Completely Full Bookshelf

I hope everyone is doing well! We spent an hour on Saturday doing that most wretched of tasks: changing the smoke detector batteries. I envy everyone who buys those new smoke detectors where you don't have to replace the battery for 10 years. Today I am looking at an intriguing new MG graphic novel: Marshmallow & Jordan  by Alina Chau. And I'm also hosting the Holiday Picture Book Giveaway  with details at the end of this post! Review of Marshmallow & Jordan : Preview the illustrations on the publisher's website         A few weeks ago, I scoured the website of First Second, the massive graphic novel imprint from Macmillan, for new MG/YA graphic novels to pre-order, and this book, which debuted on October 26, was the one I was most excited for (besides Other Boys )! (I mean, just look at that cover.) I haven't seen anyone talking about this book yet, and although it is not a perfect read, I am still excited to be bringing it to y'all's att...

Well, it's happening—on Monday, I start in-person college classes for the first time in my life. Accordingly, I will be wildly busy and frantic for a while, but considering I posted a book review every single week of my first year of college last year (which was all-virtual), I don't think my blog will suffer too much. But you can expect that Thursday Thoughts posts will be on hiatus, and I probably won't have time to stop by people's blogs during the week (although I will still be diligent about commenting on your MMGM and #IMWAYR posts). Blogging is a nice respite from the chaos of college, so I will look forward to sharing oodles of book reviews as always in the months to come! In other news, I bought a bunch of new graphic novels using gift-card money! A few are already out, most of them come out in September and October, and one comes out in February and one in April. It'll be nice to have some cool books just magically showing up on my doorstep! Aggravatingly,...

Before we get to today's post, I'd like to mention that I shared another original poem this last Thursday, "On summer" —check it out if you're interested! Also, I have the winners of the Summer 2021 Book Giveaway to announce! The winner of Everywhere Blue  by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz is... Danielle! The winner of Fighting Words  by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is... Rosi (a fellow MMGM blogger)! The winner of the signed copy of Invisible Emmie  by Terri Libenson is... Shaye (a fellow #IMWAYR blogger at The Miller Memo) ! And the winner of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe  by Benjamin Alire Sáenz and Are You Listening?  by Tillie Walden is... CarloShmarlo! Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks so much to everyone who entered! Moving to the review, I'm excited to have a review today of a ridiculously fantastic YA graphic novel, On a Sunbeam  by Tillie Walden! This book has somewhat mature content as well as complex themes ...

***Blog news!***  It's the summer now, which means I have way more time to devote to reading books and to blogging! As such, I am starting a new feature on my blog called Thursday Thoughts ! On at least some Thursdays, I'll be discussing book-related topics that I have opinions about and inviting you all to share your thoughts in the comment section! Note that these are not book reviews (I will continue to only post those on Mondays), but I hope these can be a new way for me to connect with my readers! (Also, if you want to see these posts in your Blogger reading list, I finally added a Follow button  on my blog sidebar!) ***Public service announcement***  I heard some weird things online about people's Blogger posts getting deleted recently. I have no idea if any of that was true, but it seems like a good time to remind you all to download a backup of your blog on Blogger periodically—to do so, go to your Blogger dashboard > Settings > Manage blog > Back up cont...

Not to be a week behind on traumatic national events (sigh), but today (Monday) is the last day to enter in the 2021 Books by Asian-American Voices Giveaway , which I am holding as a response to the hate crimes committed recently against Asian-Americans. The linked page also has a set of valuable resources, so check it out! With that, today, I am recommending the YA graphic novel A Map to the Sun  by Sloane Leong. As usual, a reminder that this book is young adult (YA), not middle grade (MG), and contains some mature content. Also, TRIGGER WARNING  for arson and relationships between adults and minors. (I feel like the trigger warning really does set a certain tone for the rest of the post, but I certainly don't want people reliving any trauma, so here we are.)            As we all know by now, I love graphic novels, so I was thrilled to see a recommendation for a new one from the wonderful #IMWAYR blogger Sue Jackson, who blogs about an impr...

So that was a week. It took *checks notes* 6 days for 2021 to become even worse than 2020 was, thanks to a group of rioters breaking into the U.S. Capitol building in order to halt the certification of President-elect Biden's victory and allow President Trump to continue to hold the presidency—all at his encouragement. I've heard people say that Trump was going to incite violence sooner or later, the way he was riling up his base, but I don't think anyone actually thought the violence would happen. I have no useful insights to offer up after this nightmarish event, but I am glad to see that democracy remains at least mostly intact despite Trump's intentions. And it's strange, because had this awful event not occurred, Wednesday would have been a stunning rebuke of Trump—Democrats officially took a majority of the Senate after flipping Georgia (not the first state I would have expected to flip, but Stacey Abrams really is just that good!). President-elect Biden is p...