Strange Houses by Uketsu
Strange Houses was the first book I read this year, back in January, and it has taken me entirely too long to just sit down and jot down my thoughts about it. Part of it is because I was very disappointed with how promising the premise was and how it fully deflated by the time I got to the end, so much so that now six months later, I’m honestly struggling to remember how it ended. The other reason why it took so long is […]
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. But even activities that appear fruitless don’t necessarily end up so. ― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running CBR17 Bingo: Culture This book discusses a runner’s mentality as well as running culture. As an avid reader of Haruki Murakami, I’ve been meaning to check this book off of my list for going on ten years. I wondered though if his nonfiction could hold up […]
It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei, Harmony Becker, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger
Cbr17bingo White It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei, Harmony Becker, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger took me over a week to read. This is not because it was a bad graphic novel, but for three main reasons. First, it is actually on the longer side. Second, because it has heavy subjects it deals with. And finally, the pages can be a bit crowded, making images and text blur together and/or making it hard to follow at times, so I just took my time with […]
Songs for Ghosts by Clara Kumagai
Songs for Ghosts fulfills the “culture” square on CBR17 Bingo. Songs for Ghosts is a beautiful, tragic story of the power of stories and love, as well as the way past choices can create cycles throughout time. I’m unfamiliar with it, but in the afterword the author talks about Songs for Ghosts being a retelling of Madama Butterfly opera by Puccini where Cio-Cio-San has more agency than just the reductive submissive wife trope. Adam is a seventeen year old whose boyfriend just broke up with […]
Obaasan's Boots by Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro
It took me months to read Obaasan’s Boots by Janis Bridger and Lara Jean Okihiro because I was reading it via an online reader copy at lunch and when I could sneak it in on my phone (which was not as often as I’d like as there was always something else to read or do when there). This long time reading probably affected the biggest issue I had which was, I was not always sure which cousin was who. Charlotte and Lou are marked by […]
Newcomer (Kyoichiro Kaga, #2) by Keigo Higashino
Last year I read Malice, the first book from this series translated into English, and it was so twisty and intriguing, I knew I had to read everything else translated into English by this author. And this second book bodes well. Though I didn’t find it as impactful as Malice, this book makes it clear that Higashino likes to play around with format and do new things with story structure in his books (and tone! this book is much less fucked up than Malice was). […]
