James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl Review

Magic beans transforms an ordinary peach into a gigantic piece of fruit and its surrounding insect populace human-sized, before going on to rescue James Henry Trotter from his sad life with his evil aunts, Spiker and Sponge. 

I remember not really liking James and the Giant Peach all that much when I was a kid but I still thought it was an ok book. On re-reading though, eh, no - it’s not very good at all! 

Superman Volume 1: The Unity Saga: Phantom Earth Review (Brian Michael Bendis, Ivan Reis)

Oh Brian Bendyman, the rule is that you start titles well and then taper off into forgettable dross after a few good books - you’re not meant to begin crappy! 

Superpants is sorta looking for Lois and Jon, whom his dead/hologram (I can’t keep up anymore) dad has taken on a great space coaster or something, before suddenly winding up in The Phantom Zone - along with Earth whaaa! 

The Twits by Roald Dahl Review

Who doesn’t love a good villain? And Mr and Mrs Twit are a delightfully nasty pair! When they’re not having a go at one another - she mixing in live worms into his spaghetti, he trying to send her off into space with balloons - they’re trying to eat children, actually eating the local bird populace and torturing a family of monkeys. Then one day the monkeys decide to push back… 

The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl Review

I remember not liking The Magic Finger as a kid despite being a huge Roald Dahl fan but I couldn’t quite put my finger (ahhh!) on why, so I thought I’d re-read it to see if maybe my view on it has changed - and it hasn’t! 

A girl - who’s such a non-character she doesn’t even have a name; if she did it’d be “Plot Contrivance”! - has a magic finger that does magic when she gets angry and points it at people. She points it at a local family who enjoy duck hunting, turning them into ducks to be hunted by ducks with guns. 

Criminal #1 Review (Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips)

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips recently completed their five year exclusive deal with Image and - tremendous news for everyone - they’ve re-upped for another five! And what better way to start their second five years at Image than with a new arc of their signature series, Criminal, featuring their recurring character, Teeg Lawless! 

Cold Spots Review (Cullen Bunn, Mark Torres)

Little girl controls ice ghosts because horror. Them ghosts is up to no good because durrr. Her deadbeat dad suddenly cares about her despite having never seen her before because plot. Somewhere in that mess is a “story” that’ll make you wish you were an ice ghost so you wouldn’t feel boredom on this scale! 

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa Review

Sentaro is an ex-con working off a debt in a dorayaki shop (dorayaki is Japanese confectionery where two pancakes sandwich sweet Azuki red bean paste). But business is slow. One day a mysterious elderly woman called Tokue appears with her own recipe for dorayaki - and suddenly business is booming! But who is Tokue really and why are her hands so gnarled… 

Maid-sama! Volume 1 by Hiro Fujiwara Review

Authoritarian high school student council president Misaki Ayuzawa may lord it over the students at her male-dominated high school but she has a secret after-school job: cosplaying as a maid at a bar! Takumi Usui stumbles across her secret shame - will he reveal it to the school, undermining her position, and what will Misaki do to keep him from spilling? 

Blissful Land, Volume 1 by Ichimon Izumi Review

You ever read books that are just - niiiice? Definitely not page-turners but something about them keeps you going? Not boring, not that interesting, just - niiiice? That’s how I felt about the very blissed-out Blissful Land, Volume 1: niii - alright I’ll stop that! 

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman Review

Any Family Guy fans here? Brian Griffin (the dog) is an aspiring author who writes the hackiest crap ever (his debut novel was titled “Faster Than The Speed of Love”!). Reading Fredrik Backman’s The Deal of a Lifetime was like reading what I imagine one of Brian’s books would be: beyond contrived, comedically sentimental and clumsily manipulative. 

One Dirty Tree by Noah Van Sciver Review

One Dirty Tree is a short memoir that jumps between two different times in Noah Van Sciver’s life: 1994, aged 10, and living with his family (his mom, himself and his 7 siblings are pictured on the cover – Mormons, eh?), and 2014, aged 30, as he completes the first Fante Bukowski book and disentangles himself from a doomed relationship. 

The Black Beetle: Kara Bocek by Francesco Francavilla Review

It’s 1934 and the Black Beetle travels to the ancient port city of Constantinople to get a silly ray gun from someone because hey this is a pulp sci fi homage thingy and that’s what happens in them apparently! Cartoon Nazis follow and predictable drivel ensues. 

Matilda by Roald Dahl Review

Five and a half year old Matilda is already reading the likes of Hemingway and Dickens while computing complex sums in her head at the drop of a hat. But she has a horrible family who despise her and her precocious intellect - which is nothing compared to the flat-out hostility of her new school’s headmistress, the monstrous Miss Trunchbull! Luckily, Matilda finds a soulmate in her kind teacher Miss Honey and together they set out to teach the bullies a lesson, once and for all! 

BLOGGER!

I'M BACK! So yeah, not to make a big thing of it but I didn't think much of Steemit. I might not make anything from my content on either site but at least Blogger doesn't fuck with my content so here I am, back agin, posting my reviews and possibly other stuff, back on this site. 

Let normal service resume!