Read Harder: Vol. 4

This year, I plan on chronicling my adventures with Book Riot’s 2016 Read Harder Challenge.

Time for a graphic novel, friends. The charge is to find a non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years and here are a few that fit the bill just fine…

 

In Lady Killer, written by Jamie S. Rich and illustrated by Joelle Jones, Josie is the picture perfect ’60s housewife. Or is she? The strain of caring for her husband and daughters while balancing her career as a trained assassin is starting to take a toll on her life. Can this lady really have it all?

Sydney Padua’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is a fun bit of speculative fiction – Charles Babbage, inventor and machinist, was essentially the inventor of the computer; Ada, Countess of Lovelace, was a proto-programmer, who translated and added on to Babbage’s notes. Neither completed their work, but Padua wonders what if they had…

Jane, the Fox & Me was written by Fanny Britt, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, and translated from French by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou. Hélène is a lonely outcast at her school, with Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre as her only consolation. After a brief encounter with a fox on a school camping trip, she begins to come out of her shell to embrace life.

Written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by her cousin Jillian Tamaki, This One Summer is a coming of age story about Rose and Windy, neighbors at a summer rental community. Rose is trying to navigate her mother’s depression and her interest in the boys who hang out at the small store where they rent horror movies. Windy, a few years younger, is still a bit silly but understands more about adults than she lets on.

Any other suggestions?

— Jess