Hawkeye: Little Hits is a really weird book. The second collected, trade paperback of Matt Fraction’s run, this volume still has the everyman humor of the only not-super member of the Avengers. For the most part, the art is still the minimalist work it was in Volume 1, and the plot is still Hawkeye mostly dealing with personal problems instead of global threats. Read the rest at Pop Culture Penalty Box.
Freaks & Geeks
As I was reading this book, I kept thrusting it into people’s hands demanding that they read the back cover. This book swings for the fences and I knew that no matter what my ultimate opinion of the experience, it wouldn’t be for lack of ambition on Julia Elliott’s part. Read the rest at Pop Culture Penalty Box.
Essential Concealment
After I read and didn’t like The Innocent by Ian McEwan, a number of people suggested I give Atonement a try. Some of whom hadn’t even heard me wax rhapsodic about the adaptation. Oddly enough, reading The Innocent had made me really want to read Atonement. Everyone who suggested it, you were right. I really, really liked Atonement. Read the rest at Pop Culture Penalty Box
Walk the Tarnished World
I think what I loved best about this book were its nooks and crannies. This is a book obsessed with tiny detail. Instead of feeling overwhelming or tedious, these details make the world seem lived-in and solid. For all the detail, however, the book still manages to feel dreamy and atmospheric. I wanted to wander with the Wandering Symphony for 300 more pages. Read the rest at Pop Culture Penalty Box.
Artificial Confessional
…The problem is the presentation. Each chapter begins with a specific date and a vague time of day, “evening” or “morning.” It takes on the feel of a journal, like the reader gets to peek inside each woman’s story. I say story because each of these women is an unreliable narrator. More than that, even, there is the sense that they have thought out what they are going to say and how they will present it to the reader. When it is assumed these are […]
Chekhov’s Axe
I don’t want to talk in too many specifics about this book. I loved coming into it completely unawares, like stumbling on a deer grazing in a meadow and realizing a wolf is watching it too. This story was evidently inspired by the story of the Forest Boy, who you may remember stumbled out of the woods a few years ago and claimed he had been living in the German woods for five years with his father. That “true” story was utterly fabricated, and this book […]