{"id":15323,"date":"2026-06-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15323"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:32:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:32:54","slug":"in-the-coffeeshop-theres-always-steam-people-mostly-human-by-shaenon-k-garrity-emily-holden-graphic-novel-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15323","title":{"rendered":"In the coffeeshop, there’s always STEAM & people (mostly human), by Shaenon K. Garrity & Emily Holden (Graphic Novel review)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Townsfolk and students,
coffee and conversations,
pastry and personalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby’s a great coffeeshop employee. She’s also an experimental young adult transhuman created in secret university lab nearby, but only the scientists she escaped from know that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So many interesting people come to the coffeeshop – Annie the hat who speaks in cryptic sentences, Zev who says pants are a CIA plot, the cute girl always reading comics (co-worker Mira’s crush).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby decides that love must be the “success condition” that makes someone happy, so she designs a data analyzer in the storage room and begins finding romantic matches among townspeople, including her harried boss Lynn, and nudging them together in the coffeeshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the secret lab has mercenaries searching for RB-8, considered a top-level danger threat to humanity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more people who become happily paired up, the grumpier Mira gets, especially when she finds Ruby’s machine and fusses at her about invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mira already knows that Comic Book Girl is perfect for her, so she and Ruby comb through hints from romantic comedies and concoct a double-date plan involving new regular customer Ward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Ruby’s machine shows troubling information about Ward, and the mercenary agents are closing in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will Ruby get taken back to the lab?
How can her coffeeshop family protect her?
What really makes someone human? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This graphic novel is drawn by a different artist in a different world than the author’s Dire Days of Willowweep Manor<\/em> (recommended here https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=12249<\/a>) and Nefarious Nights of Willowweep Manor<\/em> (https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15087<\/a> ), all three great fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does your favorite coffeeshop know your order by heart?
**kmm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book info<\/strong>: Steam \/ Shaenon K. Garrity; illustrated by Emily Holden; inks by Sam McInnis; colors by Monica Nguyen-Vo. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2026. [author site https:\/\/www.shaenon.com\/<\/a>] [illustrator site https:\/\/emily-holden.com\/steam<\/a>] [publisher site https:\/\/www.simonandschuster.com\/books\/Steam\/Shaenon-K-Garrity\/9781534495852<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Townsfolk and students, coffee and conversations, pastry and personalities. Ruby’s a great coffeeshop employee. She’s also an experimental young adult transhuman created in secret university lab nearby, but only the scientists she escaped from know that. So many interesting people come to the coffeeshop – Annie the hat who speaks in cryptic sentences, Zev who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,68,80,51,62],"tags":[22,4,11,20,182,5,16,390,44,187,39,49,96,15,189,9,21,35,33,58,534,53,8,28],"class_list":["post-15323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-future","category-graphic-novel","category-mystery","category-science-fiction","tag-behavior","tag-belonging","tag-communication","tag-conflict","tag-cooking","tag-coping","tag-determination","tag-enslavement","tag-friendship","tag-lgbtq","tag-love","tag-memories","tag-mental-health","tag-relationships","tag-robots","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-technology","tag-university","tag-us-artist","tag-us-author","tag-villains"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15323"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15388,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15323\/revisions\/15388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}