Author: Alisha Helms

I Feel Awful, Thanks / Lara Pickle

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I Feel Awful, Thanks
By: Lara Pickle
Genre: Graphic Novel, New Adult
Number of Pages: 216
Published: March 5, 2024
Publisher: Oni Press
Dates Read: January 31, 2025 - February 1, 2025
Format: Library Book / Paperback

Trigger Warnings: Mental Health issues, anxiety, depression, toxic workplace, 

Joana is a young witch who just secured her dream job creating potions with a coven in London. But Joana will soon discover the reality of her new city life is not as she thought. Finding a flat is hard, her dream job is actually quite stressful, and she’s all alone. Little by little, she carves her place, but sadness, fatigue, and doubts create dragons that threaten to burst her hard-earned success… until she starts talking to a professional who helps her realize that in order to take care of herself, she must know herself.

I loved that this graphic novel tackled what it can feel like to have anxiety and crafted it in a way that also made it magical as well corporate. It’s okay not to be okay – a saying that everyone needs to be told every once in a while. Joana’s therapist, or Dragon Trainer, as she’s called in the book, gives really good advice on how Joana can help tackle her dragons, aka her anxieties.

Joana’s friends were also a breath of fresh air that were extremely supportive in both pushing Joana to get the extra help she needed and helping in her journey all around. Even her relationship with James and his own journey of self awareness and growth was nice to see.

Oh – before I forget, the art of this is beautiful and so very captivating, it’s one of the reasons I first picked up this book. The panels are brightly colored and there is quite a bit of text on some pages, but nothing I felt took away from the overall art.

Overall, this was a beautiful, fantastic graphic novel that dives into taking care of yourself as you battle anxiety, depression, and the everyday stressors of life – but add a magical twist.

Under This Red Rock / Mindy McGinnis

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Under This Red Rock
By: Mindy McGinnis
Genre: YA, Mystery
Number of Pages: 336
Published: March 19, 2024
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Dates Read: January 29, 2025 - January 31, 2025
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

Trigger Warnings: Depictions of suicide and suicidal ideation

Neely has been battling her hidden monsters, the disembodied voices that shadow her every move, since she was little. Lately though, they’ve become louder and more mobile.

To try and get some peace from them, Neey takes a job as a tour guide in the one place her monsters can’t follow – the caverns. There she meets Mila. Mila is everything Neely isn’t – beautiful and confident. As the two become closer, Neely’s crush grows. When a staff afterparty exposes Neely to drugs, she follows Mila’s lead, but that causes her hallucinations to escalate.

The next work day, Mila’s body is found brutally murdered in the caverns and Mila’s memories of the party are super fuzzy. With her hidden monsters not so hidden anymore, Mila must figure out who kills Mila… and face the possibility it may have been her.

So I actually went into this book pretty much blind. I started Under This Red Rock as an audiobook without looking into what it’s about and I ended up really enjoying it. The suspension mixed in with Neely’s mental health struggles and not knowing what was real and what wasn’t made it interesting to me. Though I would get slightly annoyed with Neely when she would straight up lie about something that she absolutely knew was real – don’t make life harder for yourself!

Overall, I think this would be a fantastic read for those who like suspense and thrillers mixed with some mystery.

Stoked For This: February 2025

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Alright, alright, I know I’m late again! This time, it really was NOT my fault, I tried to get this done last night and my oldest cat, Mushi, was not having it. She was smacking at my iPad’s screen, which kept reacting to her little kitty paws – and every time I tried to type anything, she’d start smacking my hands! I don’t know what she had against me finishing it this, but she was on one!

This month there’s seventeen titles I’m stoked to be released, two of which I’ve already read and reviewed 🙂 There’s quite a few novel in verse titles as well as some silly ones (three novels deal with aliens in someway form or another).

Are you excited for any of these titles??

February 4, 2025

A sci-fi where two men protect a special little girl at all cost – written by one of my favorite authors of all time.

The Bones Beneath My Skin

By: TJ Klune

*This was my first book of 2025 and I absolutely loved it!! Read my review here 🙂

An anthology about the “The Event” – the night the runaway alien posing as Hollywood star, Max Spencer’s rescue turns into an unintentional invasion. 

Why on Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology

Edited By: Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova

A historical fiction meets mystery in both multi-POV and multi-timeline (1940s & 1980s Germany and 2020 New York) YA filled with rebellion and sacrifices.

Under the Same Stars

By: Libba Bray

In this newly Japanese translated novel, a restaurant’s resident cat will transport you back in time to reunite with a departed loved one. Cue the tears and the tissues.

The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen

By: Yuta Takahashi

An action-packed, unflinching examination of the impacts of transphobia adventure intertwined with elements of Jewish mythology. 

A World Worth Saving

By: Kyle Lukoff

A memoir about the love of reading and writing and the relationship between the books that shaped us – aka a book I’m probably going to see myself in within so many pages.

Bibliophobia

By: Sarah Chihaya

February 11, 2025

A novel in verse about a young girl finding her way back after a life changing accident.

It’s All or Nothing, Vale

By: Andrea Beatriz Arango

A novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore with inherited magic and the price we pay for the life we desire.

(S)Kin

By: Ibi Zoboi

Gothic horror novella with sapphic monster romance – only 160 pages!!

But Not Too Bold

By: Hache Pueyo

A companion novel to the ah-mazing novel in verse, Alone, where we’re following kids from their homes into the evacuation camp.

Away

By: Megan E. Freeman

*This was my second book of 2025, you can read my steller review here.

A novel with neurodivergent characters, quirky friendships that explores identity, belonging, and the wonder of being different.

Life Hacks for a Little Alien

By: Alice Franklin

February 18, 2025

A book for nature lovers to meditate on the impact trees have on our lives.

Treenotes: A Year in the Company of Trees

By: Nalini Nadkarni

This book needs no other introduction other than it’s title: I Got Abducted By Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com

I Got Abducted By Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com

By: Kimberly Lemming

A historical novel that follows a homeless teenage girl as she struggles to survive during the Great Depression.

A Tiny Piece of Blue

By: Charlotte Whitney

A young adult debut novel about a young woman’s journey to heal from the trauma of trying “to be fixed”.

I Am the Cage

By: Allison Sweet Grant

With elements from The Little Mermaid and Cinderella, this historical fantasy is about one young woman’s love for the sea.

Upon a Starlit Tide

By: Kell Woods

February 25, 2025

A lake monster bands together with a human after the witch is thrown into her lake by her village.

Greenteeth

By: Molly O’Neill

We Are Not Strangers / Josh Tuininga

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We Are Not Strangers
By: Josh Tuininga
Genre: Graphic Novel
Number of Pages: 197 
Published: September 12, 2023
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Dates Read: January 29, 2025
Format: Library Book / eBook

Inspired by true events, We Are Not Strangers follows a Jewish immigrant, Marco Calvo, in his efforts to help his Japanese neighbors while they were incarcerated during WWII under President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066.

Well, here we are, at the beginning of 2025 and I’m here reading about yet another part of history I wasn’t aware of. I knew of the camps Japanese and Japanese-Americans were put into after the attack of Pearl Harbor – but I didn’t know about the neighbors who helped those incarcerated by helping with their mortgage or keeping their shops running. Not everyone has this help of course, but there were still some who help their friends have something to come back to.

The art of this graphic was beautiful and realistic, making the story page turning.

This would be a great novel to open the door for discussion about the Japanese camps on American soil during and after WWII. This was well researched and there’s a long appendix with maps, illustrations, and articles from Settle’s past.

Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body / Rebekah Taussig

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Sitting Pretty
By: Rebekah Taussig
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
Number of Pages: 256
Published: August 25, 2020
Publisher: HarperOne
Dates Read: January 21, 2025 - January 26, 2025
Format: Hardcover / Library Book / Audiobook

Rebekah Taussig’s memoir-in-essay processes Taussig’s lifetime growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and 2000s. As a kid, she only really saw disability as something monstrous, inspirational, or angelic – nothing that matched who she was. As she got older, she longed for more stories that show disability in everyday life.

In her memoir, Taussig reflects on everything from complicated kindness, living both independently and dependently, intimacy, and ableism. Sitting Pretty challenges the reader to look at how disability affects us all, directly and indirectly.

This is an excellent read that’s part memoir, part disability equality and justice manifesto. Taussig shines the light on what it means to be disabled and how that can change overtime (like when I fell down a flight of cement stairs with a trash bin on top of me and nearly broke my foot – I was on crutches for a while and my foot gets weird pain when turned in certain ways. It’s weird, but I wouldn’t call myself disabled) and throughout history (ex. If we didn’t have glasses, how many of us would technically be considered disabled?). 

Taussig is a native to the Kansas City area and I’m actually pretty curious about her take on a lot of our historical buildings around here. I’ve had this discussion with a patron of mine who is in a wheelchair and he has no access to specific buildings and due to the building being marked as “historical”, they won’t update their layout. He says it’s like yelling at a wall when talking to people about it.

Overall, I think a lot of abled bodied readers should pick this up so they can be challenged and maybe open their eyes up for a change in how they see disabled bodies. We as a society could be way more accommodating than we actually are.

Away / Megan E. Freeman

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Away
By: Megan E. Freeman
Genre: Middle Grade, Novel in Verse
Number of Pages: 480
Published: February 11, 2025
Publisher: Aladdin
Dates Read: January 19, 2025 - January 20, 2025
Format: ARC / Paperback

Told in multiple POVS with a mixture of novel in verse, movie script, production diary, letters, and newspaper articles, this companion novel to Alone, Away follows a group of kids who were placed in the same evacuation camp after the imminent yet unnamed danger that forced them out of their home. When the group of kids has an aspiring filmmaker and a budding journalist, they begin to dig into the reasoning as to why their world was turned upside down.

As they begin to investigate, they start to discover there’s more of a cover-up operation going on than there is an actual immediate threat. Can the group get to the root of the conspiracy and tell the adults in a way they’ll be believed before it’s too late?

I absolutely adored Alone when I read it back in 2023, so I immediately tried to get my hands on Away as soon as I could. This novel is not a full novel in verse but jumps around between different styles depending on which character it’s focusing on at the moment – though Grandin and Ashantae’s are in verse, Teddy’s is written in movie script or production diary, and Harmony writes letters to her Aunt and essays in new reports.

I think this fast paced story would be fun for middle school readers, especially those who like to prove kids can be just as absorbent, if not more, than adults. The charge to question what is really going on begins with the kids and they’re the ones who shine the light on it in order for the adults to finally see what’s happening.

Are some of the scenarios in this unrealistic? Yes, but it didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying it as I’m sure many others will.

You don’t have to have read Alone in order to understand what is happening in this novel as it is a companion novel and not a sequel.

*Thank you Aladdin and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

The Bones Beneath My Skin / TJ Klune

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The Bone Beneath My Skin
By: TJ Klune
Genre: Science Fiction
Number of Pages: 416
Published: February 4, 2025 (1st Published October 26, 2018)
Publisher: Tor Books
Dates Read: January 4, 2025 - January 16, 2025
Format: Paperback / ARC

In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright lost everything: his parents are dead, his older brother wants nothing to do with him, and he lost his journalist job in Washington DC. The only thing he has left is his dad’s old truck, and the family’s empty summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon. So he decides to go there to be alone – except, the cabin isn’t empty. A big gruff of a man named Alex is there. And with him is a young girl, who’s not really young, but oh is she extraordinary. She calls herself Artemis Darth Vader.

It becomes clear to Nate that he has two choices. One is to wallow in the memories of his past and drown. Two is the fight for a future he never thought possible. Because it wasn’t by chance Nate met this duo in his cabin, he doesn’t really believe is fate or destiny either – but they’re special, and Nate will do what it takes to keep them free.

Oh I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book! As always, I was not disappointed by anything TJ Klune writes; there’s found family, gayness, witty humor, and this time, bacon (all the bacon), conspiracy theories, and running from bad men!

I don’t know how Klune is able to write such realistic, multilayered characters that always end up stealing pieces of my heart and never letting it go, but he does so every single time. The little found family of Nate, Alex, and Art will live on forever in my head by the phrase, “How would Art experience this?” when going through life.

This book is more science fiction over Klune’s usual (recent) releases of fantasy, and there is a small spice scene, but I wouldn’t classify this as a sole romance. There’s more focus on the found family portion as well as Nate coming to terms with his past.

Overall, this is a wonderful, thrilling, fast pace, page turner filled with a blend of the supernatural and of the human experience that is a must-read for all.

*Thank you Tor Books and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

My Week Late, Stoked For This: January 2025

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I know I’m a week (and a day) late in this, and there will be loads of books already out – but that means there’s loads more books already out (Trying to be a bit more positive this year)! I tried to get this done yesterday, but stuff happened and I couldn’t get back to this.

I’m also going to try something new with my formatting of this series. Let me know what you think! Do you like the new way? Prefer the old way? Have no comments or concerns?

January 7, 2025

Amber arrives home one spring afternoon on her bike. As soon as her mother sees her, she screams. Why? Because Amber’s been dead seven years – hit by a car on the very bike she pulled up to the house in.

After Life

By: Gayle Forman

Bletchley Park. London. 1923. Dragons soar through the skies, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried, she’s going to study the dragon language and make sure her little sister doesn’t have to grow up in Third Class. But by midnight, civil war has started. Viv is recruited for a codebreaker job to save her family – but the more she learns, the harder it is for her to distinguish what what war she’s actually fighting.

A Language of Dragons

By: S.F. Williamson

A dystopian, water covered world where a family tries to save the history of humans while creating a settlement on top of New York City’s National History Museum.

All the Water in the World

By: Eiren Caffall

A sapphic YA debut novel that follows two girls has they fall in love, fighting for survival in an abandoned bookstore.

The Last Bookstore on Earth

By: Lily Braun-Arnold

January 14, 2025

Written in prose and verse, this YA novel following sixteen-year-old Carmela as she’s finally able to help in her mother’s apothecary in the Campo Marzio neighborhood of Rome. But the workroom is no simple place, for every simple ingredient, there is else even less pleasant, and Carmela begins to find out the secrets she never bargained for.

Everything Is Poison

By: Joy McCullough

What would you do if you found a magical bookstore that transports you back through time to be face-to-face with your teenage self?

The In-Between Bookstore

By: Edward Underhill

A multi-level, page turning murder novel about pyramid schemes.

Death in the Downline

By: Maria Abrams

January 21, 2025

Ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr is now at the reservation where her father grew up: they need a new tribal marshal to help with the women who have disappeared from the rez. Now, local college student is missing and Starr begins drown in memories of her own daughter’s murder. As she works on the cases, Starr can’t shake the feeling of a fearsome spirit watching her, one of a woman with antlers of a deer.

Mask of the Deer Woman

By: Laurie L. Dove

Have 3 Reviews: Two Cat Manga and a Cat Novel

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Is the plural of manga “manga” or “mangas”? Does anyone know? I feel like “manga” is to be used as both singular and plural buy my brain is arguing with me about it. Please comment if you totally know the answer!

I’m dropping 3 Reviews in one here. Mostly to finish up my end of the year books (finally) as well as not flood anyone’s inboxes with the very short reviews that you’ll see below.

Now, it’s on to write my week late STOKED FOR THIS post 🙂

Cat + Gamer (Volume 6)
By: Wataru Nadatani
Genre: Manga
Number of Pages: 168
Published: October 29, 2024 (1st Published May 18, 2021)
Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
Dates Read: December 31, 2024
Format: Library Book / eBook

Musubi and Soboro continue to team up with Riko, “leveling up” in everyday life.

Oh my goodness, I so very much love this series. Especially as a (small) gamer with two cats. 

I love the small snippets from the cat’s points of view at the end of each chapter. It makes them even cuter.

Cat Companions Maruru and Hachi (Volume 2)
By:Yuri Sonoda
Genre: Manga
Number of Pages: 168
Published: December 17, 2024
Publisher: Seven Seas
Dates Read: December 31, 2024
Format: Library Book / Paperback

When the older lady who fed the cats in the park stops coming, Maruru and Hachi must find food elsewhere. While in the search, Hachi gets gravely injured – to ensure their survival, he makes a surprising decision.

Cats.

Animal rescue.

Grumpy accepting help.

That’s all you need to know.

It was beautiful.

I gasped, “Oh no”ed, and goofy smiled about 1,000 times.

Meow
By: Sam Austen
Genre: Fiction, Humor
Number of Pages: 346
Published: June 24, 2023
Publisher: Meow Library
Dates Read: December 31, 2024
Format: Library / Paperback

A book written for your cat in their language.

My favorite part was when they said,

“Meow?”

“Meow meow meow.”

“Meow meow.”

If you can’t tell, it’s an entire book written with just the word “Meow”.

The Deep Dark / Molly Knox Ostertag

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The Deep Dark
By: Molly Knox Ostertag
Genre: Graphic Novel
Number of Pages: 480
Published: June 4, 2024
Publisher: Graphix
Dates Read: December 30, 2024
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

Magdalena Herrera, or Mags, already feels like an adult even though she’s just shy of graduating high school: caring for her grandmother, working a part-time job, and taking care of her secret that lives in the basement, the one that drains her of energy. The secret could really hurt someone, even kill them, if it got out.

So, Mags keeps her head down, trying to get through the day. That is, until her childhood friend, Ness, comes back to town, bringing memories and her own secret. Mags won’t get reattached, she can’t, and she’s always been good at keeping her distance anyway.

But when darkness starts to close in on them both, Mags will have to bring her secret into the daylight.

The art of this graphic novel is fantastic and phenomenal. It goes from back and forth between black and white and full color, corresponding well with what’s happening in the story.  

The overall storyline is about accepting yourself, even the deepest, darkest bits, and allowing someone to love and care for you and all your secrets.

Overall, Molly Knox Ostertag blew it out of the park again with this story and anyone who loves bright, vivid illustrations mixed with black and white, and a storyline that will keep you turning pages, will fall in love with the characters and this story as well.