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Sensor
My Review: Cosmic horror and cults, two of some of my favorite themes of Junji Ito’s work. Sensor, originally titled Travelogue of the Succubus is a mish mash of ideas that tie together into a bizarre story. The first story starts with a beautiful young woman stumbles upon a haunted town that venerates the “angel hair” that falls from a nearby volcano, this story was wild but interesting.We must view the universe, appreciate it, sate ourselves on it. This manga started off as an idea that gradually evolved farther and farther away from its premise. Ito himself writes in his epilogue that the story was originally envisioned to be about…
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Nineteen Eighty-Four
My Review: Winston is our everyman, a middle-aged average male living under the heel of a totalitarian regime. His work is bland, his food is bland, his everyday routine is bland. Winston is losing it, he wonders about the world that was before the party and resists in small ways. He ponders about the subtle ways that the party exerts its control, by perpetual war, by rewriting history, by lying so blatantly that the members of the party have to accept the lies as truth. Winston dreams of revolution and finds himself seeking out others like him. Nineteen Eighty-Four was not an easy read by any means, it’s startlingly brutal.…
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Through the Woods
My Review: I’ve read a lot of horror, ones that were bloodier and more disturbing than this. Yet those novels and graphic novels didn’t affect me the way that this one did. Through the Woods is a collection of horror comics that hearkens back to the creepiest fairy tales. The atmosphere in the novels is not to be understated, the stories and art are chilling, even when the stories are straightforward and can be predicted. Even the introduction and the conclusion, brief as they were, evoked feelings of dread cover to cover. I found myself feeling uneasy, particularly while reading the first story, Our Neighbor’s House. My favorite easily was…
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Bad Romance
Warnings: Gaslighting My Thoughts Bad Romance is a heartbreaking story about relationship abuse and self-loathing, and one of the most accurate portrayals that I’ve ever read. The book is exceptionally well-written, with developed characters that talked and acted like typical teenagers. It shows how trouble at home can drive a young woman into the arms an abuser, trapped in a relationship because of dependency. One of the things that worked really well for this novel is that it starts from the beginning when Grace met Gavin and how they fell in love. Too often with stories about abusive relationships the story takes place when things are already bad and nearing…
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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Warnings: Racism, Violence, Domestic Abuse My Thoughts For those that don’t already know who Trevor Noah is, he is a comedian from South Africa that is now the current host of The Daily Show, taking the place of Jon Stewart when he retired. Trevor is an accomplished polyglot, speaking 9 languages fluently and has some fluency in several more. In much of his comedy, he talks about his difficulties with racial identity having been born during apartheid to an African mother and a Swiss father. Apartheid was a system of institutionalized segregation in South Africa that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s. The book is bursting at the seams…
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Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Warnings: Drug Use, Racism, Violence, Discussions of Sexual Assault My Thoughts This book is quite simply incredible. It was so true to my experiences as an Asian American woman; I laughed during some parts, cried at others, felt enraged and melancholy all at once. It is a timely book to read now with the widespread hate crimes against Asians that has been raging in the United States after the COVID-19 pandemic. Hong presents a series of personal and political essays that detail the impact that racial perceptions of Asians and Asian culture have on various areas of the author’s life as a Korean American woman. I appreciated that the author…
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