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I'm still around, and also reading things!
Hey everyone! I promise, I'm still alive, and I'm working on commissions all this weekend, so there should be some more art from me, soon. (And also some more writing, for those of you who have my writing journal friended.) I'm still having health problems, and I am unfortunately being avoidant, but I am trying to work through it! I hope everyone's been doing well lately.
As an attempt to write and communicate more, I am going to write some reviews of media I have consumed lately! These reviews are completely based on my opinion, are not in the least professional or in-depth, and may contain spoilers, so be warned!
Lately, I've been in such a reading mood, it's as if I can't stop reading! This, as I have mentioned in the past, leads me to read all through the night, until I collapse in defeat, while weakly shaking my fist, crying "Damn you, book!" (Note: I may be exaggerating. But not much.) Cursed book addiction!
I am not going to include in my reviews my rereads of Watership Down and The Hobbit, because those books are awesome; it just stands to reason.
Noah's Compass, Anne Tyler.
Don't read this book, whatever you do! It's already a bestseller; it doesn't need your support, in any case. I picked it up because it was on one of those "borrow this book and then return it when you're done" shelves that some public places have, which are very nice. I love those free, informal, honor-based book circulation shelves. They give me a warm feeling inside. However, this book did not. I selected it because I thought it seemed relatively inoffensive, and the blurb on the cover claimed it was a "gracefully written tragicomedy". I like tragicomedies. However, one should never believe blurbs! They are lying liars that lie.
This novel, although the prose is nice enough, I'll give it that, is incredibly boring. Calling it a tragicomedy is a huge stretch. I did not so much as crack a smile, though I suppose I felt a bit bad for our protagonist, though I found him the least engaging of all the characters. The only interesting part of the story is the fact that the main character is attacked at the beginning of the book, knocked unconscious by someone who has broken into his new apartment. When he awakens, finds that his memory of the event is completely gone, even though he undeniably was awake and struggled with his assailant. The memory loss is actually intriguing, but then turns out to have little purpose in the narrative, except as a lead-in to what I found a tired, unappealing relationship story, in which the protagonist became involved with a younger woman. His last chance for love! All right, yes, the memory loss is a metaphor and has some symbolic meaning, I get it, but that's about it, and I didn't think it was well-handled.
The blurbs on this book claim it's a "gripping page turner", "a sensitive, witty story", and "uncommonly rich". Even "an offbeat delight". I found it to be none of these things.
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri.
This was another book from that free book shelf I mentioned previously.
One of those deceitful blurbs on the back of Noah's Compass claimed, "Tyler makes the commonplace uncommonly rich and the ordinary extraordinarily touching." As you can probably guess, I do not think that statement was true of Noah's Compass in the least. Yet, thankfully, it is true of Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories. Lahiri does a wonderful job of making small moments and ordinary lives seem rich and touching, so I'm glad I read this book after Noah's Compass.
This is a book I can recommend. It seems I have less to say about books I like, but really, it's less simple to sum up a short story collection, since each story is separate and distinct, so I'll just give it an overall thumbs up (even though thumbs up and down are not utilized in any of my other reviews).
Bokurano, Kitoh Mohiro [warning: some mentions of child abuse/rape]
When it comes to reading manga, it's even harder for me to stop than it is when I'm reading a novel. I don't read manga very often, but when I do, it is in intense binges, so Bokurano took me about a day to read.
This is a manga about children who pilot a giant robot to save the earth and die, as their life energy is used to pilot the robot, a task they were tricked into taking part in. As you can imagine, it's sort of depressing, as basically it's about children getting character development and dying one after one. That said, I did enjoy it. Not the children dying, precisely, but the story itself had its moments of humanity and emotion, there was a bit of philosophy, and some of the character development was intriguing. I liked the grim, almost hopeless, take on the "children pilot a giant robot" theme. And hey, there was a reason to have children rather than adults be the ones to do it!
However, the way the story handled the issues of physical and sexual abuse where the children were concerned was quite off-putting to me. Sure, don't prosecute the serial child rapist/abuser! After all, his victim was driven mad and killed people! So because she did something horrible he doesn't--deserve--to be punished? Er. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And it's so noble when small children can tolerate being beaten by their older sibling literally every day of their lives! I'm being a bit glib, admittedly--these topics aren't ones I think shouldn't ever be dealt with, but they were handled so poorly in this particular narrative, I wish they hadn't been.
It isn't bad overall, and I found it suspenseful and readable. The art style is somewhat distinctive, but not particularly appealing to me. The giant robot battles are really well drawn, but I found those to be the least interesting parts, as I was in it primarily for the human drama and character development. But if you like giant robot battles, they seem to be good ones!
20th Century Boys, Urasawa Naoki
I love Urasawa's Pluto and Monster, so you might think I would have read this manga before now. I wanted to, believe me, but it's so long, and I knew that once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. I need to work on my willpower! My willpower completely failed me in this case, because I read this entire manga in two days. Oh well, I have no regrets. I can make up the lost sleep some other time, when I don't have important Urasawa manga to read.
The story was so suspenseful and exciting, and all the plots and character development were woven together so well, why would I want to stop reading? I love the basic idea of a wild story invented by children becoming a real life conspiracy due to a series of events. Sure, it was over the top at times, but it was meant to be, and it was done in a really fun way. I was excited the whole time, eager to know what was going to happen, who "Friend" was, and how the whole thing was going to tie together at the end.
There were so many good characters, of different ages, sexes, walks of life, and almost each one had their own story. Apocalypses, deadly germ warfare, evil cults, giant robots, totalitarian regimes, worldwide conspiracies, genius scientists, ordinary heroes, rebel leaders, scheming villains, legendary detectives, touching friendships--there's so much going on, yet the plot never seemed confused or messy to me. I loved all the protagonists, and Kenji was so great.
Also, the story had the 20th Century ending in December of the year 2000, so I really appreciated the correct math. All right, so I'm a nerd, I just enjoy proper century math! I must say, Pluto and Monster are still my favorites, but then, I am an extra huge sucker for stories that focus on robots-more-human-than-humans and horrible murderers, so it's no surprise.
Still, read this manga, if you haven't already!
As an attempt to write and communicate more, I am going to write some reviews of media I have consumed lately! These reviews are completely based on my opinion, are not in the least professional or in-depth, and may contain spoilers, so be warned!
Lately, I've been in such a reading mood, it's as if I can't stop reading! This, as I have mentioned in the past, leads me to read all through the night, until I collapse in defeat, while weakly shaking my fist, crying "Damn you, book!" (Note: I may be exaggerating. But not much.) Cursed book addiction!
I am not going to include in my reviews my rereads of Watership Down and The Hobbit, because those books are awesome; it just stands to reason.
Noah's Compass, Anne Tyler.
Don't read this book, whatever you do! It's already a bestseller; it doesn't need your support, in any case. I picked it up because it was on one of those "borrow this book and then return it when you're done" shelves that some public places have, which are very nice. I love those free, informal, honor-based book circulation shelves. They give me a warm feeling inside. However, this book did not. I selected it because I thought it seemed relatively inoffensive, and the blurb on the cover claimed it was a "gracefully written tragicomedy". I like tragicomedies. However, one should never believe blurbs! They are lying liars that lie.
This novel, although the prose is nice enough, I'll give it that, is incredibly boring. Calling it a tragicomedy is a huge stretch. I did not so much as crack a smile, though I suppose I felt a bit bad for our protagonist, though I found him the least engaging of all the characters. The only interesting part of the story is the fact that the main character is attacked at the beginning of the book, knocked unconscious by someone who has broken into his new apartment. When he awakens, finds that his memory of the event is completely gone, even though he undeniably was awake and struggled with his assailant. The memory loss is actually intriguing, but then turns out to have little purpose in the narrative, except as a lead-in to what I found a tired, unappealing relationship story, in which the protagonist became involved with a younger woman. His last chance for love! All right, yes, the memory loss is a metaphor and has some symbolic meaning, I get it, but that's about it, and I didn't think it was well-handled.
The blurbs on this book claim it's a "gripping page turner", "a sensitive, witty story", and "uncommonly rich". Even "an offbeat delight". I found it to be none of these things.
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri.
This was another book from that free book shelf I mentioned previously.
One of those deceitful blurbs on the back of Noah's Compass claimed, "Tyler makes the commonplace uncommonly rich and the ordinary extraordinarily touching." As you can probably guess, I do not think that statement was true of Noah's Compass in the least. Yet, thankfully, it is true of Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories. Lahiri does a wonderful job of making small moments and ordinary lives seem rich and touching, so I'm glad I read this book after Noah's Compass.
This is a book I can recommend. It seems I have less to say about books I like, but really, it's less simple to sum up a short story collection, since each story is separate and distinct, so I'll just give it an overall thumbs up (even though thumbs up and down are not utilized in any of my other reviews).
Bokurano, Kitoh Mohiro [warning: some mentions of child abuse/rape]
When it comes to reading manga, it's even harder for me to stop than it is when I'm reading a novel. I don't read manga very often, but when I do, it is in intense binges, so Bokurano took me about a day to read.
This is a manga about children who pilot a giant robot to save the earth and die, as their life energy is used to pilot the robot, a task they were tricked into taking part in. As you can imagine, it's sort of depressing, as basically it's about children getting character development and dying one after one. That said, I did enjoy it. Not the children dying, precisely, but the story itself had its moments of humanity and emotion, there was a bit of philosophy, and some of the character development was intriguing. I liked the grim, almost hopeless, take on the "children pilot a giant robot" theme. And hey, there was a reason to have children rather than adults be the ones to do it!
However, the way the story handled the issues of physical and sexual abuse where the children were concerned was quite off-putting to me. Sure, don't prosecute the serial child rapist/abuser! After all, his victim was driven mad and killed people! So because she did something horrible he doesn't--deserve--to be punished? Er. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And it's so noble when small children can tolerate being beaten by their older sibling literally every day of their lives! I'm being a bit glib, admittedly--these topics aren't ones I think shouldn't ever be dealt with, but they were handled so poorly in this particular narrative, I wish they hadn't been.
It isn't bad overall, and I found it suspenseful and readable. The art style is somewhat distinctive, but not particularly appealing to me. The giant robot battles are really well drawn, but I found those to be the least interesting parts, as I was in it primarily for the human drama and character development. But if you like giant robot battles, they seem to be good ones!
20th Century Boys, Urasawa Naoki
I love Urasawa's Pluto and Monster, so you might think I would have read this manga before now. I wanted to, believe me, but it's so long, and I knew that once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. I need to work on my willpower! My willpower completely failed me in this case, because I read this entire manga in two days. Oh well, I have no regrets. I can make up the lost sleep some other time, when I don't have important Urasawa manga to read.
The story was so suspenseful and exciting, and all the plots and character development were woven together so well, why would I want to stop reading? I love the basic idea of a wild story invented by children becoming a real life conspiracy due to a series of events. Sure, it was over the top at times, but it was meant to be, and it was done in a really fun way. I was excited the whole time, eager to know what was going to happen, who "Friend" was, and how the whole thing was going to tie together at the end.
There were so many good characters, of different ages, sexes, walks of life, and almost each one had their own story. Apocalypses, deadly germ warfare, evil cults, giant robots, totalitarian regimes, worldwide conspiracies, genius scientists, ordinary heroes, rebel leaders, scheming villains, legendary detectives, touching friendships--there's so much going on, yet the plot never seemed confused or messy to me. I loved all the protagonists, and Kenji was so great.
Also, the story had the 20th Century ending in December of the year 2000, so I really appreciated the correct math. All right, so I'm a nerd, I just enjoy proper century math! I must say, Pluto and Monster are still my favorites, but then, I am an extra huge sucker for stories that focus on robots-more-human-than-humans and horrible murderers, so it's no surprise.
Still, read this manga, if you haven't already!