I’ve read a couple of Neil Gaiman works before. I loved Ocean and the End of the Lane and had mostly good feelings about Neverwhere and that book, and its protagonist Richard Mayhew, has grown on me over time. (In fact, I suggest reading my friend Ale’s review from this year to get a better take on the book without the depression funk I was in in 2013). Late last year I saw badkittyuno’s review of American Gods and decided that it would be my […]
Multiple personality disorder as a superpower.
Stephen Leeds is a truly unique individual. There are forty-seven people (and counting) living in his house, each of whom specialize in different things, like botany, biology, security, psychology, handwriting analysis, etc. These people have personalities and talents and fears and all come from different cultures and religious backgrounds. And all of them are hallucinations. Stephen doesn’t really have multiple personality disorder, because he is completely aware of and actively participates in the maintaining of his aspects. He uses them as a sort of extension […]
Louis Kept Changing the Title to “Who We Aren’t” on Copies at that One Book Signing. Which is Interesting.
Of course there will always be differences between the publicly presented images of a person and who they really are, especially if the person in question is a public figure, celebrity, etc. So while it truly feels like the boys of One Direction want to be genuine about who they are as people, what they want to say, and how they want to grow and progress in their music, there is still something so controlled about how they are managed and how One Direction™ is […]
Better, but still not quite there.
I liked this better than the first one, especially at the end. This was bound to happen since I’m spending so much time with these characters, and Abraham is a consistent, talented writer. The first half continued a lot of the issues I had with the first book, though, so I can’t really give this four stars. Maybe the third book will earn it? It’s been a little over a year since the start of the series. Geder Palliako has gone from social pariah to […]
Sore Thumbs
This year I started teaching a class of Seniors. It had long been a goal, and now I got to do it. I wanted to create as much of a collegiate simulacrum as I could. So I brewed up some lectures and led each week of instruction, discussion and reflection around a prominent theme in literature generally–with specific attention paid to African-American experiences (slightly awkward for a transparently white guy to do for a class full of black kids). And to guide my lecture creation […]
I want to be friends with Amy Poehler
As far as I can tell, I’m the fifth Cannonballer so far to read and review Amy Poehler’s new book Yes, Please. I’m a huge fan of Parks and Recreation and the episode where Ann and Chris leave nearly destroyed me, because Ann and Leslie’s friendship in many ways reminds me so much of that between me and my best friend Lydia (who unfortunately lives across the Atlantic in New York City). I’ve liked Amy Poehler in Mean Girls and on SNL, and I love […]