Currently reading
Soulless: The Manga Vol. 2 (The Parasol Protectorate Manga #2)
Asymmetry (Twelve Planets)
Mullumbimby Madness #1: Never Trust a Book with a Colour Cover
The Walking Dead, Vol. 18: What Comes After
Sunburnt Country
Bark at the Moon: Bert Rokey's Letters from the South Pacific, 1942-1945: How a Soldier and Sabetha, His Kansas Farm Community, Survived World War II
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Girl Defective
Midnight Blue-Light Special
My Policeman
Beauty Queens
Kitchen-sink-y fun, though definitely not for everyone. It's like Ben Elton meets Joanna Russ meets Lost meets Survivor ... with comic book villains and ticky-box intersectionality. Heavy on the stereotypes, subverting them here and there, though ultimately how successfully I'm not quite sure. Libba Bray sets out to lampoon every trope in the book, very consciously, with multiple breaks in the fourth wall. I liked the meta-ness of it all, but I realise that that sort of writing might not be to everyone's taste. I also really liked the switch. The book starts out looking like it's poking fun at beauty queens, a little uncomfortably so, but as time goes on you start to realise that it's saying that all of these femininity-maintenance fripperies are actually real skills that can be leveraged for survival, and that being a "girl's girl" doesn't mean that you're pointless or vacuous or useless.
