Some shorter reviews

[roadrunnertwice]

Still chewing through these two years worth of books to review.

Gillian Flynn – Gone Girl

May 26, 2014

This book can be read as a psychological thriller, and that reading is probably why it’s been so popular and is getting a movie. But after considering for a while, I think it’s actually an extremely dark comedy, which not a lot of people are prepared to find funny.

(Among other things, that comedic reading is my theory for why Nick Dunne, stupidest man in the world, is still alive at the start of the book and hasn’t died by walking into an open manhole or trying to fuck a cactus or something.)

Ursula Murray Husted – The Lions of Valletta

Comics. Sept. 23, 2013

This was cute! A short GN about stray cats, art history, Venice, and metaphysics.

Kate Bornstein – Gender Outlaw

Mar 21, 2014

A bit of remedial gender topics reading! With at least one immediately useful piece of theory, which was nice. This book is old as hell by now, so it’s an odd combination of historical record and things we, as a society, still haven’t gotten a good grip on.

I don’t yet have a good way to summarize the gender-related stuff that’s been on my mind lately, so I’ll just leave that be for now.

I literally found this in a free box on my block right when I was in the mood to read it.

Richard Stark – Butcher’s Moon

July 28, 2014

More Parker! Parker is great. You should read Parker. Especially if you’re in a bad mood and just want to see some assholes get theirs.

I’m reading these all out of order — this is the one that ended series one of the Parker books. I’ll have to re-read it once I’ve seen more from all the side characters that come in for encores. But even without prior context, I loved this.

Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb – The Midas Flesh

Comics. July… or August? 2014

I was lukewarm on this, and I think it was in large part because everyone except the main villain talked like T-Rex being very excited about something. The stylization of North’s dialogue works very well for something like Adventure Time, and I expect it will work for Squirrel Girl, but this book doesn’t benefit from it.

Plot-wise, it had some interesting ramifications on the central conceit. Art-wise, it was very very attractive! But the moment-to-moment experience of reading it didn’t satisfy. It needed more dramatic and emotional range.