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The first time I read an issue of Low Hug, I was relatively new to zines and didn't fully appreciate it. Now that I am old to zines, I have gained the proper appreciation for A.j. Michel and friends' well-written essays on popular culture, alternative music and as A.j. puts it in #9, castoff items or "cultural detritus." These folks are deeply nerdy, in the best possible way, as demonstrated by this statement about moving, also in #9, "This is one of the ultimate signs I'm a lifer when it comes to zines: I'm not worried about employment or having a regular place to stay, but how to get mail."

As I mentioned in my previous review, I was saved from the unimaginable discomfort of having nothing to read on the 8-hour overnight bus ride home from Pittsburgh. My savior was Kelly McElroy, who as I tweeted via BarnLib has a reading life I'm jealous of--serving on ALA/GLBT round table's gay bibliography posse and being in a celebrity memoir book club. She gave me first A Year Straight and the next day Jennifer Baumgardner's new book. (Kelly must be a mad-fast reader, something I think would be more of a blessing than a curse, unless you had, like Kelly, and endless supply of gay books to read.) Azzoni's confessions are a pretty quick read, so maybe Kelly is neither blessed nor cursed by speedreading.

The title character is half-vampire and half-mage, who was trained to be an assassin by the former and told nothing of her mage side.