Jun 05 2025
w a terrific guest chapter by Shawn Kuruneru that really exemplifies the benefit of having someone else come in and contribute their entirely different style to your already well-told story. Three boys are walking to the convenience store one night during fishfly season, when the titular insects rise in swarms off of the nearby lakes …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/05/fishflies-by-jeff-lemire/
Jun 04 2025
Do you believe that books come to you when it’s the right time for them? That doesn’t mean that you’re going to read them and immediately connect: and there’s a lot to be said for coming to books like Catcher In The Rye and the more dire works of Anne McCaffrey as an adult, when …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/04/madame-sosostris-and-the-festival-for-the-brokenhearted-by-ben-okri/
Jun 02 2025
Lol, that really is the entire title, which should prepare you for the irreverent humor within the pages of this bird guide, written from the point of view of someone who (hilariously) loathes birds. Matt Kracht has been writing about birds for quite a while: while he might really hate them, he certainly knows his …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/02/a-dumb-birds-field-guide-to-the-worst-birds-ever-by-matt-kracht/
May 30 2025
with delightful illustrations by Poly Bernatene. Bear with me while I tell you an anecdote here. I used to work in some decently nice restaurants, and at one of them had a manager of Mexican descent who loathed Cinco de Mayo. According to him, it’s a holiday made up by American beer companies that no …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/30/cousins-in-the-time-of-magic-by-emma-otheguy/
May 29 2025
Friends and readers, what a glorious thing it is to have music in the world! Whether you appreciate it for itself, or for the ways in which it can bring you closer to divinity — as Johann Sebastian Bach, among so many others, believed — music is a gift that connects the interior world ineffably …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/29/allegro-by-ariel-dorfman/
May 28 2025
I can’t be the only person who picked up this title thinking that there’d be a religious subtext here. And perhaps there is, but the creators chose a much more interesting way to use the title word in this graphic novel, that collects the first (?) four books of the series. Science Officer Orrin Kutela …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/28/convert-by-john-arcudi-savannah-finley/
May 27 2025
with illustrations from the award-winning Terry and Eric Fan. Oh my heart. I actually had to check my calendar to make sure that I wasn’t being particularly susceptible to this book due to hormones, and that I was in fact laughing and crying solely due to Growing Home’s charm, wit, and deeply understood and portrayed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/27/growing-home-by-beth-ferry/
May 23 2025
Hello, readers! We’re doing a third roundup column of Most Anticipated Titles this May because there are so many good books still pouring in here at the end of the month and in the first weeks of June. Gosh, how is it almost June already? It feels like we were just slogging through the five …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/23/tantalizing-tales-may-2025-part-three/
May 22 2025
What a terrific murder mystery graphic novel! I read a lot of both, and know how difficult it can be to perfectly encapsulate a crime novel — and one that involves not only a murder but political intrigue, as well — into graphic format. Ozge Samanci has managed that in this compelling tale, that’s rightfully …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/22/evil-eyes-sea-by-ozge-samanci/
May 21 2025
This middle grade mystery-adventure hearkens back to the Famous Five and similar novels I devoured as a kid, tho with one crucial difference I’ll talk about later in this review. Thirteen year-old twins Brice and Brianna Hendrix have recently moved to Florida, and are spending the summer helping their mom by volunteering at the retirement …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/21/sabotage-at-casa-grande-springs-by-dd-sterner/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire