What can I say, I requested a lot of books this year. Most of my posts are going to be review collections for a while, though I do have some actual posts about other topics planned.
I received free ARCs from NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for a fair review.
Title: Tune In to the Midnight Heart Vol. 1
Author/Illustrator: Masakumi Igarashi
Rating: 2.5/5
Published by Kodansha and available May 6, 2025, Tune In to the Midnight Heart pinged my interest in broadcasting. This new series follows Arisu, a high schooler looking for the girl behind the voice of his favorite livestreamer-- who he has tracked down to the school's broadcasting club. Which happens to be made up of four cute girls, each with a different broadcasting career goal. This setup of a guy and multiple girls is called a harem manga and it's definitely not for everyone. While I'm ambivalent about it, today I'm just here for the broadcasting. This will however appeal to fans of cute girls, dumb boys, and the interpersonal drama that comes between them. It will also resonate, I think, with anyone who has felt touched by a voice over the air, so I will keep reading.
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Title: Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons II - Sons of Giants
Author: Frank Tieri
Illustrator: Inaki Miranda
Rating: 5/5
Published by IDW Publishing and available May 20, 2025, Sons of Giants is a follow-up to 2024's series Here There Be Dragons that put Godzilla in the Elizabethan era. I absolutely love the IDW comics that recontextualize Godzilla, and the historical settings for this collection are very fun. This volume expands the lore of a secret society dedicated to the kaiju, as well as what roles the kaiju themselves have played throughout history. Grendel from Beowulf was actually Hedorah, Mothra parted the Red Sea for Moses, and Alexander Hamilton was assassinated by the kaiju society led by Thomas Jefferson. This series is so much fun and will appeal to fans of the Monsterverse and the National Treasure series.
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Title: When Devils Sing
Author: Xan Kaur
Rating: 5/5
Published by Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and available May 27, 2025, When Devils Sing was super exciting. A Southern Gothic novel about Faustian bargains, local folklore, and true crime podcasting? This is literally everything I love. I was a bit worried because the last demon-themed ARC I read was not very good (Below the Grand Hotel) but this was fantastic. A local teen goes missing and four other teens begin investigating. I'm trying to avoid spoilers since it's definitely worth reading, but I can say that the disappearance has to do with the local legend of three devils-- a legend that's integrated into the story very well and actually feels real to the reader. It's nice to see a young adult Southern Gothic horror novel, especially one with a diverse cast and an interesting twist on Faustian bargains and the creepiness inherent in local legend. My one wish is that the book would address how the folklore of the three devils and the cicadas would be affected by traditional Southern Christianity, though I suppose it isn't that important for a YA novel. It's still an amazing book and I'm really impressed and will be recommending it to fans of horror and Southern regional literature.
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Title: Search and Destroy, Vol. 2
Author/Illustrator: Atsushi Kaneko, based on work by Osamu Tezuka
Rating: 3/5
Published by Fantagraphics Books and available June 3, 2025, Search and Destroy is a retelling of Osamu Tezuka's series Dororo that reimagines the samurai story in a Soviet-tinged cyberpunk dystopia. The story follows Hyaku, a girl in this version, searching for her stolen 48 body parts in a Blade Runner-like world divided into humans (called hyoos) and androids (called creatures or kreaches). I think Tezuka would be impressed with this work-- he often recontextualized existing works, like in his Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island, after Robert Louis Stevenson) and One Hundred Tales (based on Goethe's Faust). There are two things that keep it from rating higher with me-- first, the art, while expressive, is sometimes overwhelming and hard to parse (a problem I have with a lot of action manga, so it may be caused by my bad eyesight)-- and second, the slang terms hyoo and kreach are hard to take seriously. Other than those complaints, I think this will appeal to fans of cyberpunk, works like Akria, and fans of Tezuka. Since the series has just one more forthcoming volume, I'm considering getting it for my library's collection as a good short series.
Author: Phil Melanson
Rating: 4.5/5
Published by W. W. Norton & Company and available June 10, 2025, this debut novel immediately caught my attention-- I love historical fiction, especially about historical figures, and even more especially when it has a queer theme. This book follows three men in Renaissance Florence-- Lorenzo di Medici, Francesco Salviati (who you may remember from Assassin's Creed II), and Leonardo da Vinci. Many people have theorized that da Vinci was gay, and he's portrayed as such in this book. They're joined by a cast of characters so complex that the author has wisely included a list. All the historical figures and their intrigues remind me of Maurice Duron's Accursed Kings, and as that's one of my favorites, it's high praise. If you enjoy novels with a lot of historical detail, and the history of art and queerness, this is your book. It's great to see a book that demonstrates that we've always been here, regardless of how accepting society was. My only issues with this book are with the writing itself. It's written in present tense, which doesn't fit how sprawling the book is-- it's not a fast-paced action story, where present tense would be better suited. The author also often forgets to mention who the new point of view character is until well after the new chapter has begun, making it difficult to differentiate between the characters other than da Vinci. Technical complaints aside, this is really a great book and I'm going to ask our fiction selector to order it for our library. Happy Pride Month.
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