January reading round up...

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Set in the 1970s this tells the story of a Chinese-American family dealing with the fallout of their eldest daughter being found dead. I loved Ng's writing style- it had an enjoyable laid back pace that allowed the book to really get to the heart of each character and there were quote worthy lines on each page. It had an interesting insight into life as a Chinese person living in America during that time as well a really interesting look at the struggle of being a woman and having dreams that stretched beyond motherhood. A beautifully touching read about family, grief, and being an outsider that I highly recommend. I will definitely keep Ng on my radar. 4/5

The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer

This book is quite deceiving as it kind of bills itself as a crime thriller about an eight year old girl who goes missing but I would describe it as more of a coming of age drama that looks at mother/daughter relationships with the crime as a side story. This book took a long time to get started and I almost gave up on it- I was only for the fact that I quite enjoyed the writing style that I kept going with it. Ultimately though I felt like it was only half a story- it was left with far to many questions unanswered, characters that were prominent then faded out of existence and it relied on some highly unlikely coincidences. 3/5 

Lumberjanes Vol.1 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis & Brooke Allen

A fun for all ages series about a group of five 'rad, butt kicking best pals' at Summer camp and the adventures they find themselves in. Perfect if you love empowering female characters, bold and colourful artwork, and witty dialogue. Noelle Stevenson is the writer of the Adventure Time comics and if you love those it's fairly certain you are going to love this series. Now I need to get my hands on volume 2! 4/5

X-Men '92 Vol. 0 Warzones by Chad Bowers & Chris Sims

I read this mini series in single issues. As a kid one of my obsessions was the early 90's X-Men cartoon, and to my delight Marvel released a  four part comic book series last year as part of Secret Wars that featured the X-Men team from the show- looking and talking exactly as they did. For that reason alone I loved it, the artwork was perfect and all the characters were exactly as I remembered. The story itself was a pretty generic X-Men story but the nostalgia more than made up for it! 4/5 

Black Canary Vol.1: Kicking and Screaming by Brendan Fletcher & Annie Wu

I've had most of these single issues sitting on my shelf for ages and for some reason never got round to them. I'm so glad I finally did, I think this is now one of my favourite comic book series! Set in Gotham it follows former soldier, vigilante and all round badass Dinah and her rock band Black Canary as they hit the road and uncover a conspiracy. I loved her band mates and the sassy dialogue (definitely reminds me of The Wicked + the Devine) and what can I say about Annie Wu's glorious artwork other than I want to wallpaper my house with it so I can stare at it all the time! Also, can I be Dinah please :) 5/5 

Single issues... 

New horror series from Image The Violent, Gwenpool Holiday special (featuring She-Hulk and Hawkeye woo!) and my favourite of the Black Canary covers this Mike Allred iZombie- ish variant.