WWW Wednesday

[duckprintspress]

I went to the library on Monday and borrowed a whole pile of new books when I hadn't finished the old ones, so I buckled down this week after finishing the main story in Don't You Like Me to see if I could clear out some of my physical library loans to make space for the new physical library loans.

1. What are you currently reading?

• Don't You Like Me vol. 2 by Lv Tian Yi: I finished the main story and now I'm working my way through the extras.
• Kase-San and Yamada vol. 4 by Hiromi Takashima
• Les Normaux vol. 2 by Janine Janssen and S. Al Sabado: I was really excited for this one but I'm running into the problem that I don't remember much of what was going on in vol. 1 and so I'm a little lost and as a result I'm procrastinating.
• DMBJ in Chinese: I'm almost a third done!!!

2. What have you recently finished reading?

• The Apothecary Diaries light novel vol. 4 by Natsu Hyuuga: idk I'm inching closer to not reading more. If I didn't already have a hold on vol. 5 I'm not sure I'd bother. I can't even put my finger on my dissatisfaction, and I actually liked this volume better than some of the others, but... idk. It's maybe just not the series for me, even though it feels like it should be.
• Yuri Espoir vol. 1 by Mai Naoi: oh, this is fun. It's modern GL about a girl whose parents have set up a marriage for her, so she wants to get all her lesbianism and yuri expressed before she's forced into this wedding, and so she looks at girls around her and makes up wlw stories about them. Except even tho her stories are always wrong, all the girls she looks at ARE wlw so we get glimpses of their lives. And also her (female) best friend is in love with her. And ALSO there's a (male) teacher of theirs who is in love with the affianced arranged marriage guy. So it's all a delightful mess. I really liked vol. 1.
• Lullaby of the Dawn vol. 6 by Ichika Yuno: worth the wait.
• At the Flower Capital by Rihito Takarai: this turned out to be the historical setting prequel to 3-book modern BL I haven't read. It wasn't world-shattering, and it was very sad, but I liked it enough to go grab the modern BL.
• How Do We Relationship? vol. 3 by Tamifull: was very iffy on this volume, decided to read the back blurbs for upcoming volumes, and based on what they said, I've dropped the series. Please just fuckin' communicate, this is idiotic.
• Sleepless Domain vol. 1 by Oscar Vega and Mary Cagle: an interesting idea for a story (it's a magical girl thing) but it's tagged LGBTQIA+ without any obvious rep (there was maybe a whiff of wlw) and the art quality declined rapidly even just in vol. 1. Also, it's from that Hive-whatever publisher, so I suspect vol. 2 has gotten fucked over in that mess.
• Wrack and Rune by Chris Kappel: I had such high hopes for this modern BL with a white dude and a fat Black guy holding hands on the cover, but oof, it was. not good. Like there were good pieces in it but the actual relationship development was handled so entirely off-screen that it was impossible to buy-in to why these characters were risking so much for each other.
• Only the Flower Knows vol. 1 to 3 by Rihito Takarai: this is the 3-book modern BL that the other was a prequel for. Considering it's from like 2010 it's pretty good, one of the better older BLs I've read.
• Good Old-Fashioned Korean Spirit by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada: this was a really good mostly historical graphic novel set in Korea. Taught me some Korean history I didn't know, had a great sense of humor, and also had a surprise trans character making it perfect for the first day of the Trans Rights Readathon (which I'm not technically participating in but hey, if I've got stuff with trans characters, no reason not to read 'um now!)

3. What will you read next?

Novels: The Beauty's Blade by Feng Ren Zuo Shu

Physical Graphic Novels: I still haven't read the last volume of the MDZS manhua, oops. From the library, next is Gaysians by Mike Curato.

Digital Graphic Novels (Libby): Les Normaux vol. 2, which I've already started, is due in six days, so gotta read that. Nothing else is imminent, but my hold on Wild Beast Forest House vol. 3 by Inma R. came through, so probably that, I enjoyed the first two volumes a lot.