Thought Train to Pusan

Since I’ve been slacking on my reading time so far this year, but sometimes listen to podcasts while I work on art and design projects, my friend suggested I listen to audiobooks to keep with my book goals. And so here we are! Shout-out to the library for having a great digital collection that I can access with a few different apps. Miranda July is a bit of a pickle for me: some of her works I love (ie, Me and You and Everyone We Know ), but a lot of it I really don’t like at all: or at least, I just don’t get it. But there is always something there that I find intriguing, if not ultimately effective or fully developed. Unfortunately, this one was not a winner for me. I’ll admit that I’m not used to audiobooks as of yet, and I didn’t really like the manner in which July told it—for example, how she put on a voice for any character that wasn’t the protagonist, but it was always the same sort of deep, husky imitation of a typical male voice—so that could have been a big factor in...

Miranda July is an interesting case, isn’t she? Sometimes I don’t know what to make of her and her work, and I find that she can be pretty divisive. There are some that find her to be gentle, profound, unique, and have a strong voice, while others may find her to be too whimsical, awkward, etc. And I happen to be right in the middle. I absolutely adore some of her work, but other times I just can’t connect with it and think, “Okay… that’s enough of you for a while.” And while the collection of stories in No One Belongs Here More Than You had a few short stories that really struck me, overall there were more misses than hits, and I couldn’t help but feel like everything in it was slowly dragging me down. It is true that July has a distinct voice, and there is a skill to capturing small, single moments in a way that make you see them as so significant. In many instances, however, these moments in July’s stories center around her character’s sensuality or instances of sexual intim...