Finally, my January books wrap up is here! Let’s get right into it. This month, I read only six books, and only one was NOT a graphic novel.
The first book I read in 2019, and this month, is The Backstagers Vol. 1. I…fell in love with this, and immediately looked for the other books. Yes. Jory recently transferred to an all-boys private school, and is trying to decide what to do for an after-school activity. He decided to maybe give drama a try. He went, and then the leads sent him backstage to get something. Once he goes backstage, he falls in love with it, and realizes that’s where he belongs. This is full of magic, adventures, friendships, it’s fantastic. The backstage in this graphic novel is not just your standard backstage. No, no, no. It’s a magical place that’s bigger than it should be, and leads to all of these weird, wonderful rooms. A room that has paint waterfalls, a room with lions for some reason? All different kinds of rooms. It’s fantastic, I love this series, I’ve already–this is a little ahead, but I’ve already read the next volume and the novel of this. I–yes. I would recommend this to anyone.
Next, I read Dodge City Vol. 1. This is a great story about people who are on a dodgeball team. They’re the worst of worst, struggling to move up the ranks, and a new person joins who’s never played before, but it ends up, he has a talent for this. They’re going along, trying to improve. It’s great. This has some queer characters, and one deaf character. I also want to add, going back to The Backstagers, they have queer storylines in there too. It’s great!
Next, I will be talking about a series together. This month, I read one book in between this series, but I’ll do the series together, it’s easiest. Last month, I mentioned that I read Saga Vol. 1. This month, I read Book One, Book Two, and Vol. 7. The difference is, Book One combines Vol. 1-3, Book Two combines Vol. 4-6. Then I read Vol. 7, because they don’t have a Book Three yet.
So, Saga as a series. Same thing I said last month, this is a fantastic series. It only gets better as it goes, the stories in this, the drama. Yes. It’s about a family in space, basically. The parents are from different sides of opposing factions in a big war that takes over the whole universe. They met, fall in love, have a child. They’re on the run, trying to survive and not be killed because, you know, they’re going against everything the war is about. And this includes a lot of stories about slavery, drug addiction, abuse, there’s a lot of killing in this. A lot. So… All the trigger warnings, all of them. I think this is wonderful, the art in this is gorgeous, and…This likes to play with my feelings. So if you’re okay with violence, gore, blood, gross stuff, I would definitely recommend this. This is so good!
The last book I will discuss today, I read in-between Saga Book Two and Vol. 7. This is the only novel I read this month, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. I enjoyed reading this. Enjoyed? I don’t know if that’s the right word. This is about a girl who’s almost sixteen, she and her family are going through a hard time because her older sister just died. And everyone viewed her sister as a perfect angel, the perfect daughter, always following the parents’ wishes, staying home and going to college, community college nearby. While the main character is like, “I’m not any of that. It’s not fair that you expect me to be like her, because I don’t want to do what she does. I want to do–I want to get out of state for school. My way of approaching life is nothing like hers.” She’s really frustrated with that, and now her sister’s dead, all of those expectations are forced on her, and now she feels pressured, “I have to, I’m expected to be the perfect daughter. But I can’t do that, because that’s not who I am.” All of those feelings, plus her sister’s gone. She’s trying to figure out who her sister really was, because now that she’s gone, she’s realizing that they didn’t really talk that much, she didn’t really know her that well. She’s trying to figure out more about her sister, and starts finding things that are like, oh wait, what? That’s all I will say. I thought this was really well-written, and can be a little hard. It talks about death, yes. So be aware of that. I would recommend this, for sure.
And that’s it for this month. I hope you enjoyed that pretty abbreviated wrap up. Let me know if you’ve read any of these books or want to read any of them down below in the comments. Any recommendations are always welcome. And that’s it for today!
If you want to support my content financially, I would really appreciate it if you joined my Patreon or made an one-time donation to my ko-fi tip jar. Subscribe to my channel. Follow me on my socials – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Thanks for reading, see you next time.