Galaxy: The Prettiest Star by Jadzia Axelrod

 
Galaxy: The Prettiest Star by Jadzia Axelrod

My Rating: ★★★★★

I received a copy from DC Comics through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Taylor Barzelay is just your average teenager. They have their loving family, best friend, and life as a basketball star in a small town high school. The only problem is that Taylor is actually the Galaxy Crowned, and has been forced to live in disguise as a teenage human boy with a fake family. She lives in fear of being discovered by the people searching the galaxy for her, but she’s far more miserable being forced to live as a boy and not recognize any part of herself every single day. Everything changes when Kat enters the picture, making Taylor feel daring enough to reveal who she really is and start to live for the first time in years.

I absolutely loved reading this. We follow Taylor, the Galaxy Crowned from Cyandii, as they are forced to live in hiding. Every single day is one long and miserable adventure where she doesn’t recognize any part of herself or who she is because she’s been forced to live in disguise as a teenage boy or risk being found. Everything is perfect on the surface while a big chunk of misery behind the mask she’s forced to wear.

Watching Taylor find herself and the confidence to risk it all to at least recognize the person she is behind the disguise she’s been forced to live was absolutely wonderful. While it was hard to watch the fallout she experiences from the town, I loved the story and the characters, especially Taylor and Kat. I hope to see more come out from this story because I don’t think this is the end of Taylor, so it’d be very exciting to see how her story continues to develop in the event the story gets a chance to expand. It would also be interesting to learn more about Cyandii, especially since what we learn throughout the story is rather interesting as it is.

Rivers of London Graphic Novels 1-8 by Ben Aaronovitch

 
Rivers of London Graphic Novels 1-8 by Ben Aaronovitch

My Rating: ★★★★

After accidentally starting the graphic novel series on the most recent volume, I decided to check out the rest of the series. We mainly follow Peter Grant and Thomas Nightingale as they investigate a series of strange and supernatural cases. The cases they investigate range anywhere from homicidal cars to supernatural mold. From what I’ve gathered, these graphic novels are spin-offs from the main series, which I plan on checking out. I can say that one can read and enjoy these graphic novels without having read the other books before, since I had no problem following the plot lines and enjoying the books. It also turns out I read one of the books some years ago, as I discovered when I got a few pages into it and remembered the story. It didn’t hurt to reread it, though, as I enjoyed it the first time around!

All in all, I’ve been enjoying these graphic novels and plan to start the main series at some point in the near future. It’ll be interesting to see how this graphic novel series fits into the main series, as some of these are clearly connected to an ongoing story. However, every one of these eight books I read are able to stand on their own without confusion, and I’ve been enjoying following this great cast of characters and some of their more interesting investigations.

Super-Scary Mochimochi: 20+ Cute and Creepy Creatures to Knit by Anna Kathleen Hrachovec

 
Super-Scary Mochimochi: 20+ Cute and Creepy Creatures to Knit by Anna Kathleen Hrachovec
My Rating: ★★★★★

I’m a huge fan of all of Anna’s pattern books, so I was very excited to finally get this Halloween inspired one! All of the books are beginner friendly, but this one has the most explanatory techniques section I’ve seen in any knitting pattern book I’ve read. I’ve always had problems doing the mattress stitch, with written and video instructions, but I finally completely understood the mattress instructions in this book. Between the instructions and the specific photos they choose to go with them, it finally clicked!

Inside, you will find 20 spooky and fun patterns with very easy to understand instructions. The Bitty Witches and Killer Bees are among my favorites in the book, but I also really liked that there’s a functional pattern in this one: Flatso. I may have to make this for my iPad! I also really like that one of the patterns is reversible, especially since I love reversible stuffed animals. The back of the book has a whole section on making your own mix and match monsters, which encourages people to do their own thing and have fun with all the different pieces one can make and add to their monsters. It’s great that this also encourages new knitters not to worry about things such as symmetry! All in all, it’s a great book and I’m really excited to finally have it in my collection.

Rivers Of London: Deadly Ever After (Rivers of London Graphic Novels #10) by Ben Aaronovitch

 
Rivers Of London: Deadly Ever After by Ben Aaronovitch

My Rating: ★★★★★

I received a copy from Titan Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When a series of fairytale inspired illustrations painted in the late 1800s start coming to life, all hell breaks loose. The longer Olympia and Chelsea look into the different people affected, the more they realize it’s all connected to a certain tree in the forest. Unfortunately for them, that tree is the same one that the pair revealed by breaking the enchantment that once kept it hidden and safely tucked away!

We follow Olympia and Chelsea, the twin daughters of Mama Thames, as they accidentally push over the first domino leading to a series of crazy events that slowly mimic the illustrations of an artist from the late 1800s. It was fun to watch these two characters accidentally cause some shenanigans because they weren’t thinking about the possible consequences of their actions. It turns out that revealing a tree hidden by magic, and breaking any possible boundaries that was part of that, took them on a major learning curve.

All in all, I really enjoyed the characters, the story, and the artwork. Every once in a while, I accidentally start a series with a random book that is not the series opener. I can tell you that this book stands up very well on its own because I didn’t realize it wasn’t the first in a series until it mentioned that a fan favorite was about to appear. I took a look and discovered it’s actually the tenth installment in the series! I liked the story a lot, so I’m checking out the rest of the series and plan on eventually rereading this installment in context since there’s several books that came before it.

Amari and the Night Brothers (Supernatural Investigations #1) by B.B. Alston

 
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

My Rating: ★★★★★

When Amari’s older brother goes missing, there isn’t much for investigators to go on. Between no one but her and her mom taking his disappearance seriously and constantly being bullied at school, Amari feels lonelier than ever. Things only get worse when her scholarship is revoked after standing up to a bully. Amari isn’t sure how anything could get worse, but then a mysterious person appears at her door claiming Quinten left a briefcase that will only open for her. It turns out that Quinten’s secret job was far more secret than Amari could have ever imagined, and he nominated her for the summer tryouts at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs in the case of his disappearance. Now Amari finds herself with the same type of rich bullies, but in a supernatural setting, and she’s determined to ignore them and find her brother.

This book is absolutely wonderful. We follow Amari Peters shortly after her scholarship is revoked for standing up to one of her bullies. I felt so bad for her because she was never welcome at her school due to being a kid from the projects surrounded by nothing but rich kids who don’t like her not only for existing, but also for daring to attend their school. Just when she’s at her lowest, it turns out that she’s about to enter a world she never knew existed, and it’s a supernatural one at that. Along the way, we see her become best friends with her weredragon  roommate, Elsie. We watch her become close friends with a kid from the Van Helsing family while the rest of his family, and most of the other kids at the summer tryouts, despise her. We watch Amari learn to trust and believe in herself despite what other people say or believe because she knows who she is and that she’s worth far more than what people who look down on her think.

The supernatural world created in this book is an interesting one. I really enjoyed learning about this whole new world that Amari has stepped into as she learns about it herself. It was so interesting to see different myths and cryptids come to life in new ways as the story continued. Plus, there is such a great cast of characters. Amari, Elsie, Agent Fiona, and Dylan are among my favorite characters. Plus, there’s so many twists and turns along the way that I truly did not see one twist coming until a few chapters before it happened. The hints were there, and I probably should’ve expected it, but I still didn’t see it coming!

All in all, this is an absolutely wonderful read and I’m glad that one of my friends had asked me if I had read it or it’d probably be a while longer before I discovered this book. I’m excited to pick up the next book and see where Amari’s story heads next!