i looove reading!! but there are like 3 books on my shelf that i haven't read yet so please give me recommendations, especially for comics/graphic novels bc i have some catching up to do!
disclaimer that my reviews (reports?) are not strictly spoiler-free. star⭐-rating is at the end of each entry. you have been disclaimed.
★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶
books i've read in 2026:
09/10/2026 Das Urteil by Franz Kafka
yes i can now say that i've read Kafka.
i don't think i fully understood everything said and implied in Das Urteil. i just think it's crazy to write "z.B." in prose dialogue. i say that in a slangful way in 2026, "zett-be" like i'm pronouncing the letters of the abbreviation. but putting that in a dialogue in 1913? ahead of his time, maybe. ⭐⭐⭐?
08/10/2026 Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
i don't know who Lena Dunham is. or, i didn't before reading this book. and i have yet to interact with any of her other work. and maybe i never will. so i really didn't go into this with a desire to learn about her life and work specifically. moreso, i was just interested in the perspective of a young woman in the us american film/tv industry. a second part of sorts to my reading Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died, which i loved.
it wasn't an at my core thrilling or touching read, simply because i'm not so many things that Dunham is. her life, identities, experiences and struggles have very little overlap with my own, so it was more of observation kind of reading experience rather than one of recognition. but i think that maybe that's exactly why it was worth reading.
i liked her blunt writing style, her talking about all these somewhat taboo/shameful topics -- sex, sexuality, mental health, the body -- in a very open, unashamed way. there are some phrasings (to me in particular, the way she talked about queerness/bisexuality and lesbians stood out) that with 2026 sensibilities read as a bit iffy. but i do think the underlying politics of it all are totally fine, despite the language.
she wrote a second memoir that came out just this year and i'm vaguely tempted to read that too now. see what happened in the decade between then and now. see what else she's learned. maybe i will, maybe i won't. ⭐⭐⭐1/2
28/09/2026 Mein Sommer fast ohne Jungs by Dagmar Hoßfeld
hm....don't misinterpret my hesitance, i really liked this one, as usual. it's conni, after all. i'm just not quite sure how to summarise my feelings about it.
the plot, unsuprisingly, was quite predictable. Conni, her darling boyfriend away halfway across the globe, is lonely and bored during summer break, meets a sweet, attractive boy, there is some flirting, she feels conflicted and she feels terrible for being attracted to him, but in the end all is well, Conni having undergone some kind of character development in the process. but that's kind of the genre, as i think i said in my last Conni15 report too, and a unique plot isn't what the series is trying to do, nor needs to.
there is lots of talk about romantic relationships and loyalty in this book, and obviously, it's all very hetero- and monogamy-centric. one true love and all that. it's the early/mid 2010s after all. but i barely minded it. what i liked was this theme of building a life that doesn't revolve around your partner. doing things alone or just with your friends, having fun without your partner. i think that's something lots of people struggle with, me included (albeit not with a romantic partner but my best friend – it's difficult not to want to build your entire life around spending it with someone you love). so i liked that Conni got to figure that out for herself. i also liked that she gets to be flawed more and more, yet not without reflecting on and growing from it.
it's a little crazy to watch her grow up. while reading, i felt it was a bit over the top for her parents to be so hesitant to allow her to do a summer job (i feel like a parent should be rather excited that their teenage kid is taking on that kind of responsibility? instead of doing whatever all summer?) and i can't quite figure out her parents' angle. but maybe i understand them a little. their daughter is growing up when she was a little baby like yesterdayyy. and as a long-time-reader, and with the way the franchise is structured (following Conni starting when she's in kindergarden) it's a similar experience, where someone you know from a little book titled Conni's first day of preschool is suddenly buying sexy swimwear and talking with her friends about sex and relationships. idk man.
anyway, Anna needs to dump her stupid boyfrienddddd for real next time because she keeps doing it and then getting back together with him and i'm like girl, he makes you miserable maybe there is a reason you keep breaking up with himmmm. runnnn!!!!!
oh and also! crazy amount of pop culture and especially music references, which i'm enjoying soo much! you could make a whole playlist for this book. and speaking of music, this could once again just be a really solid movie. someone make this filmmmm and someone make Billi, if not transmasc, at least the beautiful butch aroace lesbian she deserves to be!!!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
24/09/2026 Und es wird trotzdem wieder Sommer werden by Sebastian Becker
so so so sad!!!! my god was this a sad book. i mean yeah, it's about death and grief but man. i did something i never do and started another book (The Canterville Ghost) to read at work because i didn't wanna bawl my eyes out at lunch break. Becker prefaces the book by saying that some parts of it are fictional/altered and during and after reading it, i could not tell you which parts those are. which i think is really really good. you shouldn't be able to tell. it's not at all a traumatic read. it's very (bitter)sweet a lot of the time. and it's so sad and emotional because there isn't just sadness and depression but also, chiefly almost, so so much love. love and grief are two sides of the same coin etc. waugh ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
24/09/2026 The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
unexpectedly comedic! i thought this would be a horror story but no, it's a kind of social slapstick where a ghost gets humiliated by a bunch of americans. and then he dies. and it was shorter than expected. like half of my copy are word explanations (cause it's an english/german version for class) but lots of fun! ⭐⭐⭐1/2 just because maybe it was almost too short? idk, doesn't quite feel like a 4-star read, but definitely above a 3-star. so.
16/09/2026 Wir alle für immer zusammen
and
18/09/2026 Wunder kann man nicht bestellen by Guus Kuijer
two quick, sweet reads. or rereads, i should say. i only have two of them, but i really like the Polleke books. similarly to Conni, i like that they tell of a normal life. but where Conni is poster-family-normal and rather well-behaved and unprovocative with its language and more "controversial" themes, Polleke tells the reader of different family structures, including queer parents and -- prominently -- separated parents, discusses racism, has non-white friends, and yells at and talks cockily to her parents. and all the while, the books tell beautifully sweet stories of Polleke's friendships, family relationships and her own philosophies and growth. i like that she's a poet and her poems are strewn throughout the books. i like that Wunder kann man nicht bestellen deals with illness and death and doesn't really have a happy ending (because that's how it is sometimes, some kids will watch their grandparents die, and i think they deserve to be introduced to that loss and grief in the safe constraints of a story before they are hit with it full-force.)
i will say, these books are some 25 years old, and so are the politics within. there is an n-word in Wir alle für immer zusammen, which was unpleasant to stumble over, in the context of a wider discussion about racism that's really rather insensitive to who is actually harmed from it -- the focus being more on the "injustice" of calling someone racist who isn't (or doesn't self-identify as such). overall, the message is definitely hey, let's not be mean to people because they have a different cultural/ethnic/religious background than us, the way it gets there is just sort of. iffy.
i was wondering if there is an updated edition in that regard, but alas, doesn't seem that way. i'd like one maybe. because otherwise i think it's a solid kid's story with good value.
Wir alle für immer zusammen: ⭐⭐⭐1/2
Wunder kann man nicht bestellen: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
14/09/2026 Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
i wasn't able to write about Fight Club in time for the kind of report where the feeling of the book still lingers and you still know how you felt reading it. but i know it was really good and i really liked it. i didn't make many annotations (which is a thing i've started doing, because i like when i borrow a book from my friend and get to read his annotations, what he thought and felt at whatever point in the book. i wanna document when i have a thought or feeling about what i'm reading.) i didn't make many annotations because i was just really enjoying the book.
one must ask, there is a Fight Club book?? i did when uhhh i think when i was reading the fight club wikipedia article and it mentioned the book. it makes sense to ask this, given the film's crazy big impact. you wouldn't think Fight Club (the movie) is an adaptation, because it's so good (i really liked Fight Club (the movie)). but it is.
one of the first things i thought reading fight club was how close it was in tone to (from what i remember) the film. that kind of impressed me, idk why exactly.
i also thought at some point that someone should do a comic adaptation. not me, but someone who can do action and violence and sex and nudity and a punchy, gritty, black and white art style.
Fight Club reads as a fantasy, i thought. a fantasy of rebellion, of male intimacy, maybe of escaping a dull day-to-day life or whatever social roles men feel trapped in or assigned. the fight clubs themselves and the larger rebellion movement and Tyler Durden as this version of the protagonist who just does all this crazy shit, all these aspects feel like they are fantasy fulfillment. what if i just went apeshit, what if i gave into the urges, what if i did the things i fantasize about?
and of course i loved the homoerotic undertones. or maybe they are overtones idk. Palahniuk says Fight Club isn't about gay men or whatever but there is a lot of romantic, sometimes almost sexually charged language to describe the protagonist and Tyler and Marla's relationship. and equally coded interactions. and what i mean when i say maybe the homoerotic tones are overtones is, that textually this language is romantically coded, but i do think the relationship itself still reads as...well, maybe not heterosexual but also not homosexual. it reads maybe as more of a i wish i were him desire the protagonist has for Tyler (which i guess makes more sense too, what with the two of them sharing a body). so it's like. it sounds (homo)erotic but it doesn't read as romantic or sexual desire.
and i really fucked with the pace and tone. the thing that apparently was the whole stylistic point of the story, this punchy, core moment-to-core moment thing that really just keeps you going and going. and the repetition throughout, both within paragraphs, as well as across the book.
i think that's all i have to say. if you liked the film, i think you'll like the book too. and vice versa. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
31/08/2026 Mein Leben, die Liebe und der ganze Rest by Dagmar Hoßfeld
i'm finally doing it. i'm reading the Conni15 series. which is about Conni from Conni & Co, except now she's 15 years old and the books are, accordingly, written with a slightly older demographic in mind. i remember this first one coming out when i was in 5th grade and still in my initial Conni phase, but i never read it back then. i may have been a couple of years too young for it anyway. but now i read it. and what can i say. i had a lot of fun. it's an easy, breezy read, as all of the conni books are, but this time a little more adult (they are starting to talk about sex ! gasp) and with even more emotional depth than in Conni & Co, which seems an obvious development. i like the shift to first-person -- it draws you in more into Conni's emotional world, especially since we don't have the written-out diary entries anymore. and if i were pretentious i'd say it reflects how self-absorbed teenagers get -- since with first-person voice now Conni's perspective is all there is. but i'm not, so i won't.
it's tragic that so many of my beloved Conni & Co cast are getting less "screentime" now, especially Billi and Dina. but i liked that that's a topic that's talked about in the book, something that Conni herself is struggling/grappling with, sort of growing out of childhood and the friendship dynamic between her and her (former) besties, and growing apart from them. they're not out of the world, they're still some of her closest friends, but something's changed and Conni doesn't really know what it is or how to fix it, and as sad as that is, that's the way it goes sometimes and i like that it's made a topic here. and i do like Conni's new bestie, Lena, despite her naive outlook on dating a 20-year-old. like yeah, maybe he is sweet and nice and maybe that's just what a 16-year-old girl does, because when you're sixteen, you do think you're all grown up and know what you're doing but man. man.
but more than Lena, i want to take Anna by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. or kill that fuckass guy who calls himself her boyfriend with one million hammers. i don't care that he was nice and helped out one time. send him to the moon. fucking lukas. insert that post about writing the names of people you don't respect in lowercase. anyway.
this should be a movie i think. this should've been in theatres, instead of those fuckass Conni & Co films that put my guy Billi in a dress and gave Paul internalised homophobia. not because it's revolutionary. just because i think it'd make for a really solid teen coming-of-age film about a bunch of kids who are just so incredibly normal and have normal problems. dunno if you can adapt it as is in 2026 though. not that anyone ever will. sigh ⭐⭐⭐⭐
26/08/2026 Life on Air by David Attenborough
David Attenborough was born in 1926 and, unbelievably, he is still alive today. maybe this is because of his sheer love for the natural world. i got this book a while ago, from a friend who, in the midst of preparing to move houses, needed to get rid of some things. it was a delightful read. i hadn't realised that Sir Attenborough has such an extensive bibliography, full of accounts of all his travels for the BBC. it was really interesting learning about the early days of television, how things worked back then and the restrictions tv had to deal with. also crazy to hear about the logistics of travel in the mid-20th century, that they could just?? go places, catch some animals and take them back to England to keep at Sir Attenborough's private home if not at the zoo. what the hell. fortunately, of course, that is not how natural history education functions anymore (mostly? idk what regulations on capturing wild animals for educational purposes around the world are currently). it was also interesting to hear this perspective of someone who's been doing roughly the same thing for so many years, reflecting on past experiences with the places he's visiting again years later, on past practices in the documentary-making, and how technology and attitudes changed over the decades. the ending was a quite sad, with Jane's death. but Sir Attenborough's ultimately positive conclusion and outlook, and the absolute passion and delight for natural history and making films about it to share its magnificence, that he expresses and conveys throughout the book made for such an awesome time reading it. i do hope he sticks around for as much longer as he likes. absolutely lovely to read about someone being a gigantic nerd.
and to think the guy more or less stumbled into this career.
08/07/2026 Ma Sœur est Folle/Mia Sorella è Pazza by Iris Biasio
i bought this at Erlangen last month because i've been wanting to get into reading french-language comics. for improving my french. so this week, i read it, and it was good. i didn't understand all of the text, but grasped the jist of it, and it was quite the story. very emotional if i had understood it better and also hadn't been on the train. quite tragic. the art is gorgeous, i really like this style where obviously the anatomical understanding is there but in places it's broken up and stylised and made more dynamic. it's very effective. and the colours are really nice too. i'm looking forward to rereading this when my french is a bit more fluent. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
03/07/2026 What Manner of Man by St John Starling
ok this is a bit something different, but i'm counting it anyway because it is also a published book. but i did just read the substack version, and i did thoroughly enjoy it. a young priest who is only really priest out of guilt and shame, gets put into a situation. a big scary sexy man who's got a little something vampiric and a lot of something homosexual going on with him. a remote island, home to gay people, a place for anyone to free themselves of societal pressures. perfect for that priest to have a religious and identity crisis. i liked the Dracula-style found-documents format that leaves some things open to interpretation/speculation. i don't think i fully understood all of the lore but that's ok. i liked reading a chapter every lazy morning before getting out of bed. ⭐⭐⭐1/2
02/07/2026 How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
i have this weird thing with Matt Haig's books (well. The Humans and this one.) that i always kind of expect to be bored. or just, that they won't be my cup of tea because by the looks of them and by their premises, they are written for a demographic that i'm firmly not a part of. but maybe, at my heart, i too am just a middleaged white normal person. or Matt Haig just does something extraordinary in his writing, idk. point is, How to Stop Time was so good. waow. devastating and funny and interesting and. i can't seem to find the right word for it, but thrilling in a quiet way that doesn't necessarily make your heart race, but it the story just doesn't let you go, really. it's not at the forefront of your mind, but you're super engaged with it as you read. there is so much depth to it. when on the textual surface, it oftentimes feels like it should be kinda boring. as i said. idk. Matt Haig seems to be the authorial ambassador for the beauty of the mundane. i saw a lot of thematic parallels between The Humans and HtST. in the character of Tom Hazard, who (like the alien from Humans) is different from other humans in a significant way and must cosplay a regular person to get by. who feels alienated from humanity because of this. who is forbidden by a superior from falling in love with a person. who is not allowed to fall in love with life. and then both of that happening anyway, culminating in a rejection of the people he was working for and the lifestyle and values they'd imposed on him. i really love this theme of falling in love with life, mundane normal life. and in this particular case, also the lesson (? encouragement? realisation?) to not hide yourself away.
anyway. i for one never trusted henrich. incredible character-writing on that one, he really deserved to die in a fire. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
02/06/2026 Conni, das Kleeblatt und das Wald-Camp by Karoline Sander
a conni & co book not written by Dagmar Hoßfeld! if you didn't know, you wouldn't be able to tell, it reads very much like every other conni & co book. maybe save for a little bit more poeticism here and there. i definitely liked the story that Karoline Sander tells here. an overmessage of get offline, be respectful to the forest and wildlife, and teamwork makes the dream work. an undermessage of chill girl your boyfriend is nawt in love with someone else, he's just a sweet guy. i liked how Karoline let the conflict linger in this one. it's not resolved within the chapter, everyone has to sit with the discomfort for a while. especially conni. the whole week she has to sit with her jealousy and half the week she has to sit with how she hurt Dina, and talking about it all and saying sorry is sooo hard. and it is, talking about things is hard. so Karoline definitely keeps with the conni & co style of letting the kids have big, complicated feelings. i also liked that we got a bit more personal with Janette. beyond her constant need to put others around her down, we never really got to know her much before this, so it was awesome to learn a little abt her. humanise her a little. not to excuse her bullying but sometimes, bullies are just overcompensating for their own insecurities. especially kids. now, this is a conni book i could see getting a film adaptation. someone make a faithful conni & co adaptation!! let kids have normal people stories in cinema again!! (i miss you, Die Wilden Hühner....) anyway. ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
27/05/2026 Momo by Michael Ende
oh, my beautiful Momo. this is another reread on occasion of i finally bought my own copy of it recently, but i enjoyed is immensely. it feels like i've always kind of roughly known the story. i must have been exposed to it as a kid at some point. but i only really read the book a few years ago (2023? maybe early 2024), borrowed from the library, and i loved it then and i loved it now. it feels very relevant. all of us need to allow ourselves and others a little more time. capitalism also. etc. i think a life goal of mine is to adapt this story into comic. there are just so much gorgeous imagery in there, i want to draw it all so bad. but this will be very difficult, so i'm taking my time with it. if you have never read Momo, you should. it's so good, and there aren't even any slurs in it. 🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢 five kassiopeias out of five.
02/05/2026 Solange ein Streichholz brennt by Christian Huber
this is maybe my favourite book so far this year. it's just so beautiful. so beautifully and carefully written. the characters are so rich and you can feel them instantly, what kind of person they are. not in a way that makes them boring or obvious or flimsy, but in a way where you connect with them right away. they feel real. you know people like this, in one way or another. and the story unravels gorgeously. the romance between Alina and Bohm. Jakob and his fuckass talkshow. Bohm's past. all of it breaks your heart and mends it again one million times over. and i cannot speak on the unhoused aspect of it all, but it feels just as truthfully and carefully written as everything else. the detail of it, all the little ways Bohm is othered and stigmatised in casual conversation. someone like that. so many times over. i am killing everyone. and i am telling everyone who can to read this book. the physical object of it is gorgeous too. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ obviously.
26/04/2026 On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
On a Sunbeam is the single longest comic i have read. i love it so much. i've read this once before a few years ago and loved it then, also. this time around, i reread it because we're doing mini-presentations about various comic artists at uni and Tillie Walden is one of the options. i suppose i will tell the class about Tillie Walden and the one million comics she's made already.
On a Sunbeam is goegrous. gorgeous. it also made me cry. every comic should be 500 pages long. i seem to have trouble getting into it emotionally if i can read through a comic in just a couple of hours, so. that wasn't an issue here. Elliot's situation towards the end had me. my beautiful Elliot. i don't need to tell you that i love the characters. or the worldbuilding. someone being able to come up with all that architecture and tech and landscape is insane to me. and i love a world where there are no (cis) men. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ nobrainer.
20/04/2026 Junkwraith by Ellinor Richey
ok i've read this before. but we're supposed to read a bunch of comics for class, so i reread it. i looove Ellinor Richey's art style and character designs so much. oh, and the worldbuilding in Junkwraith.... waow. i always envy when someone can just come up with a whole new world and set of rules and lore for that. it's always very impressive. and the world of Junkwraith is very intriguing, with these supernatural phenomena that still feel very tethered to reality. they feel almost mundane. spirits borne from things discarded and the desire to be loved and useful...i like that there is this kind of fantastical world and the main fantastical thing about it is tied to something so common and emotionally universal. and i like the subtle attraction and intimacy between Flo and Zoe. not much is told about their relationship, really, but you can tell they have history and there is something going on between them that neither really wants to look at. or is ready to look at. my beautiful ambiguous complicated relationship. i first read this back when i hadn't really gotten into making comics yet, and rereading it now, you can really tell that it started as a webcomic. it has the kind of (lack of) layout, panel-wise, that you see a lot more on web than in print. webcomic artists go crazy with panel-shapes. lots of that here. that's not bad exactly, you just have to make it work, and i think Ellinor made it work, it's just something i notice now. only thing that minorly irritated me were the dialogue and lettering here and there. the lettering feels just a little sloppy sometimes, sort of kind of. if you're a perfectionist. odd kerning/spacing, uncentred placement within the speechbubble, whatever whatever. small things. the dialogue feels a little uhh...stilted? explaney? not quite right sometimes? like they're saying catch-phrases, idk. but this is mostly in the beginning and maybe i'm just crazy. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
17/04/2026 Outline by Michéle Fischels
16/04/2026 Conni, Mandy und das wilde Wochenende by Dagmar Hoßfeld
wowie, what a ride. the interesting thing in this one was that it takes like half the book to really arrive at Conni and Mandy's titular and advertised reunion, and before this we are basically told, this isn't going to happen. as is Conni. and then suddenly things move crazy fast. Mandy is coming to Neustadt, we have to get the maximum out of the 24 hours we have with her. there must be a party. none of the adults need to know anything. and it all works out because these are responsible 12-13-year-olds who somehow know how to operate a barbecue grill and make pizza and all kinds of things. good for them. one small thing: WHY IS SOME 18 YEAR OLD GUY INVITING A RANDOM TWEEN GIRL TO HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY AT THE SWIMMING POOL?? leave her alone!! girl get out of there. idk man. ickiest thing i think i have read in a conni book. thank god the guy was nice and aquainted with Conni's friends but lowkey that's not the pointtt. killing men forever. anyway. crazy how these characters are still barely teens. how does time work in this universe? only Dagmar knows. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ for the creep. explode.
10/04/2026 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
a man will do one sort of kind of selfless act and think that absolves him of a lifetime of egotistical sin. it doesn't. knife to the chest 🗡🗡🗡 but oh, i liked The Picture of Dorian Gray. i did nawt understand big chunks of it for lack of cultural and political knowledge because i am not a rich boy in 1890s england but i got the gist of it. something i always like about the classics (tm) is the big ideas. back when authors were philosophers and a book had to concern itself with society and the nature of man. i'm not saying that needs to be every novel ever, i'm just saying i like when an author gives you a little something to think about. which i think my close personal friend and pioneer of gay male misogyny Oscar Wilde did here. the character of Lord Henry (whose full name i never quite caught. why do they call him harry? is it lord harry henry wotton? why would you do that to a reader?) is a prime source of saying stuff for you to think about. he is incredibly annoying to me because in everything he says he feels so very insincere and pretentious, it feels like he just says stuff just to say stuff and provoke, but it works. you read what lord henry says and it brushes up against you and you start thinking about whether you agree or not. very effective. king of sophisticated rage-bait. a little bit of philosophy that i did genuinely like is what Basil says right at the beginning, when he talks about his art and Dorian Gray. about how as an artist, your art doesn't reveal so much about the thing you depict as about yourself and your relationship to it and the context of the work's creation. this may not be true for everyone, but i felt that. making art is just baring your soul to the world. and when i draw a portrait of my best friend with whom i have a strange homoerotic, queerplatonic thing going on, it says way less about them than it does about how i percieve them. and that's sometimes a scary thing to reveal to the world. anyway. Oscar Wilde did not need to include those endless passages detailing every one of Dorian Gray's special interests and collections. you're just showing off now. i read that chapter like you watch TV waiting for the program you actually wanna see. three stars. maybe ⭐⭐⭐1/2
13/03/2026 Alpha Boys by Aurel Mertz
this one was interesting in a few different ways. the uh, feminist-theoretical aspects of it are quite basic and (to me) obvious. nothing a trans faggot like me wouldn't already know. and i'm not unfamiliar with the manosphere either (unfortunately, i might say), so reading about all these phenomena of pickup-artists, "coaches", incels, the andrew tates and whatever whatever of this world, didn't come with shock as much as a resigned well, yes. what shocked me a bit were the experiences Mertz recounts about average, every-day male spaces, about the average cis-male socialisation, that often left me like girl, you live like this?? cause that's crazy. and crazier even that even a relative softie (which is how he comes across online at least) like Mertz, who says about himself that he grew up around strong women and soft men, and who is politically decidedly left-leaning, does still seem to connect to and fall into a version of this kind of "toxic masculinity" that i always feel like you surely have to be the kind of guy i'd be scared of walking past to entertain. but i think it's very valuable to have this kind of reflected self-examination of a cishet masculinity and an examination of (toxic) masculinity from a cishet male perspective (ok this sounds bad, hear me out) because while, as i said, its theoretical content isn't revoluntionary and isn't anything that other (non cishet male) authors haven't already described and described much more in depth, i think it's a good entrypoint for men to start reflecting on their own relationship with masculinity. specifically because it's written by a fellow guy. i'm not saying that an andrew tate will pick it up and come out the other side a changed man, there are plenty of signifiers of the book's satirically-confrontational intent, both on the cover (an adorable baby kitten??) and in its language, that would deter someone who's that far gone. but, you know. your average guy who is just a little too close to the verge of falling for the manosphere propaganda. and ultimately, while maintaining the satirical, critical edge, Alpha Boys is very empathetically and respectfully written, not just towards the obvious victims of "toxic masculinity", but also towards the men who grow up on it, internalise and externalise it without necessarily wanting to do harm, but rather just because they don't know what else to do. because unlearning destructive behaviours and thought patterns and emotions is hard. or whatever. idk, it was a good read. biggest thing i took from it was that i am so happy that i'm trans. came with its own issues but at least i don't have to unlearn all that. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
21/02/2026 Conni, Dina und der Babysitterclub by Dagmar Hoßfeld
another one of these! and once again it was sooo cute and fun! i liked how naturally it was decided that of course Dina's friends are gonna help with taking care of her sibling. it takes a village, and all that. and i loved how confidently and proactively Paul joins in taking care of the baby -- though you coul've probably gone more into depth, it at least starts a conversation about gender-inequality in child-care and that babies aren't purely a girl-thing. while reading i thought i maybe would've liked more of a conversation about what if you don't want a baby and more diverse opinions on that? but maybe this isn't the place for that, because i guess the reader as well as character-perspective is more about being/becoming siblings to a baby rather than becoming a parent.
something i was irritated by was the timeline of this one. cause this book spans the better part of a pregnancy, from "we're telling our child she'll be a sister" to birth, which is what? like 5-6 months? and yet, nothing (other than the babysitter-preparations) happens, there are no birthdays, no changes of season, no holidays or school breaks, and time is counted in weeks rather than months. this is crazy to me and makes no sense. i guess time in the conni universe functions weird generally, because there is a chronology but there is also only so much time until Conni and her friends get older, so you have to cram all the stories you wanna tell into a relatively short few years. the things these kids experience just in 6th and 7th grade....but usually, stories take up maybe a few weeks or couple of months in-universe, so this pregnancy thing is just...tricky. it seems to just be a very very long march. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
18/02/2026 Rocky Beach by Christopher Tauber & Hanna Wenzel
i'm not as big into Die Drei ???/The Three Investivators as others are. i had a couple of cassettes as a kid and i can appreciate the series (franchise?) but they weren't part of my childhood to such an extend that i have crazy nostalgia about them. Rocky Beach is a kind of fan-fictional look at the three boys all grown-up, each having gone his own way out into the world, brought back together by pure coincidence to once again work (somewhat) together as detectives. the comic -- unlike the original series -- is dark, gritty and bluntly adult, but the story does still follow some of the narrative structures i remember from the originals. i liked it, the story, overall. i think that maybe comic is a tricky medium to tell crime stories in, because it is by nature so fast-paced and (to me at least) crime needs suspense and suspense needs buildup and buildup needs time. so it was kind of over before i could really get invested. but maybe i need to read slower, too. generally, i thought there were some issues with pacing and scene/action transitions -- i occasionally got irritated when scenes changed suddenly and maybe a couple extra panels could've helped there to better communicate these transitions. and sometimes, i felt that speech bubbles could've been better arranged to allow for clearer legibility. the art is absolutely gorgeous (despite some poses or others that maybe weren't technically wrong, but i still felt were...kind of stiff. in an uncanny way.) and i really liked all the characterisations. i think as a whole, Rocky Beach is probably more exciting for genuine The Three Investigators fans, but it works well enough as a stand-alone too. there is enough backstory in there to understand the characters' history with one-another and the town. ⭐⭐⭐
17/02/2026 Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers
wowie!! i've been excited for this one ever since i got wind of it (probably via a screenshotted tumblr post i saw on pinterest) and now it's finally out and it's sooo good!! you go into it thinking you know the story. enemies to lovers, medieval-ish fantasy setting, high stakes strengthening and breaking character-relationships, ok. a fun, breezy read. and it is a fun, breezy read, and you're kicking your feet in glee and you're snorting at the humour that is so very stupid but delivered in a way that you can't even get upset at how stupid it is, and then the lore unfolds around you and you're shouting at the pages in mind-boggled disbelief. and then it keeps going! and things keep happening and the world keeps expanding and the characters keep becoming more and more three-dimensional and you're thinking how crazy it is that a single person can come up with all this stuff. the wonders of the human mind, right? so yeah. Sir Cameron never gets boring and the longer you read, the fresher and more inventive it feels. and all the characters are (often unlikable) freaks, each in their own ways, and yet. and yet, you love them so much. cameron is so stupid but you love him and merulo is so nasty but you love him and glenda is so horrible but you love her and...well, i've got nothing against the dragon ladies. a big strong woman can do whatever she wants. but you love them.
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| the aforementioned humour. this made me laugh. |
anyway. needless to say, i had a fantastic time with this and it was well worth the wait. i hope they get to make part 2!! also, the book is just so gorgeous. waugh. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
04/02/2026 Conni, das Kleeblatt und die Pferde am Meer by Dagmar Hoßfeld
if you know me you know what i'm gonna say. i loveeed this so much wow. my close personal friend conni klawitter <3 i didn't quite know what to expect with this one, on the surface it seemed like a kind of fun breather where not much happens -- what kind of plot can they squeeze into six days in-universe time that will fill 173 pages? but wowie! conni keeps experiencing things! i was never really a horsegirl, so i guess i learned a lot about them in reading this (learned may be a stretch. read words that i didn't know before is more like it. dunno that i will commit them to memory). i thought the animal abuse subplot was really well done. for one, i teared up reading how this woman was treating her horsies. but i also liked the balance kept between conni & her friends taking action on their own but also being responsible enough to reflect on legality and safety, and understanding just when it's time to let adults in on the issue and take charge. it's not a Conni (or even her friendgroup) is the sole hero story and that's something i've always liked about the conni series. she's just a girl. and she isn't powerless but there are things where you have to trust the adults around you to take care of it. and i liked how here especially, this emotional conflict is shown between wanting to do something, being scared of doing something illegal, wanting to tell an adult you trust but worrying they won't take it seriously (if you don't have sufficient evidence), and then being relieved to have told them but restless because now there's nothing more you can do. i love it when middle grade books let their characters experience complex emotions. handheart ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
29/01/2026 Testament by J. Marshall Smith
it's kind of crazy and sad how quickly you can read a comic. i read Testament in its entirety on the trainride to uni this morning. it's gorgeous and really good but i wished i'd had taken longer to get through it. i was barely really invested when it was already over. still, i was quite sad. i felt like you could probably have done a more thorough exploration of the themes and questions that the story raises, but i like it as this sort of starting point or nudge to think about them yourself too. i need to reread, i think. i'm so used to reading prose, i tend to skip over the visuals, even when i read comics, and it would be such a shame not to appreciate Smith's gorgeous art. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
26/01/2026 Kein Winter für Wölfe by Kurt Lütgen (1955)
i found this book sitting in a tiny library on my way to a job interview last fall and thought it sounded interesting, so i took it home. it feels like reading it took forever. things keep happening in there and it's not necessarily written in a super engaging, thrilling way (at least for my mushy 21st century brain), and also everyone keeps saying things that are so racist. alas. the 1950s. apparently this thang won the german youth literature award (deutscher jugendbuchpreis) in 1956, which is crazy to me because there are zero youths in this. anyway. i didn't hate it, literarily, i really quite warmed up to the characters and story by the end (which is very on theme here, what with winter coming to an end in it, and the characters also warming up to one-another), and i have to admit, the ending moved me. i shed a tear. still, ⭐⭐1/2 for being just kind of a boring reading experience to me personally.
★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶
all the books i read in 2025:
23/01/2025 Der Hund, der unterwegs zu einem Stern war by Henning Mankell
31/01/2025 Maus by Art Spiegelman
15/02/2025 You'd Be Paranoid Too If Everyone Was Out To Get You by Awsten Knight
26/02/2025 Man Vergisst Nicht Wie Man Schwimmt by Christian Huber
04/03/2025 Nullerjahre by Hendrik Bolz
08/03/2025 Conni, Anna und das wilde Schulfest by Dagmar Hoßfeld
11/03/2025 Conni, Billi und die Mädchenbande by Dagmar Hoßfeld
21/04/2025 Eine Hand Voller Sterne by Rafik Schami
09/05/2025 The Dead Travel Fast by Eric Nuzum
14/05/2025 Conni, Mandy und das große Wiedersehen by Dagmar Hoßfeld
06/06/2025 Mama, Bitte Lern Deutsch by Tahsim Durgun
19/06/2025 Conni, Phillip und das Supermädchen by Dagmar Hoßfeld
02/09/2025 Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
10/10/2025 Der Kleine Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
30/10/2025 Conni, Paul und die Sache mit der Freundschaft by Dagmar Hoßfeld
15/11/2025 The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
22/11/2025 Conni, Phillip und ein Kuss im Schnee by Dagmar Hoßfeld
27/11/2025 Mein Urlaub mit Miesi by Manfred Töpel
11/12/2025 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
27/12/2025 Conni, Dina und das Liebesquiz by Dagmar Hoßfeld
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