Lower East Side Librarian

Yup, it's back to vampires for me. I let a dozen books go by since the last one I read, unless you count the zombie book. Life Sucks is a graphic novel about a reluctant vampire, a vegetarian convenience store clerk named Dave, who is competing with a trust-fund surfer vamp for the affections of a hot mortal goth girl. I wasn't especially taken with the story or the art, I'm sorry to say, which is especially grating considering the anticipation with which I waited for it to be released from NYPL's nearly three week long "in transit" status. I think the problem is that the book really should have been about the girl, Rosa, with her traditional Mexican mother who wants her to get married and procreate, and her own identity struggle, including her desire to be a vampire.

Where have I been all of Ker-bloom!'s life? artnoose has been making this handset letterpress zine every other month since 1996. I finally got around to reading it when I received several copies in a zine donation at Barnard.

Here's a cover scan from issue 55 and Kelly Wooten's review of it in Library Journal:

You know how I'm often, perhaps self-righteously, claiming that my favorite authors are women of color? Well, I have to admit that there are a few white male authors in my heart, too. And you can't get much whiter than white Canadian Robertson Davies, eh? I've read, with affection, his three completed trilogies at least twice apiece, but I hadn't yet gotten around to rereading the first two of what Wikipedia surmises would have been called the Toronto Trilogy. The bad news is that I'm now pretty sure that Murther & Walking Spirits is my least favorite of Davies' novels.

I mentioned my preference for books by women of color in a previous post, and Johanna, a friend with I think pretty similar tastes (woc, but also zines and paranormal fiction) recommended Trumpet. I realized that while I do consistently enjoy books by women of color—American, immigrant-American, and Chinese and African (writing in English), I haven't done all that well with books by British women of color. I'm sorry, but Zadie Smith does nothing for me and Monica Ali less than nothing. I'm sure they're lovely women and skilled writers. Their writing styles just don't appeal to me, nor do those of the other women Brits of color I've read. Therefore it was a relief to dig into Johanna's recommendation by Nigerian-Scot Jackie Kay and realize that I was in the right place for once.

From early childhood through high school in upper class Palos Verdes California, Baszile was the only (or rare) African-American girl other than her sister on her street or in her school. This coming-of-age memoir focuses on issues particular to her situation, but that also apply to any young woman growing up in America. The anxieties about how she looks, dating, and her rocky family relationships are pretty universal.