This is my first Kazuo Ishiguro and I’m still mulling it over, always the sign of a book that is going to stick with me. There’s a light plot in The Remains of the Day, but most of it is a character study and an examination of what it means to give your life totally to a vocation. The narrator, Stevens, is a great English butler still recovering from his old employer’s death and trying to come to terms with moving into the last phase […]
A Wild Ride
What in the world did I just read?! Nothing could have prepared me for the wild ride Bitch Planet took me on. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so in-your-face before, but I liked it. Bitch Planet is like The Handmaid’s Tale times 11. Basically, any woman deemed noncompliant is rounded up and sent to a jail planet officially known as Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, colloquially known as Bitch Planet. Who decides if women are noncompliant? A council of holy “fathers” meets to judge offenders […]
Bewitched meets Kill Bill
There are no words adequate to describe how much I loved this graphic novel. I’ve never given a 5 star review to a graphic novel before, so that should say something. The premise is simple, a seemingly normal housewife, Josie, in the early 60s moonlights as a contract killer. She has a suspicious mother-in-law, a doting and clueless husband, and two sweet children. Everything is going perfectly until her family time cuts into her professional time and her annoying boss turns up at her house […]
A dark mystery with plenty of humanity
3.5 stars. I had a shaky start with this mystery book, but after I gave up on the audiobook version, we got along just fine. The story takes place in Payatas, a Filipino neighborhood that is home to a 50-acre landfill where poor people come to scavenge and eek out a living. Many of these people are small children, mostly undernourished boys. When some of these preteen boys begin to turn up dead with horrific mutilations, the National Bureau of Investigations brings in two Jesuit […]
Well that went downhill quickly
I was looking forward to this old school Hollywood noir in graphic novel format, but this book just pissed me off on a few different levels. The premise, a writer with PTSD and writer’s block wakes up next to a dead starlet who just happens to be starring in his movie, was so great. There are fascinating characters: the blackballed writer who just can’t deal, the smart-as-a-whip publicity girl, a hulking and somewhat shady security guy, a head over heels in love movie exec, and […]
A great start to 2016
This read was a fascinating dive into magical realism, not a genre I frequent very often. The story flips between Mexico City 1988 and Mexico City 2009 from chapter to chapter and centers on a trio of friends. Meche, Sebastian, & Daniela, all fifteen, are the freaks of their high school. They’re on the poor side and not exactly conventionally attractive, but they enjoy each other’s company while longing to rise in social standing. Meche had always been told stories of magic by her grandmother, […]
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