I picked this book up on a whim at a Nashville bookstore over the summer. It surprised me that I felt drawn to the book—I know who Wheaton is, but I’m not a super fan; the book was an expensive new hardback; and I usually am more hesitant about buying things than grabbing something on a whim.

I did really feel drawn to the book, though. I had recently started reading Wheaton’s blog, I admire his EFF-style thinking, I know he’s been an advocate for mental health, and I was intrigued by the conceit of revisiting a 20-year-old memoir and annotating it with two decades of further growth and hindsight.

I’ve read this comic through Boing Boing for a while now, so when I saw a collection of strips at the library, I thought I ought to pick it up and enjoy some of the strips from before I began reading it.

I was surprised, then, to not enjoy the collection. I like the contemporary strips (mostly), but there was something about the collection that didn’t work for me. Maybe they would have been better if I were reading them one at a time when they came out. Maybe my relative conservatism during the 2012-2015 era collected in this volume stopped me from enjoying the obvious left-wing slant. Maybe I still have enough resistance to left-wing views that a concentration of them didn’t go well.

Like the previous books in this series, I enjoyed this read even if it wasn’t the best book in the world. Moren continues to build an interesting world populated by tropey-but-fun characters.

I saw this book at a bookstore on a recent family vacation and immediately made note of it. I’d read Robb’s The Discovery of France in college and really enjoyed it, so I was sure I’d like this one, too.

I checked it out from the library and then had to read it in a rush when I was alerted about someone else’s hold on the book. I ended up turning it in about a week late, but oh well.

I really should have been reading other books that I started earlier, but this one was too much fun not to start. Several weeks ago, I watched the Aardman-animated The Pirates! movie and I came away a bit disappointed. I had liked the books in high school, so I looked them up at the library, only to find this book by the same author.

The subject matter was really interesting to me—I’ve been fascinated by the social construction of countries since before I knew the language to put it in those terms. I had heard of some of these “extinct countries” but not of others, but I enjoyed reading about all of them.

A friend gave me this book as a gift for my confirmation nearly a year ago. I wasn’t sure what I would think about it, but I was excited about Merton’s connection with Kentucky, and I figured that if my friend liked it, it ought to be pretty good.

I finally decided to dive in and while I have a good opinion of it overall, I think my response is better described as mixed. Not all of the book resonated with me—I felt that Merton talked a lot about contemplation (sometimes in very interesting ways) without ever really giving any practical information on what contemplation is and how to practice it.

Like the previous entry in this series, I wouldn’t say that this is a classic of science fiction, but it was a fun read. The worldbuilding continues to be interesting, the characters have potential, the plot was fun, and I enjoyed reading it.

It did make me want to play some space opera/space military RPGs, but I also felt conflicted about that. As I think about Community of Christ’ focus on becoming a peace church, I wonder how much I should enjoy reading books that make violence and warfare interesting (or consuming other media that does the same).

I read this book for the first time a few years ago. Dan is a regular panelist on The Incomparable and a regular player on their D+D spinoff, so I figured I owed it a read. When reading it then, it bounced off of me—I wasn’t all that impressed with the story or the writing, and I barely remembered any of it when revisiting it.

I recently listened to Dan talk about this book—and the sequels he’s since written—on an episode of The Incomparable, so I decided to give the series another try. It’s not a masterpiece of science fiction, but I liked the setting and the writing wasn’t terrible. I don’t know what made the difference this time, but I’ve already reserved the next one from the library.

I don’t know how much different Scherer’s writing—which bugged me in Vol. 2—changed for VOl. 3, but this period of recent history was fascinating to me and I couldn’t get enough of this book.

This volume captures Community of Christ becoming the denomination it is today, with all of the joys and struggles included therein. It was exciting to see the church struggle and adapt and grow—it made me happy to be part of this community. However, Scherer also doesn’t shy away from the struggles and real problems faced by the church during this time—many of which continue today. I feel responsibility and pressure to help the church survive and thrive, even though it scares me.

One of my favorite podcasts, The Incomparable, recently covered this book, describing it as a crazy mix of genres and ideas that shouldn’t work but absolutely does.

That convinced me to give the book a try, and that description holds up. There’s a woman who’s sold her soul to a demon; a family of extraterrestrial refugees running a donut shop; a trans girl escaping from abuse; love for video game music; a deep respect for food, classical music, and violin construction; and so much that doesn’t seem to all fit in the same story but does anyway.

I don’t remember why I decided to reread this book, and I struggled a lot with it during the first half. It’s something of a classic, and I know that my dad found it uproariously funny, so I would have expected to really enjoy it. It bounced off of me when I first read it (in high school?) and it felt painful to get through this time.

In the second half of the book, though, the dark parts of the book spoke to me in a way that the absurd humor didn’t (which surprised me a lot). I don’t know that I loved the book, but there are several parts that I really appreciated.

I am not entirely sure why I decided to finally read this book. I say “finally,” but the truth is that it’s never been on my list of books to read. I certainly never had plans to watch the movie, but maybe that was what pushed me to read the book. After hearing os much about a classic movie that I didn’t think I’d ever watch, I figured I ought to at least read the book.

I never would have picked this comic up on my own, but I discovered it through TVTropes, read it over two days, and really enjoyed i!

Fraction’s take on writing it is similar to Ryan North’s take on Squirrel Girl, with a lot of humor, very little taking oneself seriously, and plenty of story to keep the whole thing together.

The comic leans into the silliness of Olsen as a character and embraces a lot of the Silver Age approach to comics. It homages that era in a way that acknowledges its silliness, and that self-aware approach is —surprisingly!—better than any attempt to reimagine or grittify the character.

I enjoyed reading this book but sometimes struggled with it. The Reorganization era of Community of Christ history remains largely new to me—though I have enjoyed reading “Pragmatic Prophet”—but I struggled some with the organization of the book.

In short,, I enjoyed the content but it felt sometimes that the book was a dumping ground for relevant content rather than the weaving of that content into a clear, cohesive narrative. I didn’t feel like I always understood Scherer’s structural choices for the book, and that got in the way of really enjoying it.

If I thought the previous book was wrapping up the series for it to be concluded here (which I did), I was absolutely wrong. This book laid further breadcrumbs for future books, left the reader in total suspense about the fate of one of its most prominent characters, and had a delightful story of its own.

The cynicism of the book and the incompetence or irritation of its characters continue in fine form from previous entries in the series. I wonder if the connection to contemporary events will make it harder for this book to age well, but they make it a more interesting read in the present.

This is, in my view, the weakest arc in all of North’s run on Squirrel Girl, and I think it’s because it’s the only time that North’s story gets a significant connecting to an overarching Marvel plot. It’s not bad—the characters and art are still interesting in the ways that previous stories have been—but I just didn’t feel as engaged by any of it as I had been in previous TPBs.

I feel pretty confident that this is the last of the TPBs that I’ve previously read. When first starting it, I thought that I hadn’t read it before, but it became familiar pretty quickly.

I still miss Henderson’s art, but the series continue to be good! North has good ideas, Brain Drain is inspiring in a funny and goofy kind of way, and Squirrel Girl continue to represent intelligence and empathy.

This, the final arc in the TUSG book, was a delightful way to wrap up the series. It captured all the stories, characters, art, and ideas that made this comic so great and gave them the ending that they deserved.

There were a lot of callbacks to previous parts of the series, and it could have been annoying, but I found it to be a nice way of wrapping everything up.

Beginning with this collection, the art changes, which I was sure would be an issue for me (no pun intended). I really like Erica Henderson’s drawing, and I think it fits North’s writing better, so I knew I would miss it.

However, this TPB also has one of the best stories of the run in it—one that I’d forgotten all about. North really wrestles with his recurring theme of redemption rather than punishment with a multi-issue story on Kraven the Hunter—but still writes it in a way that affirms hope in the power of redemption.

This is another collection that I think I’ve read once but didn’t remember terribly well and was happy to return to it. I don’t know if I’ve read the next collection or not—it will be interesting to see when I begin to venture into the unknown.

I think this TPB has one of the most creative and sweetest stories in the whole run—one about the friendship between Doreen and her roommate Nancy. It also has some of the most explicit arguments for radical empathy in a series that makes that one of its main themes. All, of course, wrapped up in a lot of goofball humor and great art.

With this TPB, I continued to get into stories I’m not as familiar with but that make the best of this goofy series.

I think my favorite issue in this collection is the “zine,” which presents itself as an in-universe comic put together by the characters in the series. It is a great example of how North and the other have fun with this medium instead of just phoning the comics in.

This book me far too long to read. I started (and finished) a lot of books while supposedly reading this one, and it’s just a massive book with a lot to get through.

I’m also unclear on how much I’ll take from the book in particular. I got a lot from the overall arc of the story, but given the timeframe of my reading it and the sheer amount of material—not to mention Schlosser’s interweaving of a particular nuclear accident and other historical details—it was hard to keep track of who was who and what had happened.

As with the last collection of TUSG issues, I have read these stories before, but not recently and not often, so it was fun to revisit them.

After finishing this collection, I had to go back to the regular TPBs rather than this double TPB format, and that’s made me better appreciate these large formats, which leave out things like the letters page, etc. I have enjoyed reading those before, but when trying to power through the entire series, it’s nice to remove extraneous information and focus on the stuff I’m really there to read.

I’m less familiar with this part of the Squirrel Girl series, so it was even more fun to revisit these issues as I try to make my way through the whole series.

North is a great author for this kind of thing—I get a bit grumpy about his computer science lessons because of my complicated feelings toward computer science education (I’m for it but not necessarily in the way it’s being done) , but otherwise, I love his dialogue, characters, plots, and absurdity.

I recently finished the new Squirrel Girl podcast written by North, which made me miss the comics. I’ve also been meaning to finish the series, which ended in 2019 but I never caught up on.

So, I checked on the hoopla app connected to my library account and discovered that the whole series is finally available there—hooray!

I own all of these issues in trade paperback, but I read them on my phone to give me something productive to do on my phone. I’ve read these issues tons of times—or at least several—but it was still great to revisit the characters I love and North’s absurd humor accompanied with Henderson’s distinct art style.