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Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made
My Review: I love video games as much as I love books, so this book was a natural selection. I was excited to get my hands on this book, especially to read about the creation of Stardew Valley, one of my all-time favorite games. This book was shocking but fun, and an easy recommendation for any gamer. Jason Schreier has made a name for himself in the last few years for bringing attention to the poor practices in the gaming industry, particularly about crunch culture. This book feels like a stepping stone to the articles he writes today and provides a broad survey of video game development. AAA and indie…
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Milk and Honey
My Review: When I put out a survey on Goodreads asking my fellow users what poetry books I should read Milk and Honey was overwhelmingly recommended to me. I had heard the author’s name and seen the book cover but did not know what to expect when I picked it up. This has by far been one of the best book recommendations I have ever received, so thank you to all the lovely readers that brought the book to my attention! Milk and Honey is an outstanding collection that strikes that perfect balance between pain and healing. The book has been divided into four sections, each detailing different phases of…
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Through the Woods
My Review: I’ve read a lot of horror, ones that were bloodier and more disturbing than this. Yet those novels and graphic novels didn’t affect me the way that this one did. Through the Woods is a collection of horror comics that hearkens back to the creepiest fairy tales. The atmosphere in the novels is not to be understated, the stories and art are chilling, even when the stories are straightforward and can be predicted. Even the introduction and the conclusion, brief as they were, evoked feelings of dread cover to cover. I found myself feeling uneasy, particularly while reading the first story, Our Neighbor’s House. My favorite easily was…
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Bad Romance
Warnings: Gaslighting My Thoughts Bad Romance is a heartbreaking story about relationship abuse and self-loathing, and one of the most accurate portrayals that I’ve ever read. The book is exceptionally well-written, with developed characters that talked and acted like typical teenagers. It shows how trouble at home can drive a young woman into the arms an abuser, trapped in a relationship because of dependency. One of the things that worked really well for this novel is that it starts from the beginning when Grace met Gavin and how they fell in love. Too often with stories about abusive relationships the story takes place when things are already bad and nearing…
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Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse
Warnings: Death, Descriptions of a decaying corpse My Thoughts Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse is perhaps one of the more experimental stories I’ve ever read. It is told from the point of view of Satsuki, a young girl who dies early on in the story, and the clumsy attempts of her childhood friends to hide her corpse. The writing style was good, the descriptions of the town paint a vivid picture of rural Japanese life. The sense of a hot, humid summer can be keenly felt as the characters struggle to get away with their crime. The story itself was pretty decent and honestly had me flying through pages wondering…
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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Warnings: Racism, Violence, Domestic Abuse My Thoughts For those that don’t already know who Trevor Noah is, he is a comedian from South Africa that is now the current host of The Daily Show, taking the place of Jon Stewart when he retired. Trevor is an accomplished polyglot, speaking 9 languages fluently and has some fluency in several more. In much of his comedy, he talks about his difficulties with racial identity having been born during apartheid to an African mother and a Swiss father. Apartheid was a system of institutionalized segregation in South Africa that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s. The book is bursting at the seams…
