An enourmously charming piece of art! Definitely more character-focused than plot-driven, this had an amazing ensemble of characters. All the main characters are female or non-binary, there's a vast range of character designs and all are enchanting. You'll find everything from a wildly energetic and driven squire reminiscent of Merida and Alice (in Wonderland) to grumpy lesbian knights and her rival the frilly magic girl knight and so on. Even the horses had so much character. The author noticeably had fun playing around with gender expression and challenging stereotypes, deviating from what you might expect the middle ages to be like.

Marchbank's art style quickly became one of my all time favorites, brimming with colors it immerses you seamlessly into a fantastical version of the middle ages. The panelling was so well done, there's a lot of cool and unique pages! Between the chapters, the color palettes change, giving Marchbank a lot to play with. Color was exceptionally well used and the character development through the art style was really cool. The characters all had such different fashion, noses, hair, body types and more which made everyone look unique and memorable.

While there's less of a plot, following these characters was a blast and there's moments of character growth, gentle life lessons and sweet depictions of friendship which were heart-warming. We follow our squire George and her mentor Serafina in their knighthood, as they train with swords, battle in jousts, tournaments, care for their horses, and more, all while maintaining their rivalries and relationships. Even though it's not a central point in the story, Serafina and Minerva's marriage was one of the most wonderful depictions of older lesbian couples who've been together for a long time.

Nonfiction that gives us many different perspectives and experiences on a shared topic is one of my favorite genres of nonfiction and I'd say it worked really well in this collection of essays and interviews with Morroccan women and their experience. This was written as a mix of personal experiences of the author, factual statistics on topics like abortions, real world examples and casualties, and interviews Slimani compiled. I appreciate just how varied the backgrounds of these women were, there were insights from film-makers, doctors, professors, prostitutes, lesbians, religious figures, journalists, and more.

We follow five robots and one guy on their journey of opening their own restaurant. The character design in this novel was so cool. The main characters are a military robot named Staybehind, a car named Sloan, a cooking barrel robot named Hands, an octopus robot called Cayenne and a humanoid robot called Sweetie. Even the side characters have incredibly memorable designs and so much character.

Given the length of the novel there was loads of world-building. The author utilised creative ways to show off what different robots can do and that gave us more context on the history and background of the world. The descriptions of the surroundings were very tactile, it made everything feel tangible. The weather was incorporated a lot as well which made everything feel more lively.

The process of making and tasting the food was described through the perspective of these robots who experience food completely differently from humans and have an entirely different relationship to eating as well, which was so cool to read. Throughout the story, these characters go through different hardships and come out on the other side with a strong knit community.

My favorite aspect of the novel was how these robots were used as an exploration of queer identity. They might be robots and function fundamentally differently than us humans but they too struggled with their bodies, with the way they are perceived by their surroundings; they were discriminated against, and had to figure out their desires and dreams. One of the robots received the world's easiest top surgery and the way Newitz wrote scenes like that were incredibly touching.