media log
here i keep track of the books, music, movies, etc. that i've checked out recently!
books
each drop down contains my thoughts on the books i've read so far! there will be spoilers!!
skim, written by mariko tamaki, illustrated by jillian tamaki
my favourite graphic novel up until now has been 'this one summer' by this author duo! jillian tamaki's art is always so beautiful, expressive and full of intent and i adore it so much. and the story of 'this one summer' was quiet and intimate, with many aspects being left in the subtext and implication. these qualities were present in skim too! i enjoyed reading it, but i don't know how to articulate my thoughts on it. i felt like it was a very honest and sympathetic look at adolescense. in some ways, kim reminded me of myself when i was a teenager, so i treasured my time reading this.
blue period, vol. 1 by tsubasa yamaguchi
i watched the first season of the anime on netflix a while back and loved it! i'd been thinking about this series a lot lately, so when i saw the first volume at the library i was really thrilled! yamaguchi's art is lovely and expressive - i enjoyed the compositions within the panels. and i loved the thanks at the end of the volume where they thanked their friends who drew all the art pieces we see in the volume! the story of blue period speaks to a lot of the things i think about and question in my own life so it resonates with me a lot!
death of a book seller by alice slater
i picked this up from the library on a whim because the neon cover caught my eye. when i read the first chapter, i almost considered returning the book, because i found roach's character so insufferable, and i didn't enjoy laura's point of view either. but something about it made me continue, and i'm glad i did because after the first 3 chapters i was completely hooked and ended up reading it within 48 hours. i really enjoyed the exploration of the true crime zeitgeist and the way we engage with the genre. while laura was deeply flawed and cruel at times, i found her much more sympathetic than roach (i think this is because i generally align with her opinion about true crime). but even then, roach was so compelling. i was so interested to see how far she would go and the climax was very intense! i think it's interesting how, as a thriller, the book illicits the same feelings as when we listen to or read true crime - disgust, dread and anticipation - and upon finishing, it makes you examine those feelings and question them.
almost transparent blue by takashi murikami
i started reading this but it didn't grab me, and i had to return it to the library before i finished it! i can see why this book is divisive. i'd like to give it another go down the line, but it just didn't connect with me in this moment. to be fair, i was still in my reading slump from harrow... :(
harrow the ninth by tamsyn muir
i've spent so long trying to read this, putting it down and picking it up after time has passed, and even though i'm so close to the end this book just puts me in a reading slump every time. maybe one day i'll finish it, but it's just not for me... which is sad because i enjoyed gideon the ninth and i love the characters
idol, burning by rin usami
i enjoyed this! i don't think i have too much to say though since i read it a while ago. the main character was written in such a vulnerable and earnest way - it made me really sympathise for her. however, the author's note directed to her brother at the end was the most moving part for me and brought me to tears!
ramen wolf and curry tiger, vol. 1 by emboss
i don't have too much to say about it, but i loved it a lot! the story and characters and really cute and i love emboss' style! their designs have so much appeal and feel very solid. also the tiger was hot hahaha.
call me by your name by andre aciman
it took me a long time to decide how i felt about this novel, and truthfully i'm still not certain, so i'll try to keep my thoughts brief. this has been my favourite book from this year and one of my overall favourites - the prose was so beautiful and i loved the idyllic setting too. the final page affected me so much that when i read the final line i burst into tears.
i feel like this book receives a lot of judgment because of the age gap between elio and oliver. while i don't think they model a healthy relationship, and while i think it's worth discussing and criticising, i didn't feel like it detracted from the main topics the book was exploring and it feels a bit reductive to write off the whole work because of aspects we find uncomfortable or distasteful. (but if the dynamic between oliver and elio struck a nerve for some readers, or it was too difficult to read past it because of their own experiences, i think that's fine.)
i think this is the most moving story i've read that deals with themes such as love, desire and obsession, and longing for a moment in time you know you can never return to. that last one affected me the most, and elio constantly reminds us how fleeting his summer with oliver was and how much time has passed since. i think this quotes from elio's dad encapsulates why this book resonated with me:
"We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!"
there's so much more i want to say, but it's hard to find the words. this is definitely one that will stick with me for a long time, and since reading it i think about it almost daily...
carol by patricia highsmith
25/03/23 - finished carol!! these are my thoughts after reading
i definitely enjoyed the second half of the novel way more than the first - going in, i didn't expect the pacing to be as slow as it was, which really demotivated me. i remember just before carol and therese were to embark on their road trip, i was super close to dropping it and moving onto something else because i felt pretty bored and drained while reading it. but the final 100 pages had me so hooked! i feel like this is the kind of book i'll enjoy thinking about in retrospect, even though i didn't really enjoy the experience of reading it.
i loved how highsmith wrote carol (the character) - she had a magnetic quality, and i feel like i understood therese's obesession with her, even when it was quite extreme. i enjoyed some of therese's narration - some observations she made hit close to home or made me examine my own thoughts, but i found her unlikeable a lot of the time, mainly because i felt like she lacked empathy towards most people. but i found her character growth from a person who was very uncertain to someone more headstrong and independent really satisfying at the end. i liked that she grew to no longer drop everything for carol - it felt like they were more on equal footing and that their relationship would grow richer after the story's conclusion.
also i feel like there are subtleties in the dialogue that were lost on me but maybe felt more salacious or bold to a 1950's audience. though some parts made me laugh because of the blunt humor.
i'm glad i read it, but i'm not sure if i'd read it again or if it was the best choice when i'm trying to build a habit of reading more often, since i found it pretty dry at times.
these were my favourite quotes:
'Happiness was a little like flying, she thought, like being a kite. It depended on how much one let the string out'
'How was it possible to be afraid and in love, Therese thought. The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.'
'...the night became another of those islands in time, suspended somewhere in the heart or in the memory, intact and absolute.'
21/03/23 - AHHH i was honestly on the verge of giving up - i was up to pg 200 and very little had happened, but then it got SO good!! carol and therese are on their road trip and the combination of them finally getting together, the gun in carol's bag and the detective following them??? OMG!! i am hooked and i've been thinking about it all day.
misery by stephen king
read sometime in february and written about in late march
i'm not sure how i felt about this book. overall i think i mostly enjoyed reading it, and the subject matter was intriguing to me, since i find stalker type stories really engaging and i also love media that explores the relationship between creators and fans and how being known for our creations effects our personal identity. (i really enjoyed perfect blue haha)
parts i enjoyed: the feeling of tension and suspense was really engaging. moments like when paul needs to get back to his room before annie returns home, and the later realisation that annie knew the whole time that he had escaped were really well done - i remember feeling my stomach drop at those moments. i liked the ending too and the general discussion the story had about the creative process and the ways the relationship between fans and author can become twisted. and the climactic scene where paul burns his manuscript was wildly entertaining and cathartic to read.
parts i didn't like: i wish the book hadn't started when paul was already in annie's care. i would've enjoyed starting just before paul's accident, but i understand the decision to start later allowed king to immediately establish the danger paul was in. i also didn't enjoy the way annie was written at times, particularly how king used annie's weight as a way to disgust the viewer. on one hand, i think the decision to make annie large and strong worked well in highlighting how powerless paul was in comparison. i kind of liked how he would often describe her as 'solid' because to me it also conveyed how opaque her thoughts were to us in addition to her physical presence that was incredibly intimidating and stifling. however, the mentions of her breath smelling like candies, or how unappealing she looked due to her weight really put me off, because i don't think body weight should be used to evoke feelings of horror... it just felt like it was in poor taste and i feel like it could be kind of alienating for some readers in a way that feels unwarranted. i also didn't gel with king's writing style that much and found the manuscript segments a bit uninteresting (i ended up skimming them).
even though i do have a handful of criticisms, i felt pretty immersed and i think the story will stick with me for a long time. i've been intending to read more horror, so i'm happy i read this one! i found that i was able to look past my issues with the novel and enjoy it for the most part while reading. i'm not sure if i'll read another novel from stephen king though.
the woman in the purple skirt by natsuko imamura
read sometime in february and written about in late march
i found this book kind of strange but i read it in one day and could hardly put it down!! i really enjoyed the tension of seeing if our narrator would approach the woman or not. i also liked the way the stalker trope was inverted in a way, with our narrator never really causing any harm to the woman she was stalking and instead often helping her by leaving job postings for her or buying her shampoo she knew the woman couldn't afford. in a way, the stalker felt more like a guardian angel, especially in the climax of the novel(that said, it's still a massive violation of privacy, but it was interesting to read about a stalker who just observes and really has no ill intent.)
overall, i enjoyed reading this a lot! i did find it kind of anticlimactic in the end - it felt like just as the story was gaining momentum - when we think the woman and the narrator are going to cover up a murder and run away together - it's immediately halted and we never see the woman again, nor does our narrator bring her up to her boss or coworkers. maybe there was a reason for this decision, but i felt kinda deflated afterwards.
things have gotten worse since we last spoke by eric larocca
read sometime in january and written about in late march
this novel was my first foray into the horror genre and one i was super excited to read! it was a very short read, but i spaced it out over a few nights - i liked how larocca created a sense of tension and dread which made the novel hard to put down, and i enjoyed the epistolary format. however i found the ending pretty underwhelming and abrupt.
it was pretty depraved and mainly relied on gross out horror - i did find it pretty disturbing but i went in expecting it. though from the descriptions and blurb, i expected it to lean more into psychological horror as opposed to gross out shock stuff.
online, i saw a lot of criticism that this was lesbian trauma porn. as someone who identifies as a lesbian, i honestly didn't really see it that way. i think there is something to be said about how lesbian narratives often play out in media (with one of them usually dying needlessly) but i didn't feel that this novel fit into that issue, because it felt more like a convention of the genre where the two leads happened to be lesbians, as opposed to all these tramatic things happening because they were lesbians. and as someone who really likes reading stories with queer protagonists, i liked that i was able to read a depraved gross out horror about people like me in addition to the more nuanced or positive representation. but i can see why experiencing more positive or idealised representation can be important for people and why this particular story would rub them the wrong way. especially when the media landscape is already so saturated with queer suffering and tragedy. in addition, i have very little experience in the horror genre, so i might be missing out on how this book amplifies existing problematic commonplace tropes. i DO agree with the criticism that the characters needed to be fleshed out more - they did feel very surface level. maybe if they had more depth, it might have felt less exploitative since their main character traits wouldn't have been 'lesbian'.
honestly i just wish this book was longer! i wish the characters had more time to develop a relationship and i wish things escalated more or over a longer period of time. i think that would have resolved a lot of the aspects i didn't like.
music
august 2023
still on a Radiohead kick, mainly listening to Kid A. favourite tracks: in limbo, morning bell. aside from kid a, i listened to spectre - that song is awesome!
relistened to 'Begin to Hope' by Regina Spektor. I grew up listening to songs from this album, so some tracks were very nostaligic. But there were some I had never heard before! Favourite tracks: fidelity, better, samson, on the radio, 20 years of snow, that time, edit, another town (!!! the chorus is beautiful!!), baobabs, bartender. also listening to loveology and raindrops from her latest album - i'm SO happy these songs have official recordings because i adored them growing up!
listened to Radiohead's 'Kid A' for the first time: favourite tracks: everything in it's right place, kid a, treefingers, in limbo, morning bell, motion picture soundtrack
also listening to more fiona apple and the mountain goats, and a playlist of chill horror game soundtracks (mainly to calm down and focus at work haha)
june 2023
been listening to sona fm online radio more. my favourite stations are the digitalis and folk forward.
july 2023
listening to RAYE's new album, 'My 21st Century Blues'. favourite tracks: hard out here, black mascara, escapism
listened to Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' for the first time. favourite tracks: 15 step, weird fishes/arpeggi, faust arp, jigsaw falling into place
listened to Radiohead's 'Kid A' for the first time: favourite tracks: everything in it's right place, kid a, treefingers, in limbo, morning bell, motion picture soundtrack
also listening to some Mother Mother, Fiona Apple + some indie folk.
june 2023
been listening to sona fm online radio more. my favourite stations are the digitalis and folk forward.
may 2023
i didn't listen to much this month... i mainly listened to prog rock and the death note soundtrack, but there weren't any major standouts
april 2023
favourites
march 2023
general thoughts
really enjoying darker and moodier music this month, especially muted instrumental pieces. they make me feel calm and fit the changing seasons now that the weather is starting to get colder.