I really do believe that my soul heals a little bit with every volume of this series that I read. Excited to continue reading Yamada and Kase's college adventures.

A handful of years ago, I read Uzumaki and felt... distinctly underwhelmed. Much to my continued self-consciousness, the review I subsequently wrote became my most popular review on this site. And although the attention it garners is nothing compared to a lot of other people's reviews, every time I get a notification that someone has liked that review, I feel a little uncomfortable. I've come to suspect that perhaps my take on Uzumaki was half-baked at best.

So I very much wanted to revisit Junji Ito, hoping to build upon my already well-established appreciation for his art and to find an appreciation for his texts, as well, or at least, a better understanding of what he's doing in them.

And with Tomie, that's what I got. I really liked this book. The episodic and repetitive qualities of the collected stories work in favor of the concept: a not-human girl who replicates herself like a virus, sowing madness with her beauty and using her destruction as a means of spreading her sinister influence. I like the grotesque art and the macabre humor, the moments that hit the same combination of funny and repellent as Cheryl taunting Ash from under the cellar door in Evil Dead. One snag is that the opening story lacks the polish of the later ones, which makes it a confusing opening to the book. But if you read on, you're in for a bloody treat.

Continuing my Sandman reread. Although Dream Country is a quartet of standalone stories, they've never felt like filler to me. More like a nice break, time to recover and quietly explore some corners of Gaiman's world before moving on to Season of Mists (which is perhaps the best arc in the series). And the brilliant "Dream of a Thousand Cats" still ties with "The Sound of her Wings" as my favorite single issue.

Petals on the Wind reads like the bastard child of Hamlet and a soap opera. What a fucking ride.

There are pieces of a good book here, but this isn't it.

At this point, the author's tendency to mine miscommunication and jealousy for drama is starting to grate on even my nerves a bit. I wish that they would deal with it in depth and maybe use it to introduce some higher stakes for the longevity of the relationship... but that might be out of the scope for such a fluffy series. Still, I do enjoy the fluff.

I feel like this could have been developed in greater depth, but I like the art, and I will read anything with a sapphic human/AI romance, so 4 stars from me.

The more VC Andrews I read, the more I'm impressed by her willingness--nay, eagerness--to discard restraint and write the most unhinged books she could imagine.