The conventions for these titles seem to be very different from American comics. While it’s common to find American graphic novels with very short, broadly applicable titles (see: Saga), many manga or light novel series are a whole sentence to themselves, and some of them are quite surprising. So I decided to make a little game out of them! I’ve taken a random selection of manga and light novel covers that have some unconventional titles and blacked a word....

From the author of the beloved Hum If You Don’t Know the Words comes a rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries. We have 5 copies of If You Want To Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais to give away to 5 Riot readers! Just complete the form below to enter....

This 7% are, according to 2017 PEW Research Center data, made up of some 12.3 million people living in the United States who are immigrants with permanent resident status, and the 10.5 million people living in the United States who are undocumented. Combined, this totals 22.8 million people who call the United States their home, but are ineligible to win one of the nation’s highest literary honors. Of course literary awards, like any other prize or competition, must have rules....

I think the villains deserve a chance to shine. After all, they’re the ones who keep things interesting, aren’t they? What fun would the heroes be if they didn’t have anyone to challenge them? U: Ugetsu Murata V: Ventress, Asajj W: Waller, Amanda We’ll wrap up this A-Z next week. Where to next? Botanicals? Beverages? Magical objects? Spells? Tarot cards? The possibilities are endless? If there’s something you’d like to see as an A–Z parade, hit us up on Twitter @BookRiot!...

Complicated female characters are historically underrepresented in book. This is especially true if they hold another underrepresented identity. That’s why it’s refreshing to see so many complex and…I’ll say it…unlikable heroines popping up in novels this year. Here are a few books with complicated female characters from 2020 that I’m especially intrigued by. If you still are looking for complicated female characters, here is a list of 100 must-read books with unlikable women to look over....

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell The YA love story for geeks and fangirls everywhere. Cath is a serious Simon Snow fan and one half of a a fanfic writing duo with her twin sister, Wren. But college changes everything. Cath and Wren are growing apart and creative writing classes don’t appreciate fan fiction and the cute boy in her class is confusing and also maybe wonderful. This is such a great story about dealing with change and falling in love and being true to yourself....

The U.S.’s obsession with mac and cheese has a different story. Although it’s been served here as long as the United States has existed, it reached a different level of notoriety during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, when macaroni and cheese was frequently served at official state dinners. But while some credit Jefferson with the rise of mac and cheese, it was really Black chef James Hemmings, who was enslaved by Jefferson, who brought the dish to fame....

When Dimple Met Rishi meets Ugly Delicious in this funny, smart romantic comedy, in which two Vietnamese-American teens fall in love and must navigate their newfound relationship amid their families’ age-old feud about their competing, neighboring restaurants. If Bao Nguyen had to describe himself, he’d say he was a rock. Steady and strong, but not particularly interesting. His grades are average, his social status unremarkable. He works at his parents’ pho restaurant, and even there, he is his parents’ fifth favorite employee....

Wharton herself used to be terrified of ghost stories, having admitted to burning books on the subject for fear of having them in the house. Yet she slowly began to read ghost stories, and then she began to write ghost stories. Stories where you can feel the heavy winter storms and dense fog imprisoning you to a frigid, dark house. Stories where we question our sanity and our senses. And these haunting, spectral tales are what I love most about Wharton’s body of work....

Find below a range of enamel pins for librarians and library lovers. You’ll see some takes on library cards, some cute creatures emblematic of libraries, due date cards, and so much more. These pins highlight the inclusivity and need to continue championing an institution dedicated to serving all people, not just those with the most money or most connections to political power (am I feeling spicy as I write this, knowing that libraries are continually under attack from far right-wing Christian nationalists?...

And ah, don’t forget about the food. The breakfast meals, the merienda, and the desserts mentioned are all part of my childhood. Just reading the descriptions of the dishes makes me hungry. So it’s really a boon that the author put the recipes at the back of each book. Speaking of which, Blackmail and Bibingka, the third from the series, came out last week, and as usual, there are recipes included there....

Sometimes I just like to remember bookshelves from lives past. In April of 2020, just as everyone was starting to realize that lockdown might last a bit more than a few weeks, I found myself sitting on a refund from a conference I hoped to attend. At the same time, one of my favorite artists, Jeremy Miranda, decided to occupy his extra free time with commissions. I jumped at the chance and purchased one, sending him a photo of some stairs from my old apartment....

The book really boils down to five things: Let your geek flag fly, girl! (Gain confidence in who you are) Letting your geek flag fly: Sam Maggs commits a great deal of pages to instructing fledgling geek girls on where and how to express themselves. This includes teaching newbies the lingo (True Believers, Batgirls, squee, etc.) and where to start finding others who, like them, love all things geek (the local comic book store, board game meet-ups, etc....

The 2018 Nebula Awards Ceremony was held Saturday, May 18, in Los Angeles. The Nebulas, as they’re commonly called, are awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to recognize the best works of American science fiction and fantasy. I have never been, but it is a great dream of mine to attend someday, so I watch some of my favorite authors’ social media closely, trying to live vicariously....

Humanity has finally found a new home, but the price is blood… The highly anticipated fifth installment in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling series from Nicholas Sansbury Smith publishes on May 7. “Amazing settings, great characters, the end of the world shouldn’t be this much fun!” says Matthew Mather, bestselling author of The Dreaming Tree. “Nicholas Sansbury Smith has created a compelling story about people we can care about… From the first page, I couldn’t stop reading,” declares New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card....

The spark for this list was the The Knowledge Workshop’s fantastic Feminist Library in Beirut. They had helped choose a list of 5 recommended reads for Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth). After falling in love with their work, I was keen to discover other feminist libraries around the world. I found other feminist libraries in Glasgow, London, Istanbul, Vancouver, Sydney, and a Free Black Woman’s Library that travels around the U....

This particular day, though, as we visited the bookstore post–high school, my friends seemed to have come to an unspoken understanding. The YA section no longer held the same priority for them that it once did. Setting off in search of my friends, I wandered amongst the shelves until I found them in adult fiction. How did they know it was time to move on to adult books? I still clung to my YA reads like life rafts....

You & Me by Padget Powell In some book reviews, the writer reveals too much about herself and too little about the book she’s meant to illuminate–but I beg your indulgence so I can share a personal story that I believe to be relevant. I once knew a Southern man whose family obligations and level of education did not work well with his personal inclinations and ambitions. A reluctant and long-nagged husband, loving but muddled father, and low-level info tech, he was at heart a bachelor, an autodidact, and a musician....