Revenge of the Librarians: Cartoons by Tom Gauld

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A reader can tell whether they’ll enjoy this book by the second comic, in which a monstrous villain (in top hat and cane) informs the young woman that “now that you are my bride, you will never leave this castle!” She doesn’t care, because he has an amazing library. Anyone who’s with her on that, who agrees that enough books and the right place to read them is all that’s needed, is the perfect audience for this. Edit: I really want to note that Cyn never once fretted over her appearance, or made a comment about her own appearance. I think this is really important, because girl rep can just talk about their looks or obsess about how they look. This is extremely important. To be honest, though, I read the first book a couple of summers ago, but when I read this book I was instantly enthralled all over again. There was some serious character growth, and now that this series is a trilogy, I'm very excited to see how the rest of the series plays out. Especially Cyn and Ryan slash Cyn and Peter. Complicating matters is the attractive play writer, for the new production Cyn is assigned as the set designer, just happens to be a demon!

Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld, Hardcover | Barnes Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld, Hardcover | Barnes

Ryan and Cyn have been my OTP from the beginning and that didn't change in this book. I defo had a few squealing feel moments but thats expected. Cyn’s narrative and voice are probably the most compelling parts of the novel. She is funny and smart and just thoroughly entertaining and relatable. Her voice and snippets that often break the fourth barrier with expert construction. She is a fun character, a strong character who makes many mistakes believing she is doing what is best for everyone. Cyn does believe she can do this on her own, but she does not want to, and that is part of what makes her a great character. She is a flawed hero, a girl who wants to keep the people she loves safe, who does not want to ask for help on the risk that they are hurt or lost. Moreover, Cyn’s funny quips that Knudsen inserts into the text bring to life her personality only further serve to make her more relatable. In this second book, the characters are somehow even more flat (I got really tired of hearing how perfect Ryan is) and there is definitely no deepening of our understanding of the demons. The story hinges on the mechanics of the demon world- the fight for the demon throne, demon possession, a tether- but it's clear that the author doesn't care at all about writing a fantasy novel and really thinking through how these fantasy elements interact with each other and what life for a demon is really like. The plot itself feels rushed, underexplained, and overwhelmingly predictable. The story is overall as quite a bit of energy and tension to it. It is funny and outspoken and has such vitality to it making it an unbelievable read. Knudsen keeps the pace up and the tension rising, but she does not lose those essential character dynamics, and she does not lose the humor. Everything she has done has made this novel incredible. With Ryan, her crush and now boyfriend by her side, Cyn takes off for summer theatre camp not expecting to encounter demons ... or Jules, Ryan’s “friend” who just happens to be a pretty blonde.I read the first book in this series several years ago and wasn't impressed with it. It didn't have the compelling characters and personal drama of a fun high school YA book or the interesting worldbuilding and speculative themes of a fun fantasy story, nor did I find it at all funny. However, I've been so desperate for stuff in this pandemic that I've been reading sequels to anything I found at all serviceable in the past. I'm going to be honest, I kind of like Cyn more when she's with Peter. In this book especially, she seemed more comfortable and open with Peter than with Ryan. After she was no longer suspicious of course, This was the sequel to The Evil Librarian book and in its own way was just as good. The first book had the surprise of demons being real, having so many invade the school, quite a few deaths, romance and suspense. But, the second book was set at camp without any parents, involved the relationship of the couple established at the end of the last book with an added complication, demons, jealousy, and guilt along with a trip to the demon realm. Perfectly composed drawings are punctuated with the artist's signature brand of humour, hitting high and low.

Revenge of the Librarians | Review - Good Comics for Kids Revenge of the Librarians | Review - Good Comics for Kids

Confront the spectre of failure, the wraith of social media, and other supernatural enemies of the authorI seriously cried at this. Like seriously how could he do that1 I was like don't let that bitch Jules rule you!!! It was clever, although there were some which I flat out did not get. I appreciated when he took a group of books and changed their titles in a particular direction, such as, classic novels with added positivity: Merriment on the Orient Express; Life in Venice; Twelve Agreeable Men; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spa; Portnoy's Compliment and Finnegan's Birthday Party. And there was classics reissued with lower standards: The Adequate Mr. Ripley; George's Passable Medicine; Reasonable Expectations; The Mediocre Wizard of Oz and The OK Gatsby. Those were fun. I could tell straight away that Peter was a demon. I dont know how but i just could. I will admit at first I thought it would also be the director. In my opinion, It should have been Cyn and Peter fighting Mr. Gabriel together on an equal basis. But it was more Peter and less Cyn, despite this being her story. It also should have had Ryan and Cyn's other friends more involved. They should have been saving the mortals in camp from the demons using mortal mystical magic, but none of that happened. Ryan and her friends did very little. They sat on the bleachers watching Peter fight the demon (after drinking some power potion), only slightly aided by Cyn. There were no stakes of massive loss of campers life involved. Although prior to the fight several campers DIED while they waited, WAITED, for 2 magical items to be given to them by Aaron. They did nothing to prevent these deaths. Why...because no one was trained to fight them during the entire book, up to the very end of a non exciting fight on the soccer field. It seemed too neatly written to have Aaron, a consort of the demoness, give them the magical tools to fight the bad guy at the very end of the book. Again, what was infuriating is that Prior to getting these magical tools, for over 3/4th of the story, Peter said over and over again he had people looking into ways to fight the evil librarian. What people?. He had one guy who we know of who died right away. So all of this waiting slowed the whole story down. It was wasted time. Time to be used to train to fight these demons and to prevent their carnage. Carnage that should have been more explored. I was pleasantly surprised with this book. When I originally read the first book, I thought it was a standalone book. I know that there was more story to be told if you consider the two remaining trips to the demon realm.

Revenge of the Librarians: Words and Pictures with Tom Gauld

Ryan and Cyn are together and going to camp together which is lovely until it becomes a love triangle...or rather square. As the title suggests the evil librarian tries to get his revenge with some help from his brother. Cyn is trying to win an award for best set design, dating Ryan, being jealous, having guilt over someone else, getting dragged to hell, being guilty for lying to Ryan as well as a big battle with the former librarian. Everything I loved about the first is dialed up in Revenge of the Evil Librarian. So much theater love (THEY'RE AT THEATER CAMP), so much romantic tension, so much evil seeping into the real world. I continue to adore how drawn demons are to musical theater. Cynthia continues to be one of my favorite female protagonists, throwing equal weight into her desperation to save her friends and her musing about makeouts and handsome boys. I love that she's an well-rounded character with enough reality to make me really, really relate to her. I'm not half the bad ass Cyn is, but I love reading about her. Perfect cheer-me-up”, is how a reader describes Revenge of the Librarians, Tom Gauld’s latest collection of comic strips, on an online forum. As a succinct critique of everything he does, it is a description that is hard to fault. It also reflects a statement of purpose he admitted to a few years ago, when he described his aim as “just to entertain people and hopefully take their minds off their worries for a few minutes.” I read Evil Librarian in a day, gushing about the juxtaposition of high school theater, swoony crushes, and hardcore best-friend rescuing. It continues to be one of the books I use to describe everything I love about reading. I have been anxiously awaiting this sequel since I learned of it's existence. I wanted to badly to get that same rush. I was not disappointed. As for the comics... they're cute, and the illustrations are reminiscent of a colorful, less crudely done version of "xkcd." Many of them have jokes that book aficionados will love, and anyone who's ever struggled with trying to write a book will identify with. It knows its audience and caters heavily to it, which is in no way a bad thing.

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I have the honour of owning an original drawing of one of the strips featured here, the one about a writer having a great idea… for lunch. It was cool to see it in full-colour here for the first time, I’ve been looking at it for at-least a couple years now. I keep it above my desk because in the mornings having a great idea for lunch is really the only great ideas I can conjure up. Is this Revenge of the Librarians the best book ever created? It does have to beat some pretty stiff competition, but I’m still going to say yes! What Is Revenge of the Librarians? I felt that there should have been more demoness. Much much more. She was awesome in book 1. And she was a blip here in this story. And that made no sense. She is integral to the whole story line. Everything in the story feels like it's happening the way it's supposed to; even though it's a supernatural story, it still feels grounded and organic. I put that down totally to the characters. Cyn is our narrator again, at theatre camp with her boyfriend Ryan, and their relationship works. There's conflict, of course, but it isn't manufactured for the purpose of piling bad things on the main character. It all makes sense within their history and the current story.