Richer Reading Life Book 6

Poetry is brought to you by Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Hepperman is an anthology of fairy tale themed poetry and images geared toward teens. I like anything with a fairy tale motif so when I saw this at the library, it was game on.

I definitely felt a bit old for this but I appreciated the references. There are a lot of things I don’t miss and being a teenager is one of them. The eating disorder theme was very prevalent. A great deal of time is spent trying to be thinner, prettier, younger and it’s all just a media sponsored game that has us chasing our tails.

Rather than give spoilers, I’ll just say my favorites: Shape Magazine, Anorexic Eats a Salad, Vindictive Punctuation, First Semester Haiku, Ugly Stepsister, Boy Toy Villanelle, Nature Lesson, Love Red Handed, The Beast and Assassin. It’s short, sweet and fun. Definitely recommend. My only complaint is that they images lost something being printed on standard pages. 4/5 stars

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 23 or Bedtime Stories for Adults

For a book of short stories, I read something I've had since Borders went under: Stories for the Nighttime and Some for the Day. I now officially love Ben Loory.

In his collection of fairy tales, Phillip Pullman talks about how characters in fairy tales are very one dimensional. They're there to move the forward without needing the depth and development of regular characters. So it is with Loory's short tales.

While many do not have the moral of fairy tales, they are powerful tales that resonate deeply within all of us. The haunting monster from The Swimming Pool, the simplicity from The Shadow, the message from The Afterlife Is What You Leave Behind, the faith from The Magic Pig, the wisdom from The Poet, and the tale of love from The End of It All. These are bed time stories for grown-ups.

Because the stories are both simple and complex at the same time, I read it in short bursts over a month and a half. It allowed me a chance to digest all of what lied in each story and appreciate before consuming more. There are tales of love as well as fear and can think of few who would walk away with nothing to appreciate from this small book.

A Graphic Year Week 21 or Not Little Endowed Red Riding Hood

This week’s graphic novel got pretty graphic. I read Grimm Fairy Tale: Myths and Legends from Zenescope comics. They’ve made their bread and butter by turning fairy tales and folklore into horror stories.

One of the characters in this story made her first appearance in the first Grimm Fairy Tale series. I’d read enough to know what they were talking about but dropped off early enough that I felt like I was missing some of the major plot that went into this. I stopped reading that series right before the storyline to a big twist.

It does well as a self-contained horror trade with a very stereotypical plot set up. Folks are stranded in a remote location by a storm, issues with the power arise, and something is picking them off. Despite the stock set-up, the villain is somewhat unique. The story ends in a way that makes it clear the story is only beginning.

One of my biggest complaints is that most of the Zenescope art is basically soft-core porn. There are lots of Jessica Rabbit type figures that are scantily clad but still manage to rip their clothes.  I’m curious about the stories they have to tell but everything is a perfect example of the hyper-sexualization of the female form in comics. My inner feminist killjoy has trouble reconciling that.

A curious read but I think I’ll do more delving from my library.

A Graphic Year Weeks 19 & 20

Week 19

New York Four was an enjoyable read and had great art. It’s a coming of age story of a young woman with sheltered parents, a rebel sister, and a new start at NYU. How does she deal with having friends, going to concerts, having a sister for the first time in a decade?

It was a compelling narrative that did a great job of using NYC as a character. I liked the various tidbits and intros about where the story was taking place in the city. The intro boxes with name, status, etc. were great. Informative and cheeky.

The friendship between the four girls seemed to develop instantaneously. I wanted to see more of where that came from and what went into it. Wood did something similar with sneakerfreak. I wanted to see a bit more of what went into that relationship.

I know there’s a sequel so I’m looking forward to seeing if it addresses the motivations and consequences of the sneakerfreak reveal. There’s also other drama the girls set up for themselves that I’d like to see played out. You leave the story know it’s not over yet.

Week 20

For this week, I but the bullet and started to catch up on Fables. The last 2 trades have had storylines that rip my heart out and made me grieve for the characters. I was afraid to see what Bill Willingham would do this time.

After the loss of the last two trades, this one wasn’t nearly as depressing. Rose Red has become a true paladin of hope and has started a new Camelot to find her agents of second chances. Lady Lake comes to answer questions about the fate of a beloved character and we get a peak into what I suspect will become the next battle of Fables.

This story did a good job of showing how many of the character before have grown into their roles such as Winter and Therese. We have new villains with Brandish and Duglas whose evils I’m sure we’ll feel in the coming issues. We got some answers about the fates of Boy Blue and Bigby and a few more questions.

The trade did an excellent job of developing new storylines, answering lingering questions, and introducing recent characters without losing focus. It also presented the beginning of the end. What ended Fabletown was not violence, blood, or magic. It was the freedom to finally return home. That is an ending I'm looking forward to reading.

As ever I was impressed with the art and even took a moment to appreciate how the borders changed with each character and location. Always a fine attention to detail with this series.

A Graphic Year Week 16 or Finding My Way

This week I read Wayward written by Jim Zub. I got the first floppy at a signing by the writer and artist. It gave me a taste of this world and I liked it. I picked up the first trade at a recent trip to the comic book shop and I’m completely hooked.

Rory Lane is of Irish and Japanese descent and comes to live with her mother in Japan. Rory quickly figures out she’s part of a bigger, magical, mythical picture.

In the opening essay by Zack Davisson, he talks about how so many people use Japan as decoration. Wayward gets it exactly right. The city you see is Tokyo as it actually is and all of the creatures come from Japanese mythology. As an American who loves European fairytales, this was right up my alley.

I love seeing what artists and writers can do with existing tropes and mythos. Zub and co. struck an excellent balance between letting us see the mystery unfolding and different elements of the magic while leaving several questions unanswered.  I look forward to seeing what mysteries unravel.

I greatly appreciated the explanations of the culture and history behind the creatures. It added a lot of dimension to the world they built.  Japanese culture and American culture are very different on a lot of fundamental levels so the history and context was greatly helpful.

An added bonus is that Zub stopped by my comic shop but I couldn’t make the signing. Turns out he signed several of the trades at the comic shop including the one I picked up at random.  That definitely made my day.

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 13 Your Majesty

I read Part-Time Princesses in a day while killing time between staffing agency interviews. I picked it up on my last trip to the comic shop because it seemed like fun. It was one of those impulse purchases that worked out well.

Four teenage friends are the A-list at their high school and work summer jobs at the Enchanted Forest theme park as the princesses. The girls get a reality check about the futures they had in mind for themselves and have to help save the park from a crisis that threatens to shut it down.

It was such a fun read that I didn’t even realize I’d downed most of it in an afternoon. The girls are interesting characters but suffer from the ‘I’m popular, why should I talk to you’ syndrome. I disliked the stereotype but enjoyed seeing them taken down a peg in a way that made them improve as people.

It’s another good example of how graphic novels are more than superheroes and monsters. Definitely recommend.

Music: Lux Aeterna by Two Steps from Hell

Baker's Dozen Challenge Book 11

For Retelling I read Classics Mutilated which was an anthology of mash-ups between well-known classics and other classics or contemporary concepts like Twilight meeting Norse mythology or Alice in Wonderland and Snow White

My favorites were Death Stopped for Emily Dickinson, The Happiest Hell on Earth, From Hell's Heart, and The Green Menace. I liked some of the small touches in Frankenbilly and Dread Island that helped set the voices of the characters, like Cut Through You. It took me a little longer than I'd like to admit to make that connection.

Despite having very different themes and voices, these stories all went together very well. The only time I was 'meh' about a story was when I lacked a connection to the source material like Little Women in Black. I've never read Little Women so I couldn't tell what exactly was being mutilated about that classic.

I loved the section at the end about why the writers chose the mash-ups they did. The Happiest Hell on Earth is described as the place between "Are We Not Men?" and "Why Is That Dog Wearing Pants?" It was fascinating to hear why the writers chose what they did.

This book won't change your life but if you like the mash-up idea, you'll enjoy this.

1) Another World – Wild Cards edited by George R. R. Martin

2) Learned Something – Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin

3) Movie Book – The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

4) Graphic Novel – Fanboys vs. Zombies Vol. 1 by Sam Humphries

5) Dust – You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark

6) Nonfiction – A Little F'ed Up by Julie Zeilinger

7) Reread – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (as read by Wil Wheaton)

8) Shorts – 20something Essays by 20something Writers

9) Fiction – The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison

10) Shiny – Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay

11) Retelling – Classics Mutilated edited by Jeff Connor

12) Wild Card –

13) The End –

Music: 300 Violin Orchestra by Jorge Quintero