yumdirt's Reviews (310)

As far as I'm concerned, the gold standard for comic art and simple storytelling. So fearlessly creative and heartfelt. Very clearly a direct influence for Neil Gaiman, the story in this about Arcane sending influencing ripples throughout America reminded me immediately of The Corinthian, and Cane and Abel are just chilling here in the dream realm as well.

Delightfully excessive viscera. I was pleasantly surprised by his theatrical prose. My favorite thing about this material has always been the dreamlike wonder that seeps from each contact with that other side. Of course all the agony and chains and skin-tearing were only a blink away.

I was not on solid footing for a majority of this adventure, but by the end was totally convinced this book is special. It's just as heart-pounding as the prior two, but for very different, uncomfortable reasons. Bear with me, but I don't feel I've ever related to a fictional character so closely. Locke Lamora's absolute emotional mess of character made me itch! I felt aches under scars I've long since swathed and ignored. His stubbornness, over-thinking and over-speaking, his hopeless romanticism -- none of it is tidy or ideal. But it's true and real, and I love him. I hope we get The Thorn of Emberlain soon but just as dreamy closure was evaded at the end of this story, so I'll have to let this heartache sit.

DNF 43/254pg
The writing quality is just poor. The character and narrator "voices" waffle between self-serious, somewhat period-accurate and a bored, modern speech pattern. It's full of run-on sentences needing to be re-read several times. The worldbuilding operates by name-dropping, which, when combined with the blur of 4-5pg chapters, leaves an atmosphere neither for interest nor tension to grow. I really wanted to like this, but it quickly and consistently bucked me off the saddle.

NOW THAT IS WHAT I AM TALGIN ABOUT BRANDY BABY

This hit close to home. My parents both worked as advertising sales reps (car spots and photography) and yeah that shit sucks. I got into it with my father a lot where it wasn't really necessary, but in hindsight was definitely stress from his role as main household provider. This place fucking sucks, and raising a family on top of trying to just survive just brutalizes a person's soul.

Snappy, morose, funny, very New York. A Walter Wick photograph come to life, but with more cigarette smoke and coughing in a market.

Favorite poems:
Yesterday Down At The Canal
Memoir of Sergei O...
Ave Maria
Hotel Particulier
Song
Three Airs

no don't kill yourself, you're so absurd hahaaa

This is really direct and accessible for the most part, immediately easy to recommend to friends. And fans. And loved ones. Even you. You toiling fool!