Mini Reviews #1 - Odessa and Narratives, Nerdfighters, and New Media

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Welcome to the first-ever Mini Reviews post! Sometimes I read books and don’t have enough thoughts for a full review that I think would warrant its own blog post. Other times, I simply push off writing a review because my thoughts aren’t clear enough yet and then it just gets worse. So I present to you my humble solution: mini reviews!

Every once in a while, when there’s a couple of books I have read but never reviewed but still want to mention, I’ll wrap them up neatly in a post like this. It’s short and sweet but makes sure my thoughts land somewhere other than just the notes on my phone (which is where a surprising amount of my reviews start).

Today, I’m starting off with two very different ARCs I was kindly given by the publishers.

Odessa – Jonathan Hill

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Odessa is a dystopian, family-focused story, set after a catastrophic earthquake, where a young woman makes her way across the country to find her mother.

I loved the art style for its dynamic and loose feel and the way it conveyed the broken and lonely feeling of the world the characters inhabit, but it made it hard to follow the action at times and keep characters apart. Subsequently, I found myself having to go back and try to figure out if there was any information I had missed which ultimately kept me from being fully immersed in the story.

Ultimately, I didn’t love the sibling relationship as much as I’d hoped, given that it’s the central relationship in the story. I found most of Ginny, Wes and Harry’s interactions quite annoying and not as heartwarming as I assume I was meant to feel about them. Overall, this had a solid premise but didn’t quite deliver for me.

Add it on Goodreads!

Narratives, Nerdfighters, and New Media – Jennifer Burek Pierce

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Admittedly, the audience for this book is probably very small. You’re either a Neerdfighter or interested in media studies. I happen to be both, which is why this book intrigued me so much! Narratives, Nerdfighters, and New Media is essentially an extended essay/thesis that examines the community of Nerdfighteria through its connections to reading and books and the use of media. Jennifer Burek Pierce attempts to understand what makes Nerdfighteria special and how it has shaped our understanding of what it means to be a reader.

I love academic discussions of media I am interested in so in theory, this was right up my street. The strength of the writing lies in the passion, it’s evident the author is herself a fan and is enjoying a deeper, academic exploration of the community. However, this is still an academic thesis and thus not the easiest thing to read, at least for me personally. I enjoyed seeing the convergence of media studies theories and the subject of Nerdfighteria, this book definitely made me reconsider my own perception of my place as a reader and how I interact with authors through different forms of media. But the academic style made it hard to read at times, which is why reading this book took me quite a while!

So I can imagine that this is only relevant for readers who are either Nerdfighters or academics themselves and are willing to take the time to work through this book, but the effort is worth it.