Book reviews of mysteries, historical fiction and graphic novels with a smattering of non-fiction books.
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Uniquely Japan
Sunday, February 11, 2024
Lunar New Year Love Story
She was destined for heartbreak. Then fate handed her love.Val is ready to give up on love. It's led to nothing but secrets and heartbreak, and she's pretty sure she's cursed—no one in her family, for generations, has ever had any luck with love.But then a chance encounter with a pair of cute lion dancers sparks something in Val. Is it real love? Could this be her chance to break the family curse? Or is she destined to live with a broken heart forever?
Yang gives us realistic characters. Valentina, or Val, grew up with just one parent, her father. When she finds out the he lied about her mother' death she stops speaking with him for almost a year. Val's best friend Bernice is also raised by a single parent, her mother. Bernice cannot stand to be without a boyfriend and within 24 hours of a break up she finds a new love. We all knew someone like that when we were growing up. Val is the complete opposite. The boys in the story are typical Chinese Americans while their parents live a very Chinese life in the U. S.
Another reason I enjoy Yang's novels is that they are the same length as a traditional novel. Lunar is approximately 350 pages. This allows him to create fully formed characters and an extensive plot. The relationships among the kids in the story revolve around lion dancing. They are all taking a class on how to dance under a lion costume, as you would normally see at the Chinese new year and other special occasions. Val's relationships with two boys generally take place while they are sharing a costume to dance under. Val cannot decide which boy she really loves. A magical dragon has given her one year to find true love. If she fails then she must give the dragon her heart and foreswear future love interests. Val believes that her family will always be unlucky in love and is not sure that she can find true love.
The illustrations by Leuyen Pham are gorgeous. She has used primarily a red and pink color pallet to fit with Val's love of Valentine's Day. There are some panels colored in blues and greens but all the colors are bright as I like them. Her character's faces illuminate their emotions so when there is no dialogue in a panel strip, the reader knows how the characters are feeling.
Lunar New Year Love Story is the perfect Valentine's Day story. It would make a great gift for both kids and adults who like comics. I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.
Monday, April 3, 2023
Barnstormers
Sunday, February 19, 2023
New America
Saturday, February 18, 2023
The Vision
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Paris
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Wrap-Up of the Graphic Novel and Manga Challenge
I pledged to read 52 graphic novels or comic books this year. However, I only read 47. A disappointment for sure since I came so close to my goal. Check out my reviews below:
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Beatrix Rose Vigilante
Hotell
Barnstormers 1, 2 and 3
Monday, December 12, 2022
Ballad for Sophie
I'm Still Alive
Acting Class
From the acclaimed author of Sabrina, Nick Drnaso’s Acting Classcreates a tapestry of disconnect, distrust, and manipulation. Ten strangers are brought together under the tutelage of John Smith, a mysterious and morally questionable leader. The group of social misfits and restless searchers have one thing in common: they are out of step with their surroundings and desperate for change.
A husband and wife, four years into their marriage and simmering in boredom. A single mother, her young son showing disturbing signs of mental instability. A peculiar woman with few if any friends and only her menial job keeping her grounded. A figure model, comfortable in his body and ready for a creative challenge. A worried grandmother and her adult granddaughter; a hulking laborer and gym nut; a physical therapist; an ex-con.
With thrumming unease, the class sinks deeper into their lessons as the process demands increasing devotion. When the line between real life and imagination begins to blur, the group’s deepest fears and desires are laid bare. Exploring the tension between who we are and how we present, Drnaso cracks open his characters’ masks and takes us through an unsettling American journey.
Monday, December 5, 2022
Invisible Wounds
Friday, December 2, 2022
Alice Guy: First Lady of Film
In 1895 the Lumière brothers invented the cinematograph. Less than a year later, 23-year-old Alice Guy, the first female filmmaker in cinema history, made The Cabbage Fairy, a 60-second movie, for Léon Gaumont, and would go on to direct more than 300 films before 1922. Her life is a shadow history of early cinema, the chronicle of an art form coming into its own. A free and independent woman who rubbed shoulders with masters such as Georges Méliès and the Lumières, she was the first to define the professions of screenwriter and producer. She directed the first feminist satire, then the first sword-and-sandal epic, before crossing the Atlantic in 1907 to the United States and becoming the first woman to found her own production company. Guy died in 1969, excluded from the annals of film history. In 2011 Martin Scorsese honored this cinematic visionary, “forgotten by the industry she had helped create,” describing her as “a filmmaker of rare sensitivity, with a remarkable poetic eye and an extraordinary feel for locations.” The same can be said of Catel and Bocquet’s luminous account of her life.
Saturday, November 19, 2022
It Won't Always Be Like This
It’s hard enough to figure out boys, beauty, and being cool when you’re young, but even harder when you’re in a country where you don’t understand the language, culture, or social norms.
Nine-year-old Malaka Gharib arrives in Egypt for her annual summer vacation abroad and assumes it'll be just like every other vacation she's spent at her dad's place in Cairo. But her father shares news that changes everything: He has remarried. Over the next fifteen years, as she visits her father's growing family summer after summer, Malaka must reevaluate her place in his life. All that on top of maintaining her coolness!
Malaka doesn't feel like she fits in when she visits her dad--she sticks out in Egypt and doesn't look anything like her fair-haired half siblings. But she adapts. She learns that Nirvana isn't as cool as Nancy Ajram, that there's nothing better than a Fanta and a melon-mint hookah, and that her new stepmother, Hala, isn't so different from Malaka herself.
Measuring Up
Friday, October 7, 2022
Ducks
Friday, September 16, 2022
Palimpsest
Thousands of South Korean children were adopted around the world in the 1970s and 1980s. More than nine thousand found their new home in Sweden, including the cartoonist Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, who was adopted when she was two years old. Throughout her childhood she struggled to fit into the homogenous Swedish culture and was continually told to suppress the innate desire to know her origins. “Be thankful,” she was told; surely her life in Sweden was better than it would have been in Korea. Like many adoptees, Sjöblom learned to bury the feeling of abandonment.
In Palimpsest, an emotionally charged memoir, Sjöblom’s unaddressed feelings about her adoption come to a head when she is pregnant with her first child. When she discovers a document containing the names of her biological parents, she realizes her own history may not match up with the story she’s been told her whole life: that she was an orphan without a background.
As Sjöblom digs deeper into her own backstory, returning to Korea and the orphanage, she finds that the truth is much more complicated than the story she was told and struggled to believe. The sacred image of adoption as a humanitarian act that gives parents to orphans begins to unravel.
Sjöblom’s beautiful autumnal tones and clear-line style belie the complicated nature of this graphic memoir’s vital central question: Who owns the story of an adoption?
Alot of the dialogue is actually exposition with the illustrations showing the emotions of the characters. The color scheme was basically light brown with other cool toned colors. It looked depressing to me but this story is about the depression that the author felt. In fact, she tried to kill herself. The documents that she and her husband sent to Korean adoption agencies are illustrated in full as well as the responses that they received. While the story informs us about the unique Korean adoption process, there are general roadblocks written in to the story that all adoptees face. It was heartbreaking when a letter came in the mail with less information than was expected. It is also easy for the reader to see all of the steps an adoptee has to take in order to discover their biological background.
All in all, a great memoir. 5 out of 5 stars.
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Welcome to St. Hell
In Welcome to St. Hell, author-illustrator Lewis Hancox takes readers on the hilarious, heartbreaking, and healing path he took to make it past trauma, confusion, hurt, and dubious fashion choices in order to become the man he was meant to be.
When I began reading I wondered whether the comic would be preachy. It isn't. The author kept his hometown anonymous by calling is St. Hell in the comic and the high school he attended was called St. Hell High School. I felt so bad for him when he was taunted by his classmates. Young kids can be way too critical. However, he did find friends that accepted him and some of them came out publicly with different sexual orientations after high school.
The artwork created the humor in the novel. We see Lois/Lewis trying several actions to hide her feminine body shape. He works out in order to get rid of his curves and diets heavily that he has to be treated for anorexia. He finally admits to his mother that he is trying to get rid of his feminine shape because he feels like a boy. The author is lucky that his mother accepted him when he came out and, in fact, encouraged some of his behaviors because, inside, she knew that he was different.
I don't know that I would have purchased this book if I didn't have a trans friend. We have had many great conversations about life in general and I see and accept her as a normal person. Without knowing her, I probably would have had a hands off approach to anyone talking about being trans. It is too different from my life. While it is risky for a trans person to come out publicly, it was helpful for me to know someone who experienced this.
This is a thoughtful memoir that taught me alot about the struggle of trans people. 5 out of 5 stars.