This was solid. I think it is particularly smart at weaving pop culture into this, with his vast knowledge of the subject of visual media and representation of indigenous people in it. I also appreciated that he speaks frankly about systemic issues and white guilt surrounding these complex issues; most of which go completely acknowledged at an institutional level.

He says there aren’t two sides of an issue. There are facts and an alternate, ahistorical narrative that permeates Canada still, and that’s absolutely true. It was what we learned in school, despite the fact that literally as we sat there hearing that there was a peaceful land transition and residential schools were a good effort, now defunct—there were still schools in operation, at that very moment.

Smarter still, I think, is tying each of the issues to personal history and academic knowledge, making this an unabashedly, unapologetically political memoir that succinctly tackles the standard objections people usually have to how indigenous peoples have been treated in Canada. Of which, he has been outspoken about for some time, so should be a surprise to anyone picking this up. Not that marginalized people have even the luxury of not being political.

This is a pretty great, quick little trade of a book that plants indigenous roots in future that is very much an allegory to current indigenous struggles, as it relates to the Yukon, specifically. But also issues that encompass all of Canada, such as residential schools.

In it, heroes Crow & Wolf must combat a bombastic colonizer buccaneer. While the comic is pretty straight forward and has a unique visual style I like, I really loved how there are two indigenous dialects unique to the Yukon used throughout the script. Unfortunately, sometimes the translations for each word are very small and, depending on the background, are very difficult to discern.

However, it’s a straight forward story and a visual medium, so typically it’s intuitive what the translation will be regardless. This is fantastic and fun; kids and teenagers should love this. And at the end there is a few pages dedicated to the story and intent of the story and the places and inspirations it comes from. There’s also a glossary at the back. Solid stuff.

This was an uneven finish, and the conceit got a bit muddied with the notion of ancestral memory. Especially when it still makes illusions to her consuming her ancestry homework and that allowing her to imagine the past. It is unclear wether it tries to evoke surrealistic notions or that it’s not an imagination, or what. When it really doesn’t add anything to the story. It feels like a bit of a rushed ending, probably due to space constraints.

Considering the ending it needed to nail this was going to have to really nail, for it to get more than three stars from me. It works and maintains the ethos of the characters and world, but also definitely felt overly plotty and as though it were wrapping things up in an inorganic, insert plot beat kind-of-way sometimes.

I think most other books, because they have a lot more space, end up going in surprising and subversive directions, and without that it does feel like a predictable set of circumstances unfolding, including the ending. It also leans more into the world building aspects I’m less interested in, and the epilogue is more playful than I’d have liked. I guess I felt like the stakes were played out and I wanted that to surprise me with a change up, as it sometimes does in this series, but instead I would consider this book to be very “safe”.

I found quite a few of these to be at intersections I had not thought of, so I think this collection is for people exactly like me, and why it’s so valuable to read about lived experience. The pieces themselves vary; some are clearly quite proficient and practiced in their writing, others are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I’ll leave the curation of each to people who know more on the subject to me. Some seem a bit odd, such as the Cyborg Manifesto piece critique. A piece of writing 37 years old and about specifically literature. The idea that it has blind spots for lived experience is a foregone conclusion and the author has written numerous other works since that are far better and intersectional. Cyberpunk didn’t see _cell phones_ coming, right. Of course it isn’t pertinent anymore. That people would bring it up to people using prosthetics does expose just how far behind the general intellect is on these things, though.

What an interesting story. The pitch on paper isn’t that interesting to me. But the execution becomes everything, in this case. An old woman named Janina has two dogs that go missing and then people in the community begin to start turning up dead. Janina embarks believes she’s can figure out what is happening using astrology, interpreting poetry as well as the reactions of people she confronts during the course of her investigation.

I thought it was quite clever, endearing the reader to the unreliable narrator's main character. Multiple times throughout the story, as it becomes clear there are killing in this remote community, primarily reserved for the wealthy, of course, you are clued into how even SHE admits to being unreliable in her own story. My favorite being her awareness of her interpretations of signs—saying she is afraid, and that influences her more than she would like.

It also emphasizes how little we value we ascribe to older people in society. The effects of isolation on a person. And interrogates how we have organized society, specifically selecting what is right and wrong, and whom punishment actually serves.

It’s certainly unique. I wonder what the flow is like in polish, to be honest. The translation is good. But I always worry translations undercut the X factor of the author's voice.

This was great. The narration is fantastic, really augmenting the testimonial sections.

This is a true, and ostensibly straight forward story of a woman accused of poisoning the child of a neighbour via a herbal remedy. But word of mouth makes even this accusation far more complex. As the hysteria of the people gathers, so to do their stories. Suddenly she also taught curses to people and controls the weather. The small push into the culture of the town rapidly devolves into a very sinister—yet somehow, oddly funny, in the satirical sense—kind of way.

It alternates between the accused perspective, negotiating life after the accusation, and the numerous testimonials, which act as a fluid set piece for the historical aspects, of which many are, I am told, quite accurate.

I’m pretty burned out on Witch trial stories but this just seemed to be the exact right amount of reframing and characterization. Perhaps the fact that the townspeople become subjects under a microscope makes it seem new, or fresh. Either way, couldn’t put it down and highly recommend the audiobook, especially.

Well written. It feels like it ranges far aground from the initial expectations because it is a collection of essays, it is certainly very eliminating in some respects, at least to me. And therefor very valuable.

I thought it was going for a decent metaphor about the madness of crowds and fame at first—but it was mostly just a really well drawn absurdist horror that had trouble saying anything coherent at all. Though it did keep things interesting, as the absurdism wound up and up.

2.5 rounded up.

While it is technically written well, this firmly occupies the intersection of preachy self-help in fiction that I will never get on with, because in a word it is “unbelievable”. Ironic. Given they’re always concerned with inspiration and fostering belief and positivity in something. But they’re also so concerned with that aspect it becomes necessarily solipsistic in order to maintain its self-generated fantasy.

That said, I can see why people who can fall into this voice and perspective really enjoyed this book. For me, it bordered on the fetishistic in its language around neurodivergent people, science in general, and an almost disturbing veneration and enshrinement of pretty much the only woman that appears. Though, I don’t think we could call her a character.

Mostly this is a feel-good fever dream that feels far too idyllic for my taste, which tends to define and make sense of the world through the human condition. The old roller coaster that this is, where you hear the distinct *click* with each increment to the summit of the roller coaster as you wait for the inevitable fast-paced descent, is not my idea of a good time. But it is a perfectly fine way to tell this kind of story. Like I said: it is technically well written, for what it is. But I can never bring myself to get on this ride.