Thought Train to Pusan

A story of a young man’s unrequited love, tangled in a web of death, mental illness, and the impact of sexual experience upon a person’s life. I was unaware that that last point would play such an important role in the story of Norwegian Wood , which made reading on the bus next to an older women conspicuously reading over my shoulder a bit of an interesting experience. In general, however, this novel focuses on the confusing time that is a person’s late teens, and how certain moments have the power to stay with us all through our lives. Norwegian Wood begins with a 37-year-old Toru Watanabe, suddenly being hit with a wave of nostalgia, and memories from the 1960s when he was around 17-20 years old. And the trigger of these memories? An orchestral version of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood”. The rest of the novel is where Toru recounts all that occurred during this early and altering time in his life. It all begins when Toru’s best friend, Kizuki, commits suicide when he is 17

Speak is a young adult novel that deals with the aftermath of a young woman’s rape: a time wherein she feels she cannot tell anyone what happened, leading to a period of depression. I hate to think that these things happen to people who are so young and vulnerable, and yet I know that it does occur, and more often than not, the blame is placed on the wrong person, or the victim is too afraid to speak to someone who can help them. Laurie Halse Anderson portrays this issue in a serious manner, which I think is very important, yet she doesn’t allow for it to be so dark that there is no hope for redemption. While I could not possible know what rape victims feel, or even have an inkling as to how it may stay with them throughout their entire lives, I want to believe that there is still the possibility for happiness after such a trauma. The protagonist of Speak is a 13 year-old young woman named Melinda, who attends a party at the end of the summer before she enters high school, onl

I don’t really know why I’ve found myself liking Hellboy so much lately, but I really do enjoy him as a character a lot, as well as how Mike Mignola uses dark folklore tales as the basis of his short, episodic stories, just changing them slightly to suit the world of Hellboy. And there are always little explanations from Mignola as to where the stories came from, which I find to be incredibly interesting. Then again, I have a thing for supernatural lore being used in different works, if just in influence, or being reinvented in a new way, and The Right Hand of Doom definitely follows the pattern of Hellboy’s past volumes in that it plays little installments from his life involving different paranormal threats, which may or may not be connected to a bigger picture. I really enjoy it, but I know that some people aren’t into that kind of thing, just like how I like the somewhat less-detailed nature of Mignola’s drawings, which makes them almost seem more moody and dark (heeeeey, early

I know a lot of yee fellow Cannonballers have already read and reviewed this book since it came out this summer, so I’ll try to keep it brief. For me,  The Ocean at the End of the Lane  was an exercise in reminiscence on the past, and the wonder of childhood. I was amazed at how quickly and unquestioningly the young boy of the story just accepted the strange things occurring around him. But when I think about it, children are like that, aren’t they? They are the most likely to believe in things that defy logic, or even yearn for more magical explanations for things that they may not understand. This brief novel truly captures this quality: The Ocean at the End of the Lane begins with our nameless protagonist, returning to his hometown for a funeral, and finding himself back at the old farmhouse at the end of the lane where his childhood friend used to live. As he sits looking at the pond in the back of the farm, he recalls some strange events from when he was seven years old. I

I’m going to be honest, despite hearing countless references to The Bell Jar and it’s author over the years, I never had any idea what it was about. And so finally, I decided to read it, with all it’s beautiful language and strange meanderings of thought and progress. I found myself both understanding and irritated throughout it, and while I liked reading it, I don’t know if I could have stood if it went on longer than it did. I also don’t understand why this novel and Sylvia Plath’s life has become so romanticized in the modern day, but maybe that’s just me. The life presented in the novel is a struggle of mental instability, and while it is important to read stories like this in an attempt to understand those afflicted, it by no means makes you feel good, nor should it be a mark of aspiration, despite the tragic poetics that may be deciphered from the words of pain. In any case, The Bell Jar is about a young woman named Esther, who we first meet at a summer internship for a

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of tarot cards: how they work, the different beliefs behind them, and more than anything, the symbolism involved. And so, on the spur of a moment, I picked up a book (and set of cards!) on tarot, these ones specifically being in the style of Steampunk. Why not just a regular deck? Because these ones looked beautiful, and I’ve sort of been digging the whole steampunk thing lately. And surprisingly, I feel like I made a bit of a connection to these cards, as weird as that may sound. The images just strike something in me, even if I don’t quite know how to do the whole “reading” thing yet, except for on a level of personal interpretation. In any case, what is included in The Steampunk Tarot Manual is a reasonably comprehensive layout of all the different cards in a typical tarot deck, their standard meanings, and a few different ideas as to what this might mean, especially given the images in the steampunk style. It also includes illustration

I find that in a lot of romantic comedies these days, there is always that scene where the female is discussing her past relationships, only to at one point mention her “experimental college phase” that included a relationship or sexual experience with another woman. “Hahaha! Everyone does it! Look how uncomfortable or surprised the man she is currently dating looks right now!” But then I think, is that kind of experience really that common? Do girls always find that one, really intense friendship that leads to them experimenting romantically or sexually? Is it always just a “phase”? For some, obviously it is not. We know that. So why are these experiences so often played up for laughs? Annie On My Mind deals with two young girls in their last year of high school, discovering a new sort of kinship in each other, that eventually leads to romantic love. It is serious and confusing for them, and in all honesty, it feels real: like a real situation that might happen between two fri

The third volume in the Chew comic series is all about relationships. In particular, Just Desserts focuses on chibopath Tony Chu’s relationship with his new girlfriend, Amelia Mintz the saboscrivner. They have been dating for a while now, and things seem to be going swimmingly between them. Things are also working out splendidly between Tony and his partner John these days. Now if only Tony’s job would stop getting in the way of his newfound love of life; that, and his dysfunctional family’s apparent disgust for him. This volume of Tony’s story also brings back Tony’s old partner-- and overall nemesis him the series so far—Mason Savoy, as he tries to uncover the truth behind the poultry bans across the globe.   The story is a rolling, my friends. What I love about this series is how humorously it manages to handle some dark and gruesome subjects. It is ridiculous, yet still hits on some serious political and conspiratorial issues. I also thoroughly enjoy the artwork that R

This book was an impulse purchase of mine as I waited in line to buy my textbooks for this semester. And it was enjoyable and fun, but at the same time I expected something… different. I’m not sure what that was, but I almost thought that this book would be creepier (well, besides the old photographs, that is) or more intense than it turned out to be. But even so, this is still a fun book, and I expect a young adult audience that likes fantastical mystery would absolutely love it. Miss Perengrine’s Home for Peculiar Children focuses on a teenage boy named Jacob, who grew up with his grandfather’s stories of the old orphanage he used to live in as a child, and all the strange children that lived there, hiding from the “monsters” in the world. As Jacob grows older, he believes less and less in his grandfather’s stories, that is, until his grandfather dies under mysterious circumstances, his dying words being somewhat of a riddle for Jacob to solve. As Jacob tries to get over his

--> There’s something a little “Six Feet Under” about the premise of this book: a son whose life is in disarray returns home after the death of his father, only to have to deal with the rest of his dysfunctional family that wants nothing to do with one another. I thought I could get behind something like this, and while the writing is solid and some real, complicated emotions are examined, This is Where I Leave You left me a bit irritated. Judd Foxman’s life is a mess, what with recently discovering that his wife had been cheating on him with his boss, forcing Judd out of their house and into a dank basement with no job, no friends, and no idea what to do with himself. Now, to top this all off, Judd learns that his father has just passed away, and that his dying wish was for his family to all sit Shiva for him: this is a Jewish mourning ritual that requires Judd and his 3 somewhat estranged siblings to all congregate at their childhood home for an entire week. The Foxm

“Hey, you like funny things! You should totally read this,” my cousin said to me one day as he rifled through his vast collection of comic books.  They are basically his most prized possessions, and while some may think he’s a bit of an oddball, my cousin definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this stuff, and he was dead on about this series; Chew is hilarious, in a demented kind of way, and I am starting to absolutely love it. I will admit, it’s the sort of thing that won’t appeal to everyone, as it gets a bit ludicrous and also very dirty and grotesque at times, but if you like the weird and wonderful in your graphic novels and comic series, then you will probably like this as well. Volume 2, entitled International Flavor , follows our dear chibopath Tony Chu with a new partner at the FDA, who just so happens to be his old police-force partner, John Colby. John had previously been injured while on a job with Tony, and after having some serious reconstructiv

[With art by David Aja, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber, Francesco Francavilla, and Jesse Hamm] Hawkeye might be a bit of a doofus and not really know what he’s doing with himself at any given moment, but there is still something so likeable about him; you can tell that he genuinely cares about people, despite his often confused and public “I couldn’t care less about anything” nature. Hawkeye wants to do the right thing, he’s just not always sure what that is. Once again focusing on the life of Clint Barton when he’s not acting as a part of The Avengers, Little Hits collects issues 6 to 11 of the Hawkeye series. Each issue acts like it’s own little episode in Clint’s life, though some are connected with recurring characters, such as Kate Bishop (the Young Avenger’s Hawkeye), and Cherry (the girl who is always in with the wrong people) who first appeared in My Life as a Weapon . The stories seem to progress much slower in Little Hits than they did in the previous volume, and

Or as I like to call it: City of Why Can’t You Guys Just Communicate a Little Better? And so, after a strong first novel and slightly less-engaging sequel, this installment to Cassandra Claire’s Mortal Instruments series hits the third-book-slump for a number of reasons. While the story is still engaging if you have become invested in these characters from the previous books, there is a definite increase in melodrama and love-angst in City of Glass . Furthermore, many of the plot twists and outcomes can be seen coming from a mile away, making it far less exciting than say, City of Bones with all it’s amusing turns. Although I must admit, I did accidentally spoil one of the big twists for myself before reading this book (I was dorking around on the internet, rookie mistake, I know), but I still feel as though you could see where all of this was headed very easily. [Hold on to your hats, kids, if you haven’t read any of these books before, this plot description is likely to

Whenever I read a young-adult series, I find that I fall in love with the first book, only to be extremely disappointed by each sequel that comes to follow it (I’m looking at you, Maze Runner , a series I still haven’t finished from frustration with the second novel). Because of this, when I embarked on reading City of Bones before the film adaptation is released this week [Jonathan Rhys Meyers film career, back from grave!], I also decided to read City of Ashes immediately afterwards. While City of Ashes does experience a bit of a sequel slump, it’s not nearly as drastic as I feared it would be, and is still quite good. In any case, the first two books of The Mortal Instruments series have definitely made me want to continue reading to see what happens: I’m enjoying them a lot. Maybe it’s my love of all that fantasy, angels and demons stuff (which we can see in the fact that I never met a Supernatural reference I didn’t want to make). Or maybe it’s that everything seems to

  (With art by J.K. Woodward) A crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Pond-era Doctor Who? It’s like a super geeky fantasy dream! Written as a short serial of 8 issues collected into two volumes, this idea totally roped me in, but in the end was a bit disappointing. There was potential here to do so much, but inevitably all the conflicts and conclusions felt… easy, I guess? And the action was very swayed to feel much more like a general 2-part episode of Doctor Who than a Star Trek story. At the end of the day, however, Assimilation^2 is a fun little story that combines two worlds that may not otherwise meet, if not in a very memorable fashion. The main conflict in Assimilation^2 centers around a combined attack on Federation planets between the Borg and Cybermen, who are using each other’s technologies in order to co-conquer the human race. Upon this crossover of threats, the TARDIS chooses to mobilize between universes and appear on the Holodeck of the Ente