice behind Ken Burns' The Civil War). I think you can see why I would have to pick this one up, and I'm glad I did. As the title suggests, it answers the questions people have about why they need to know about history -- remembering all those dates and names is hard, and it was so long ago, anyway. McCullough sums it up in a commencement speech he delivered in 2018: "history is human." History matters because it's the story of people, from which we learn everything. In an interview, he says "...I'm interested in the creative drive, the continuity of a civilization, the connection between one generation and the next." Reading this, all I could think was YES. This is what I love about history and why I want to talk about it. This book is such a great read for anyone interested in history, whether you have a degree in it like I do or you're just an enthusiast. You get a deeper look into McCullough's career, his writing process, and his philosophies for both history and America.
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Title: All- Negro Comics: America's First Black Comic Book
Authors/Ilustrators: Various
Rating: 5/5
Published by Image Comics and available November 4, 2025, All-Negro Comics is an anniversary reprint of the first comic anthology by all Black creators, first published in 1947. I knew I was going to love editor Chris Robinson's approach to the material from his introduction, where he lays out his tenants for the book: "Tell, Teach, Tribute," encouraging the readers to pass along what we learn to others-- tell others about it, leave a review, or make our own comics starring the characters. I'm happy to do just that. This comic book celebrates Black heroism, culture, humor, and pride in African heritage. We've got a hard-boiled police detective, cute fairy-like beings for kids, adventure stories, and even an attempt to reclaim, in the words of the original editor Orrin Cromwell Evans, the "almost lost humor of the lovable wandering Negro minstrel of the past." Sometimes it's jarring to modern readers, which is good -- the past was the worst and no one was perfect. The comics overall are fun, and it's sad knowing this was the only issue published. The essays included in this edition give the reader more context, and the bonus modern comics are a fun addition that reimagine the original works. I really want to suggest this to our library's Western graphic novel selector.
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Title: The 1960s: Maps For Curious Minds
Author: Gordon Kerr
Illustrator: Claire Rollet
Rating: 5/5
Published by The Experiment and available October 28, 2025, I had to read The 1960s: Maps for Curious Minds. The 1960s is my favorite modern decade, and I love maps. This is a colorful atlas of politics, culture, people, significant events, and science, and it's exactly the kind of book I would have poured over for hours in high school. Even though I'm familiar with the 1960s (even teaching about it in college), I learned a lot, especially about scientific advancements (something I don't know as much about as I do about the era's culture and politics)-- like did you know the first silicon breast implant was done in Michigan in 1962? I mention this not to brag about my experience, but to say I'm glad to see a book that doesn't just cover well-known facts that you can read anywhere, and this book is more than just "did you know about the Hippie movement?" This is a great resource for learning about the era, and I'm definitely going to recommend it to anyone even mildly interested. In fact, I'm going to recommend it to my dad, who lived through the '60s.
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Title: Before You Go Extinct
Author: Takashi Ushiroyato
Illustrator: Kanato Abiko
Rating: 4/5
Published by Kodansha and available October 7, 2025, Before You Go Extinct is the first manga I've reviewed in what feels like forever. This standalone volume is a meditation on life, death, and the pressures of being productive, and to reproduce. It's dark-- beginning with a penguin on a mission to kill other penguins before they go extinct in other ways. The duo that appears throughout the story are the same two souls, trying to come to terms with finality and annihilation through metempsychosis. The contrast of cute animals and the heartbreaking themes is... a lot. I do really appreciate how it tackles reproductive futurism, the belief that no matter what, having children is a good thing-- a message heavily promoted in Japan and increasingly in America, which is at odds with the material and social conditions our world faces today. I'm docking it a star just because I don't know who to recommend it to. Usually I can say who something would appeal to, but I'm not sure who that would be for this.
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Title: I Wanna Be Your Girl Vol. 2
Author/Illustrator: Umi Takase
Rating: 5/5
Published by Random House Children's Books and available November 4, 2025, this is the second volume of a series I gushed about in another review collection. I continue to be obsessed with this seinen series about a trans girl and her best friend, a cis girl. Akira and Hime are both adorable and Akira's story continues to hit me right in the feels, as we used to say, despite not being transfem myself. I really hope this series gains traction because it's an excellent story for kids to learn about the trans experience-- and it's also just a great high school story in general, about the ups and downs everyone faces at that age. In volume 2 we learn about what made Yukka quit track-- a girl she liked rejected her and made her feel like an outcast-- and we get more from Akira's perspective, including her father's only partial support. I definitely look forward to the final two volumes (it's a four-volume series) and want more people to read it.
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Title: The Art of Rumiko Takahashi: Colors 1978-2024
Author/Illustrator: Rumiko Takahashi
Rating: 5/5
Published by Viz Media and available September 30, 2025, Colors is a celebration of the work of one of manga's most beloved creators, Rumiko Takahashi. If you're an otaku, you've probably read or seen one of her series-- a remake of Ranma 1/2 is currently airing on Netflix, and InuYasha was a staple on Adult Swim back in the day. This artbook, comprised of pages from her manga, individual art pieces, sketches and storyboards is enhanced with Rumiko-sensei's commentary, giving the reader insight into her process in developing beloved series like Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, Mao, Maison Ikkoku, and InuYasha. It really feels like a friend showing you their sketchbook and I love it. Her art is so warm and cute but stylish, and she clearly loves her job and sees it as bringing joy to her readers. Even when it's a lot of work-- in the included interview, we learn that she draws eighteen six-panel pages every week. She's right when she says a manga artist needs to be strong. This book will be a welcome addition to any manga fan's collection, and I'm going to request my library gets it for the nonfiction section.
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Title: Nana 25th Anniversary Edition, Vol. 1
Author/Illustrator: Ai Yazawa
Rating: 3/5
Published by Viz Media and available October 21, 2025, the popular shoujo manga Nana is now being reprinted in omnibus form. This series follows two young women moving to Tokyo, both named Nana. The art is incredibly stylish-- the mangaka, Ai Yazawa, studied fashion design before becoming a manga author, and she crams so much detail and realism into her characters in every panel. I WISH I could draw clothes that look half as good as hers do. Story-wise, it's definitely a product of its time (late 90s-early 2000s), especially with Nana Komatsu's early attempts to date older men, and it's very straight. As someone who is literally the opposite of a straight college girl, I couldn't really relate myself to Nana Komatsu, though I liked the punk Nana Osaki more. The story may not appeal to me as much as it will to others, but I can tell it's well-written, and as I said the art is absolutely killer. Definitely read this if you're into fashion and complex emotional entanglements. I hope Ai-sensei, who put the series on hiatus back in 2009 due to her poor health, is doing better.
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Title: The Macabre
Author: Kosoko Jackson
Rating: 1/5
Published by Avon and Harper Voyager and available September 9, 2025 (yes I am aware I am very behind in my review writing, cut me some slack), The Macabre is a fantasy novel that caught my eye-- centered on art and with the British Museum as a major setting, I really expected to love it. Unfortunately it doesn't deliver and I ended up DNFing (did not finish) it six chapters in. While it's ostensibly set in the British Museum, somehow it never bothers to describe the place, or even mention any of its famous exhibits (the Rosetta Stone? Louis Chessmen? Elgin Marbles? What are those?) Even London gets described, laughably, as "[looking] like any city back home in the States" which makes me feel like the author doesn't know what London looks like. I've been to both many US cities AND London, and London does not look like Detroit or Chicago. For the topic of the book, magic artifacts, I was really expecting something like The Magnus Archives or even the SCP Foundation, but even the magic is pretty boring. It just reminds me of a problem I have with so many books-- the author can't be bothered to describe the world, and I can't be bothered to care.
