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4.5 stars.
Chosen for Book Riot's 2018 challenge: "a comic written or illustrated by a person of color". Gorgeous art with a story that started slightly off-kilter and ended quite breathlessly.
Chosen for Book Riot's 2018 challenge: "a comic written or illustrated by a person of color". Gorgeous art with a story that started slightly off-kilter and ended quite breathlessly.
Chosen for POPSUGAR's 2018 challenge, "a book with an animal in the title". The English translation of this trilogy was combined into a single volume called The Crow Girl. However, even with the cliffhanger ending, I didn't feel compelled to continue on after I finished the first book. So here we are adding the original Swedish single volume for posterity. Proof I read it, without saying I read all three.
He merely did, and understood. Pure feeling.
He never said a word. When he thought, he did so in pictures.
He would be a body, and nothing else.
Words were meaningless. Words must not exist even in thoughts.
But they were there now, and he couldn't help it.
Gao, he thought. My name is Gao Lian.
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Fulfills both the "nordic noir" from the POPSUGAR challenge and Denmark from my read around the world challenge.
A rounded up 3.75 stars.
Carl Mørck is a detective who has recently returned to work after a shooting, in which one of his colleagues died and the other is paralyzed from the neck down. He is depressed, traumatized, guilty and despairing of the money and stress his ex-wife costs him with her frequent calls at just the wrong time. To get rid of his unpleasant self, his boss shuttles him off to a brand new department that is supposedly dedicated to cases that need "extra love". Carl is determined to do jack shit, but Assad, the assistant he is given is a blessing in disguise - he creates an obligation to do something. That something turns out closing the case of a missing politician from several years ago, who disappeared from a ferry on a trip with her disabled brother and was never seen again.
Spoiler alert, she's seen again.
Assad was the saving grace of this whole damn book - I want to know everything about him and less about Carl, who is a typical divorced, teetering on alcoholism, depressed LEO. Assad is a refugee to Denmark from Syria who is intelligent and sly and interested in the work the police do, even if he is officially not allowed to help at all. He does the bulk of the investigating, using ties he has built in the community to grease the way. I may pick up the next in the series if I can be promised to more of that.
A rounded up 3.75 stars.
Carl Mørck is a detective who has recently returned to work after a shooting, in which one of his colleagues died and the other is paralyzed from the neck down. He is depressed, traumatized, guilty and despairing of the money and stress his ex-wife costs him with her frequent calls at just the wrong time. To get rid of his unpleasant self, his boss shuttles him off to a brand new department that is supposedly dedicated to cases that need "extra love". Carl is determined to do jack shit, but Assad, the assistant he is given is a blessing in disguise - he creates an obligation to do something. That something turns out closing the case of a missing politician from several years ago, who disappeared from a ferry on a trip with her disabled brother and was never seen again.
Spoiler alert, she's seen again.
Assad was the saving grace of this whole damn book - I want to know everything about him and less about Carl, who is a typical divorced, teetering on alcoholism, depressed LEO. Assad is a refugee to Denmark from Syria who is intelligent and sly and interested in the work the police do, even if he is officially not allowed to help at all. He does the bulk of the investigating, using ties he has built in the community to grease the way. I may pick up the next in the series if I can be promised to more of that.
Short answer? Not really. Our egos keep getting in the way.
Review to come.
Review to come.
"America is literally unimaginable without plundered labor shackled to plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the culture crafted by the plundered, and without that culture itself being plundered."
A profoundly thought-provoking series of essays ranging from respectability politics, to a portrait of both Michelle and Barack Obama, to the long-reaching consequences of white supremacy, slavery and the Jim Crow era. A must read for literally everyone, especially Americans.
A profoundly thought-provoking series of essays ranging from respectability politics, to a portrait of both Michelle and Barack Obama, to the long-reaching consequences of white supremacy, slavery and the Jim Crow era. A must read for literally everyone, especially Americans.
I requested this one from one of the libraries in my local system and ended up with a beautifully illustrated version quite by happy accident.
The Secret Garden is one of my POPSUGAR challenges, "a children's classic you've never read". I have, however, seen the 1993 film adaption and I was surprised to see how faithful it had been to the source material. They aged up Mary, Colin and Dickon a bit, but the overall story is very much the same, without the more blatant period-typical racism we see in the novel.
Mary is an unpleasant young girl, raised in British-occupied India, whose parents died in a cholera epidemic. She is shipped off to northern England to live with her gloomy widower uncle, Archibald Craven. The adults around her spend quite a lot of time discussing how ugly and sallow she is - thankfully the fresh air of the moor will cure what ails her! That and like, being forced to dress and entertain herself. The horror!
The Secret Garden is a love letter to nature in general and the wild moors of England specifically - we see it work wonders on plain, disagreeable Mary and her spoiled, invalid cousin Colin. Dickon, born on the moor, seemed to be hatched out of the very forest, a nature boy who has a cadre of wild animals absolutely in love with him. The joy the children have in growing and planting and maintain the garden is magical - and truly, they believe it to be Magic itself helping them along. It's a sweet story that would go along very well with many kids who are interested in having their own "bit of earth" for the first time.
The Secret Garden is one of my POPSUGAR challenges, "a children's classic you've never read". I have, however, seen the 1993 film adaption and I was surprised to see how faithful it had been to the source material. They aged up Mary, Colin and Dickon a bit, but the overall story is very much the same, without the more blatant period-typical racism we see in the novel.
Mary is an unpleasant young girl, raised in British-occupied India, whose parents died in a cholera epidemic. She is shipped off to northern England to live with her gloomy widower uncle, Archibald Craven. The adults around her spend quite a lot of time discussing how ugly and sallow she is - thankfully the fresh air of the moor will cure what ails her! That and like, being forced to dress and entertain herself. The horror!
The Secret Garden is a love letter to nature in general and the wild moors of England specifically - we see it work wonders on plain, disagreeable Mary and her spoiled, invalid cousin Colin. Dickon, born on the moor, seemed to be hatched out of the very forest, a nature boy who has a cadre of wild animals absolutely in love with him. The joy the children have in growing and planting and maintain the garden is magical - and truly, they believe it to be Magic itself helping them along. It's a sweet story that would go along very well with many kids who are interested in having their own "bit of earth" for the first time.
3.5 stars, rounded up because reasons.
Review to come.
Review to come.
