Alejandro Vasquez > Recent Status Updates

I'M BACK ON MY BULLSHIT

ANNO DRACULA SERIES REREAD

CHOO CHOOOOO

This marks either the second or third time I've aborted an attempt at reading Pride and Prejudice. These past few tries, I've been doing it with an ebook. A friend of mine who likes the book and doesn't mind ebooks advised me to try a print edition. I think I shall. I swear, I will eventually reach the end of one of the world's favorite books!

Five years after the first time I read it, I'm drawn back. How else could I conclude my Pride Month 2019 reads than the first LGBT+ book I ever encountered, and a story so enrapturing that I vividly remember so much of it after all this time? I cannot express enough just how much I love this book.

As delightful as any of the other Moomin books. There may be more hijinks than carefully measured wisdom this time around, but it's a fun read. Plus, this is the first time I actually noticed character development and structure in a Moomin book!

My favorite work of his that I've read - maybe he really is better-suited to short fiction. Most of the stories are great fun with excellent twists. The art is also perfectly weird, and the title story even uses it to help tell the story in a way that I refuse to spoil. Give it a look!

Now I just have to color it.

Things really picked up! Pretty nice. I guess my only gripe is that the book keeps insisting that Leah and Nick are Simon's best friends since babyhood but they're barely in the story, let alone have an effect. My favorite aspect is the emails between Simon and "Blue." They really sell the romance. It's a satisfying love story.

Just when I think I'm done with Palahniuk, his short stories reel me back in. "Dad All Over" and "Conspiracy" are excellent tales well-suited to the shorter medium. Curiously, both involve grand deceptions that ruin the protagonist's conceptions of life and the world ... until they don't. In this way, Chuck seems to say, lies can be another form of storytelling, and a rewarding one for those who pay close attention.

You telling me that Leah dresses up as Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket for Halloween ... and we *didn't* get that in the movie? I guess the book's better after all.

Masterful. The intricate artwork and resonant imagery are enough reasons to stay for these lengthy volumes, but the story is also powerful. It certainly does not go where you might expect and may serve as a rebuke to the idealism of the superhero genre. The anti-war and anti-prejudice themes only shine more today.

That said, the Devilman Crybaby anime adaptation is better. I saw it first, so maybe I'm just biased.

My girlfriend couldn't find her copy of the second volume of My Brother's Husband, so I'm reading this for Pride Month instead, haha.

When I first considered what to read for Pride Month, this immediately leaped to mind. Why not? I loved the movie.

I was not prepared for ... shudder ... a YA novel told in first-person. As someone who used to exclusively tell stories like that, I can confirm that this can be a major crutch and hard to pull off right (but not impossible - see Hunger Games). So far ... it's grating. Ack.

Joseph Fink's work is a bit iffy at times. His prose can be too "tell," and his random dropping of wise-sounding axioms is not exactly as effective as when Borges did it. The organization of chapters in the last half also leaves something to be desired. Some of this backstory could have been spread better.

That said, still pretty good. I teared up at the end. Great story for our time. It's all cyclical, isn't it?

As funny and fabulous and filled with transgressive wisdom as you would expect from John Waters. There is a whole chapter in which he outlines whether he should drop acid at the ripe age of 73. He poses such questions as "Will this destroy my brain?" and "What should I wear?" The man is incorrigible, and thank goodness for that.

The Pope of Trash's new memoir is straight fire from the dedication page alone. It simply reads, "He knows ..."

Think I can finish all 350+ pages before I have to return it to the library in two weeks?

An incredible experience. It's even more devastating than you can imagine, especially one section in I think the penultimate chapter that begins, "If you remove the perception of progress from history, what is left?" And yet, it may prove galvanizing enough to spur some action, or at least some conversation that leads to action.

I warn you: once you've given much thought to climate change, there's no going back.

Pride Month readings begin in earnest with this book, about a broken woman searching for her missing wife on America's highways and their secret underground. I admit, I'm not sure if Joseph Fink himself is LGTBQIA+ (I'm aware he's married to a woman), but it's on my shelf and it fits the spirit of the month enough.

So far, the writing could be better. It just kinda spells everything out right now.

Just finished the chapter on how capitalism will be affected by climate change and hoo boy. Like, we think we're fucked *now.* Enjoy the contemporary types of bullshit while you can.

Happy Pride Month

MOOOOOOOOMIIIIIIIIIIIIN

SHUT THE FUCK UP, THERE'S MORE THAN THREE VOLUMES

AND THOSE ARE JUST THE ONES BY TOVE JANSSON HERSELF, THERE ARE EVEN MORE BY HER BROTHER LARS

I HAD NO IDEA UNTIL I LOOKED THESE UP ON GOODREADS

Also, I find it so hard to imagine reading these in the newspaper. What a time to be alive in England,

Once you read one, you just gotta have another. This one introduces Little My, the little brat beloved by many Moomin fans. She nicely contrasts the Moomins' optimism.

Also, I discovered that Tove Jansson totally had a long, long relationship with another female Finnish artist, so I guess I guess my Pride Month Reading started early! Maybe that's why the cover for this volume has so much "BE GAY DO CRIMES" energy.

I had a bad time this Memorial Day weekend that ended with a few rough hours in the ER for some stomach virus. Thankfully, I was able to go home the same night, and when I needed a pick-me-up, there was Moomin. This wonderful comic strip is every bit as charming as the novels from the same author. The key difference is that now we get even more of her fabulous artwork. Every story is great.

Not quite the ending I expected, but it certainly felt right for the chaotic tale that preceded it. The book is as fun as the series's reputation would suggest.

Third time's the charm! I tried reading this twice before, and only now, in the midst of reading a depressing examination of climate change, am I able to dive into it. Maybe it helped that I read a different Discworld novel first? Hogfather is a fantastic introduction, but even this very first book contains the wit and sharp writing that defines the series.

I am so close to the end but I already have to return this to the library. Maybe it's just as well. The book is a slow read, not because it's boring (it's really fascinating and superbly written) but because the information contained within destroys the soul. We try so hard not to think about how climate change will soon affect every part of our lives, and reading this forces you to confront and crack that illusion.

This story is so goddamn dark. I was expecting a magical-realist romp through Florida's coastal islands but all I got was despair. I was as led on into believing in a fantasy as the protagonist.

"Red Rackham's Treasure" was an exciting conclusion to the high-seas adventure begun in "Secret of the Unicorn." The next two stories, "Seven Crystal Balls" and "Prisoners of the Sun," are also a double feature, and they are pretty stellar. Herge's attention to detail is precious, and the elaborate artwork is easily the best part of all these stories.

When I heard that someone had written a novel comprised entirely of gifs, I was compelled to try it. When I finished Chapter 1, I was hooked. A novel that replaces prose with looping visuals can only really provide mood and a frame - the reader must create their own interpretations of narrative and theme. You write the book as much as Miller does. The best part about this work of art? It's all online.

Pretty good collection, every story was interesting and at least a little moving. Perhaps predictably, I most enjoyed "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo," the only story in the collection that isn't completely grounded in reality (the title is not a metaphor). I also admired "All God's Children Can Dance," "Thailand," and especially "Honey Pie."

"Dead Man's Mirror" was fine, if a bit "soap opera" in its conclusion (I should reread this with the ending in mind, to see how well it actually bears on the story). I was more satisfied with "Triangle at Rhodes," the collection's shortest tale, is far more interesting. In it, Poirot doesn't solve a murder after the fact. He observes two couples whose tangled relationships result in murder. It's my fave of the four.