Adventurers of Veremist: Fractured Kingdoms - My fren is a published author now woo! I loved her first novel it was rly good, it's about an elf warrior called Sina who goes on a journey with a band of mismatched adventurers who underestimate her, while an anti-monarchist uprising is happening, but one lead mostly by selfish aristocrats who just don't want any authority of the king over them, but are still happy to treat the poor/workers/downtrodden/vulnerable like garbage. I really got into it and would recommend it to fantasy fans, you can buy it from Amazon in paperback under that title (I will note that I read a late-stage draft rather than the completely finished published version so one chapter has been reworked a bit since I read it, but it was a really good book anyway!)
Neighborhood Story Volume 2 - I'm really enjoying this and keen to read the second half, I continue to be blown away by the stellar quality of the artwork and how it's reproduced in these gorgeous editions
Lore Olympus Volume 8 - I love this series so much, now that a big part of the main narrative arc is concluded I'm keen to see what direction the series will take next, even if it kept going with secondary character stories I'd prob still read it cuz all of them are so fascinating
Cardcaptor Sakura Collector’s Edition Volume 1 - So incredibly cute sweet and wholesome and super gay I love this, def looking forward to reading the rest
Sweat and Soap Volumes 1-2 - Fun, sexy adult workplace romance with a cute central couple and some nice messages about self-acceptance, I could see the rest of this being either really enjoyable or going down a problematic rabbit hole to hell depending on how some things are handled, but I have generally heard good things about it so I'm optimistic
The Little Mermaid & Other Fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen MinaLima - A gorgeous edition with satisfyingly thorough retellings of the stories, containing details that have been omitted from many other versions, I mostly really enjoyed this though The Red Shoes is just ridiculously full of excessive religious "piousness", like DGMW the idea of the shoes themselves is a really interesting one but young girls are allowed to be into dancing and boys without getting their feet chopped off! I understand Andersen prob had some pretty big trauma around that kinda stuff himself being closeted and everything, but I'm glad attitudes have progressed/changed somewhat regarding such things! I loved The Little Mermaid, The Nightingale (also known as The Emperor's Nightingale), The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, and The Snow Queen the best but most of the other stories here were very enjoyable too. I did raise an eyebrow at the soldier in The Tinderbox's reason for chopping off the witch's head, like we don't know she actually did anything bad, we didn't even find out she'd done anything bad later on in the story, so he pretty much just killed her for wanting him to mind his own business after she gave him lots of gold - boo! DGMW I'm not one to pick at everything in these old stories, those were the only two things that bugged me, and I really enjoyed the book overall, the interactive elements were cool though I would have been as happy with just still illustrations, but yes, lovely book, it was also interesting to compare in my mind with some of the best known film versions of these stories
