Beginning: Was it like this before? A slow start, a growing realization that these characters are not trying to be likeable, only to be believable? Doubleday Canada, 2015 Pip (short for Purity) seems rather like a middle-aged woman in a young woman's skin, so many worries and an overwhelming sense
It begins with Butterworm "the neighborhood's oldest resident", the tale slipping between his bared teeth: Courtney Crumrin: The Night Things, written and illustrated by Ted Naifeh (Oni Press 2012). He introduces readers to Courtney Crumrin, who is new in town. Her parents have run out of credit and have begged rooms with
You and your books have been a real downer lately. It's not me, it's you. This was not in the stack. If it had been, I would have known that sadness awaited. True, I stacked them there. But "disturbing and yet deeply moving" on the back cover did
Is it too much? Or, just enough. What am I to make of this final story in my Alice Munro reading project. (I read her last collection, Dear Life, in 2012.) While rereading Too Much Happiness, I was constantly aware of the references to being happy, to happiness, in the
The majority of my reading time this year has been devoted to the books which have been living for years, though neglected, on my own bookshelves. In May and June, I had a planned rebellion, and I enjoyed a great number of new books. But now I have returned to
