In the first country I lived in we had these small packets of liquorice called GaJol. They were my favourite, because I like liquorice, but also because on the back of each packet was a small joke, a word play or a fancy quote. Sometimes I would tear one off and keep them, but most of the time I just read them and threw them away, and the ones I kept would disappear as well – into the cracks of furniture and pockets and books. […]
For those who can’t stop doodling
This is a hard book to review as I have been sketchnoting for years. I picked this book up because I was teaching the technique and I wanted to give some more tangible resources to my students without going through the trouble of making too much of my own stuff. The book is beautifully constructed with lots of lovely sketchnotes and some exercises. He covers techniques, materials, supplies, rudimentary layouts and encourages you to get on sketchnoting. Reading this book took me a year, on/off […]
“Broken people don’t hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten…”
I was a big fan of Francesca Zappia’s Made You Up, and was excited for her follow up, Eliza and Her Monsters. The book did not disappoint. It’s about Eliza, who is a loner misfit at school but secretly the mastermind behind Monstrous Sea, a phenomenally popular web comic. The trouble starts when she befriends the new boy at school, Wallace. He’s a very active member of her fandom. The closer that they get, the worse it will be when he finds out who she […]
Meant to Be
This is another speculative YA novel. Meant to Be presents a future where Names suddenly showed up on every adult’s chest. They continue to appear after every teenager turns 18. The names aren’t completely understood, but most people believe that it’s supposed to be your soulmate, or Meant to Be/MTB. Agatha “Aggie” does not buy into MTBs at all, preferring to call them empties. She gets a name on her birthday, Hendrix Cutter, but chooses to ignore it in favor of her own plans. She […]