Book Reviews: Comfort Me..., Valente; Lost in the Moment..., McGuire; Man Who Fell to Earth, Tevis

Title: Comfort Me with Apples
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Published: Tor, 2021
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 455,355
Text Number: 1591
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Sophia, in her bizarrely oversized house in the uncanny perfection of Arcadia Gardens, knows she was made for her husband. The combination of elements (( spoiler )

) is clever; perhaps too clever, as explaining the premise takes over much of the denouement. But it's so creative and logical and, in Valente's hands, full of powerful lyricism and specific, evocative, grotesque imagery. I love the interstitial HOA bylaws.


Title: Lost in the Moment and Found (Wayward Children Book 8)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Published: Tor, 2023
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 456,950
Text Number: 1595
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: "I want more hefty worldbuilding on the nature of doors" / "no, not like that" is the vibe, here. A six-year-old flees her abusive stepfather and stumbles through a portal into the Shop Where the Lost Things Go, which stands as an intersection between worlds; and I appreciate that twist on the series' format. But it falls flat, and that's partially due to the lazy infodumping in the final third and the fact that the aging mechanic feels disconnected and arbitrary, but it's mostly that these installments are so short. The end is rushed and all worldbuilding implications are foisted on to the next book, leaving this one firmly in the "this is fine" camp. A lot of this series falls into that middling category.


Title: The Man Who Fell to Earth
Author: Walter Tevis
Published: RosettaBooks, 2014 (1963)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 466,395
Text Number: 1635
Read Because: reviewed by Rosamund, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A slim novel about an extraterrestrial come to Earth in the effort to save his people. While gently dated in that way of golden-era near-future SF (the specifics of its social anxieties; the tech), this lands its themes of aliens and alienation with a subdued, bitter grace. This sounds deeply unappealing, but I promise it works: speculative elements provide the narrative structure but take second seat to a sequence of quiet scenes grounded in unassuming mundane detail wherein characters drunkenly navel-gaze at issues of alienation, social identity, and social collapse. The irony of calling this a very "human" work isn't lost on the book itself, and it is: flawed and mortal. Thank goodness it's short, though - at length this would be miserable.

Manga Reviews: Gantz, Oku; Kimi wa Petto, Ogawa; Yimetsu no Yaiba, Gotouge

2023 has thusfar been the year of manga. And is it good manga? you may ask; and I answer: literally Gantz set the bar so low that like, yeah, the rest's been great.


Title: Gantz
Author: Hiroya Oku
Published: 2000-2013
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 8005 (224+224+226+226+224+224+224+224+232+200+200+224+232+224+200+200+200+204+232+208+208+200+216+216+208+200+232+232+218+192+218+218+218+218+218+216+226)
Total Page Count: 466,195
Text Number: 1598-1634
Read Because: personal enjoyment
Review: After his untimely death, our protagonist is conscripted into a pseudo-posthumous game, a fight for survival against alien lifeforms. The protagonist's early characterization is incredibly irritating, giving this an inauspicious start - but there's some great early arcs: the aliens are weird, the fights are brutal, causalities abound, and the protagonist undergoes significant, complicated character growth.

Pity then that even the good arcs are frequently interrupted by awful arcs (the fireball-shooting dinos stand out) and the second half is just ... bad, ironically losing coherency as the worldbuilding become more substantial. And it's full of fanservice, and the female characters are woefully under-served by the mangaka's misogyny. And the battle scenes are frequently incomprehensible, and the ending drags on and on.

I don't regret the good bits of this, but I sure do regret finishing it. Unfortunately there's no clean division of "sometimes good" and "pure garbage," although the Oni arc is probably a decent end point. Alternately, flee at the first sight of vampires; you'll miss a few good scenes but vastly cut your losses.

( Gantz: 0 )

Title: Kimi wa Petto aka Tramps Like Us
Author: Yayoi Ogawa
Published: 2000-2005
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 2620 (184+188+184+178+192+192+192+192+185+188+182+179+192+192)
Total Page Count: 469,515
Text Number: 1638-1651
Read Because: reread
Review: A business woman rescues a young man she finds passed out in a cardboard box, and lets him stay with her on one condition: he becomes her pet. This is one of my favorite-ever manga, and it fills me with an articulate rage composed of equal parts longing and frustration. The premise has permanent residence in my id, and it's a brilliant framework for examining communication and intimacy: restructuring relationships redefines how we engage with them. ...But it seems to forget that the problem that needs to resolved is how and that people communicate - rather than the configurations of the relationships themselves. The fantasy of a high-powered marriage with a pet "on the side" where the latter is the more intimate relationship is so much more engaging than the constant threat that the narrative will resolve its tensions in the most traditionally-structured monogamous relationships possible.

And still, I love it. Some arcs fall flat, but the slice-of-life structure is gently paced and offers space for complex characterization (Momo especially impressed me on this reread); the restrained, bittersweet tone takes a deeply iddy premise and treats it with respect; the art is pretty and consistent (including consistent issues with the lips).


Title: Kimetsu no Yaiba aka Demon Slayer
Author: Koyoharu Gotouge
Translator: John Werry and John Hurt
Published: Viz Media, 2018-2021 (2016-2020)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 4560 (197+192+199+192+197+205+215+199+199+200+192+199+199+199+199+192+192+192+192+192+192+192+232)
Total Page Count: 474,795
Text Number: 1654-1676
Read Because: recommended by Teja, ebooks borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A demon murders our protagonist's family, leaving only one survivor: his little sister, freshly transformed into a demon herself. This a straightforward "boy finds martial arts community, grows in strength, gains and loses mentors, defeats the big bad" narrative but really quite charming: The art is consistent and bold, the character design delightful. Everyone gets a tragic backstory at pivotal moments. The protagonist is so achingly sincere that it blows through trite and comes out the other side. The pacing isn't perfect, but it's remarkably free of bloat. A solid read!

Not an especial favorite, though. For all the demonic character design and dismemberment and death, it never really feels dark - there's a weird hollowness in tone coming from how vaguely violence is drawn and the fact that our hero and his friends have plot armor while mentor figures are persistently tragic. I enjoyed reading this but, save for a few favorite characters, it doesn't really stick in my mind.