20th Century Boys volume 1, by Naoki Urasawa

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I don't normally post manga reviews here, since I already read enough manga that it's not a challenge. But I'm making an exception for this one because I think it might be a good first manga for someone who's never read any before. And because it's just so amazing.

I can't imagine this not being one of the best things I read all year. Click here to buy it from Amazon: Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, Volume 1: The Prophet

Half the fun of reading this is the intricate, fractured way that the story jumps from past to present to uncertain times and possibly stories-with-the-story, letting the reader try to assemble the pieces. And another quarter or so is the way that I had no idea whatsoever where it all was going. So I won't reveal too much.

A group of Japanese boys form a secret club in the sixties. These scenes are suffused with a nostalgia that's both bright and dark, like a Ray Bradbury story: children and childhood can be cruel, but it was a time when anything seemed possible, everything was new, and friends were forever.

Years later, one of the boys has died mysteriously. Is it connected to a bizarre cult? Why is the club's secret symbol turning up everywhere? And what do rock music and giant robots have to do with it all?

I have no idea, but this is the most compelling, weird, and evocative thing I've read in ages. The weaving together of the American modern myths of salvation through rock music and the Japanese modern myths of giant robots, plus cross-cultural iconic themes like apocalyptic cults, is brilliant. Though most of the story is very male-centered, a woman shows up at the end, in a hilariously memorable scene, whom I suspect is one of the main characters, and I love her already.

The art is somewhat similar to Urasawa's moral thriller Monster, but a little more realistic and less cartoony: the characters are very expressive, but (deliberately) not pretty.

Spoil me for further events and be squashed by a giant robot. But feel free to discuss volume one in spoilery detail in the comments.

#1 - The Good House, by Tananarive Due

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

The blurbs on the back of this copy are mostly from horror authors, and this definitely fits the horror tropes much more than sf/f ones, hence the classification.

This is the book that reminded me that I don't particularly *like* horror. I get too swept up in the emotions of a piece, and, even as fast as I read, I can't read fast enough to get through the horror and out the other side in one sitting. Which leaves me asking my husband if he wouldn't mind leaving the bedroom door open just a bit, because I don't want to go to sleep in a completely dark room.

Interestingly, though, we don't get to the horror-story tropes until a good long way into the book, maybe a third or more of the way in. There is horror early on, but it's a "mundane" horror.

The protagonist, Angela, is definitely a woman who is trying to have it all (or at least all of it that she wants) and isn't really succeeding. Her son thinks she's a harridan, her husband isn't the best of husbands, and she has a really hard time connecting to people well enough to have friends that she can consider real friends. She's very real, and oh, I identified with her.

The flashbacks and flashforwards work very well. It's nicely-constructed. I think that people who read a lot of horror might find it...not derivative, but I could see that much of it followed certain tropes. That said, just because you follow a well-trod storyline doesn't mean that you can't do it well, which I think Ms. Due does.

I enjoyed it, and might even re-read it again, just to watch Angela and Cory again.

(2) Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, one of those that I'm a little ashamed to admit it's taken me till now to get to. I read it faster than I would have liked, and I am certain that I will be rereading it in the future in order to savor its language.

( review got caught up in the lyricism )