One-to-two sentence reviews!

Not Manga

• Ash, by Malinda Lo

  Bisexual Cinderella undergoes uninteresting torments, solves the primary plot problem too easily, and selects the sensible corner of her love triangle.

• Spin State, by Chris Moriarty

  Someone named Moriarty thought it would be a good idea to cross Crystal Singer over with The Continuing Time, and they were right.

  Also contains Cetagandans, physics, and a mostly non-white cast.

• Does My Head Look Big In This?, by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  A funny and generally non-preachy YA novel about an Australian Muslim girl figuring out her cultural identity. There are a few clunky bits where the author’s desire to educate trumps her sense of how dialog works.

• Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, and Calling on Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede

  Oh, Suck Fairy, why must you visit so much of my library? I used to love these books.

Manga

• Angel Nest, by Erika Sakurazawa

  Sweet, slickly-drawn short story collection. The title story, about a recently-divorced woman who finds her empty apartment invaded first by an angel, then by her ex-husband’s teenaged mistress, is the best.

• Between the Sheets, by Erika Sakurazawa

  Depressing, slickly-drawn story about dysfunctional people messing up each other and themselves, which Tokyopop shouldn’t really be marketing as gay-positive. None of the characters are particularly likable.

• Ode to Kirihito, by Osamu Tezuka

  Osamu Tezuka punches you repeatedly in the stomach.

• MÄR, by Nobuyuki Anzai

  This manga follows the Shounen Jump formula so closely that, during the three years of its publication, it is written that Yoshihiro Togashi would frequently look over his shoulder in puzzlement and fear, wondering what ghost it was that he felt stepping on his heels. (If Togashi ever got out of bed then, I mean.)

• Flame of Recca, by Nobuyuki Anzai

  Anzai’s first major work, which strays from the formula occasionally, with some good results and some bad. Compulsively readable up to the end of the tournament arc, but Anzai has major issues with women, and there’s way more fetish stuff than you want to see in a kids’ story.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)