Cecil CastellucciReviews

Interesting read, giving a little more information to the build up of Joker War. Not something I will continue after the portions for Joker War but I am happy I read this tie in. I plan to read the other two.

A space alien possesses a comatose high school girl, then has to figure out how to fit in on Earth. Also there is madness and alien poetry. The art style and the story are trippy and confusing...yet intriguing.

ADORABLE.

I would really have loved this if I was younger when it came out. Still fun though.

My question is this: How can you not want to read this book? Even if your interest in (any) fandom is casual to the point of 'I kind of remember that blond chick with a pointy stick' this book will have you in stitches, tears or ready to be a more active member of some wonderful community. Whether you are a Trekkie (or is it Trekker now?), Star Wars fan, Whedonite, Otaku or a more obscure fandom (Blake's 7? Does anyone remember that show?) you'll enjoy this book.

It's not perfect, I sometimes wondered if some of the stories rely too heavily on some prior knowledge of the geeky topic at hand or took some of the examples to extremes (though to be fair I knew a guy who literally grew up Klingon. It was the first language he learned--yes before English--started 'developing' forehead ridges around the age of five and who's parents left him out in the wilderness at the age of 13 for a month in the summer for his 'Rite of Passage' ceremony--since beating him with sticks is considered illegal of course. By the time he was twenty-one, you'd be hard-pressed to know that he was human underneath all the make-up, Klingon cursing and bloodwine guzzling), but the book made me feel less odd.

I grew up in a school where sports were #1, academics #2 and theater #3. Geeky things like Star Trek or D&D or comic books came in distant distant last place. Golf was considered cooler then Star Trek or comic book reading. The rare few who were part of the 'Nerd Herd' with me did so in severe secrecy--our school's QB for my 9th and 10th grade years would trade X-Men cards with me under the pretense of me tutoring him in english. The leading 'brain' of the school played Q-Bert down at the shore (a good hour and half away from us) twice a week--far away from anyone who would know him. I was out in the open about my interests, mostly because I had long since given up caring about my image. I got teased, taunted, ridiculed and scorned at (and these were my friends), but I couldn't help that I couldn't fake interest in how badly our school's football team sucked (it was pretty bad).

Some of the stories were simply hilarious, some were moving and some took itself as seriously as a Jedi Master takes going to the dark side. As to be expected of a Compendium of Geekness, pop culture references abound. Subtle (Mr. Pointy for example), not so subtle (pretty much elvish or Klingon word uttered throughout) and the convention oriented (Jedis vs. Klingons vs. Stormtroopers vs. Peacekeepers vs. Cylons....with some Starfleet Cadets/Officers thrown in for good measure).

For anyone who has ever been to a major (or even small) convention you'll probably appreciate the humor behind Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci's story about cosplayers who take things to the extreme, gamers will definitely fall in line with Scott Westerfield's story and Tracy Lynn's story about a cheerleader trying to learn Geek is wonderful. It hits all the fandoms, all the stereotypes and then presents them differently without being insulting.

As I won a copy of the ARC edition, some of the art pages and at least one story was missing. Regardless I think that Geektastic is a great anthology with its own pitfalls, but for the casual Geeky young adult (or hell even an adult) its the perfect gift--either to show them that they aren't that alone in the world or hey you could always be that kid who wears his Jedi robes to school and tries to use the Force to get passing grades.

Guys, it's so good. Do yourself a favor and set aside an evening to read it. It deeply touched the wanderer in me. The "Code of the Road" is rules for humanity and life.

A good collection of short stories by YA authors.

Fun!

Theodora and Chad find that the odd friends are the best ones. Loved the illustrations and the little asides of text.

So I am probably never going to jump up and down squealing “the newest graphic novel just came in!” but I will admit that I liked this one far more than the first graphic novel I read. I actually liked it enough to contemplate checking out the rest of the series to see what happens.

In a confusing start, Jane (Main Jane) is injured in a bomb explosion in Metro City. Her parents freak out and move her to Suburbia. Jane’s time in Metro City before they moved (but after the explosion) was spent sitting at the bedside of a man who was injured next to her in the bombing. She has no idea who he is but he had a sketchbook. His art made Jane aware of how art affects people.

When Jane moves to Suburbia she meets the rest of the Janes, all “misfits” but she is clearly drawn to them. They begin creating art in common places, basically guerilla art attacks. The goal of P.L.A.I.N is to encourage the people of Suburbia to look at beauty in all things. In creating, Jane begins to heal. Jane convinces a boy from school to drive her to Metro City so she can go see her John Doe at the hospital. He is gone, but a nurse sees Jane, recognizes her and tells her the man’s name and that he has flown back to Poland, his home country.

Will Jane fly to Poland to see him? Will she finally have a boyfriend? Will P.L.A.I.N. continue or will the police find and shut them down? Well, I guess I will have to read the rest of the series to find out!

My first Leia pov book in starting this whole massive pile of Star Wars book, and even as a flashback book, I loved how this one was framed from the future and General Leia looking back on a moment in her life, while someone is trying to get her to write her biography for the generations coming after her (and because she is such an important hero of two different wars, a survivor of so many horrors and honors).

Live plurk below:



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I love getting Leila’s POV. I would like it to be General Leia more, but I love all of her life story and I’m already loving this.

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I love her irritability with her roles, even as she appreciates them.

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This sensing of her connection with Luke, but not knowing what it is. About how it isn’t attraction but that it is still so strongly there.

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I have so many Mon Mothma feeeeellings.


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Mon Mothma talking about Bail.


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“Leia drew herself up to her fullest height. Which actually wasn’t very much [...]”


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Decided while listening through part two and into part three, to make a Leia WeheartIt Board, too. I totally bet I'll end up making boards for like everyone as I try to send myself through a million of these books.

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Decided to start the following out of hers (which will likely explode as I get to Smuggler's Run and Weapon of a Jedi):

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~ only started out of hers, not really made-ready
Luke Skywalker
The Skywalker Twins
Han Solo
I love you i know / leia & han

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Or lies. I worked on a lot of those. >_>

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IM IN TEARS NOW RUDE

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I knew it was the ships, but having the soft-hearted girl say it was the earned ones. My heart.

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”We fight for a cause, but what we’re really fighting for is each other.”
”We fight for duty, but we also fight because we love each other, and that’s something even more powerful.”

I would probably give the writing a 4, but the experience was 5. This is the best collection of adorable geeky stories I've read in forever. I think that everyone I know, write with, game with, talk to, share stories and shoes and fandoms and passions with would adore it.

Run, don't walk. You'll find yourself smiling and laughing aloud.

I liked the art, but I'm not sure I loved the main Jane. Seemed like she chose her friends based on who she thought was worthy of her. The worthy outsiders were likable, but rather stereotypical.

You know what, I actually kinda liked this. A little short, a little abrubt, but I don't think this story would have benefitted from a longer format. Which is not often the case with short stories, for me. Enjoyable.

I also feel like the most impactful things about this story are the things that are not said. Both the implications of things as well as the history of it all, assumed or otherwise. I've recently been so tired of authors insisting on spelling everything out to exhaustive detail, so it was nice to read something that expects the reader to do some of the work too, beyond what's written on the pages.

Cute story about two duck friends that appreciate each other's oddness and create a valuable friendship.

I have definitely read this at some point after its publication once.
It keeps its charm on re-read.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for allusions to forced birth.)

The year is 2042, and scientist Maeve is the Indiana Jones of botany, forever in search of rare seeds to help save plants lost to climate change and corporate greed.

Her college friend Evan works for the enemy, Big Ag. megacorp Germline, and he's trying to get her to join the dark side. When she agrees to take a tour of the company's main campus, she's unwittingly transported into another world - one in which her college sweetheart Ben is still alive.

On its surface, this earth seems to be a utopia: humans live in harmony with nature and one another, thanks to a complicated system of points and bartering. But Laurentia has a sinister underbelly, naturally - one that astronomer Zuzi knows all too well.

SHIFTING EARTH has all the trappings of a great scifi story, or at least one that's likely to tickle my fancy: a big bad in the form of industrialized agriculture; a strong anti-capitalist bent; an environmentally friendly utopia; shades of THE HANDMAID'S TALE. Unfortunately, the execution just didn't do it for me.

For starters, there seemed to be too much going on for a standalone, 112-page comic. Laurentia's "sinister sides" are legion - which, to be fair, is realistic ... realistic yet distracting. There's the MIDSOMMAR-esque sacrifice of elderly and otherwise "useless" people; Madame Premier's plotting to conquer the other islands by monopolizing a new energy source; and, yeah, the whole forced birth thing. Pick a lane, people! (I think they could have scrapped the whole fossil fuels subplot without losing anything, tbh.)

Also, the two-moon earth is characterized as scientifically primitive (no planes or phones), yet is so far ahead of us with environmentally friendly tech that the mere sight of it sends Maeve spiraling into a state of disbelief.

I also still have no idea how Maeve was transported; the synopsis says something about a particle storm, while various ideas floated in the comic include sunspots and portals. The precipitating event seems to be a weirdly thriving tree on Maeve's planet (??). Honestly I had no idea wtf was going on - but maybe that was intentional, meant to mirror the characters' own confusion? Idk.

The ending is actually kind of lovely, I'll give the story that.

I admit that when I first started reading this one, it seemed an awful lot like Salvage, but the two plotlines soon radically diverged, and I enjoyed where this one went. I think my favorite bit is the excellent depiction of alien races -- not so much in detailed description, as in completely foreign emotional reactions. It highlighted Tula's own emotional distance, and her coping mechanisms in a way that I found particularly poignant.

Great tension between the visual story and the text one, and a twist I did not see coming. Mythological beasts, outcast teens and tense little love stories.

I just wasnt really into this book. The illustrations are nice, but the characters felt kinda flat and there were a lot of "teen rebellion" stereotypes. I like that this story is about art, but I dont agree with all the books ideas about what art is for and its place in society. Also I found it HORRIFYING that the protagonist took someone elses sketchbook without permission and writes in it.

Good stuff.

Teenage Jane has a life-altering experience when she is one of many victims of a terrorist bomb attack. Realizing that she and the world are mortal and fragile, she decides to make a positive difference.

Deemed safer than living in the city, Jane is transplanted from Metro City to a quiet, little suburb called Kent Waters. Quickly, Jane conspires with a group of misfits, who are all named Jane, to make Kent Waters happier through random acts of art. (It's like a less violent and destructive Project Mayhem from the book/movie Fight Club.)

The Plain Janes is at once relevant and hopeful. It is a contagious read that will keep you flipping through the pages non-stop. Not often am I motivated to read a book in one sitting, but I could not put The Plain Janes down until I was done. Yes, I sacrficed an hour of sleep but it was worth it.

3.5⭐️

3.5⭐️