tailmon's reviews
70 reviews

Engaging read for the bird minded among us but totally useless as a full view of Audubon's life. Plain seems to rely almost entirely on Audubon's own accounts of his life but makes no mentions of his attitude towards or use of slavery. These aspects of Audubon's life have become more well known to the public only in the years since the publication of Plain's book, but that's no excuse for someone doing historical research on him. No one needs to be writing books like this anymore. 

To be "fair" I should give this book more time - it hasn't even become a horror novel yet, at all. But the trans male protagonist's narration is just so resentful of the trans female protagonist for being a largely happily transitioned trans girl. It does seem like this is his Character Flaw that he will be working through in the novel, but for me I just don't really want to read that right now. I'm not gripped enough by what the book seems to have to offer to slog through his character development.

Very nice and easy way to incorporate Cree language into storytime. Another one where children like looking at the animals.

Huge huge favourite of mine. So beautiful and funny to look at and the kids were having a great time looking at all the animals in each illustration. The way it just ends is so good, Forsythe is like a modern day Leo Lionni to me.

The grief bro. Very interesting and I think it would also be interesting to look at alongside Fuller's extinct birds book and think about all the birds that were not photographed. But we can see these guys. I like to see them. And I grieve.

I do feel there are some weird unforced racism errors in here like the language surrounding settlers hunting stuff to extinction vs. Indigenous Hawaiians "slaughtering" the mamo... It is a book with good information on extinct animals but it is a book written by a white British guy as well

Cute but pretty repetitive. This probably reads better as a monthly publication than in a volume. But I was happy to see later in the volume some more exploration of how they started dating, why they choose to keep it secret (homophobia but it can be a tossup as to whether homophobia exists in yuri world), and the developing direction of their relationship. Probably won’t keep reading. 

A real page turner, to start with.  I probably wouldn't have read this outside of school, but I was engaged enough that I am eager to read Heavenly Tyrant.  I like the Chrysalises a lot but it has the Voltron problem where when they power up they stop being a so cutes animal and become a guy (LAME!).  Some of the shifts in language between like formal old timey military stuff and modern teen lingo are a bit jarring but I think it could be engaging for said modern teens.

I have major problems with how Zetian's feminism is depicted - she seemingly holds perfect feminist viewpoints but it's not really clear how she got or maintained these views. It's not clear that she has ever had a positive relationship with a girl or woman other than her sister. This is a book that does not want its characters to be perfect people, and I can enjoy a protagonist who will do some torture, but I wish Zetian could be a little more flawed in this specific area. Seeks to remove some culpability from Li Shimin in the same way - like, it's okay if he's addicted to alcohol on his own and it's enough of a driving factor for him to be convinced to pilot, he didn't need to be tortured into alcohol addiction. It does serve the dual purpose of making us hate An Wushan more but IDK do something else.

The relationships between the three leads are strong and the ways they develop into romance are believable. I would like to see more about how same sex relationships are thought of in Huaxia and I would like to see some gay women show up in the future - that second part is nothing about the quality of this book I just would like to see it.

Lastly, I appreciate that this is a series and questions had to be left open, but why the fuck is it specified that Yang Guang murdered Ruyi outside of battle if that wasn't ever going to be addressed at all. 

Nothing much to say about this one man idk do you have any idea how many graphic novels I just read. Interesting subject matter and I like how it depicts various fat body types

Author was very committed to explaining dyslexia and ADHD and nonbinary identity to the youth and did so well but they forgot to make anything else happen in the book... Quickly grows tiresome. The world under the lake is a cool idea but nothing is done with it. 

Cute adult woman yuri :-) Love the earnestness with which they commit to being lesbians in a romantic relationship with each other. Not a priority for me to keep reading but I might one day. I can't remember her name but the character who steals their scooter by accident is really hot, I hope she's gay too