What I've been reading: Books No. 63-64

[sarahmichigan]

No. 63 and 64 were both graphic novels. No. 63 was "Blankets," a graphic memoir. I really love this memoir about Craig Thompson's first love and his struggle with coming of age and questioning his faith. I've seen other reviewers talk about how the middle parts are near-pornographic mooning over his first girlfriend, but I don't think that you can full grasp how game-changing and earth-shattering your first love and first sexual feelings can be when you're raised in a strict, sexually-repressive fundamentalist household. Most first experiences of love are momentous, but there's an extra layer of guilt and confusion when you're taught from a very young age that thinking sex thoughts about somebody is JUST THE SAME as adultery.

I could relate to Thompson's upbringing in a lot of ways, from being the weirdo who brings a Bible to school to deeply uncomfortable youth group trips, making faraway friends and writing letters and asking your parents to drive you to meet halfway, to having a scholarly bent and trying to make sense of the Bible without losing your faith.I recommend this highly to those who enjoy a coming-of-age novel in graphic format, or those who have survived a fundamentalist Christian upbringing.

No. 64 was "Second Avenue Caper: When Goodfellas, Divas, and Dealers Plotted Against the Plague" by Joyce Brabner, ill. Mark Zingarelli (Illustrations). This is a story about a heart-breaking time in history, but the book itself is full of humor and love. It tells the tale of a bunch of LGBTQ friends who sell pot to raise money to buy AIDS drugs in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, as well as helping out friends in other ways. Touching. I think a little more context would have been nice, but overall, I really enjoyed this.

1. The Two Towers [fiction]- JRR Tolkien (unabridged audiobook)
2. The Argonautika [epic poetry/fiction]- Apollonios Rhodios, transl. Peter Green
3. To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care [nonfiction]- Cris Beam
4. The Jazz [fiction]- Melissa Scott
5. Live from Golgotha [fiction]- Gore Vidal
6. Stones for Ibarra [fiction]- Harriet Doerr
7. Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot [nonfiction/memoir]- John Callahan
8. The Tresspasser [fiction]- Tana French (unabridged audiobook)
9. The Decameron [fiction]- Giovanni Boccaccio
10. March: Book 2 [graphic nonfiction]- John Lewis & Andrew Aydin, ill. Nate Powell
11. Ordinary Light [nonfiction/memoir]- Tracy K. Smith
12. The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal [nonfiction]- Jonathan Mooney
13. March: Book 3 [graphic nonfiction]- John Lewis & Andrew Aydin, ill. Nate Powell
14. The Vegetarian [fiction]- Han Kang
15. First three volumes of the "Bitch Planet" comic series [graphic fiction]- Kelly Sue DeConnick, ill. Valentine DeLandro
16. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal [nonfiction]- Mary Roach (unabridged audiobook)
17. Bad Monkeys [fiction]- Matt Ruff
18. The Book of Negroes [fiction]- Lawrence Hill
19. The Rules of Attraction [fiction]- Bret Easton Ellis
20. How to Grow Up [nonfiction/memoir]- Michelle Tea
21. The Book of Genesis [fiction/mythology]- ill. R. Crumb
22. The Terranauts [fiction]- T.C. Boyle (unabridged audiobook)
23. The Galaxy Game [fiction]- Karen Lord
24. The Chapel of Ease - a Tufa novel [fiction]- Alex Bledsoe
25. Aha! Gotcha: Paradoxes to Puzzle and Delight [nonfiction]- by Martin Gardner
26. Born on the Fourth of July [nonfiction/memoir]- Ron Kovic
27. My Friend Dahmer [graphic nonfiction]- Derf Backderf
28. The Return of the King [fiction]- JRR Tolkien (unabridged audiobook)
29. The Bishop's Daughter [nonfiction/memoir]- Honor Moore
30. The Red Parts [nonfiction/memoir]- Maggie Nelson
31. Bury Your Dead [fiction]- Louise Penny
32. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements [fiction & essays]- ed. Walidah Imarisha & adrienne maree brown
33. On the Move: A Life [nonfiction/memoir]- Oliver Sacks (unabridged audiobook)
34. What Happened to You? Writing by Disabled Women [nonfiction/fiction/poetry]- ed. Lois Keith
35. The Astrologer's Daughter [fiction]- Rebecca Lim
36. Trans/Portraits: Voices from Transgender Communities [nonfiction]- Jackson Wright Shultz
37. The Dew Breaker [fiction]- Edwidge Danticat
38. Blameless in Abaddon [fiction]- James Morrow
39. Wonder [fictoin]- RJ Palacio (unabridged audiobook)
40. The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, Unexpurgated [nonfiction/memoir]-ed. Joan Acocella, transl. Kyril Fitzlyon
41. WARP: The Reluctant Assassin [fiction]- Eoin Colfer (unabridged audiobook)
42. Don Quixote [fiction]- Miguel Cervantes, transl. Edith Grossman
43. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir [nonfiction/memoir]- Haruki Murakami
44. Lysistrata [fiction/drama]- Aristophanes (transl. Sarah Ruden)
45. Black Lotus: A Woman's Search for Racial Identity [nonfiction/memoir]- Sil Lai Abrams
46. The Child Garden - or a Low Comedy [fiction]- Geoff Ryman
47. What the Dead Know [fiction]- Laura Lippman (unabridged audiobook)
48. The Andromeda Strain [fiction] - Michael Crichton
49. Saving Fish from Drowning [fiction]- Amy Tan
50. Little Fires Everywhere [fiction]- Celeste Ng (unabridged audiobook)
51. Full Fathom Five [fiction]-y Max Gladstone
52. Jam on the Vine [fiction]- LaShonda K. Barnett
53. Lottery [fiction]- Patricia Wood
54. The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life [nonfiction]- Andy Miller
55. Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady [nonfiction]- Susan Quinn (unabridged audiobook)
56. Prodigal Summer [fiction]- Barbara Kingsolver
57. The Princess Diarist [nonfiction/memoir]- Carrie Fisher (unabridged audiobook)
58. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir [nonfiction/memoir]- Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
59. A Little Life [fiction]- Hanya Yanagihara
60. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories [fiction/short stories]- Flannery O'Connor
61. Last First Snow [fiction]- Max Gladstone
62. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter [fiction]- Carson McCullers