Showing posts with label grace ellis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grace ellis. Show all posts

Friday, 5 February 2016

Review | Lumberjanes, Vol.2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen


by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

My Rating: 


Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are not your average campers and Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady-Types is not your average summer camp. Between the river monsters, magic, and the art of friendship bracelets, this summer is only just beginning. Join the Lumberjanes as they take on raptors and a sibling rivalry that only myths are made of.


I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to read the second volume of Lumberjanes, because while I enjoyed the first volume I didn't think it was anything amazing. I'm glad I did decide to carry on, though, because this volume was a lot of fun, and I definitely enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the first.

One of the big problems I had with the first volume was that I found it very hard to differentiate between the five girls, but I think the second volume did a much better job of giving each of them different personalities; I particularly loved Jo, Molly and Mal, and I like Jen a lot, too.

There are two things I really love about this series: the first is the sense of humour, which just tickles me, and the second is the amount of colour crammed into each and every page. It's so much fun to look at because there's never a boring page, even if the characters aren't doing anything particularly interesting in that scene.

I also can't fault a story that's so enthusiastic about female friendships, and how important friendship is, even if it is sometimes a little cheesy.

The only reason I didn't rate this volume any higher is simply because the plot was just a bit... odd. I didn't see it coming at all, which in many ways is a good thing, but it seemed a bit random. I dunno. I enjoyed it more than the first volume, but compared to other graphic novels out there Lumberjanes still hasn't wowed me yet. I think I'll continue with the series, though!

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Review | Lumberjanes, Vol.1 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen


by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

My Rating: 

At Miss Qiunzilla Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's camp for hard-core lady-types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together... And they're not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! The mystery keeps getting bigger, and it all begins here. 

Maybe it's just me, but lately I haven't really been wowed by anything I've read. As soon as I learned about Lumberjanes I wanted to get my hands on a copy of it; the idea of a summer camp in which a group of teenage girls fight monsters sounded right up my street, so I preordered it, and after I fell in love with Rat Queens and Ms. Marvel earlier this year I was eager to pick up another graphic novel full of ladies!

Sadly, I was a little disappointed with this one. That doesn't mean I didn't like it, because I did. More than anything I thought this was very cute; the art was cute, the characters were cute, and the sense of humour was very cute. It didn't make me laugh in the way Rat Queens does, but I'd be a big fat liar if I said it didn't coax the odd grin out of me. Plus, if I'm being honest, it was quite nice to sit back with a graphic novel where the whole world wasn't in danger.

In fact Lumberjanes, for me, felt very reminiscent of some of the fun animes I watched during my teens, such as School Rumble and Ouran High School Host Club; entertaining, lively stories that bordered on silly but managed not to go overboard by adding in dashes of tragic backstory or issues that brought the characters tumbling into our reality. Lumberjanes is no different. Yes, the humour is gloriously cheesy and there are monsters, but it's also another wonderfully diverse series including POC and LGBT* characters, and that always makes me happy.

I was just expecting something more from it. I wanted it to completely surprise me like Rat Queens did, which might well be why it didn't. I didn't find the characters as memorable as the ladies in Rat Queens; despite all of them looking completely different, I struggled to distinguish them from one another and still probably couldn't tell you even one of their names. I think a lot of this has to do with all of them sharing the same sense of humour, which was a very fun sense of humour, but it didn't make it any easier to tell them apart. I felt very much like these were characters rather than living, breathing people.

However, this is only the first volume and there's certainly a lot of potential for some great character development. Perhaps I'm just being a little hard on it!

So Lumberjanes didn't blow me away, but I did enjoy it and I will be carrying on with the series, and if you prefer your stories to be more playful than end-of-the-world epic then this is a series for you!

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Top Ten Tuesday | Series I Want to Start!


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Top New Series I Want to Start'. I've gone with series that have been published since 2012 or later, and none of them have been completed yet. So, without further ado, here are my top ten:



by Mira Grant

A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease.

We owe our good health to a humble parasite - a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system - even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.

But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives...and will do anything to get them.



by Trudi Canavan

In a world where an industrial revolution is powered by magic, Tyen, a student of archaeology, discovers a sentient book in an ancient tomb. Vella was once a young sorcerer-maker, until she was transformed into a useful tool by one of the greatest sorcerers of history. Since then she has been gathering information, including a vital clue to the disaster Tyen’s world faces.

Elsewhere, in a land ruled by the priests since a terrible war depleted all but a little magic, Rielle the dyer’s daughter has been taught that to use magic is to steal from the Angels. Yet she knows from her ability to sense the stain it leaves behind that she has a talent for it, and that there are people willing to teach her how to use it, should she ever need to risks the Angels’ wrath.

Further away, a people called the Travelers live their entire lives on the move, trading goods from one world to another. They know that each world has its own store of magic, reducing or increasing a sorcerer’s abilities, so that if one entered a weak world they may be unable to leave it again. Each family maintains a safe trading route passed down through countless generations and modified whenever local strife makes visiting dangerous. But this is not the only knowledge the Travelers store within their stories and songs, collected over millennia spent roaming the universe. They know a great change is due, and that change brings both loss and opportunity.



by S. E. Grove

She has only seen the world through maps. She had no idea they were so dangerous.
 
Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World—a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods.  Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself.

Then Shadrack is kidnapped. And Sophia, who has rarely been outside of Boston, is the only one who can search for him. Together with Theo, a refugee from the West, she travels over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounters pirates and traders, and relies on a combination of Shadrack’s maps, common sense, and her own slantwise powers of observation. But even as Sophia and Theo try to save Shadrack’s life, they are in danger of losing their own.



by Nancy Bilyeau

Joanna Stafford, a Dominican nun, learns that her favorite cousin has been condemned by Henry VIII to be burned at the stake. Defying the rule of enclosure, Joanna leaves the priory to stand at her cousin’s side. Arrested for interfering with the king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, is sent to the Tower of London.

While Joanna is in the Tower, the ruthless Bishop of Winchester forces her to spy for him: to save her father’s life she must find an ancient relic—a crown so powerful, it may possess the ability to end the Reformation.

With Cromwell’s troops threatening to shutter her priory, bright and bold Joanna must decide who she can trust so that she may save herself, her family, and her sacred way of life.



by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. 



by Julie Kagawa

Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser.

Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. As Ember struggles to accept her future, she and her brother are hunted by the Order of St. George.

Soldier Garret Xavier Sebastian has a mission to seek and destroy all dragons, and Talon's newest recruits in particular. But he cannot kill unless he is certain he has found his prey: and nothing is certain about Ember Hill. Faced with Ember's bravery, confidence and all-too-human desires, Garret begins to question everything that the Order has ingrained in him: and what he might be willing to give up to find the truth about dragons.



by Chris Kuzneski

The Hunters: a team of renegades - an ex-military leader, a historian, a computer whiz, a weapons expert and a thief - financed by a billionaire philanthropist are tasked with finding the world's most legendary treasures. 

The Mission: recover a vast Romanian treasure that was stolen by the Russians nearly a century ago. Fearing a Germany victory in World War 1, the Romanian government signed a deal to guarantee the safety of the country's most valuable artifacts until after the war. In 1916 two treasure trains full of gold and the most precious objects of the Romanian state - paintings, jewellery from the Royal family, ancient Dacien artifacts - were sent to the underground vaults in the Kremlin only to be lost to the Romanian people forever as Russia severed all diplomatic relations with the country and scattered the treasure to its outlying regions. With a haul valued at over $3.5 billion dollars, everyone wants to claim the vast treasure but its location has remained a mystery, until now.

Can the Hunters succeed where all others have failed?



by J. A. White

Hand in hand, the witch's children walked down the empty road.

When Kara Westfall was six years old, her mother was convicted of the worst of all crimes: witchcraft. Years later, Kara and her little brother, Taff, are still shunned by the people of their village, who believe that nothing is more evil than magic . . . except, perhaps, the mysterious forest that covers nearly the entire island. It has many names, this place. Sometimes it is called the Dark Wood, or Sordyr's Realm. But mostly it's called the Thickety.

The black-leaved trees swayed toward Kara and then away, as though beckoning her.

The villagers live in fear of the Thickety and the terrible creatures that live there. But when an unusual bird lures Kara into the forbidden forest, she discovers a strange book with unspeakable powers. A book that might have belonged to her mother.

And that is just the beginning of the story.



by Elizabeth May

Edinburgh, Scotland, 1844

Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, was destined for a life carefully planned around Edinburgh’s social events – right up until a faery killed her mother.

Now it’s the 1844 winter season and Aileana slaughters faeries in secret, in between the endless round of parties, tea and balls. Armed with modified percussion pistols and explosives, she sheds her aristocratic facade every night to go hunting. She’s determined to track down the faery who murdered her mother, and to destroy any who prey on humans in the city’s many dark alleyways.

But the balance between high society and her private war is a delicate one, and as the fae infiltrate the ballroom and Aileana’s father returns home, she has decisions to make. How much is she willing to lose – and just how far will Aileana go for revenge?



by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

WHY WE LOVE IT: Five best friends spending the summer at Lumberjane scout camp...defeating yetis, three-eyed wolves, and giant falcons...what’s not to love?!

WHY YOU’LL LOVE IT: It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Gravity Falls and features five butt-kicking, rad teenage girls wailing on monsters and solving a mystery with the whole world at stake. And with the talent of acclaimed cartoonist Noelle Stevenson, talented newcomer Grace Ellis writing, and Brooke Allen on art, this is going to be a spectacular series that you won’t want to miss. 

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Jo, April, Mal, Molly and Ripley are five best pals determined to have an awesome summer together...and they’re not gonna let any insane quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! 

Which books made your top ten?