GentleRain – Page 34 – Cannonball Read 17

Two Very Different But Sweet Autobiographical Manga

The Bride Was A Boy by Chii

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito

June 22, 2022 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

The breadth of non-fiction manga is on full display between these two very different books! The Bride was a Boy is a memoir about a trans woman’s experience falling in love and getting married. It’s also a basic primer on what being transgender is like and a good overview on the Japanese government’s policies on trans people. I know there are enormous problems in the US right now vis a vis trans rights, which terrifies me every day as a trans person, but I’m always glad we […]

Comics Anthologies Can Be A Gamble

Through the Labyrinths of the Mind by Bevan Thomas and Hannah Myers (editors)

Life Finds a Way by Alina Pete and Dan Anctil (editors)

June 22, 2022 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

A comics anthology is always a gamble and I unfortunately found these to be a let down. I don’t want to come off as mean about these anthologies, since they’re done by a charity organization that fosters a nice community of comics creators in British Columbia, but I think the uneven quality is a side effect of their mission. I don’t regret getting these because I will never regret reading comics, even if they’re kind of meh, but I maybe regret the shipping cost from […]

Two Different Viewpoints on Queer Life in Japan

I Want to be a Wall (Vol.1) by Honami Shirono

X-Gender (Vol.1) by Asuka Miyazaki

June 20, 2022 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

I’m very much enjoying the wider variety of manga that’s being translated now, especially the autobiographical and LGBT+ books. These two volumes are a combination of both and I enjoyed them for different reasons. I Want to be a Wall is about an asexual woman and a gay man getting married, seemingly due to societal or family pressures. No one knows that their marriage isn’t straight but them, and the book follows them settling into married life and getting to know each other more. Their […]

“Promise and potential:” Overlooked Vocational School Students in China

Class Work: Vocational Schools and China's Urban Youth by T.E. Woronov

June 19, 2022 by GentleRain 2 Comments

Stanford University Press was having an 80% off summer sale, which was an amazing deal, so I got a bunch of books that I otherwise would never have thought to purchase since academic press prices are usually prohibitively high. Class Work is the first of the batch that I’ve read, and it was a good start. This is a slim volume that packs a lot of information about the Chinese school system and the impact of testing and government efforts to make or re-mold class structures. […]

Incisive and Interesting Essays on Orthodox Jewish Childhood

Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhood by Dainy Bernstein (editor)

June 17, 2022 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods is a book of personal and critical essays that cover a historically under-researched topic. The book is inclusive of a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds, and it benefits from the thought that went into the editing of the essays and the impulse to widen instead of narrow the people who contributed. I appreciated that this book didn’t retread the same familiar ground we see in the media of the triumphant escape from the backwards evil of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Instead, the collection gave […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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