things I've been reading

The Girl with the Dragon Heart, Stephanie Burgis. Sequel to The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart although it was actually the gorgeous cover of this one (by Petur Antonsson) on the new book shelf that interested me in the series. A fine middlegrade fantasy; I liked the refugee backstory.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift. I haven't been reviewing all of these for whatever reason (or Princeless volumes... I guess installments of ongoing series feel less important to write down?) but this is the third volume of the series-continuation comics, after The Promise and The Search. I liked this one - Toph as a main character, interesting stuff about Toph's approach to conflict resolution vs Aang's. Getting them from the library as the library edition hardcovers is a much nicer way to read them than issue by issue, too... a given story is all in one place and some of the margin commentary is interesting.

Having said that, I did buy the first issue of the new Korra arc, Ruins of the Empire, co-starring Kuvira, because I couldn't resist. Kuvira!

The Avant-Guards, volume 1. This absolutely reads like somebody read Check Please and thought "huh, there's apparently a market for gay sports stories, and I could do it better with POC leads and a different treatment of the mental health stuff" and I think that's *great*. Like, yes, as part of that market, I would love to see a bloom of new titles catering to it, sure! (My comics shop actually suggested it to me because I was subscribed to Fence... I'm not sure they know I also like Check Please... but I'm sure I first heard of Fence in Check Please circles, it all ties together.) This one is adorable basketball-playing art school lesbians and I love them and they'll probably turn up somewhere in my Yuletide signup.

Queen of the Sea

Queen of the Sea, Dylan Meconis, 2019. I've been anticipating this for *years* (although weirdly, it never made it onto my to-read list) and it's *so good*. So so so good. I got it from the library but have been hiding it from my children so I can give it to Junie for Christmas. (And then I'll be predictably sad when she's lukewarm about it, but what can you do.) Graphic novel alternate history coming of age story - alternate history in the sense of "these characters are loosely inspired by real historical people, but have different names and details". The real historical people are Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Mary I, and the Elizabeth analogue is a major character, although not the POV character. The main character is a girl who has grown up on a very small island with a very small convent of nuns, and the main throughline of the book is her curiosity about her origins and exploration of her place in the world. It reminded me a *lot* of Amy Unbounded, particularly Belondweg Blossoming, where there are complicated adult things going on that we get to see from Amy's child perspective, and also really cool historical details in the art. (Or like Hild, only middlegrade and comics.) The art in Queen of the Sea is gorgeous - the character designs are outstanding (the six identically-dressed nuns are all instantly recognizable), the (mostly) muted colors and limited palette are perfect for the setting, and she does some really cool stuff with motifs and imagery and structure that I will not spoil the fun of. (Also every once in a while the Elizabeth character made a face that reminded me of Claire from Bite Me and my heart just swelled with affection.) Definitely an exciting comic of 2019 - I'm not sure whether I would call it sff or not, being squarely in the muddled territory of historical fantasy/historical fiction. There's even less hint of the supernatural here than there was in Hild, and I never quite decided about Hild either. Anyways, it's outstanding, however you want to classify it.