Given 5 stars for the sheer pleasure of reading this comic collection at a slow pace and putting myself back in time. Fresh out of high school, I earnestly wanted to be a graphic novelist and I owe that to Clowes. I think for Clowes’s humor to hit just right, you either need to be firmly Gen X or maybe you grew up a precocious xennial. Either way, the tone of his satire is very of its time, biting, sometimes mean, often self-deprecating. He is best known for Ghost World, adapted into a Terry Zwigoff film in 2001 (just recently found out he was writing the final GW installations while working on the screenplay simultaneously). I came across a lot of short-form comics I’d never seen before (for better or for worse) and most of all, I found a ton of joy in reading the totally bizarre Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron in its entirety. This man’s brain is… something else. Remember that this is social satire and these comics were written from 1989-1997. Some of the problems he rails against are very topical. Some of his gripes are pretentious. No such thing as a perfect idol!

My challenge this year is to actually review each book I read beyond a star rating. Having said that, check out user fatma’s review (it should be top-listed) because they said virtually everything I want to say. I adore Zadie Smith and I am bummed out because this is such an interesting and creative historical fiction premise. I would rather read straightforward essays written by Smith about the integrity (or lack thereof) of canonical novelists as well as the ivory tower of Victorian writers whose character drawings may have been derived by less-than-savory methods of observation. There is a lot to be said under there. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the best format for Smith. The characters feel rigid, archetypical, and the narrative moves at a snail’s pace. Added to that the fact that there are actually like 3 different stories being told and the fact that every freaking chapter in the book is only 1-3 pages long (super short chapters are a peeve of mine- I can’t figure out why this choice was made) means no momentum could ever set off. I just felt persistently “meh” throughout the whole thing. Smith has a fantastic repertoire, this just isn’t my top!

Life after Literature degrees means reliving the experience of, “hey I love [that thing] written by [that author], let’s read more!” “A Long Day’s Journey into Night” is the best play I have ever read, yes. I picked up this paperback collection from a resale store dollar bin. How “Anna Christie” won a Pulitzer Prize is beyond me. “The Emperor Jones” is aggressively racist. If I do enough mental gymnastics, I can maybe see how these three plays say something about humanity’s hubris and thirst for power, blah blah blah. Can you do it without punching down on women and Black folks? This is what happens when the ivory tower institutions of higher ed still worship old White men.

Second reading since college. I’m such a softie for a critique on the prison complex and a sweet marriage ending! Pairs well with imagining Matthew Macfadyen in the BBC version.

More like 3.5 rounded up to 4. I appreciate the great detail that went into this important book. And it is important. However, there is just something about the format that rubs me the wrong way. Jeffrey Haas, Hampton’s lawyer, writes this like a compelling fiction narrative and he tries to walk that tightrope of highlighting his important work while trying to remain humble. He spends just a lil too much time talking about why he is compelled to do this work, as a White Jewish man, positioning himself near what the Black Panthers experienced. In too many moments that are comically symbolic, he compares his “Jew ‘Fro” to the hairstyles of his comrades in court. Not a good look, Jeff! But I’m probably reading annoyingly between the lines. I think I just don’t actually love reading court drama. Many people would very much enjoy this!

If I had dropped a review halfway through this book, it would look a lot different. In fact, the first third was drudgery and a lot of standard Welsh hedonism— I’m a fan of Welsh but I’ve read plenty of it. I never really considered him capable of writing a good redemption story, but this is it. Not for the faint of heart based on subject matter but surprisingly exploding with sentiment and sorrow in the last third. I was sincerely compelled in the last 100 pages and couldn’t put it down. Ready and curious to watch the BBC adaptation.