Perry
So short (less than 100 pages), so weird, and so great. Asa has a temp position in a city in Japan. Her husband gets a transfer with more money, so they move to podunk countryside Japan to live in a house owned by his parents, right next door to his parents. Asa and her husband go from communicating and eating together to something else: She, no longer employed, is going slightly stir crazy because she's alone with nothing to do and no way really to get around; he, with the only car, is at work until all hours, or else he's on his phone, completely checking out of their life together.
And then she's walking to the store one day and sees a strange animal. With no clue what it is, she decides to follow it–and falls down a hole.
Thus begins her strange Louis Carroll-y almost non-adventure, in which she meets strange neighbors and, apparently, her secret brother-in-law. She sees dozens of children playing at the river. She notices strange things about her husband's grandfather and meets the strange neighbor who always wears the same clothes. And nothing seems quite right anymore.
Are the isolation and loneliness getting to her? Or is something weirder going on?
My wife read this first and wanted to discuss it, so I read it. It takes no time at all and is a bit WTF, but it was also weird and wonderful. It sparked a great discussion of what was actually happening with the weirdness and all those old people and children other people maybe don't see. And interactions Asa has just add to the weird. The atmosphere is great. In just a short book, Oyamada-sensei has created a very confusing, lonely world for our heroine. Is it real, or is she losing it? Is something mysterious going on, or is being a woman following a man with nothing upon which to fall back a potentially bad idea?
Yes!
I normally find thrillers absurd, and sometimes I really don't care for the tropes. Like toxic female friendship. I didn't have to worry about that here. It all might seem incomprehensible, but what happens in this book, well, there's historical precedent. It isn't as far-fetched as one would like. It was stressful, mortifying, depressing, even sociologically scary. And it was so good. This is a grade-A thriller.
Moving tale
It took me a bit to get into, but once I did, I devoured this book. It is a lovely, detailed period piece about religious fervor gone wrong, and the petty enmities that tear a community apart. Out is also, importantly, about racism and sexism, against an indigenous culture and against women, respectively. With a doomed lesbian romance.
Major TW for physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse; rape; underage sexual situations; attempted suicide and suicidal ideation; cannibalism and gore, and what would technically be considered incest, and disassociation due to trauma, and PTSD. Oh, and murder. Did I forget anything?
This is reeeaaaalllly not for the taking of heart.
It's basically the tale of Natsuo and how she has no place in society. As a child, she believes she has magical powers granted by her best friend, an alien hedgehog toy. She tries to please and is actually a good kid, but her family sucks and treats her horribly. Weird, damaging things happen to her, and then she grows up, and sh*t gets real. She marries a man who also can't fit in and has a mutually beneficial non-sexual arrangement. That return to her grandparents homestead, where she hasn't been since childhood. She reconnect with the cousin she wanted to marry as a child.
There are so many alarming and painful parts if this book that my wife heard me muttering and exclaiming multiple times. Natsuki tries to fit in, but also refuses to. She wants to want to be “brainwashed by the factory” and to manufacture babies like a good little Factory component. Her husband begins to believes her tales if being from another planet. Things come to a head when their families find out they aren't having sex, aren't contributing to society.
The outcomes are extreme, yes, but I really appreciated Murata-sensei's risks and extremely dark thematic elements. And how it feels not to want the things Prime are supposed to want, as dictated by society. Especially as a woman.
I'm pretty much guaranteed to love this, because I love Outer Darkness, I love Chew, and I love Farmhand. These three chaps all together is my catnip. I laughed, I groaned, I cheered, I thanked my wife for an awesome anniversary present.
Briefly. Not the best writing, and definitely a bit tedious and repetitious, but overall interesting. I think this book would be a fair introduction to the HAES movement, to fat activism, and to the controversy over health vs. weight. It's always refreshing to hear different words from various healthcare providers besides the usual absurdity of overweight being deadly. I would recommend this for someone who has problems with self image, who finds doctors nagging about diets pointless, and for someone who just wants an intro to being healthy.
Because of Covid, I missed half of the issues in this volume. So now, I have those issues, and I am relieved. Gods, I love Rob Guillory.
A practically perfect Millennial novel. It was real and sweet and angsty and filled with some truly precious characters. It isn't just a romance. It is for anyone who's ever had a quarter-life crisis and believes in found family.
At was quite something to look at. Concept was fun. I liked Tevin quite a lot, but I wanted more of him and the vampires with whom he hung out and then fell out. Less cop, less Adams, more Abigail and Brittany. But the cop thing was the biggest party, and it left me cold.
I received this ebook ARC from the publisher and Netgalley for a fair review.
This book had so many things going for it. A fascinating concept, queerness, it's occasional imagery, anger. I really loved the concept, all of it. It's the tale of Vern, a young girl in a cult devoted to the God of Cain. It's ostensibly a Black Power movement, a total excoriation of anything deemed white. They grow their own food, partake of only Black media, and are almost completely insular. The down side is that they are also conservatively, religiously patriarchal. So Vern, being upset about the disappearance of her best friend and first love, and embittered at her forced marriage to the leader of the cult (because she needs a man to help control her deviant proclivities), decides–in her pregnant state–to run away. So she does one night, leaving behind her family and all she's ever known. She gives birth in the woods and is tracked by an unknown person who leaves threatening messages in the form of bloodied baby clothes. Vern spends nearly three years in the woods.
Vern is also albino and very nearly blind. She bears twins, one Black and one albino. Howling and Feral, respectively. She runs off one day and begins an affair with a strange white woman, which will haunt her throughout the novel.
Speaking of hauntings, she has those too. Nearly everyone in the cult has night terrors, but Vern starts seeing things at any given time of day. And some of them, as the book progresses, can see her right back.
Eventually, she tries to hunt down her friend Lucy, and she winds up in the family of Lakota woman Bridget and her niece Gogo, with whom Vern begins a relationship. As things come to a head, Vern learns about who she really is, what the cult really is, and what she will become.
So again, some great elements. Cults, government conspiracy, LGBT+ character representation, Indigenous characters of importance who–spoiler–don't DIE. This book has some great things going for it! Like, really great things.
So why three stars? Because the elements of semi-magical realism don't quite work for me. Nor did Vern, really. Her children are just a little too precocious and advanced for their years. They don't talk like the kids they should be throughout the book. I didn't believe them. And, once Vern is in the woods, I was boggled. This is strangely a book based somewhat in reality, but her years in the woods are like a strange fairy tale. She wasn't so very far from civilization, but she refuses to leave the woods and becomes sort of feral? For three years? I think if the book had had a more dreamy quality that would have worked for me, but it really doesn't. So I spent most of the book not believing the story. Which made me sad, because I wanted to be invested. I wanted to really love it. There are so many awesome things going on with this book, but the execution for me just fell a little flat, a little unfulfilled; the pacing a little unbalanced. Still, some of the things going on are truly cool, and I would have liked more exploration of those things.
2.5 stars. Art was charming, quite pretty. The story and character development were lacking.
An adorable little jaunt from Key House's past, and a nice little coda for the original series. I was not into the excerpt at the end, though. Totally different series. But the Locke & Key stuff–always a delight.
I actually loathe Marcus say this point. And I feel like the relationship drama sent haywire in this volume. It was Al very ridiculous and abrupt. And I'm over Marcus. Stuff happened that just didn't need to, and I keep forgetting the are like 15-year-old kids, despite the violence. I think Remender does too. I've felt this from the beginning, and I'm no prude, but he does seem to like sex and violence just for the sake of seeming edgy. Also, I want more of other characters and less of Marcus. He has become unbearable. And if he did what it looks like he did, the sooner he kicks the bucket the better.
Not as much preposterous fun as Lock every Door. The explanations are still silly, but more mundanely so. Everything is, as ever with this, are a bit of a stretch, but this became a trifle tedious. Derivative and ludicrous and not as much fun as I'd hoped. And the characters were largely dull or just inane. All the explanations really make no sense whatsoever.
I see I am not the only one to give it a three-star rating. This is part of the reason I bumped ‘Dreams and Shadows' to two stars. ‘Watchmen' is superior. But I'm just not that into it. Is that sacrilege? I'm sure. I'm not into Western comics as a general rule, although I have read some I quite like, that are lovely and moving. And I really wanted my reread of this to be moving. But it wasn't.
On a shallow level, I don't like the art. I don't like Western comic art 90% of the time. But if the story is engaging, I can get past that.
This story is moderately engaging. I understand this is an important book, but I liken it to Bob Dylan. Just because it is important, doesn't mean that I have to like it.
I appreciate the philosophical discussions and the attempt at solid characterizations. But the most moving bits to me were the displays of interconnectedness with minor characters–the Bernies, Mal and Gloria, the Gordian Knot locksmith and his brother. That made things interesting. And I was displeased that they all died. But the main characters, with all their back story and complexity left me cold.
Except Rorschach. Maybe the Comedian. But I digress.
I feel like Adrian is megalomaniacal, just a bit, in the graphic novel. In the end when he asks Jon if he did the right thing, I felt like that was out of character. I felt no sympathy for his desire for peace, because he showed little remorse for killing millions of people. Was he trying to save the world, or was he showing off and trying to rule it? I honestly did not like him in the graphic novel. He was simply full of crap. Dan and Laurie should have been the emotional centerpiece, but they were also dull.
Laurie is one woman surrounded by all these stupendous men. The guys are the cool, brilliant characters. She's the emotional hottie. I suppose for the time, she was good. But in hindsight, we are not impressed.
I wanted to like this more. I did the first time I read it a decade ago. And it is a work of value, I will not deny. I had high hopes for my reread. But I feel the same now as I did back then. With a sigh, I must concede to myself: It just doesn't do it for me.
And now for the truly controversial statement. I read the book first years ago, thought it was all right. However...
I like the movie better. Let me be honest, I LOVE the movie, as much as I love ‘The Dark Knight.' I found it emotionally and intellectually engaging. And, frankly, I found Adrian's manipulation of Jon to be a far better ending for millions of New Yorkers than a genetially modified squid. No, man. The squid killed me. And Adrian felt far more amorally invested in world peace in the movie. And Laurie was a far better character in the movie.
I'm sorry. I'm a bad person.
Maybe 2.5. It's a little better than the last...I dunno, four volumes? I have a bad relationship with this comic. It's just not very good to its ladies.
Brutal. Grimly amusing at times. Absurdist and bloody dark. I really liked this, but I can't recommend it, because it is not for everyone. It's graphic and depressing, and everyone dies, and most of them are six-year-old children.
So much fuuuun! Not that it's that subtle, but it's so much more nuanced than the old show. And I don't hate Rio for being a complete and utter tool. And RAYA! YAY!
Goofy and enjoyable and queer with ladies running the show. It has definite potential.