Reviews

Cartoonist Ellen Forney is completely forthcoming in her account of how she coped with getting diagnosed with bipolar disorder and accepting that she'd have to be on meds the rest of her life. Aside from her frustrations with her highs and lows and the drugs that often failed to smooth them out, the central thesis of Forney's graphic novel style memoir is her fear that medication will erase her artistic talent and identity.

I made it well past the hundred page mark, thinking the book would eventually grow on me. The writing and story aren't bad; I just didn't care for the sisters, especially the younger one of the first generation.

Although I love Alvarez's novels, I found her book of essays to be a little meh. In fact, I stopped just before the halfway point. It might be zines' fault. I've read a lot of similar themed essays (about feeling half in one world and half in another, due to immigrant status, mixed race identity or the loss of one's native language) in dozens (hundreds?) of zines.

After graduating from college, Camille determined that her history and literature education had been incomplete and set about filling in the gaps by reading books and zines exclusively by women of color.

author photo, from her website

I'm reviewing Bad Mexican because I loved it, but my review might make you sad because the zine is no longer available. It's instant karma, though, because I'm bummed that Daniela's first zine, Soy Secretron is not in my greedy clutches.

It's funny how even though it's only from 2010, the zine feels old and old school. Daniela signs each copy, and mine at least has a little happy face illustration and handwritten annotations. There's a table of contents and a song recommended for each section. Daniela refers to her work as a "mini zine," but clearly it's a lot more substantial than she gives it credit for being. If you know Daniela, who is driven and ridiculously accomplished, it won't surprise you that her standards for her own work are absurdly high.

The girl is a necromancer--not the sexiest supernatural power to have, and kind of scary until you figure out what's what. After an incident at her performing arts high school, protagonist Chloe finds herself remanded to a group home for troubled teens.

Vampires, werewolves, elves and lawyers are the dangerous creatures in this new series by Phillipa Bornikova (a pen name, so readers don't get confused between this and Snodgrass's sf novels). It's a fine read, though sometimes surprisingly amateurish for such a veteran writer. There are also typos and misspellings that the editors should have caught, like George M. "Cohen" for "Cohan" and "vise" for "vice," or the overuse of the word "saliva." (Four times denoting the narrator's hunger "Saliva burst in my mouth..." and only once a vampire's fangs.) So not to seem entirely petty, let me say that I like the protagonist because she's short.

When we first meet Mary Ann Singleton in Tales of the City, she's just moved to San Francisco from Ohio. She is naive and a bit of a ninny. There are eight TofC books, and although Mary Ann seems to be beloved by the author, truthfully, she's rather annoying. In book or two before Mary Ann in Autumn she's even worse--a self-centered, self-involved climber who abandons her friends and child. Still, Maupin gives her a chance at redemption.

My favorite elements of this amateur sleuth story are the examples of progressive/feminist/lesbian political collective culture of the time, like everyone automatically saying no to being fingerprinted to help the cops identify a vandal.