I jumped right into this sequel for Slow Horses right after finishing the first volume. The core of what attracted me to the first book was largely present, hence my giving it the same rating. However, at the end of the day, I didn’t like it quite as much.

I couldn’t say exactly why that is—the characters I enjoyed were just as enjoyable, the story was interesting, and there were great shout-outs to Le Carré and funny recurring jokes in the story.

I have been meaning to read this for quite some time, as it is the first volume in the most recent official history of Community of Christ. I’m also looking forward to the next two volumes, since they cover history that I am not familiar with, but it was especially interesting to read a Community of Christ perspective on the 1830-1844 era.

I appreciated the frankness and openness of the volume—it’s impossible to imagine an LDS version of this book taking the same approach. As open as the Saints books are compared to previous takes on LDS history, they don’t compare to this. My only complain about the book is the sometimes-stilted writing and the seeming tangents—ti was sometimes hard to tell why particular subjects got the focus they did.

I found this translation of Delisle’s latest graphic novel at the Jessamine County Public Library and decided to give it a try. I don’t remember how I discovered Delisle, but I love his book Pyongyang, I’ve read a couple of his other books, and I loved this one.

Delisle’s art is great—his style is consistent, simple, and appealing. I like the way that he did color in this book, which is mostly monochrome but with bursts of yellow here and there.

This was a bit of a slog sometimes—one of the reasons why it took me so long to read and why it didn’t get a full five hearts—but it’s one of the most interesting things I’ve read recently.

This is supposedly one of the great classics of Mormon fiction, though I hadn’t heard of it before BCC Press released a free ebook of it a few weeks ago. It is a frank but respectful tale of Mormon pioneers “settling” St. George in the mid-to-late 19th century. It is unflinching in its discussion of the difficulties of polygamy and the abuse of ecclesiastical leadership, but it is also reverent in its treatment of the pioneers’ commitments and beliefs.

Having survived one Backderf book and knowing that this is his more famous work (it won an award at Angoulême in 2014), I decided to give it a try.

The story is of Backderf’s childhood association with Jeffrey Dahmer, who grew up to be a serial killer. Dahmer’s crimes are horrifying—I had to put the book out of my mind before going to sleep—but he was caught when I was 3, so I wasn’t really aware of the story.

I picked this graphic novel from JCPL just over a week ago. I think that Backderf’s art is weird, and I have mixed experiences with non-fiction comics, but I don’t know much about the 1970 killing of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard, and I decided it was worth knowing more about.

The story was compelling, and Backderf’s art didn’t bother me as much as I worried it would, so I’m glad I tried it. The story of the Kent State shootings stuck out to me as a difficult tale of the importance of non-violent protest and of curbing state power.