duckprintspress | WWW Wednesday

1. What are you currently reading?

Well, I was supposed to and planned to start A Memory Called Empire last night but I was so tired I couldn't face it, so instead I started the last volume (fourth) of The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish by Xue Shan Fei Hu. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about this, either, since book 3 committed so fully to kidfic and I hate kidfic, and I might have dropped the series if it wasn't that I knew this was the last one, but as it is, well. I'll read it. At least there's some fun political stuff happening in the beginning.

2. What have you recently finished?

I had a lot of Libby borrows with very imminent due dates, so I read a lot of manga and graphic novels.

Solo Leveling vol. 6 - 8 by Chugong: unsurprisingly, I finished the remaining books.
天官赐福 manhua vol. 1 by 墨香铜臭: my Chinese manhua read of the month! I actually finished before, like, the 30th this month! I'll probably tackle vol. 2; I want to increase my pace as my language skills improve.
Hitorijime My Hero vol. 13 by Memeko Arii
Spy x Family vol. 9 by Tatsuya Endo
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen: story about Vietnamese immigrants set in the late 90s, including a lead who is a gay young man. Really interesting juxtaposition between fairy tales and real life immigrant experience, gorgeous art, all in all fantastic. Gave me deep thinky thoughts about my high school friend Minh, whose family were Vietnamese immigrants. I hope he's doing okay...
Still Sick vol. 3 by Akashi: cute conclusion to this wlw story, though the characters felt really generic by the end, like, they lost the things that had made them distinct in the first volume.
Chainsaw Man vol. 9 by Tatsuki Fujimoto: well my favorite character died and I looked up spoilers and another character I like is gonna die and I'm starting to wonder if it's worth the effort.
Sakamoto Days vol. 2 by Yuto Suzuki: continues to be cute, harmless fun
Bergamot and Sunny Days by Lyee Kitahala: cute modern BL with an age difference. Pretty standard for the type.
All You Want, Whenever You Want by Omayu: modern BL; an aggravating amount of "no, no, yes" was offset by like 70% of the volume being hot and explicit, lol.
Les Normaux by Janine Janssen and S. Al Sabado: cute modern fantasy BL from a webcomic. I like the supporting cast and the range of rep (there's an aroace character! there's a pan character! there's an ace character! no gender stuff yet tho...)
Fated NOT to Meet by Ei Eijou: modern BL. No idea what the title has to do with the story, but it was fine. A lot like All You Want, Whenever You Want, the two had almost identical plot beats (and amounts of porn).

3. What will you be reading next?

My next library graphic novel (physical) is Kirby's Lessons for Falling (in Love) by Laura Gao. And I still need to read A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine for book club, I just keep procrastinating.