laceblade

• What are you currently reading?
Kaze Hikaru, volume 2. I read volume 1 a while ago, & I think I totally forgot to mention it. Anyway, a shoujo romance about the Shinsengumi. The protagonist is a girl who disguises herself as a boy to avenge the deaths of her father & brother.
My previous exposure to the Shinsengumi is the anime “Peacemaker Kurogane,” which I loathed b/c I thought was horribly paced, & also hated the protagonist.
So I know the Okita Souji is a bamf. Souji is the protag’s love interest in this series.
I’m not really digging this thus far, but I have a bunch of volumes checked out, so I’ll be reading at least a bit more, unless I get too frustrated!

• What did you recently finish reading?
Kitty Goes to Washington - So, in addition to the inclusion of congressional hearings & NIH research, I also feel like I’m just settling into this series’ ‘verse.
I really appreciate that the protagonist compares lycanthropy to a non-fatal chronic illness, & when being questioned by a confrontational senator, she talks about how depression is more likely, but it’s hard to know whether the depression is caused by the illness itself or by all of the life modifications one must make to to keep living with a non-fatal chronic illness.
And uh, as a person who’s gone through some heavy depression due to hugely anxious-making life modifications that were necessitated by a non-fatal chronic illness, HELLO, OVER-IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PROTAGONIST!

Especially after the events of the first book, I really love Kitty encountering other communities of vampires/were-animals, other ways of coping with her changed life, other possibilities.

I also like that she’s referred to non-werewolves more than once as “her pack.”
This is a thought I’d first encountered in Teen Wolf, one of the things that I like about that often-heinous TV show.

Very, Very, Sweet!, volume 2 - I don’t have much to say about this volume except that I still like it. It portrays the frustrations of trying to communicate in another language quite well, imo.

Revival, volume 1 - aka, zombie comic set in Wausau, WI. This series is pretty violent, BUT I appreciate its commitment to diversity & its locale, so I’ll probably keep up with it, although I think I don’t like it well enough to buy the comics in trade.

Kokoro - This is a classic of Japanese literature, set at the end of the Meiji era. It’s pretty dark, focusing heavily on death & suicide, with insights into human nature/etc. It’s difficult to discuss without spoiling the whole thing!
Anyway, this was part of a collection of Japanese literature I won in a Con or Bust auction, so I’m excited to read more of them in the future.