Blue Delliquanti

I am not a foodie. I tend to cook and eat the same dozen bland meals over and over. I don't watch cooking shows. I actively dislike going to restaurants.

And yet some of my favorite manga right now are about cooking: [book:Food Wars!, Vol. 1|21486133], [book:Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 1|32856010], [book:Silver Spoon, Vol. 1|35959705]. And now I can add this book, which centers on the cooking of insects of all things.

Yarrow wants to be part of a new insect-themed restaurant so badly she moves show more across country just to apply. Her enthusiasm is contagious to the other characters in the book and to this reader too. It's a gentle slice of life story with lots of educational bits about cultures that eat insects. And there's a sweet LGBTQ love story to boot.

I'm not going to eat insects anytime soon, but I would certainly gobble up a sequel to this book anytime the creators would care to serve one up. show less

Conflicted -- on the one hand, I loved the blooming romance between Yarrow and Milani, and the subject of being passionate about any kind of food, loved reading about entomophagy in cultural contexts and the general excited foodie bliss. Also loved many of the characters, and their snarky, loving relationships, and the murals, and the inclusivity -- all a big yes, yes, yes.

What I did not love -- the scene where Chanda utterly rejects Yarrow's application to work in the restaurant. -- I see show more how the book hinges on this conflict, I see/know that there is a harsh kitchen heirarchy, where abusive/adamant behavior is allowed or expected, I see where Yarrow benefits from rethinking how she is approaching what she wants to do and why she wants to do it. I still found it triggering and upsetting, and it made it hard to enjoy the rest of the book, because of those feelings. I can intellectualize, but I still feel all my feels. show less

As the Ever-Blossoming Empire colonizes ever greater swaths of the galaxy, Fassen Ruust, a young war orphan, desperately struggles to earn their keep in the Fireback resistance and prove their worth as a fighter. Eventually, they catch the attention of one of the resistance’s greatest heroes and are recruited to serve on his special unit. All the while their secret contact with Lu, a teenager from outside both the empire and the resistance who saved Fassen when they were children, provides show more them with the rare opportunity for friendship, comfort, and a creative outlet in their militaristic and highly transactional society.
Lu lives in a world entirely unlike Fassen’s. Post-scarcity and post-capitalism, it is a place of peace, prosperity, and freedom maintained through secrecy and avoidance of both sides of the war.
When a mission gone wrong exposes Fassen to a darker side of the resistance, they flee to the only safety they can think of — Lu. But as the war follows them right to Lu’s home, both Fassen and Lu will decide what they are willing to give to protect their peace and their ideals.

Okay, so the blurb on the book describing this as a romance is a little… odd. Fassen and Lu’s relationship could be read as a romance (though it’s just as easy, maybe easier, to read it as not) but the narrative is not structured or framed around the relationship in a way that would lead me to describe the genre as romance.
With that out of the way, this story uses the characters as a discussion of what our society should value, and how it should take care of its people, bringing in as well discussions of colonialism, imperialism, and the effects of war. Some of it was well done — the ways the resistance’s single-minded focus on war had them veering into the same mindset as the empire rather than forming a better society; the disregard for the native inhabitants of the battleground planet by both sides. But other sides of these issues were neglected — there’s not much exploration of what the alternative to Fireback’s form of resistance is, Lu’s people have just removed themselves and called it a day. There’s the start of something at the end, but I think the whole ending is too rushed. A character is introduced, gets one quick conversation off with the protagonists and friends, and changes their whole worldview, wrapping up the conflict and turning the whole war around. This kind of resolution fit the themes for sure but was only loosely tied to the plot and the focus of the story up to that point.
I guess I feel like this book touched on too many complex topics for those +character arcs, +worldbuilding, etc. to all be thoroughly explored and wrapped up in one mid-length novel. I wish it was a series instead, which must tell you I did like it somewhat.
(I really want a series so I can have a book from Sertig’s perspective. Let me see her life story.) show less

Beautifully illustrated, this graphic novel is a classic sci-fi story in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, exploring themes similar to The Dispossessed and to The Left Hand of Darkness, but with a lot of colorful, kinetic action. What makes a person? What do people deserve? The political and moral questions are advanced, but the reading level is not, and the story is fast-paced and never dry or too dense (much like a great quickbread). I absolutely loved it.