When I was younger, I found The Doll’s House arc a bit confusing and difficult to follow, but rereading it now it hit me much harder than it used to. There is so much sheer unfairness in this story, so many characters running up against things that they don’t deserve. And there are moments of connection that shine so beautifully before being cut short.

It’s also striking to me how queer this book is, which I absorbed kind of passively as a mostly closeted queer teenager and haven’t thought about in a long time.

I haven’t read the rest of Sandman since I was in my early 20s (and still haven’t read Overture at all, shockingly), so I’m intrigued to see how rereading those volumes will go.