A life of books . . .
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this. I saw a meh review (that was still four stars) on Goodreads so that definitely made me hesitant to start. But, I’d already told the publisher I’d take a look at it, so I did.*
The Step Back is the story of Ed Garrison. There’s not a lot that happens other than he grows the f*ck up. It sounds weird saying it’s that simple—sure it’s a two-year period in his life is full of upheaval and maturing faster than he want—but in essence that’s what it is.
This is another great introduction into manga in that it’s easy to follow the reverse (for western readers) style of reading any type of book. The lack of explicit sex and (often internalized) homophobia also make this more appealing to western audiences that might not necessarily want to read/see something that explicit.
I think I’m narrowing in on a type of yaoi that I enjoy reading. This is a lot like Go for it, Nakamura!, in that there’s a purity around 95% of it. It’s so stinking adorable and this is definitely one of those books where you read a page/panel and put the book to your chest and sigh with a goofy grin on your face.
This was an achingly beautiful book and I’m glad I stumbled across it after I saw someone else had read it. I can’t find the blog where I first read about it, but if it’s you let me know and I’ll add a link to your review! It took a while for my local library to get it, but because it’s a sleeper/quite book I was able to keep it for two check out periods and actually absorb it.
Set in NYC in the early-1980s We are Lost and Found takes a look at one teen’s coming out and coming of age (sort of—it’s only a year) as the AIDS crisis begins to unfold. There were some parts that I wasn’t a fan of (hello to my old nemesis, no quotation marks) and for some reason Part 2 really dragged for me—it took me two weeks to read that portion, but Parts 1 and 3 I read at a lightning pace.
Continue reading “Book 650: We Are Lost And Found – Helene Dunbar”
What a doozy! It’s been over a decade since I last read it and it still packs an emotional wallop.
I’ve had a copy of this book since high school when my best friend told me to read it. I’m still not sure what made me pick it up and read it, but I saw it and knew I needed to read it again.
I didn’t read it quite as fast as I read Autoboyography, but I did read it pretty fast. The subject matter of this book was just too heavy to binge even though I’ve read it before. I even had to take a break after reading it for a day or two before I jumped into the next one.
Continue reading “Book 559: The Only Alien on the Planet – Kristen Randle”
I first encountered Joe Meno way back in 2011 when I read The Boy Detective Fails, which was a wonderfully quirky story. That following October at the 2011 Boston Book Festival I picked up this novel and it’s taken me almost four years to get to it. I’d love to say it was worth the wait, but I’m not really sure and that had very little to do with Meno’s writing or storytelling.
This was by far one of the worst copy edited books I’ve ever read. I found a mistake about halfway through (see photo at the end) and then I found them on every two-to-three pages after that. They weren’t even minor comma mistakes, which I’d miss, they were WHOLE WORDS MISSING FROM SENTENCES!