Noah's Updates en-US Thu, 03 Jul 2025 01:53:59 -0700 60 Noah's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Rating873702627 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 01:53:59 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah liked a userstatus]]> /
Noah liked Matthew Elliot's status update
Matthew Elliot
Matthew Elliot is on page 146 of 388 of The Staircase in the Woods: Okay so now we are talking, this is fun.
]]> Rating873694763 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 01:02:12 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah liked a review]]> /
Noah liked rayhanah's review of White Sand, Volume 1 (White Sand, #1):
White Sand, Volume 1 by Brandon Sanderson
"i love sanderson but this just felt like a badly plagiarized version of Dune."
]]> Rating873694746 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 01:02:09 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah liked a review]]> /
Noah liked Laura Lou's review of Zero Pucks (Punk as Puck #1):
Zero Pucks by E.M. Lindsey
"Zero Pucks is book one in the Punk As Puck series. This MM strangers to lovers para-hockey romance story is about Tucker and Amedeo.

Tucker is a sled hockey player and coaches peewee hockey. Amedeo is an IT nerd working for an accounting firm. Tucker and Amedeo met at a bar in Vegas, got blackout drunk, and ended up married. A couple weeks later, they meet to see if they can remember what happened that night and try to straighten it all out.

Tucker and Amedeo were both flawed and had their struggles. Tucker didn’t have a good relationship with his twin brother. He made a bad decision that changed his life. We see the challenges Tucker faces from the accident that took both of his legs and a decent percentage of his usable vision. As for Amedeo, he was dealing with anxiety and a very toxic ex-boyfriend.

I have to say it took me some time to get into their story, and I wasn’t the biggest fan of Tucker. And although I enjoyed their found family, for me it seemed as though too much time was spent on Tucker’s friends. I needed more from Tucker and Amedeo, especially since I had a hard time feeling their connection. In the end, I was happy Tucker and Amedeo found love and acceptance.
"
]]> Rating873694731 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 01:02:05 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah liked a userstatus]]> /
Noah liked Bea27x's status update
Bea27x
Bea27x is starting Dawnbringer: 1.I re looked through the first 2 books and I'm ready
2.concentratio needed (thanks years of Doctor Who for preparing me),this series has time travel, alternative futures and variants of the same character from different points in time
3.I know it'll be a 5 stars, the first 2 were, lot set up stuff is about to converge,and I follow the author on Patreon so 2/3 years ago I read a chunk of the beta beta beta version
]]> Review7683866367 Tue, 01 Jul 2025 20:29:29 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah added 'Murder in the Rough']]> /review/show/7683866367 Murder in the Rough by Chase Connor Noah gave 3 stars to Murder in the Rough (Head Rock Harbor Mystery #2) by Chase Connor
bookshelves: contemporary, mystery, lgbt
See, it's hard to confess, but I miss all the time we spent / I can't explain / 'Cause when I start up the nerve to reach out to you, baby / It just floats away (6AM – Fitz & The Tantrums).

Hey there, I’ve got a question. Can books that are “just okay” also count as palate cleansers? Because that’s what Murder in the Rough was for me, and after reading so many good books in a row to the point where my brain’s basically turned to mush, I kind of needed it. So the thing is, I just finished The White Lotus recently and while I loved it, I still haven’t jumped right into the next “must watch” show on my list (Interview With the Vampire or The Bear) yet because I always need a bit of a buffer zone in between so I’m able to collect my thoughts properly. Hopefully that makes sense, sometimes it's nice to read stuff that aren't literary masterpieces, you know? It’s like the Charli XCX and Lorde performance where they were both off-key and off-beat, and yet the performance is still considered iconic because of such imperfections. Not trying to throw shade, I promise! Anyway, even though this book started out pretty strong, with engaging writing and an intriguing set-up, I noticed my interest waned the longer I was reading it! There would be entire chapters where it’d just be going into in-depth detail of Jackson getting dinner, playing with his cat, or writing his book. Sure, I enjoy a "slice-of-life" thing every now and then, but after a while, I couldn’t help but wonder when things were going to pick up! It almost felt like an editorial at several points, and while it was interesting to hear Jackson's thoughts, it still felt aimless. I know I went on and on about how A Light in the Darkness by Crystal D. Budy was special because it wasn’t a strict, by-the-books mystery, but the difference there was that the main character was at least proactive and interested in looking into the death of the victim. Here it felt like Jackson could barely be bothered to do anything, let alone solve a murder! Every time he’d start questioning people he’d then immediately start crying for several paragraphs afterwards about how awful and invasive he felt. Sorry, but you’re a mystery book protagonist, get with the program dude. What’s not clicking!? But I’m probably just nitpicking at this point, because the truth is that it actually doesn't take much for the wind to go out of my sails, and I can turn on a story on a dime if there’s even one tiny thing I’m not feeling anymore. For example, you know that new James Gunn Superman movie coming out soon? Well, I’ve been pretty excited to watch it for a while now, but now I'm thinking I'll probably wait for it to hit streaming because of a preview clip that released on Jimmy Fallon and it’s literally just Superman yelling like a tantrum throwing child in a supermarket? It totally killed any and all interest I’ve once had for the movie! I know it’s James Gunn’s thing to always have his actors talking really quietly and then all of a sudden start yelling really loudly, but I’ve never really been a fan of equating “good acting” to whomever can scream the loudest in a scene. Like, just Rhea Seehorn’s acting while speaking at a normal decibel throughout the entirety of Better Call Saul is a hell of a lot more impressive to me than Leonardo DiCaprio’s big ass head trying his hardest to win an Oscar while crawling and screaming through the mud in The Revenant. Anyway, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Sure, Murder in the Rough held my interest, but not necessarily my excitement.

Hi again, here's another question. Why is it that every gay mystery I read has a cop love-interest? I mean, people can write what they want, but it’s getting to the point where I basically give a book a full letter grade higher if there’s no cop boyfriend in sight. Now don’t fact check me on this, but my understanding is that the mystery genre only started featuring law enforcement as the driving force behind the narrative when the noir genre came around and became super popular, because before that, with Sherlock Holmes and the like, the cops were typically portrayed as incompetent and uninterested and hellbent on impeding the real detectives. Nowadays, it just seems like every time I turn on the T.V. there’s some cop show trying to find a clever new way to excuse human rights violations or something. I guess if anything, I'd say that Murder in the Rough is most similar to Brooklyn 99 in the sense that it examines the police through a "progressive lens. Remember that one scene where one of the main characters is bragging about this totally “badass ” device thing that they could now use to get some real police work done? Yeah well, the funny thing is that the weapon she was so proud of was actually used in real life to terrorize protestors. Which is bad, actually. But nah, by the show's logic it’s totally fine because the character who said it was bisexual. And look, “let people enjoy things,” “It’s not that deep,” blah blah blah whatever, I’m just saying that sometimes it’s important to look a little closer and examine the reasoning behind why things are written the way they are. It's important to ask these questions, like why does every gay mystery book I come across feature a gay man in a relationship with a man works for a force that notoriously antagonizes queer folk? I don't know, it just feels insidious to me. Look, if I were to consult my Copoganda meter for a moment, where a 100% is no copaganda; I’d say that Murder in the Rough is at a 40%, all Josh Lanyon book are at 0%, and A Light in the Darkness by Crystal D. Budy at a 70%! Cool, isn’t math fun? All that aside, my other least favorite thing in a book is when you can tell the author has a crush on a certain character but then doesn’t do anything within the narrative to make them hot for the reader. Share with the class, please! Because from where I’m standing, Jeremy never evolved past being a tool who relies on Jackson to do all the work… all while never trusting him the entire way. Also, I just don’t think casual rudeness between very close friends plays well in a literary format, because Jackson and Jeremy felt like they could barely even stand to be in each other’s company for a conversation, let alone have been besties for forever. Jackson’s narration would even constantly introduce Jeremy as “my best friend Jeremy” because we’d probably otherwise forget that they’re supposedly into each other. Sorry, but they really didn’t have chemistry, what with their constant sniping at each other, distrust in each other’s motives, and (on Jeremy’s end), throwing the other under the bus when they’re worried about getting in trouble with their boss. Was it the author’s intent to create a “will-they-won’t-they” dynamic between a couple where nobody cares if they will or won’t? Because if so, great job author, you did it!

I guess the only question left to ask here is… why do I keep reading this series if I don’t really like the romance and the mysteries aren’t really anything to brag about either? Well you see, Jackson has a cute cat named Rattlesnatches, and I'm easy enough that a simple sampling of paragraphs interspersed throughout a book detailing the daily life of a black cat can easily sway me positively towards a book’s side. I mean, it's not like the cat has much in the way of competition when it comes to fun characters anyway. Well, maybe that’s not entirely fair, because while Jackson is a somewhat charming, somewhat bland blank-slate of a protagonist who has by-the-numbers sexual tension with the flighty failure of a detective, Jeremy, I still enjoyed the former’s backstory and the fraught dynamic between him and his mother. The book even touched on more“lesser” talked about topics around the gay experience™ like being the only out gay man in a small community and having people tokenize them in an attempt to look like an ally. The topic of allyship is generally a pretty sensitive one and since I’ve already filled my quota on sensitive topics with all that copaganda rambling up there, I’ll spare you the details my opinion on the matter. Just know that Jackson’s uncomfortable feelings surrounding being asked to plan the town’s Gay Pride Parade simply because he’s the only gay person who the mayor knows personally was especially well done. Because it’s like, yeah, Jackson knows deep down that these people have good intentions, but it still feels gross whenever people treat him as some kind of ambassador to a community that’s so diverse. Otherwise, isn't it odd how mystery authors always give the most chemistry to the characters that don't end up together? It sucks because even though reading through every Jackson and Jeremy romance scene is like eating cereal without any milk, we just have to roll with the punches. Well, to that point I’ve got to say that I think Jackson should have just hooked up with Sawyer on their fishing trip. Get it, "hooked?" ...Like a fishing hook. Anyway, it was immediately clear that Jackson had way more going on with Sawyer than with Jeremy (and he's not a cop), so I honestly would have liked this book a lot more if it hadn’t held on so tightly to their predetermined coupling. Jackson and Sawyer could have had something beautiful! I'm talking all around the clock, I'm talking hope nobody knocks, I'm talking opposite of soft, I'm talking wild, wild thoughts! Or you know, he could have also gone out with the weirdo coroner guy who couldn’t stop hinting that he wanted to jump on Jackson’s bones. You could say he had him dead to rights heh heh. Look, I’m just saying that I hate it when authors give the main character a bunch of options and then always pick the most boring one! Nonetheless, I did find this installment to be more engaging than the first book, and I probably would have finished it earlier if I hadn’t read, like, fifty volumes of this manga called Ascendance of a Bookworm. Which interestingly enough is another story featuring a main character whose biggest personality trait is that they love books, so you know, write what you know or whatever. So yeah, this book was alright, and even if I didn’t really feel the urgency necessary for a murder mystery or any magic between the two leads, I can’t deny the fact that the I enjoyed the punchy writing style enough to get me wanting to dive right into book three.

“The perpetually innocent and pathologically boring person often worries about their mentally fabricated guilt.” ]]> Review7686992599 Fri, 27 Jun 2025 10:02:52 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah added 'I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl Vol. 8']]> /review/show/7686992599 I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl Vol. 8 by Azusa Banjo Noah gave 4 stars to I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl Vol. 8 (Kindle Edition) by Azusa Banjo
bookshelves: romance, manga, lgbt, contemporary, comfort-food
I'm seeing colors that I've never seen before / I'm in my feeling, feelin', feelings I should ignore (Wallflower – UMI).

Okay, so let me just get this out of the way right here and now, I do not like the title of this manga and never have. Sorry, not to be all "let the record show," but I think it's silly in a way that does a disservice to how lovely this story really is. Sure, you’d think I’d be over it by now considering we’re already on volume eight, but just know that I've never gotten over anything in my entire life. I mean, I’m still salty over them discontinuing Honey Bunches of Oats: Just Bunches. So instead, I'm all “Every little thing that you say or do, I'm hung up, I'm hung up on you” about it. Well, I've somewhat learned how to live with disappointment, because I can't lie that it still has some of the most beautiful art I've ever seen in a manga and is also well equipped with a beautiful story, so you can't go wrong there! Besides, the naming convention is probably more of a cultural difference than anything, as I’ve noticed a lot of manga have those overly long and convoluted dissertation titles, but my biggest issue here is that the use of the phrase “turned into a girl” here kind of trivializes the subject matter and projects a somewhat uncomfortable precedent. The thing is, I wouldn’t even be talking about any of this if the manga sucked, because then I'd just rate it and move on no sweat, but I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl (I’m cringing right now) doesn't suck, it's actually good! Really good, even. So now I have to sit here and... oh, I don’t know, justify the reasoning behind my opinion that this was one of the best manga I’ve read all year. Foiled again! The story here is that other than of his cute childhood friend, Hiura, nobody knows about popular Mido's secret obsession for make-up and cosmetics and the like. While on the flip-side, having always been in love with Mido, Hiura then decides to use this insider knowledge to his advantage and starts cross-dressing and allowing Mido to do his make-up in an attempt to become as cute as he can possibly be and catch Mido's eye in the process. You know, as one does! Now, I’m sure you can already tell, but there's a strong trans allegory going on here, which is great, but seeing as Hiura is never referred to as a girl (even in his head), I don’t think it was the author's intention to write a “cracking the egg” narrative, but because this manga isn’t exploitative or too leery with its gaze, I still think that it can be interpreted as positive representation regardless. For example, when Hiura starts cross-dressing at school, nobody gives him any grief about it and even encourages his new interests. I’ve had issues with this particular genre in the past because they often have uncomfortable undertones saying that dressing in “girl’s clothing” is only acceptable as long as they “pass,” and it's otherwise played as a joke if they don't. What I loved so much about this manga is that its definition of “cute” evolves based solely on how happy Hiura is with his own appearance, no matter what he’s presenting as at the moment. Besides, unintentionally or not, there's a lovely message here proudly telling the world that clothing has no gender and that people can wear whatever they want forever and ever. How nice!

Otherwise, I especially related to Hiura because I’m a bit of a wallflower myself, so the way there’s an entire through line focused on him breaking out of his shell and becoming his true self through the sheer force of will of making an effort to change was really inspiring to me. There’s this game called Palia I've been into recently and I love it because it’s a farming game (which is one of my three interest according to my bio up there), but there’s also a multiplayer element where there’s a bunch of other players that you can see walking around the fantasy town while you farm, mine, or catch fish. It’s pretty fun, but then there are also certain aspects that require help from other people and every now and then, folks will try to get me to help them cut down super trees or catch super fish or whatever, and because there’s certain Palia etiquette that I’m not privy to, I never know if I'm being rude when I’m like, “Uh, I don’t really want talk to anyone right now, sorry!” I just want to chill! I mean, even on 카지노싸이트, I feel like an anti-social weirdo most of the time, and while I’m a good liker, commenting has always been a challenge. Or you know how there are so many different book groups? Yeah well, I never join them because if I did, then there’s a good chance that I’d just be in there going impassive mode like some kind of sphinx. I’d be on some Blair Witch Project type shit where I’d just stand in the corner all anti-social like. So yeah, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I frequently teared up at how every other character was so supportive of Hiura's journey, whether that be in his new fashion sense or his trying new things socially. I also related to him in the sense that I’ve never really been one to concern myself with a heightened idea of masculinity, and I’ve always been unmarred by the need to impress folks with any feats of manly strength. In fact, I used to love using my demure stature back in school to get people to carry heavy things or open lids for me because it’s like, hey, if you want to put up a front, then be my guest. Open that pickle jar, pickle boy! Otherwise, I hope that my gushing hasn't given anybody the idea that this is somehow the most transformative piece of work you'll ever read, because at the end of the day, it's first and foremost a cute romance manga. And yet in that regard, I truly believe that its narrative simplicity and proclivity towards being the sweetest pie actually did wonders in making this queer manga a bit more unique than a lot of the others that I have read over the years. The thing is, a lot of queer focused stories tend to dive head-first into the trauma pool, and in turn make it seem as if people can’t even conceive of a story about us that isn’t centered around our pain or how much everybody else hates us, so it’s really nothing short of a miracle that this manga is as heartwarming as it is. I'm just saying that there's room for both! You know how people often say “in a perfect world” and then trail off wistfully? Well not to get crazy, but reading this manga gave me an inside glimpse of said perfect world. As crystalized and true as can be.

Crystallizing truth, tryna find my way to you / Find my way to you, find my way to you /Ultraviolet rays, Seeing things are not the same / They're not the same, they're not the same. ]]> Review7443855376 Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:17:48 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah added 'A Light in the Darkness']]> /review/show/7443855376 A Light in the Darkness by Crystal D. Budy Noah gave 4 stars to A Light in the Darkness (Polaris Mysteries, #1) by Crystal D. Budy
bookshelves: contemporary, lgbt, romance, mystery, dual-or-multiple-pov
Oh, I like my boys playing hard to get / And I like my men all incompetent / And I swear they choose me, I'm not choosing them / Amen… hey, men! (Manchild – Sabrina Carpenter).

Woah man, what an amazing book, and I’m really not exaggerating when I tell you that I’ve never read a mystery quite like it. Nonetheless, if I had to play the “comparisons game,” then I’d say A Light in the Darkness fits more into the "non-mystery-mystery" category like The Clearwater Mysteries series by Jackson Marsh rather than something more traditional like those Miss Alice books. Instead of strictly focusing on the murder-y bits, this book fell more in line with the likes of the movie Young Adult, Haley's romance plot-line from Stardew Valley, and shared the "small-town-with-a-dark-secret" vibes from Life is Strange: True Colors. Sorry, whenever I’m excited about something, I basically just start referencing a bunch of things I also liked as if I were a non-stop, never-ending Ryan Reynolds joke. It's annoying, but I can’t help it! So yeah, this book was not only an exercise of the mind due to its clever mystery and surprising emotional complexities, but also an incredibly heart-wrenching tale detailing the slow progress of both learning self-worth and the courage to fight back against an ever encroaching wave of bigotry threatening to ruin your community. Now, I’ll admit I was pretty worried going into A Light in the Darkness because I had already been warned that the main character, Max's unlikable protagonist status made the book a bit of a slow burn… so I don’t know what it says about me that I absolutely adored him from the start. It's how I've always been; Toy Story 1’s version of Woody was always the one I enjoyed watching the most and Better Call Saul is my favorite show of all time despite it being chalk full of awful people, so I guess I kind of gravitate towards the selfish and jealous types. Oops, there I go again with the listing a bunch of things thing! Look, what I’m really trying to get at here is that characters who play fast and loose with their sense of morality always skyrocket right into my “favorites list” (it’s always evolving) because they're so fun to watch. So, when I think back to Max… sure, he’s a selfish brat who could grow up a little bit, yet I still found him to be an incredibly funny, smart, and engaging character to follow. And if nothing else, he was just a deep breath of fresh air against the ever growing pantheon of goody-two-shoe, do-gooders that populate the mystery genre. Okay, now let’s talk about the plot, yeah? After his mayor father lands himself in the hospital, thirty-two year-old runaway and con man(child) Maxwell Talbot finds himself forced right back to his estranged family and all the ghosts he left behind in the old small town he grew up in. See, even though he doesn’t know it yet, deep down Max is looking for a change and doesn’t want to bend it like Beckham for shitty dudes anymore and would much rather Benson Boone back-flip into the arms of a good man. I guess it’s good timing that while traveling down the old town road he reunites with his childhood crush and now bartender to the only queer bar for miles, Mike Carter. Need I say more? You know how the song goes, “Ooh, she made us drinks to drink, we drunk 'em, got drunk” and all that.

What then follows is a “best of both worlds” situation because this book has interesting mystery that not only works as a fun brain teaser, but is also closely linked to both Carter and Max, as it informs both of their character arcs to the highest degree. Let's be real, there's no doubt that a long-running mystery series can often start to feel a little distant by the seventh or eighth installment, and when the main character starts to become less emotionally involved in the mystery, then why shouldn't we? This is why I liked the first season of Only Murders in the Building (and only the first), because even though the only reason the characters start investigating a murder is because they're bored and want content for their podcast, the show slowly deconstructs this shallow mindset and forces the characters consider the murder victim as exactly what they are... a murder victim. A Light in the Darkness follows suit by following characters who become personally invested in the mystery even though the murder victim was a person who, by all accounts, doesn't deserve such consideration, thus allowing both Max and Carter to reevaluate the fact that at the end of the day, there really was a person who senselessly lost their life. Even if they hate the guy, his death is still something to take seriously. This book doesn't follow the usual run-of-the-mill mystery sequences where the detective feels weirdly detached from the murder with all loose ends being tied up nice and tidy by the end of the novel. Yeah, there's a realistic overlap and an intriguing set-up for the sequel, but it never read like Marvel movie post-credits slop, and instead felt like a natural conclusion to this novel while also leaving room for more to be explored. If anything, I'd have to say that this book has shades of a noir story, in that the mystery becomes an obsessive journey for our heroes with the small-town setting coming alive and becoming its own overpowering presence in the narrative. So yeah, while I think I made it clear that Max was one of the best mystery protagonist I’ve come across, Carter both compliments him and work wonderfully as his main foil. I thoroughly enjoyed was how he was portrayed as a simple, yet good person despite his constant struggle with his inner darkness. Being a victim of terrible bullying will do that to you, I guess. And even though there were moments where he’d dip his fingers a little too deep into the “therapy speak” pie that reminded me too closely of those terrible Hallmark Christmas movie… or The Last of Us season two, I still found his arc fascinating. Like, we all have dark thoughts that lead to hypothetical imagined violent scenarios, don’t we? I know I do! There’s this one recurring fantasy scenario (that would never happen, obviously) I've had where I’m being interviewed by Jimmy Fallon and I snap in anger after a grand total of two seconds of hearing his fake ass laugh. And after he does that thing where he puts his unwanted hand on my shoulder in a moment of false comradery, instead of letting his gnarled fingers touch me, I twist his arm backwards and give him a swift chop right to his exposed throat, incapacitating him and removing the threat. See, we all have trains of thoughts just like this, no? Hm, please tell me I’m not the only one who has a visceral hatred for Jimmy Fallon and/or Kimmel.

I mean, my daydreams aren't all violent! I have one where I'm giving a Ted Talk on all the subtle little nuances in the song, "I Really Like You" by Carly Rae Jepsen, so you know... we all contain multitudes or whatever. She says she knows it isn't love, so instead she "really, really, really" likes them! See, it's clever! On a serious note, I truly believe that the greatest strength to A Light in the Darkness is the fact that it doesn’t read like a tried-and-true murder mystery (and its biggest weakness being the title), and there were even moments of domesticity to Carter and Max's relationship that not only had me forgetting what kind of book I was reading, but also worked as a much needed reprieve to the otherwise almost overwhelmingly dark tone. When I was younger, I used to be obsessed with defining my interests with labels, and I couldn’t go a day without being all like, “I could never read a book that involves [blank]” about anything I'd pick up! But now as my taste in literature has steadily grown more varied over the years, I've started to realize the simple truth that I'll literally read anything as long as the writing is good. And yeah, I’m aware that saying that sounds like one of those overly pretentious, yet superficially hollow statements that you’d hear some actor say while everybody else responds with a "mm~mm" or a "yes~ss" on one of those “actors round table” things or an inane comment from that monotone tool who hosts the Hot Ones interviews, but in a time where every book gets distilled to their most base essentials and commodified down to a list of tropes; I really have come to appreciate stories that defy being boxed in. I’ve been watching a lot of The White Lotus (like, all three seasons in a very short amount of time and also... Murray Bartlett is insanely hot), and one of my favorite things about the show is that even though every seasons gives us a CSI type opening with a dead body being found and the rest of the story explaining how we got there, the show doesn't actually focus too much on the whole murder side of things. It’s more about how the seemingly tiny and minuscule choices we make in our treatment of others can lead to catastrophic results. Sheesh maybe I should go on “actors on actors,” I mean, I'm already sitting crossed-legged! But really though, as much as I love, love, love a classic mystery, the reason why this book took hold of me was because of its refusal to go the way a normal mystery would, and taking into account the fact that Max's morality ambiguity (what with his constant breaking the law, sneaking into every building like he leveled lock-picking up to a hundred), the character's development working in tandem with the narrative rather than simply moving parallel to it, and the lack of any sort of copaganda, I’m really not exaggerating when I tell you that this book is in a league of its own! Anyway, even though it's possible that I’m like this because I'm coming down from the "just-finished-a-good-book" high, I'm feeling that this feeling will stay with me for a long, long while. A Light in the Darkness is a true mystery, sure, but what makes it stand tall above all the rest is its relentless pursuit of strong character writing that adorns the overall mystery rather than halts it. Let me reiterate, this is a wonderful book. Amazing, even.

“Home. Aw.” Max grinned. “I’m growing on you.”
“Fungus does that.” ]]> Review7668013071 Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:41:22 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah added 'Overwatch: New Blood #5']]> /review/show/7668013071 Overwatch by Ray Fawkes Noah gave 4 stars to Overwatch: New Blood #5 (Kindle Edition) by Ray Fawkes
bookshelves: graphic-novels-or-comics-or-art, pretty-cover
Hard-luck woman, bad-luck man / Headed eastbound soon as I can / Oh sister dear, won’t you take me by the hand? / And you can lead us all the way to the promise land (Look Out Mama – Hurray for the Riff Raff).

Well now, I think we’ve reached the point where my desperate need to catalogue literally every single thing I read is starting to bite me in the ass. Because sure, I’ll shamelessly read, log, and then write a review for something called Daddy's Adorable Assassin (stay tuned for whenever I read that book, I guess), but letting people know that I still like Overwatch!? Now that’s truly an embarrassing thought! For those who aren’t in the know, Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer video game where you capture objectives with a team comprised of heroes that fill different roles like “tanks,” “dps,” and “healers.” To this day, the game play loop is pretty addictive (hence, why I still play it), but what really captured people’s hearts back in the day was the intricate lore behind every character that was often showcased through their Pixar level animated shorts that blended a lovely sense of whimsy with sheer hopefulness. Seriously, they’re all great and still on YouTube, so give them a watch if you want! Man, I still remember scouring the different maps in game for any tiny morsel of lore about each character and looking up discussion boards rife with speculation and hints on the next hero and what their story will be. What a time! But there’s no doubt about it that I’ve since noticed a severe drop in goodwill towards the game due in now small part to the game directors all but abandoning the story side of things and instead focusing on selling obscenely expensive in-game outfits that you can buy for the characters. Mind you, it’s a first-person video game, so you wouldn’t be able to see shit anyway! It's like, if I give Juno a Chun-li outfit, then what? I mean, I guess it’s hard to tell a serious story for a video game that lets you dress its characters in K-Pop outfits and Avatar: the Last Airbender cosplay so you can see why they don't even try at this point. So yeah, the general aimlessness is just one of the several pretty good reasons for why people are mad, because despite Overwatch having all these different characters with a wealth of depth to their backstories, I still couldn’t tell you where we’re at in the story at this point. I’ll try to wrap my head around it anyway. The story of Overwatch goes that decades past there was a Terminator-esque war against machines called Omnics and a widespread organization known as Overwatch was the only one capable of repelling them. Even with the worst of the war over, as these things tend happen, Overwatch grew more and more corrupt as they amassed more and more power, thus eventually leading to their downfall. Present day comes and it turns out that the world is no better than before, with each story tidbit released chronicling a call-to-action for different characters in the lead-up to their joining of the newly reformed Overwatch. Ann~nnd… that’s it, we're all caught up now. This is a ten year-old game that hasn’t had any forward momentum since it came out. That's like a book with only one chapter! They had all this set-up, all this promise, and haven’t done anything with a property that everyone loved, delegating all the story into side comics that, let's be real, barely anybody reads. I guess that’s my way of introducing this comic run, Overwatch: New Blood, which I consider a good comic in the sense that it at least breaks the Groundhog day loop and moves us forward in time. Even if it’s just tiny baby-steps.

Sure, New Blood is telling a story that we would ideally get from the main game where most the fans are, but you take what you can get. I guess. We start barely past where the game ended up with former Overwatch member and 2070’s cowboy man Cassidy going around the world Nick Fury style and recruiting the titular new blood onto the team. We've got all the favorites with Baptiste, Zarya, Pharah, and D.va. I can’t lie, I’m so used to seeing all of them as the “mascot,” caricature versions of themselves that we see in game that seeing them be given actual depth with consistent characterization helped serve as a reminder that there used to be a team of dedicated writers behind these fun characters. There was a soul! So yeah, the truth is that if you don’t know anything about Overwatch, then there’s a good chance you’ll probably walk out of this New Blood run thinking it was totally redundant and repetitive, and to that I’ve got to say that… yeah, that’s fair. Each comic goes like this: Cassidy meet the person on the cover, they have reservations about joining up with him, a bunch of bad guys attack them, they work surprisingly well together repelling the evil-doers, then the new person joins the team, the end. It’s literally just that for five issues! It's fun and the art is beautiful, but come on now, if I hadn't already been familiar with everyone we meet in this comic, then there's a good chance that I would have felt ripped off reading every samey issue. Otherwise, the ironic thing is that even though the Overwatch team has always prided itself on its apparent diversity, the game’s strongest points of contention have always been for its lack thereof. This is just one example, but there are three Japanese characters in the game and they’re all depicted as ninjas who are able to climb walls. Yikes, my guy. It doesn’t help that it was later leaked that the company behind Overwatch had a creepy “diversity chart” that they use as a baseline when creating their characters, which basically means that every time they created a new character, they'd run match them up against a chart to see how many “diversity points” the character gets. It’s gross, and even though I’m somewhat excited for the new Chinese hero they’re releasing in a couple months, I have to wonder whether or not he was made in a lab of checklists and algorithms. If I sound totally dejected and jaded while talking about this property, it’s because, well… I am. I loved this stuff so much back in the day and now whenever they do something new it barely makes any noise! It’s sad, really. But I will say that reading this comic was good enough that old interest came reeling back around. It reminded me that there used to be real love put into the game. I’ve found that I’m so used to seeing Overwatch as this soulless corporate property that seeing these characters that I once loved in the context of a real story once again actually did quite a bit of heavy lifting when it comes how much I enjoyed this story. Sure, every time I boot up my game and see Baptiste in his goofy disco outfit or D.va in her silly EDM Mech I tend to forget all about whatever message the writers were going for with their little “the world always needs more heroes” tagline, but then I’ll come across a comic detailing the former’s path of redemption and trying to do right in a world of so much wrong or the latter’s yearning to get out and fight the good fight, and it can't help but light a spark of that same fondness I used to have for Overwatch.

]]> Review7655298039 Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:26:42 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah added '1408']]> /review/show/7655298039 1408 by Stephen King Noah gave 4 stars to 1408 (ebook) by Stephen King
bookshelves: horror, short-stories, paranormal
Frightened by the bite, though / It's no harsher than the bark / The middle of adventure / Such a perfect place to start (505 – Arctic Monkeys).

You know how every YouTube video's comment section is now full of bot comments collecting "likes" by saying easily digestible relatable phrases like “anybody here in [enter year here]?” Because damn, scrolling down any music video from even a year ago and seeing a wall of the same comment is almost as maddening as staying in room 1408 for a couple minutes (#segue). Yeah well, I think it would be kind of funny if I started doing that from now on. 2025 anyone? Anyone reading 1408 in 2025!? This was a trip, so let’s talk about it! In 1408 we follow Mike Enslin, a schlock horror writer who travels around getting material for what he calls "book essays" that chronicle his first-hand experiences in dealing with the supernatural. And because Buzzfeed wasn’t around back then, good ole Mikey has to do all the heavy lifting himself; camping out in graveyards, sleeping in creaky old houses, braving ghoulish haunts, the works! You know how it is, “very superstitious, writing's on the wall!” And it’s because he finds himself stuck, his writing forever trapped in a constant loop of mediocrity, that he stumbles on the Golden Goose of all haunted kick-it spots; room 1408 of The Dolphin, a hotel situated right in New York city! Cool, one measly room being haunted in a big ass hotel doesn’t seem like a big deal, so what could go wrong? Plenty apparently, because while hotel manager Mr. Olin's pleas for him to stay the fuck away clues Mike in on the fact that there's something terribly wrong with the room, he's also aware that he may have stumbled on the best story possible for his clickbait novels. He's going in there, even if it kills him! Dun dun dunnn! Famous last words, by the way, but at least he's brave enough to do actual field research. Like, he's a writer, so he could have easily just made a bunch of stuff up. And look, a lot of the drama in the story is centered around the fact that Mike is clearly walking into catastrophe and literally everyone knows he's doomed, but what separates 1408 from a lot of other horror stories with frustratingly incompetent protagonists is that it’s also made abundantly clear that Mike… doesn’t really have much in the way of a choice in the matter. Sure, you could say that he was courting disaster by being so haughty in his disbelief towards the paranormal, but acting with blatant disregard is literally his job! How was he supposed to know that this hotel room was the one that would end up ruining his life!? I mean, me personally? I would have hightailed it out of there as soon as the creepy manager started waxing poetic about the room all but having its own evil miasma poisoning the hotel staff with various diseases over the years, but then again I wouldn’t make for a very compelling horror protagonist. I’m just saying that even though Mike acted exactly like every husband character in a found footage horror movie (disbelief in the supernatural to an obnoxious degree), he was still a fascinating main character because his desperate yearning for something to reignite the spark in his relationship with writing felt palpable enough to make his journey in room 1408 truly heartbreaking in addition to the typical devastation.

Okay, here’s the part where I tell you that I saw the movie version with my dad when I was a kid. I saw the movie version of 1408 with my dad when I was a kid. At the time I didn't even know it was based on a Stephen King novel and I’m pretty sure a lot of people don’t like it very much because, well, it’s not very good, but there’s something about watching a horror movie when you’re young that informs who you’ll be for the rest of your life. Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but I do still hold onto quite a bit of fondness for the film (to the point where I’m calling it a “film” rather than a “movie”), not only because it features a really fun performance from Samuel L. Jackson as Mr. Olin (and a passable enough performance from John Cusack), but also solely for that one scene where Cusack’s Mike is trying to escape the room by climbing out of the window and signaling for help only for him to see that the person he’s looking at across the street is mirroring his movements exactly, showcasing that he is hopelessly stuck. Basically, that scene gave me nightmares, and I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t in the book version. But that's okay, because 1408 was still incredibly effective due to how relentless and unbearable it was in describing the all encompassing claustrophobia and madness that overwhelms every room guest. The cold analytical prose in the aftermath of Mike’s stay in the room juxtaposes wonderfully with the cuts to his real-time perception of the hellish experience. I’ve always thought it was a good thing that horror literature can’t rely on jump-scares to do all the work for them because they then have to actually be creative with the horror, and this book gets its point across by focusing on the grotesque. 1408 is quite short and Mike’s stay in the room is even shorter, but we still feel every minute due to the excruciating detail given to every horribly fucked up thing happening to Mike. From the creepy paintings switching every time Mike blinks to the walls taking on a skin-like texture, this is the example of how to write a frightening descent into madness. It’s all very The Yellow Wallpaper in that regard, but whereas that serves mostly as a critique of a patriarchal society, 1408 seems to work better as a metaphor for more introspective personal struggles like drug addiction, self-worth from a lens of toxic masculinity, and most of all… writers going through a terrible bout of writer’s block. The horror! Otherwise, I kind of loved how Mike only lasted for seventy minutes in the room, because while that’s good news for any of his sexual partners, it’s hardly impressive when going toe-to-toe with incomprehensible horrors. Even in the movie he went all night! No but really, the fact that this entire life-changing event happened in such an inconsequential amount of time demonstrated the overwhelming evil of the room without needing to go into superfluous detail. It’s a wonderful use of “show-don’t-tell” story-telling that emphasizes to the readers how little we really understand about… anything really, and helps to highlight an intense fear of the unknowable. Because as we all know, nothing is spookier than what one’s imagination can conjure up!

“He believed too much in nothing. Very unwise behavior. Very unsafe behavior.” ]]> Review2499609187 Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:50:15 -0700 <![CDATA[Noah added 'Gives Light']]> /review/show/2499609187 Gives Light by Rose Christo Noah gave 5 stars to Gives Light (Gives Light, #1) by Rose Christo
bookshelves: young-adult, romance, lgbt, contemporary, comfort-food, favorites
Love has truly been good to me, not even one sad day / Or minute have I had since you've come my way (So Amazing – Luther Vandross).

Forgive me if I'm more candid than usual in this review, it’s just that even though I’ve read this book once already, for some reason this time around it hit me like a ton of bricks with its relatability. You know, “It's personal, myself and I, we got some straightening out to do” and all that. The truth is that even though I really loved this a lot the first time around, I was probably a lot pickier with what I considered my “favorite,” and now that I’ve been around the block, so to speak, in terms of my reading journey, I think it’s safe to say that it really doesn’t get much better than this. And look, I can sit here all day and talk about how Gives Light was magical in how it portrays the tenderness and companionship between Skylar and Rafael or that its lyrical prose and focus on character development over plot twists helped elevate the book above a typical YA romance, but I think that the best way that I can describe what this book meant to me is by telling you that Gives Light is about the closest approximation you can get to reading Aristotle and Dante by Benjamin Alire Sáenz for the first time again. Oh yeah, it’s that good! What’s interesting about this book is that even though it was written quite a while ago at this point, I think it’s always been a little funny how the basic premise is very modern with its Tik Tok tagline, what with it being a romance between the main character and the son of the man who killed his mother. At face value, it almost reminds me of those “mafia romances” that flood the timeline (I assume, I don’t have a Tik Tok) in that it feels very heightened and silly to a degree that it's hard to take too seriously. But the main difference here is that Gives Light never undercuts its basic premise by pivoting to the romance aspects and instead remains gives the result of what traumatic events in the midst of a small community would do to a people that have always been tight-knit and trusting towards each other the attention necessary to make the premise feel real and true rather than farfetched. In other words, the story never compromises itself in order to fit into a checklist of popular tropes. Outside of that though, this was so damn relatable! Like, I could see myself in almost every character, and that really doesn't happen often. I mean, anyone can read this and see themselves in it, but I found it especially powerful just due to the simple fact that I’m queer and Native and reading a book that’s so unapologetically queer and Native had my heart soaring! I always feel the need to section off parts of my identity whenever I’m reading something I can relate to, like if I’m reading a queer book then it’s the queer book, or an Asian book will be the Asian book, the book about Native Americans will be the Native book. So it’s nice to read something that I can embrace fully without having to ignore the rest of me. The thing is, I don’t necessarily need to relate to a story to enjoy them, for example, my favorite Cozy Mystery series is the Penelope Banks Murder Mysteries books, but it’s not like I particularly understand what it was like to be new money from the 1920’s with photographic memory and a penchant for being at the right place to solve murders, but I enjoy the them nonetheless. And I’m fine with reading books that aren’t me, you know? But whenever I do find a book that delights and devastates all at the same time, a book like Gives Light, then I find myself walking around in a daze for days on end after finishing it. If that’s the curse of reading a good book, then I guess I'm okay with living with it!

So yeah, now for the story™. I mean, I'll try to give a synopsis, seeing as I'm still in one of those "post-good-book" hazes! Let's ignore the book's BookTok premise for a second, because I feel like it really does it a disservice and doesn’t fully capture the subtle nuances of how wonderfully unique and lovely Gives Light is, so even though the only way to truly do this book justice is by reading it yourself, I’ll do my best to represent. It’s really quite simple though, as the book is about a sixteen year-old teen named Skylar who has to move in with his grandmother on an Indian Reservation in Arizona after his father has gone missing for several days. See, Skylar lost his voice as a small child after narrowly escaping the man who killed his mother, so moving back to the Reservation, the place of the crime, holds many complicated feelings for him, to say the least. Thankfully he’s not alone in his isolation, because Skylar soon strikes up a tender friendship with the son of his mom’s killer, Rafael, who has sense been ostracized in the community for the crimes of his father. And even though it sounds rather action-packed, I wasn’t exaggerating when I compared it to a Benjamin Alire Sáenz book, because the “day-by-day” styling to the chapters of and a heavier emphasis on simple yet poetic prose gives the story a quality to it that can't really be expressed properly unless you're literally reading the book. Gives Light is introspective and thoughtful with the way it treats its narrative and never relies on cheap twists pulled out of nowhere in an attempt to keep things interesting. We’re here for Skylar and Rafael, and the focus thankfully remains on them. Though, their romance aside, I loved the underlying theme of community and how a person’s identity is not solely defined by the color of their skin. Now, this message hits different for me because it’s a topic that I’m somewhat sensitive about, as (incoming rant) whenever I say I’m Native American, I'm not talking "my great, great, great, great Grandmother was a Cherokee Princess" or whatever the Pretendians are saying nowadays, I mean it in the sense that I’m literally Native American. My mom’s Native and my Grandma’s Native and my Aunts and Uncles are Native. But then I also have extended family that’s decidedly not Native, yet they still like to pretend they are by proxy by peppering a little Native styling here and there in their daily lives, like wearing Ribbon Shirts to weddings or putting on Native chokers or trying to dance at Pow Wows in full regalia!? Yikes. And I’m really not trying to be a Gate-Keeping Gary here, but I’m just saying that whenever I’m at a family gathering and these folks show up in their little cosplay, that shit starts to feel like a racist Halloween frat party. Of course, it’s nothing personal. Well, this particular side of the family does also holds their own separate family Christmas parties where the side of the family that are people of color aren’t invited. You know… my side of the family. Hm, maybe it is personal. But you know, after reading this book and following Skylar’s own sense of yearning for family and community while also feeling a very uncomfortable disconnect from other Natives, I’ll try to be more sensitive. Emphasis on “try,” I mean, I'm cool with fictional Skylar, whose dad is Native, doing what he's going to do, but I'll always have opinions in real life on non-Natives wearing full regalia and dancing at Pow Wow's. Like, come on dude... what are you doing?

Okay, now what should I talk about? You think I should just list a bunch of stuff I liked about Gives Light? Sure, why not, this is supposed to be a review for a favorite book, so might as well end on a positive note! I really liked the Pow Wow chapters because they’re portrayed as just a good, fun time. The best kind of time, even. And that infectious joy bled through the pages because all of sudden I wanted to get up off my ass and start dancing! What I liked about these chapters in particular was that it was showed as a cultural event, sure, but thankfully wasn't a "teaching moment" for the reader. You know how a lot of stories that feature different cultures get a little too "Colors of the Wind"with it? Where the only reason Natives are in the story are to serve as heralds of the far-flung past and guiding and teaching the new world into respecting nature or whatever. So yeah, I liked that Gives Light was a book that could and should be read by anyone and everyone, but it was first and foremost about Natives without any kind of The Last Samurai, Kevin Costner Dances with Wolves vibe where a culture is used as a stepping stone for character development for a character that doesn't deserve any. This isn't a spectator's story, it's a homecoming for a Native teen relearning his roots. But yeah, Pow Wow's being a party is so true to real life, too! My brother likes to dance at them every now and then and I’ve always had a blast. There’s the Muckleshoot Pow Wow, the UW one, and then the one at Daybreak Star was pretty great too... even though one time they had Fry Bread so buttery that it had me walking around like that time Spongebob needed water at Sandy’s dry ass house. “Wate~eer, I need watee~eer!,” you remember that episode. Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, I like this line: “We're playing Cowboys and Indians," Grandpa Little Hawk said, grinning broadly. "Go on and club those good for nothing cowboys!" because it reminds me of my Uncle telling me one time about how when he was a kid he was watching one of those "cowboys versus Indians" shows and was obviously rooting for the cowboys because that's how those kinds of things go, but then my Grandma walked past and told him he was cheering for the wrong side. I guess some experiences are pretty universal. Um, most of all, I liked the romance between Skylar and Rafael! Their dynamic was often so damn sweet and bright that I found myself having to look away from the page. Oh, that’s why it’s called Gives Light! Otherwise, it was interesting how Skylar's dad was portrayed as a good dad, but flawed in the sense that he inadvertently instilled a lot of repressed internalized homophobia within Skylar. What this book got down perfectly was the resentment that could fester when someone has a parent that they love and that loves them right back, but they don't always say the right things and in turn make the queer people in their lives afraid to be themselves around them. It's like, they're not evil, and their love might be unconditional, but a person never really forgets the chilling fear that someone they care about will come to hate them. Anyway, Gives Light is singular in its truthful depiction of cultural nuances, queer awakenings, and father-and-son relationships. I didn't give this book the appreciation it deserved the first time I read it, and that's not a mistake I intend to repeat on the second go-around. Lovely, lovely book!

“He knew what I was feeling, if not what I was thinking. He made me feel like I had a voice.” ]]>