laceblade

Otherbound - read for beer_marmalade (whose DW is terribly neglected, lol self). This got a three from me because it really stuck the landing.

This is a fantasy book where the idea is more interesting than the execution. Nolan is a high school teenager who has a problem - every time he closes his eyes, even to blink, he lives the life a girl named Amara, a servant to a princess who lives in a different world - one with magic. In his own world, Nolan's inability to control when and where he slips into the other world causes his family and doctors to try and treat him for epilepsy, to no avail.

Coming to this while in the middle of Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy, it makes me think a lot about the characters and their responsibility to another story's narrative. They're participating in worlds they're not sure are real, and it's difficult to discern how much duty they owe to people who live in a different world, especially when their activities in their fantasy world are costing them in their "real" life. It's an interesting concept, and I think it's now a trope that I enjoy.

So, yes - interesting concept & ideas, but overall I really didn't care for the writing until the last few chapters. I believe Corinne Duyvis is a relatively new author (younger than me!). I'd be willing to try other books by her, given the concepts in this one, to see if the writing improves.

Content warning for violence/abuse and self-harm.


The Narrow Road to the Deep North - [not the one by Basho] Put this on hold at the library because it was on the Booker list. So, this book is about an Australian doctor who becomes a POW during World War II. He's forced by his Japanese captors to do slave labor with his comrades, working on their railroad.

The story of his experiences in World War II is interspersed with his celebrity in the present as a war hero.

The author lifted this story from his own father's, but I pretty much hated the protagonist, who likes driving drunk & having affairs.

I'm sure there are some interesting truths in the rest of the novel - toward the beginning, for example, Major Nakamura is arguing with the protagonist about "freedom" & colonization, essentially, after the protag asks for a day's rest for the other POWs to work more effectively. Nakamura says they're redeeming their honour by dying for the emperor. "Your British Empire...You think it did not need non-freedom, Colonel? It was built sleeper by sleeper of non-freedom, bridge by bridge of non-freedom."

Anyway, I'm sure there's more to uncover, but based on this prose & what I've read so far, I'm not sticking around to find out.


Once Was Lost - I'm not sure I can say anything about Zarr that I haven't already said, but I loved this one too. I'll read any book she publishes.


History of the Rain - Put this on hold at the library because it was on the Booker list. This was both heartfelt and amusing - a love letter to people who love both books & poetry (well, very white books & poetry, I should add).

The protagonist is bedbound, & she views the people in her village in Ireland through the lenses of books - characters, locations, how people say things, etc.
There's a lot of tragedy, too, as I guess happens with any book about the Irish.
I read this during the one-year anniversary of a friend's death, and found it helped me with my grief.
I'm not doing it justice, but this one touched me down deep. Here's a much better review from someone on Goodreads that gets what I liked.

Journey Into Mystery Featuring Lady Sif #2: Seeds of Destruction - I really had nothing to say about this. It was /shrug/


X-Men: The Curse is Broken - I was grateful for the focus to return to Jubilee, and enjoyed this volume more than I have the last few.
I liked Pixie, too. I've seen her in a few comics, and am interested in learning more about her.

The art feels like a series of micro-aggressions to me - the center of a panel will be the back of a woman's spandexed ass, and you're looking at someone else *from between her legs*. Like, really? Obnoxious. Not to mention the breast-accentuation.


X-Men: Blank Generation - This arc was like a breath of fresh air after the previous few. Everyone has distinct personalities, the plot is actually interesting, etc.

I enjoyed seeing the team hanging out on their plane/ship, & actually talking strategy, as opposed to just showing up places & fighting.


The Secret Country - I loved this. As with The Dubious Hills, I love the way Dean includes details not often mentioned in fantasy novels - breezes, insects, too many stairs, etc.

The premise is that a group of cousins play-act a Shakespearean fantasy with magic & murder & etc. During the summer they're separated, their pretend world - "the game" - becomes real. (Maybe.)

I'm excited to read the rest of the trilogy, and also glad that this seems to be a series that will lend itself well to rereading. Not only are there many clues & nuances to the plot, but I really just enjoy Dean's prose.

Laura sure gives shoujo manga heroines a run for their money with her clumsiness, ;)

Avengers Assemble, vol. 1 - I believe this was intended to be a jumping off point from the "Avengers" Whedon movie.

While it's a crossover event with Guardians of the Galaxy, I was able to follow the plot decently well despite being unfamiliar with the GoG.

This book is high on action but low on characterization, making me feel kind of "meh" about it. Clint Barton constantly cracking jokes about his own stupidity, Hulk did nothing for me, etc.

I don't regret having read it, but I'm glad I got this from the library & didn't buy it. The art didn't do much for me, either. I have higher hopes for DeConnick's run, which I believe follows this one.


Anne of Green Gables - I know I read this at some point in my childhood, but it was never a favorite series for me, even though my sister had them on the shelves.
It was my sister's copy that I borrowed; I picked it up while sitting in her living room during some family function.

I loved it, all of it. Anne herself is a critique on the silliness of Victorian society, & she also grows up into an understanding and gracious woman.

I'm really excited to read the next books in the series - I can't remember ever having read them, & I'm eager to see what Anne & Marilla do next.


The Kingdom of Gods - I'm having a hard time figuring out why I disliked this book so much, especially considering that I enjoyed the first two books in this trilogy quite a bit.

The dialogue, the endless exposition, all of it - I got two-thirds of the way through & just cannot stand it, cannot finish it. I think it's the pacing that's throwing me off, or perhaps Sieh's voice, I'm not sure.


Saga #21 - I miss Lying Cat.

Rosemary and Rue - I got this from the library because I've been following Seanan McGuire on Twitter for a while & find her pretty cool. I'd bounced off of Feed a while ago, but thought I'd try this urban fantasy series. It reminds me of Kitty Norville in how in the first book, the protagonist is bucking away from the abusive paranormal situation she's been in for a while.
This one's a little different, though, because the protagonist spent 14 years as a koi, in a pond. Random, lol. I plan to read more!

March Story, vol. 1 - This was okay?! Paranormal stuff happening in what they call the 18th century but I'm pretty sure is the 19th, Europe. Very pretty art. Interesting thing with gender that I hadn't seen coming. It's a pity there only seems to be one volume out in English so far.

One Piece, vols. 13-15 - I found the first two volumes really boring. But now that Nami's sick & they're in a snow area trying to find the doctor, I'm finding it really interesting?! I like Vivi even though she's probably temporary. I like that Nami's illness shows how absolutely essential she is to the crew. I think in the first two volumes contained in this omnibus, I was having my typical shounen feelings - annoyed by neverending fights. UGH.

The Lives of Christopher Chant - I liked this WAY MORE than Charmed Life. Christopher is a much more interesting protagonist, and the I found the plot & world-building in this book to be much more fascinating, and I usually don't care about world-building so that's saying a lot.

The insights into everyone who becomes a character in Charmed Life are fascinating, and now I just want to reread certain parts of Charmed Life to see those characters later on. I really love Christopher, & plan to reread this book in the future.

I LOVED the Goddess/Millie. It's so important to me that she found a life she wanted to emulate through books, and let her fictional heroine guide her own actions in a time of crisis - staying loyal to her friends because that's what Millie would do - genius! So special.

Nineteen Seventy-Nine by blamebrampton - The last year of Regulus Black's life, which I really, really liked. Even while getting in with the Death Eaters, Regulus checks in on Sirius to make sure he's okay. He accidentally bumps into Lily Potter, with whom he forges an unlikely friendship. This shows Regulus getting deeper & deeper into the Death Eater group, even while questioning some of their methods. His compromises & eventual inability to compromise are fascinating to watch. I appreciate the way that Lucius Malfoy tries to mentor him, too. I'm still looking forward to reading more HP fic by this author.
I think that reading Rowling's latest Cormoran Strike novel has made me really, really long for her to write some adult Harry Potter books, which is why I'm trying to fill the hole with politically intelligent fanfiction.

X-Men: War Machines - This plot was...something about an international INCIDENT in a fictional Eastern European nation. Our Heroes engaged in fights, & some rote lines were spoken. Yawn.


One Bird - I bought this book a few months ago, during Frugal Muse's going out of business sale.
I read most of Mori's books as a kid. Since I grew up in Green Bay, her fiction was readily available, as she taught nearby at St. Norbert's.

One Bird has some similarities to her more famous Shizuko's Daughter in that it's about a Japanese high school girl coping with an unhappy home life. In One Bird, Megumi finds a role model in Dr. Mizutani, who shows her how to rehabilitate sick birds.

The book spends a lot of time on the impossible choices women had to make due to the unfair societal expectations people had based on gender, even with this being 1975. It's an interesting insight and commentary. I really enjoyed how Megumi's support system eventually allows her to challenge the virtual prison she's been placed in, disallowed from visiting the mother who's left her for the next seven years.

Most of all, though, I appreciate Mori's writing. Her prose is cutting, just as visceral for me now at 28 as it was when I was 10 or so, reading this the first time.


Sweethearts - I really loved reading about Jenna's relationship with her childhood friend, Cameron.

Jenna's transformed herself, but never forgotten him or the impact he had on her when she was still unpopular and had no other friends.

There's a lot of tension when he shows up - she and her mother and shifted upwards in terms of class, she has a boyfriend, & a group of friends.

Cameron & Jenna's relationship felt real to me.
It makes me wonder what it'd be like if people with whom I used to be close to showed back up & I tried to fit them in with my life as it is now.

I guess it's hard to write about this one! Anyway, I've been tracking down Sara Zarr's novels, & loving each one. I particularly enjoy how important class is, is each protagonist's viewpoint and story.


The Housekeeper and the Professor - A housekeeper & single mother comes to keep house for a retired mathemetician suffering from a memory problem: while he can remember everything up until 1975, his current memory only lasts for 80 minutes.

There's a romance for numbers here, as well as the quiet creation of a found-family.

I liked it quite a bit, although I probably won't reread it.


The Lady Elizabeth - It's nice to read this after Weir's other historical fiction novels about Lady Jane Grey & Katherine Grey/Katehrine Plantagenet. Elizabeth learns how to play the game, & *wants* to play the game.

This book covers Elizabeth's life from birth up to Mary I's death.
I don't have much to say about it. Weir's prose is very readable and engrossing, but at the same time not particularly memorable.
Having read this, I'd love to read more about her reign.


Tokyo on Foot - I reserved this because Gerard Way tweeted about it.

A French twenty-something spends six months living in Tokyo because his girlfriend has an internship. While there, he sketches every day with colored pencils. This isn't a normal sketchbook - he shows detailed maps of each neighborhood in Tokyo, prefaced with a picture of that neighborhood's koban (police box).
Sometimes, he sketches the labels that come on expensive fruit, or copies of receipts from cafes, tickets that get left when he parks his bike somewhere he shouldn't, the contents of a cup noodle meal, etc.

This made me remember a lot of little details from my own trips to Japan, especially the "thousands" of potted plants that appear outside many people's houses/store fronts.

A couple of comments made me uncomfortable - overtones of transphobia, and also a couple comments about fat people (showing a group of high school girls & then saying "There's always one fat one") left me cold, preventing this from receiving a higher rating. He has some other observations of people that feel a little mean-spirited, too, :/


The Dubious Hills - Also purchased when Frugal Muse was going out of business.
This is a beautiful fantasy novel, one in which people consume many pots of tea, plan for childcare, prepare food, & herd cats. It contains the type of mundane details that I wish more speculative fiction would include.

The premise is that wizards eliminated war by parceling knowledge among the members of a community so that they have to rely on one another to navigate through life. One person teaches, one person experiences pain, one person knows plants, etc. Then, the wolves come.

In her review, Jo Walton said this book expands the possibility of what fantasy can be. It really does.


The Silkworm - As with The Cuckoo's Calling, I find the Cormoran Strike novels less condemning than The Casual Vacancy (essentially an evisceration of the white middle class), but still focused on issues of class, wealth, inequality, & human nature.

Rowling's prose is masterful, the vocabulary in particular.
I love the protagonist's reflections on fame. (His estranged father is a rockstar.)

Strike is a veteran, & had part of his leg blown off in Afghanistan. His disability is something that never goes away, is never forgotten by the author. It affects his ability to perform his job, how he travels, how other people perceive him.

I find the Strike novels almost as difficult to put down as the Harry Potter books.
While I rarely by hardcover books brand new as soon as they come out, I did with this one & I don't regret it. I can't wait for the next one.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #3 & 4 - Wow, a crossover event that I didn't hate! This may be a first 0:)
People are fighting HYDRA - does this make Ultimates part of the same universe as CA:TWS?
Didn't care for the death at the end of the fourth volume, although I understand they're trying to mirror Peter Parker's story. I DO really like Mary Jane & Gwen Stacey. Maybe I need to see the Spider-Man movies with Emma Stone in them.
Anyway, I love Miles and I wish the wait at the library for volume 5 weren't so long.

The Broken Kingdoms - I feel less critical about this than other reviews I've read. While it's the second in a trilogy, there's a new protagonist with a completely different perspective on events, societal structure, and characters in the first book.

The Golem and the Jinni - I think this might be my favorite book of the year so far. Beautiful writing, lovely characters, interesting insights into Christian Syrian & Jewish immigrants living in New York City, in 1899.

One Piece, vols. 4-6 - What a ridiculous series! Even the omake pages are absurd and heinous. I love Nami.
Boring shounen fights are more tolerable in the omnibus format.

The Killing Moon - While many of the elements of this book sound like my catnip (ninja priests, political intrigue, people's closely-held truths turning out to be manipulative lies), but I just did not dig this book at all.
The last third improved due to action. Even the writing bugged me. Maybe I prefer Jemisin when she writes in the first person?
At any rate, there's enough here to make me willing to try the sequel, because I know it's from a different perspective.

Pioneer Girl - I had to keep reminding myself that this was a novel, & not a memoir, which is a credit to the writing.
In These Happy Golden Years, Almanzo Wilder gives Laura Ingalls a golden pin with a house on it. In the 1960s in Vietnam, Lee's grandfather encounters a customer in his restaurant named Rose. Rose leaves behind a gold pin with a house on it. It's unclear whether she forgot it, or intended it as a gift for their many conversations.
Decades later, Lee has graduated from UW-Madison with a PhD in English Literature, but cannot find a post-doc anywhere, so she's temporarily living with her distant mother & grandfather again. She starts investigating whether the Rose her grandfather met could be Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who was in Vietnam in the sixties, three years before she died, covering the war for Time magazine.
In ways, this book reminded me of Hiromi Goto's The Kappa Child, how the Little House series is used as a touchstone for the children of Asian immigrants to North America. In this novel, the Manifest Destiny tug that Laura, her Pa, & her daughter Rose all feel is compared to Lee & her brother's desire to escape their mother's way of life, constantly opening Asian buffets in strip malls in different Midwest cities.
Lee's reading of the Little House books felt really familiar to me. The title is named after the first version Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her childhood - a single-volume autobiography called Pioneer Girl. Her story was broken up into multiple books, and reshaped (or ghost-written?) by her daughter Rose through a lot of epistolary editing.
The above is a little fragmented, but I really loved this book. I think I finished it in less than a day.


Buffy s10, #2 - I felt like this was a more solid intro to the season than #1 was. I often feel bad about shipping Buffy/Spike, but it just never goes away.
Nicholas Brendan is going to be authoring at least one issue focusing on Xander (and Dracula), & James Masters is going to be authoring a mini-arc on Spike that takes place during season 7. I'm...not really excited about either? Xander only became more atrocious to me in season 9 of Buffy, & I already didn't care for him on the show.
I was pleased by the appearance of [spoiler].


Kaze Hikaru, volumes 20 & 21 - It was nice to see Sei use her femininity as a tool in this little arc. I think volume 21 has been my favorite so far. I really liked the fleshing out of Sei's past, & the choices she makes. I find her love for Okita Souji much more compelling than Okita himself. I'm now caught up with Viz's release of this series in the US. To read more, I'll need to turn to fan-translations...


One Piece, volumes 1-3 - This is one of the most popular series in Japan, & I've never read it! Monkey D. Luffy wants to be a pirate so badly that he stabs himself in the face to impress the other pirates. Unfortunately, he can't swim & can never learn how, so the pirates are uninterested in making him part of the crew. So, Luffy decides to become THE BEST PIRATE IN THE WORLD. To do so, by the end of this omnibus, he's acquired THE BEST SWORDSMAN IN THE WORLD and THE BEST THIEF/NAVIGATOR as the beginnings of his tiny crew.
This is a fun series, & so far Nami, the thief/navigator who hates pirates, is my favorite.


Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand - Kitty and Ben go to Vegas. I didn't care for this one too much? But it ended up being setup for the next book, Kitty Raises Hell, which I liked A LOT. I like Kitty & her pack & her radio show & Ben & her family. I wanna see what happens when Cormac rejoins them in Denver, tho. I WISH KITTY WERE REAL AND WE COULD BE FRIENDS.

Game of Thrones - This series is becoming a weird comfort reread for me. Still, they're definitely not the greatest books I've ever read, and some of the prose makes me cringe. The first is in some ways better than later volumes, but does also include the "rose petals across a sky streaked with blood" imagery where it's just like...FFS.
The constantly ignored threat of the Others pinged a lot more as a comparison to global warming this time around.
I find myself much more interested in Bran Stark than in previous reads.
I think that with every reread, I find Ned Stark more & more stupid.
I'm still really into the direwolves & want one approximately as much as I'd like my own lightsaber.

Unsounded - I read about 4 chapters while level-grinding in Persona 4, and I've finally caught up to the present. I've said many times that I've loved Ashley Cope since her days as a FF7 fanartist/writer GlassShard. Still love everything about this - the art, the pacing (it's read better in gulps), the writing, the world-building (which I usually don't give any fucks about) are all sublime.
ALSO people ride giant dogs like horses! I think I want one of those more than a direwolf, actually.
Great fantasy.

Alias, volume one - Borrowed from a comics club friend. This series is about Jessica Jones, a former Marvel superhero who didn't really like it & is now a private detective. This didn't WOW me quite as much as Spider-Woman, but I still liked it quite a bit & have put the second volume on hold at the library. This has apparently been optioned as a series by Netflix, and I'll be watching with interest.

The Less Than Epic Adventures of T.J. and Amal - Printed form of the webcomic, this is volume one. Basically does what it says - less than epic ;) Two guys end up on a road trip, & I'm pretty sure they're going to start a relationship. Cute, fluffy, & I think they'd be good together!

Pax Romana - I found this premise more interesting than The Nightly News, but I still find the heaps of praise surrounding this author kind of baffling.
At times, the narrative breaks from illustrations and is told in script format. While the overarching idea is interesting, the arc was unfulfilling, the characters more like caricatures.

This book details the protests surrounding Governor Walker's 2011 Budget Repair Bill/Act 10.
Unlike Susan Riseling's book which focused on policing the protests, this one was written by two political reporters who work for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, & they give much-needed political background.

The reporters are factual in pointing out which portions are theater (almost all floor debates are always scripted; Senator Ellis made sure Cullen was out of the building before calling the roll when the Democratic senators left for Illinois, etc.).
They don't shy away from the fact that legislators needed police escorts due to threats of violence/death, or that they got spat on.

They're also pretty clear about Walker's open dismissal for protesters, his inexplicable refusal to take out the collective bargaining item even when urged to by other members of his own party.

I haven't read Walker's pre-2016 book "Unintimidated," but I'm sure it presents him as he is: someone who genuinely believes that God wants him to do the things he's done, & cannot/will not listen to criticism.

Having lived these protests on Twitter, I remember pretty much everything clearly.
Not an important detail is left out.
It's clear that the reporters know Wisconsin politics really well, & I really enjoyed reading this book.

It perfectly captures and explains this moment in history.
If you're going to read a book about the protests, read this one.

I still feel disappointed that so many people with whom I agree politically remain so easily manipulated by unions/liberal commentators.
People who talk about politics often lament about how unreasonable the other side is - I've heard many people wonder aloud how Republicans can think the way they do.
In the Netflix documentary about Mitt Romney, his wife & kids start a conversation wondering how Democrats could possibly be so obtuse about what it's like to run a small business.

While people are easily incredulous about people they disagree with, this skepticism is rarely turned back on to their own side.
If you feel an emotional resonance in someone's message, it's pretty rare that you'd take the time to go look up the percentage or historical fact someone quoted at you, so long as the conclusion affirms your political opinion.

Useful information is becoming sought-after in political reporting. Nate Silver enjoyed wide success after successfully predicting Obama's reelection based on aggregating poll data, and my former elections/voting professor Charles Franklin does the same thing on a smaller scale here in Wisconsin.
I'm looking forward to seeing what Silver & his team do with FiveThirtyEight, and am hopeful that he & other smart journalists who keep leaving establishment publishers like the New York Times & Washington Post for newer as-yet unexplained start-up journalism/internet ventures can put out valuable information, and that people will actually pay attention to it.

We'll see.

SO...after my HP reread, I had a lot of stuff due back at the library.
Then I went to comics club & borrowed lots of stuff from people. SO THIS IS A LONG LIST, is what I'm saying.

Cold Steel by Kate Elliott - Great conclusion to a trilogy I've loved. I LOVE CAT AND BEE. CAT AND BEE FOREVERRRRRRR. Also I now want to read a bunch of other Kate Elliott stuff. Good thing I've been buying her novels wherever I find them used/cheap.

Kaze Hikaru, volumes 14-18 - Things are getting a little more intense! I loved the foreshadowing when the doctor came to visit - listening to Okita's chest, when the reader knows he's going to end up dying from consumption.

Saturn Apartments, volumes 6 & 7 - The end of this series! It got a little more intense than I thought it would. Anyway, I can't remember any manga or comic focusing so much on class issues as the central theme of the plot. I'm glad I read this - great sf/f ideas, and a great entry manga, if you're looking for something.

Tears of a Lamb, volume 2 - Didn't like this volume as much as the first - almost the entire thing was about the school's sports festival. I did enjoy meeting Kanzaki's sisters, though.

Dengeki Daisy, volume 2 - I loathed the first half, where Teru was a "slave" doing domestic tasks for Daisy (although she doesn't know he's Daisy).
I LOVED the second half, though - where it's about hackers & the work Teru's brother did while he was still alive. I really hope that Teru goes & lives with Riko.
I'll keep reading FOR NOW.

Very Vicky, issue #? & The Very Vicky Junior Hepcat - This was described to me as a fashion magazine, but idk if I agree? Anyway, Vicky dresses in black cocktail dresses & oversized black hats, & is going to visit her aunt & uncle down in the South (she lives in NYC). She hangs out at the beach although she tries to stay out of the sun. She makes friends. The pages are filled with references to old fashions & alcohol. One of the side character meets God on the beach, & he walks around & tries to meet people. I think I didn't read enough to get a full picture. Overall, it seemed kinda weird. I didn't like it enough to seek out more, I don't think.

Dykes to Watch Out For, vols. 1 & 2 - borrowed from jesse_the_k - I've heard about these for years but never read them before. Strip comics about the lives of lesbians! Just people living life. I really like "mundane" comics like these - it happens more often in manga than in US comics, I think. I'm glad there's lots more to read. The references to late-1980s politics make me happy. The errant transphobic comment does not.

Pretty Deadly, #1-4 - Glad I went back to reread #1 & then reread everything that's been released through now. It all makes sense again! I love the writing & the art. I'm excited to see where this goes.

Saga #18 - Decent wrap-up to this arc. Loved the final panel. Thirsty for more, but the next arc won't start 'til May!

Hawkeye #16 - I spent an embarrassing amount of time searching my apartment for #15 before complaining on Twitter & being told that Marvel skipped #15! Weird, but yay for more Kate Bishop!