 welcome back. Welcome to my April video of wrapping up what I've read in April. Not everything that I've read in April, I'm really just gonna talk about three books that I read and that they were all graphic novels because that was the prompt for this month. So I was gonna try and read graphic novels for this month. So I'm just gonna talk about three of the books. If you want to know about everything that I read in April, you can go ahead and watch some vlogs that I will be posting soon after this near the end of April because I participated in the OWLs which is a read-a-thon hosted by magical book roast by G there and so that will cover everything that I read in April but here I'm just gonna cover the graphic novels that I read. Some of them are going to overlap but not all of them. For example the first book that I'm going to talk about does overlap and it was actually the first book that I read in April. Also side note this light right here is from a window that is above my shelves that I don't have curtains for but I will be getting curtains for it soon so it won't be just like this magical sun right here just like blaring in weird lighting. Yeah I did get a lamp so lighting is getting better. Anyway so the first book that I'm gonna talk about is a book that was made into a graphic novel after it was originally written and that's the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The graphic novel this is written by Ransom Riggs but the art was by Cassandra Jean. So this is the book that I read as my first graphic novel. I was really happy with it because it's a story that I was familiar with in a format that I was not familiar with and I thought it was really interesting really cool. You know it's kind of a little more on the thriller horror side of things which was also something that I'm not super accustomed to. I don't really read a lot of thriller or horror books so it's just completely outside of my comfort zone but I enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty good but when I'm when I'm sitting there reading it at night it's like sometimes the images are really cool because it really helps you get an idea of what things look like past what descriptions with words can tell you but sometimes I would rather not because there are some images in here because it's horror that it's like I really enjoyed it. I don't have too much to say about it though because it was originally another book. One thing that was interesting is it had like the graphic novel of it here but then it also had like old images that I think were from the original book too so it was kind of an interesting mix of both in here which I really like how they did that. I thought they integrated together well and they meshed well so I thought that was really cool. Moving on to the second book that I read during the month of April as a graphic novel it's very different from the first one and that I read and that book would be American Born Chinese by Jean Lynn Yang. I had read this once before in high school for a class and then I just read it now again for my college class and it is a really cool graphic novel because it follows three different storylines. One is about a boy named Jin who was moving from San Francisco or Chinatown type area from San Francisco to a new place with a new school, new kids and he is American Born Chinese. His parents were Chinese immigrants but he was born in America and then the second storyline is with the Monkey King and that is kind of more of the mythology side of things but it still has a very similar idea as the other two stories of there is the Monkey King and he wants and he is a deity and he wants to join the other deities and the other gods in heaven for this party but they won't let him in because he is a monkey and they say it's because he's not wearing shoes but that's that's totally not the whole point of the story here. So it's about him mastering Kung Fu and all the different ways to make himself better different and so until he becomes less of a monkey and just kind of his journey of his identity as others have mocked him for who he is and that's very similar to Jin and his storyline because there are not a lot of Asian American or even just Asian kids in Jin's school and so he has a hard time making that kind of connection with other kids. Then the last storyline follows a boy named Danny and his cousin Qin Qi comes to visit him from China. Qin Qi is the literal embodiment of like all the Chinese stereotypes you know like it just makes you cringe when you look at him which I think is a good thing because you know you see these stereotypes on a person and you see how inaccurate a lot of them are or how hurtful they can be by having a character that is just overblown stereotypical Chinese person and I think it's something that a lot of people should read because it's a really good thing to be aware of is stereotypes and biases towards certain races and certain people's backgrounds whether they're actually from a different country or that's just their ethnicity or their background or their heritage. So I really like this book one thing that I've learned about graphic novels is that even though it can be like decently thick you flip through them so quickly you really do you just keep going you keep going keep going and that's one thing I've really learned to appreciate about graphic novels is how quickly I can finish one of these in like one sitting I like that a lot. I would highly my grant recommend reading it and it's really interesting because at the very end all three storylines do match together in some way shape or form I won't ruin how that happens but I will tell you that it does happen and it's very interesting with a great plot twist so there you go. And then the last book that I read again was also from my college class but was a graphic novel that was literally a unit in the class so it was really nice that that unit kind of matched up with my month of April's graphic novels I did not plan that but then when I saw that it happened I was like how awesome is that so the last book is Destroyer by Victor LaValle and then the artwork is by Dietrich Smith with Johanna with Johanna LaFonte and this one is a much shorter one but I had to read half of it and then do an assignment and then read the second half and oh my word this is another like this is a retelling of Frankenstein but I don't I don't like to see it as a retelling I like to see it more as a continuation because you literally start off the book with the original Frankenstein's monster was frozen in an iceberg and then 225 years later it melts because of you know global warming and what we're doing to the earth it melts he's set free and then he starts to roam around and wander to Illinois where this boy and his mother is so I like to view it more as a continuation rather than just a retelling just for that reason and so it's about this mother who loses her son at a very young age and she is a scientist and so she is like I'm bringing my boy back because he was taken way too young so she kind of brings him back to life and the organization that she used to work for is hunting her down and so then it's like you've got Frankenstein coming for her you've got her son here who can do a bunch of amazing things and then you've got something called the Bride which is hunting her from the organization that she used to work for and so they're all again it's like all these different elements are converging on this one spot and again I was just flipping through it it's very warning this book is pretty graphic in terms of like gore but it is still like you know it is still a graphic novel it is still art being drawn so yeah just just be aware if you're not someone who is like not all about that then maybe don't pick up this book but it is a very interesting kind of retelling continuation of Frankenstein and it I have been thinking about it I have no idea what I'm gonna write it though because like the characters are sympathetic because you see that connection between the mom of this boy his name is Akai so and her name is dr. Baker so you see the relationship dr. Baker and dr. Frankenstein and how they both had lost a loved one and out of that sadness and pain and emotion they created something they created someone living dr. Frankenstein was frightened and just completely ditched his monster versus dr. Baker was like oh my word my son is back I'm gonna take care of him I'm gonna continue to raise him and it's especially since her husband did not come with her or the child's father did not come with her to help her raise this child so it's like oh it's so emotional but then it's still like very high science the thing about this is that it really hits the ground and runs like there is no introduction there is like nothing in the background I admire though because as Frankenstein is heading towards dr. Baker's lab home lab he is seeing injustices of the human world and he is trying to fix them even if it's at the cost of human lives whether they're innocent or not so he sees a boat to kill whale and he just destroys the boat he sees pigs cooped up in a pig pen that is way too small and not following regulation is very abusive to the animals and he's like you're getting set free so that's one thing that I appreciate is that it gives Frankenstein a little bit of character because the rest of it he's just seen like as a monster like so yeah definitely interesting definitely a really good one to talk about with people so who knows if you're in a book club and you guys on a read a graphic novel like they're good they really are so moving on to my evaluation of graphic novel as a whole genre it is it is unique it definitely is unique because you know obviously it's a lot of storytelling through pictures and through images and not just through words and there will even be pages at a time where there are no words at all and like even in like the destroyer I could not find page numbers for the life of me like I look on I looked on good reads and it was like 160 pages and I'm like I'm gonna have to take your word for it because I ain't got no clue but I I really I enjoyed the genre I think I want to read more of it but not to an extent where I would seek it out I think really like graphic novel is the genre to read if you've gone through a reading slump or you just need something quick to read to kind of like pick you up and get you back in the reading spirit of things I think that's really when I would read graphic novels is to kind of get me out of a slump or to just kind of make that book count make that page count goal that you have or whatever I don't really have a super broad range of graphic novels and I completely recognize that as two of them are meant for discussion and two of them were also more like horror thriller based so I think I think I do need to read more graphic novel to get a better sense of like the patterns within it but I also think it's really just something I'm gonna read when I'm going through a slump or I just felt like I haven't completed anything in a while because like I could just sit down and flip through the entire book in one sitting and be done with it and that's kind of nice it's just a nice self-esteem boost when you can do that you know so yeah this video was a bit shorter but that is because I didn't quite get as much reading done due to the amount of schoolwork at the stay-at-home order and everything like that I'm actually kind of proud and surprised I was able to read three graphic novels like that was not something I thought I was gonna be able to do because I didn't I don't own any of them like okay I own these two but that's because I bought them for class not because they previously owned them and then this one is from a library that I was able to go to right before the stay-at-home order was cast put out whatever ordered before stay at home was ordered and so I was really hoping to like go to library and get like a ton more graphic novels of like all different subgenres and everything like that which did not happen but I do have some other graphic novels picked out for when I can go to the library and I do want to read more or you know I just I have a day where I want to read something but I don't have anything to read then maybe I'll pick one of those up and just kind of get it completed so yeah it's a bit of a shorter video because I didn't read as much but yeah hopefully next month will be better next month is May and I don't know what I mean next month is also gonna be interesting because again I'm gonna be having to go off of completely what's on my shelves and what I can get as an audiobook because I will not have access to a library and I am taking summer classes so school will finish in a couple weeks but then it will start up again literally the same week that I have my last exam is the week that my summer classes start so I really don't get much of a break on libraries are closed hopefully they'll be opened up at some point but yeah so for the next month or two everything is gonna have to be like on my shelves behind me here that I haven't read which is gonna be very fun and very interesting so for May the genre that I've chosen to read is sci-fi science fiction I chose this because I have quite a few books on my shelves that are science fiction that I have not read and I really want to get those done so this is something that I can just get books off of my TBR off of my literal shelf to finally have been read but then also I feel like sci-fi is just such a wide genre within itself like there's so many things that fit under sci-fi and so I think that'll be very interesting to look at and experience and discuss but even then you know all I can do is choose books off my shelf I can't really go to library I am hopefully I can get some things over audiobook but we shall see so with that I'm gonna say stay safe stay healthy be smart and yeah happy reading