๐ป๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ณ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐จ.๐ฑ. ๐ญ๐๐๐๐ by Gabrielle Zevin is a maudlin, overly sentimental affair with a contrived, predictable plot riddled with clichรฉs and tropes that it embraces rather than trying to subvert. At times it is so full of melodrama that it reads like the bookish equivalent of a film that is trying its very best to bait an Oscar.โ
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And good grief did I buy into it hook, line, and sentimental sinker like a sucker. Did I love every single page of it all.โ
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Every description of this book makes it sound insufferable, but Zevin โ much like she does to her characters โ pulls the rug out from under us by positively filling it up to the brim with a charming, endearing and painfully human cast that you fall in love with almost immediately. I loved the experience of reading this story, and can easily see myself revisiting over the years.
Tag: 2021
RAINA TELGEMEIER: AN APPRECIATION
So it’s been a minute! I’ve been mostly MIA lately, dealing with tedious adulthood type stuff. The sort that requires entirely too much of my energy and attention. And although thankfully none of that has really stopped me from reading, it’s been definitely draining any desire to sit down and write anything of note. Tragic, I know.โ
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It’s also caused me quite a fair bit of stress! Which is probably why I’ve resorted to picking up a bunch of middle grade books these past few weeks. They’ve long been a comfort read for me, so of course they’ve helped with winding down and staving off concerns.โ
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It’s sort of funny, then, that the first few books I went to were Raina Telgemeier’s graphic memoirs, which are all about the peculiar anxieties of childhood. โ
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I started reading Telgemeier’s work only a couple of years ago, but she quickly turned into one of my favorite authors. She writes the types of books I wish my younger self would have been able to read, which is something I say about every excellent modern middle grade book I read these days but it happens to be particularly true in the case of these graphic novels: they may me about incredibly specific events that happened to a white girl growing up in the West Coast during the late eighties and early nineties, but I still manage to see my life reflected in these pages. Still see the same childhood concerns and the adolescent angst that I went through as an anxious brown kid growing up in the Caribbean in the nineties. They make me feel seen in a way, and that brings me comfort. โ
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Stories, you guys โ the way they work never fails to amaze and astound me.โ
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Anyway.โ
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I got my copy of ๐๐ถ๐ต๐ด right when it was released so of course there’s no Eisner Award sticker on the cover. Telgemier is an unstoppable talent, though, so if you purchase the book today it will be there.
THE FIRE NEVER GOES OUT by Noelle Stevenson
Reading Noelle Stevenson’s ๐ป๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐ ๐ต๐๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐๐ was a cathartic affair. I picked it up during a particularly demanding week, emotionally speaking, in my life, and found a lot of the emotions I was experiencing at the time (good, bad, unseemly) echoed in this book. It helped give many of these messy feeling some semblance of shape and form, which in turn made me feel less like a vulnerable blob just floating in the void.โ
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It was also a slightly surreal experience in the sense that this book is essentially a candid glance behind the curtains of a career and life of someone whose work has provided you with a great deal of amusement and delight over many years and, despite knowing that compassionate and lively art can come from grief and hardship, seeing it depicted in such a frank and vulnerable manner can still be somewhat of a shock to the system. The raw, intimate vignettes collected in this volume are as surprising and startling as they are engaging and illuminating.โ
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๐ป๐๐ ๐ญ๐๐๐ ๐ต๐๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐๐ is a portrait, and a work in progress at that, in the truest sense of the term. It’s honestly been a privilege to watch Stevenson’s work grow all these years, and hope I get to see it evolve even further.โ
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๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ด๐ด๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ด๐: ๐๐ฒ๐น๐ณ-๐ต๐ฎ๐ฟ๐บ, ๐ฏ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ ๐ถ๐บ๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ ๐ถ๐๐๐๐ฒ๐, ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ฎ๐น ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น๐๐ต ๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ฐ๐๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐, ๐ต๐ผ๐บ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ต๐ผ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ฎ, ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐น๐ถ๐ด๐ถ๐ผ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ป๐, ๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ต๐ผ๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป
THE VISION by Tom King, Gabriel Hernรกndez Walta, Jordie Bellaire
Well this seems like the perfect time to revisit this most surreal superhero comic.โ
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Along with seemingly the rest of the world, I caught the first two episodes of ๐๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ช๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ over the weekend. And I thought they were fine! A little clunky, perhaps, although I suppose it’s to be expected given that the show is the MCU’s opening stride into uncharted territory. But I love the concept of the thing, which is weird enough and new enough for me to not support the endeavor.โ
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It helped that the series definitely seems like it’s inspired by the 2015 run of ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐๐ by Tom King, Gabriel Hernรกndez Walta and Jordie Bellaire, which still stands as one of my favorite comics in the last few years. Like ๐๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ช๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ, it views our titular character through a domestic lens, although the effect in the book feels more immediately uncanny and sinister: Vision has created a family in his own image, part of his continuing efforts to become more human (more “normal” as he frequently puts it), a venture that is destined to end in catastrophe as the ominous opening captions in the very first issue candidly, wickedly declare.โ
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The comic has been hailed as “๐๐ฆ๐ท๐ฐ๐ญ๐ถ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ณ๐บ ๐๐ฐ๐ข๐ฅ with rฬทoฬทbฬทoฬทtฬทsฬท synthezoids,” which also means that it’s not exactly what you might call a happy book. Much like that story and those it inspired (like ๐๐ข๐ฅ ๐๐ฆ๐ฏ), ๐ป๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐๐ is a dark, cerebral, meticulous tale of melancholy, anxiety, and the sheer harrowing grace of human nature โ viewed through the eyes of an artificial superpowered being who may just be exactly like us.โ
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It’s also a book that perfectly illustrates the notion that you can tell literally any and every type of story with superhero comics. If ๐๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ช๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ explores even a modicum of the terrain laid out in this comic book, then we are in for a curious, wild treat indeed.
