I would straight up come to blows with anyone over my assertion that this is Carol Shields' very best work. Book three of my student's guided study reading list.

Another one from my guided study student. This is the book that introduced me to Michael Winter's writing, and the love affair is still going strong over a decade later. It's an experimental novel and a fictional-but-maybe-not-really memoir set among a group of artists and layabouts in St. John's, NFLD. Gabriel English is a nonfunctional adult, and this is his story. By times funny and infuriating, it's a worthy read.

Hey Litsy friends. Guess what?

Finished this one (fourth started, sixth finished of my #24in48 while out catching Pokemon. I loved this as much as BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME. Coates is a masterful storyteller and this book, which focuses on his growing up and his relationship with his father, is funny and moving, political and assertive, and ultimately hopeful and exhilarating. Strongly recommend.

THIS BOOK WAS THE BEST. A contemporary realist YA novel with a diverse cast, a female protagonist, and no love story! YOU GUYS. I really loved Montgomery Sole and her family and friends, and I especially loved her fast tongue and sometimes quick temper. My favourite YA of 2016, maybe? So great!

I really liked the setting and some of the character work here, but the art didn't click with me like I hoped it would. I think it's the opposite of my issue with Adrian Tomine! So maybe I'm just picky. But the narrative is really good and I definitely think it's worth your time to check out and see if it resonates. And it's always a pleasure to read a comic set outside North America / Europe. (This was #24in48 book five.)

Um. I just finished a Star Wars story that included (a) a gender non-binary character, (b) a same-sex romance, and (c) almost all the major decision-makers as female characters. And even some of the droids were woman-identifying! You guys. I cannot even. My nerd heart grew ten sizes tonight. (Also, this is my third completed book for the #24in48, and I'm off to bed.)

Don't get me wrong -- this is a beautiful comic and Tomine is a master of the form. But. Like. I don't know. Would it kill him to create a remotely likeable character? Sigh. Anyway, this was book two of my #24in48, and its worth reading. But yeah. It's a downer. Tomine's male characters feel so entitled to the affections of hot women. And his female characters don't feel authentic to me. I dunno. It's not you, Tomine. It's me.

First read of my #24in48: Such a good, harrowing memoir about a girl who finds herself hitch-hiking across Canada at eight years old, dropping out of school in grade eight, and joining a charismatic cult in the guise of the communist party before the age of eighteen. Her free-range childhood and the culture of silence about hardship in which she was raised leaves her susceptible to poor choices and waiting predators. Such a compelling read.

Current listen. It's so good, folks. Where BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME is about Coates and his son, this book is about Coates and his father and the myriad ways his father tried to lift his children out of poverty and teach them the power and truth of the Black experience in America. The narrator is great and I'm loving the stories so far.

Just started a directed study with a student, and this was our first read. Rereading it was such a pleasure -- it's a real masterpiece of YA trauma literature and one of my favourite works of Indigenous literature of all time. It deals with the legacy of residential schooling, internalized racism, sexual abuse, and violence. It's also funny and weird and dark and mesmerizing. You need to read this book. You will not regret it.

Perfect summer read: gripping, thrilling, and heartbreaking. It deserves all the hype and praise it got when it came out! It's been sitting on my ereader forever and I'm so glad I finally plunged headlong into it. Highly recommended for holiday reading.

This was a wonderful book about two deeply star-crossed lovers that deals with themes of immigration, multiculturalism, what is means to be "illegal," and what it means to be American. Like a deeper, more nuanced ELEANOR AND PARK. Loved these characters so profoundly.

Ok, breaking the rules with a PSA: have you noticed your iCloud is full since joining Litsy? Check your backups in Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > iPhone. My Litsy backup was 1.5 GB!!! I deleted it because surely all that material is connected to my Litsy account, yes? Happy iCloud!

Finally starting the book recommended to me at the last Read Harder meet up. Which is good timing since we're meeting again tomorrow. Hashtag oops.

On the other hand, this book was a joy forever. What a gift to read a book about mental illness that that doesn't equate resolution with cure. A sad but smart and funny -- and ultimately uplifting -- YA novel that demands true, complex, and nuanced empathy from the reader. A real triumph.

Took a long time to finish this particular hate-read, I'm afraid. I really liked her first book but this... Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The LGBTQ characters are not well-considered and the tone is didactic and cringey. I can't recommend this to anyone. Two thumbs down.

I'm at the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities this week and I'm breaking all the Litsy rules just to show you this book room. Look at all those academic publishers waiting to take all my money.

A pedicure before Congress and, actually, a wee bit of a hate read. I really enjoyed her first book, but the reviews of this one have been bad for a reason. It deals with transgender issues, and Harrison is not the most nuanced writer. Problematic doesn't begin...

The sponsor for tonight's Read Harder meeting in Vancouver! The pitch is "Heathers meets the Exorcist" and I cannot wait to read it.

Rereading this because I'm giving a conference paper on it very soon! Great comic for lovers of good post-apocalyptic storytelling, American bad guys, and plucky Canadian underdog heroes. In other words: my comics wheelhouse. I'll be talking about coding Canadianness in comics at Congress best week.

Me: "Ok, self. We're picking up the library book holds and then it's straight back home to work."
Me: "Wait, how did I get to this Starbucks."

This book is too irresistible, as it turns out.

I identify strongly with any protagonist who hates Batman, because he is the worst. But this comic is great without that perk. Like Lumberjanes set in the DC universe. Finally, a DC title that doesn't make my skin crawl! It's been too long.

I really love literary family memoir as a genre, especially when it explore how families cope with trauma. I'm just starting this one, where Forhan tries to come to terms with his father's suicide. The book opens with Forhan's father dangling him from Seattle's Space Needle. From that image, I'm in.

Aw yisssss. Talk about genre kryptonite. My appetite for Scientology memoirs is quite literally boundless. Tucking in to bed with this one on my iPad. Will I sleep?

Literally cannot stop laughing.

Another book I'm thinking about for that review. Short stories by a Métis author this time. Also very promising.

Have been asked to consider this book for an omnibus review I'm working on. It's very, very promising. The protagonist was removed from her indigenous community as part of the Sixties Scoop, an act of cultural genocide Canada is still coming to terms with.

Really enjoyed this autobiographical comic about moving cross-country for the first time and slowly coming to terms with adulthood -- and alcoholism. Wertz's cityscapes are particularly noteworthy. Highly recommended!

Something about this never clicked with me. The stories are cute enough and I usually love memoir, but the absence of anything really happening in this book made it hard for me to invest. The art didn't grip me, either. Not a bad book by any means, and a novel perspective, but not for me.

A powerful memoir about the tragedy of conversion therapy and unlicensed "residential treatment centres" that are really just abusive torture by another name. Alex's story will inspire you to be one tenth the amazing human she is, and the support she finds will restore your faith in human kindness.

This book broke me in half and then put me back together again. I inhaled the whole thing in three hours. Johnston is a generous, nuanced, delicate voice in YA trauma lit and this is an exquisite novel. I didn't even know it was Canadian before I started, and references to my alma mater abound.

Challenging, ambitious. I'm glad Chester Brown exists. Like PAYING FOR IT and LOUIS RIEL, this comic upends expectations of the very form. But Brown's argument is biased by his need for spiritual acceptance of his life as a john, and even as someone politically pro-sex work it's wildly unconvincing.

Recommended for true crime fans, but also a surprisingly beautiful meditation on one man's relationships to work and to the concept of justice. Jensen's father is the protagonist of this story as the detective who put the Green River Killer away. As a result, the book is also about fathers and sons.

Oh, hello there, wheelhouse.

What a great read with a blistering cliffhanger. Very Y: The Last Man meets Lumberjanes. Funny and smart and creepy and suspenseful. Pairs well with champagne-flavoured gummy bears, too (no, seriously).

Appropriate Easter Monday reading is appropriate.

Rereading one of the most formally significant comics in the history of Canadian comics for a journal article I'm revising. If you haven't yet encountered RED, you really must.

You guys. I never DNF. Ever. But this? This was legit boring. I'm so, so disappointed.

I am embarrassingly late to this party!

You guys, did you know my bae wrote a book?

This book is incredible. Klebold tells her story as the mother to a Columbine killer, asking we reframe our understanding of murder-suicides as suicides first. Because it's the willingness to die that causes horror, and that can be intervened upon.

Hold your breath, guys. I'm going in.

Oh, I really enjoyed this. John Lewis has had a remarkable life as a Civil Rights activist, and Book One is just the beginning. I strongly recommend this -- the story is fascinating and the art deeply compelling.

Ok, it's possible I'm an asshole, but this comic about a sweetly perfect couple is soooooooo boring. There's no conflict. It's just a series of vignettes of adorable perfection. It was too twee for me -- which says a lot. Get Prince's TOMBOY instead.

Reviewing this masterpiece for work today -- an unexpected pleasure in a day I thought would be pretty boring. Another way books fix everything. (Also you should definitely read this play. And everything Highway has ever written.)

Oh hello, new old friend.

NorWesCon panel prep is underway! I'll be talking comics and feminism and fandom and representation in Seattle over Easter. Very excited for the Bitch Planet panel I'll be on, among others!

(The tag is wrong -- this is GIANT DAYS Vol 1 [#1-4] and you can get it on Comixology right now for $2.99.) A few pages of comics in bed before the day gets rolling. Love the art here, but not sure if I'm sold on the voice and characterization. Hm.