(Netflix) NIMONA, the illustrated comic series this film was adapted from, immediately opens with shapeshifter Nimona ingratiating herself on the super-villian Ballister Blackheart by simply knocking on his door and insisting that she becomes his sidekick.
She’s alone in the very first panel, spryly sidling up to his hideout.
The filmed adaptation of NIMONA doesn’t reveal her for 15 minutes.
Despite being the titular character, with NIMONA — the film — there’s a character imbalance. This feels more like it’s Ballister’s story (now named Ballister Boldheart instead of Blackheart), not Nimona’s, which is a goddamn shame. ND Stevenson’s original comic did an astounding job of balancing both Ballister and Nimona’s stories, how one needed the other, their push-and-pull, how they mirrored each other while also being completely separate individuals.
Sadly, what’s worse is that Ballister feels sanded away from the thornier, more morally ambiguous, more complicated character that resides in the books. Granted, while Nimona is the one who gets a richer back story later on in the film, it still feels like she’s often only there to bolster Ballister, to right his wrongs. In the comic, while Nimona constantly posits that she’s merely his sidekick, they’re more or less equals; they balance each other.
You got betrayed by someone you trusted.
I’ll note that these are disgruntled remarks from someone who expected a bit more fidelity from this adaptation. If you ignore the source material, it’s a progressive and entertaining film that is a breath of fresh air compared to many contemporary animated efforts. Nimona is brazen and fearless, with one hell of a sly grin, but still has her own insecurities and often feels like an aberration. Ballister and Goldenloin are still very gay. (Finally, a family animated feature that isn’t afraid to show two men kiss!)
The world kicks you around sometimes. But together, we can kick it back.
It’s also a visual marvel with a style all its own, even if it’s far denser than Stevenson’s evocatively simple thin line work. They capture Nimona’s wild expressions perfectly, and there’s a fluidity here that helps to recreate the kinetic nature of the original work. It feels like it’s a labor of love, encapsulated by the attention to detail paid to the end credits, of all things.
Hopefully this film will have legs, and will become the sort of work that is nostalgically discussed twenty years from now by those who stumbled upon it at a very young age. It traffics in characters that are seldom seen in family-friendly works; queer and monstrous characters who are just trying to be themselves, but are ostracized for being who they are.
Because once everyone sees you as a villain? That’s what you are.
As ND Stevenson’s NIMONA film adaptation has finally made its way into the world — thanks for nothing, Disney — I thought I would revisit some of his prior works.
If you haven’t read NIMONA but have designs on watching the film, I highly suggest that you watch the film adaptation first and then circle back to the book. You’ll thank me later.
I was lucky enough to start reading ND Stevenson’s NIMONA as it was doled out online. It’s was a webcomic tale that takes place in a future-medieval-ish world focused around a young mercurial shapeshifter (the titular character Nimona, often defaulting to the appearance of a teen girl) who — right out of the gate — immediately imbues herself on the most prominent supervillain in the land: Ballister Blackheart. The two of them go up against the tyrannical Institute and Ballister’s “ex-bestie” Sir Goldenlion who — worth noting — cut off Ballister’s arm. Matters escalate in a brazen way.
Then it was released as a colorized graphic novel, and it shot to the best-seller lists, and rightfully lit the world on fire.
NIMONA is grounded in a way that I feel is rare with most fantasy works. While the story takes place in a fantastical land, that land is mostly ancillary to the story; what really matters are the relationships in the story: Nimona’s push-and-pull with Ballister, trying to feed his worst impulses while also trying to understand why he pushes against them; Ballister, meanwhile, has no idea what to make of Nimona, doesn’t know whether he’s taken her under his wing, or whether she’s taken him under her wing (both literally and figuratively).
While NIMONA started off as a college art project, it is confident out of the gate. Does it have all of the trapping of an old-school webcomic? Yes: 1) It focuses on the type of characters eschewed from most mainstream comics 2) It immediately cuts to the chase and lays everything out swiftly instead of indulging in the sort of visual storytelling decompression that’s been all-too-popular as of late, 3) The character design is so exacting and memorable with its shapes and sizes, even though one of the characters is a shapeshifter, and 4) It is first-and-foremost an outlet for what the author is dealing with.
It’s very difficult to discuss NIMONA without noting that Stevenson has gone through quite a bit since he started working on it over a decade ago — he is trans — I am not the right person to discuss it, so I’ll let you read about his experiences revisiting his notes and sketches and process of creating the work instead.
Since NIMONA, Stevenson has gone on to a number of other projects — most of which also has him on art duties — but he’s become better known as a writer and show runner (see: Netflix’s SHE-RA) and rightly so. He has a very unique voice that manages to be glib and hilarious but also meaningfully contains so much subtext and pulls at your emotions.
However, I really miss his art. I love his scratchy thin line-work, his effortlessly energetic layouts — how he mapped out Nimona’s transformations across the page is seamlessly eye-popping — and simply how he captures so much emotion and agility and expression in the slightest, and largest, of character poses. I’ll also note that the original webcomics were in black-and-white, but he did such an amazing job imbuing his works with what may look like simple flat colors, but are so vivid and shine volumes. It’s comics at its finest.
If you didn’t take my advice and read this before watching the film: again, please watch the film again after reading the collection. I’ll have an addendum with my post about the film in which I’ll detail the ‘why’ but I’d rather save it for that as opposed to this work.
This (slightly short) week has been a long time coming. ND Stevenson is an astounding craftsman and creative artist and writer, and I’ve loved everything he has penned and willed into the world, even though I haven’t been able to read or watch all of their works.
The works I have imbibed have deeply affected me, hence this week.
If you aren’t familiar with his pieces, I hope this provides the impetus to do so. If you are? I hope you revisit them, as my revisiting cast a significantly different light.
Let me get this out of the way first: Yes, Tom Hooper’s CATS is not considered a ‘good’ film or even an adequate adaptation, and that reputation is well-earned. It’s an absolute mess; there’s a lot of miscasting, the visual effects are wall-to-wall uncanny valley, and, well, let’s just say it feels like a cocaine-fueled revisiting of an already cocaine-fueled theatrical work. (Also: I am pretty sure T.S. Eliot would not approve of his cat poems being reworked in this way.) For a work that is so absolutely bonkers — we’re living in a musical feline-based underworld where everyone is vying for a spot to ascend to a higher plane that can only be deigned by what is essentially a Queen cat — it is surprisingly boring!
(That’s basically the entire story as I understand it, apart from some weird offshoots about ancillary cats and Idris Elba lapping it up as a villain who has some weird superpower that apparently puts folks in what I believe is his version of purgatory. Or he just transports them to a boat/harbor? Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.)
Now that I’ve addressed that: I still love Tom Hooper’s adaptation.
Again: this is not what one would consider a ‘good’ film. It’s a lot of noise and bluster and every facet of the film distracts from anything that would normally be considered merit-worthy.
However, it has a lot of charm, and most of that is due to the fact that this feels so earnest only in the way that a theatrical musical can get away with. Apart from the woeful casting of James Corden and Rebel Wilson — both very game and talented performers but they chew the scenery so much that Corden actually vomits later in the film — everyone is emoting like mad. Hell, even fucking Dame Judi Dench almost pulls off what can only be called uh, fully presenting her crouch in an absolutely ridiculous CGI leg pull.
(Yes, I will circle back to the utter horniness of the film. Please be patient.)
Putting aside the very creepy visuals and absolutely warped sense of physical scale of these cats living in what is supposed to be a real world, and Corden & Wilson, CATS feels like a very odd, very surreal, very singular labor of love. The production design is astounding, presenting like an under-populated Gotham City with its neons and rain and wrought iron as opposed to the London it’s supposed to be. Francesca Hayward — a Principal ballerina for The Royal Ballet — is astounding in the lead role of Victoria; she’s all wide eyes and hurt and wonder and dexterity. She whips and twirls and effortlessly hurls herself around and it’s visually majestic. Ian McKellen practically steals the show with his number and the melancholy and sadness he conveys. Oh, and Robbie Fairchild with his longing looks? Yes.
The choreography is exceptional and the soundtrack hits all of the right notes, if you’re into Webber. (I am not the biggest fan, as I still have nightmares about playing the endlessly dull cello part of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in high school, but there are a lot of great songs here as well as some smashing callbacks and refrains!)
I’ve seen this film more times than you would think and yes, I have seen a stage production. (I did not care for the stage production, but that’s not the focus here.) The most recent time I viewed it was at Chicago’s Music Box as a ‘Rated Q’ event.
I wrote about ‘Rated Q’ in my post about BOUND but to summarize: ‘Rated Q’ is a monthly film event curated by Ramona Slick that extolls queer and underground works, while also adding a theatrical drag performance prelude that always entertains and titillates.
When I heard that ‘Rated Q’ would be screening CATS, I knew I had to attend. I thought I’d either love the experience or hate it, as I wasn’t sure if the audience would treat it like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW which, for some, is thrilling but feels overly self-indulgent to me.
I loved it.
I cannot overstate how much fun this screening was. This may sound like hyperbole but typing this post is painful as my left hand provokes pangs because of how over-enthusiastic my clapping was and how much my wedding ring is inappropriate for long-lived clapping. (Yes, my wedding ring is on my right hand. Orthodoxy and all that foisted–upon jazz.) I had a beaming grin on my face for the entirety of the film. I’m sure my voice is a tad worn out by how much I laughed and how vocal I was, and everyone else there was just as enthusiastic. Hell, I even sang along with some of the songs and I am not that kind of person!
I have never seen people dance in their seats at the Music Box. I have never seen folks pull out lighters and phones to sway to a scene at the Music Box. I have never seen folks wildly throw their arms up in the air at the Music Box, pumping along to the beat of a song. Now I have. (I realize that if I would attend one of Music Box’s ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW sing-a-longs I’d probably see all of the above, but realistically that simply isn’t going to happen.)
This was all elicited by a film that has been considered a laughing stock, a joke, an absolute failure, but for most of those that filled the seats — and it was a very well-attended screening for a Thursday night — for two hours everyone shared a love for this very weird film that by all rights shouldn’t even exist.
I endlessly harp about the experience of communal cinematic viewing, of watching a film with like-minded individuals who revel in a film they know inside-out and I hate to do so again but I have to: there is absolutely nothing like it. Part of that’s because it is very singular — every ‘Rated Q’ screening I’ve attended has been solo — but even if you’re attending with friends, your eyes are focused on the screen and for two hours you are part of this strange world and surrounded by the glow of collective enthusiasm and appreciation and, if you’re lucky, it means everything to you. This one screening meant everything to everyone and it was glorious.
ADDENDUM
You thought I forgot about the horniness? I did not! Every five minutes an audience member would shout out ‘Kiss!’ because this film feels like it’s on an Olympics-scale version of sweatiness and lust. While the cats never kiss, they are endlessly rubbing up against each other or throwing each other all sorts of wanting glances. I never thought I’d expect to feel such heat between a modern-day Judi Dench and a woman young enough to be her granddaughter, but yes, that definitely happens.
Also: most of these cats are essentially nude the entire time. However, Idris Elba wears a trenchcoat for most of the film but in the final act he throws it off and is finally naked and goddamn, the audience went wild, all sorts of gasps, and hooting and laughter and applause and it was all in the ‘Rated Q’ spirit.
Normally this is where I embed a trailer, but this is far more emblematic of the experience — for better or for worse — and is absolutely about trying recapture magic, so here you go:
This was a while ago, but I did take video art classes from PERPETRATOR director/writer Jennifer Reeder back in my college days. She wouldn’t know me from Adam now — I’m simply noting it out of a sense of responsibility. She’s a great teacher who now teaches at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and I will never forget screening my first extremely personal and intensely overworked short video piece in her class, which one fellow student exclaimed after viewing it: “That gave me a migraine.”
I also saw PERPETRATOR at the Chicago premiere, with a ton of the crew in the audience, as well as with a post-film Q&A between the always awesome Katie Rife and Reeder, so I can’t deny that the entire audience was completely on-board for what they were about to see.
I will try to keep this short and succinct for once, because this is one of those rare films that I feel requires a second viewing, but it’s rolling out on screens this week and I want to boost it!
Director/writer/auteur Jennifer Reeder loves genre conventions, but is also firmly ensconced in experimental works. Her prior feature — KNIVES AND SKIN — is very much about teen girls and high school and cliques and being pursued, but also embraces how these girls get to know their bodies and everything that entails, including how others view and abuse them, and she films all of this through a teen haze; events happen around and to you and they don’t often make sense, but you just roll with it because you don’t know any better. While it shares a lot of DNA from TWIN PEAKS, it is still its own thing.
PERPETRATOR follows in the same vein, but it’s far, far bloodier, far more disturbing, and features far more orifices than her prior film. It’s disturbing, certainly, but it does what I think horror does best: detailing the confusion of body and personality transformation but also how folks simply adjust and accept or reject it. While it is fundamentally a narrative genre feature, it is not afraid of diverging into more surreal and nebulous areas.
I know I’m not doing the film justice with this post. (I will circle back with a later post detailing the rest of the cast and crew!) Hell, I may even be misrepresenting it; it’s that kind of film. I’m a huge fan of her and still I went into this film knowing nothing about it and I’d suggest doing the same. It’s a shocking, provocative, singular film that feels like nothing else out there.
Nonetheless, here’s the trailer, and if you have a SHUDDER subscription, you can watch it there soon, or if you live in NYC or LA or Chicago, you can catch it on the big screen, which is really how you should see some of the puckering.
While NINE INCH NAILS is best known for the soulful teen electronic angst of PRETTY HATE MACHINE and the the metal-influenced BROKEN and then the very pop-industrial THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL — sadly, causing so many frat bros to play CLOSER at their parties — FIXED is my favorite from Oscar-winner Trent Reznor.
“Give it to me; I’ll throw it away…”
FIXED is ‘Halo 6’ — the sixth NINE INCH NAILS effort from Reznor — an labeling affectation I actually appreciate despite the fact that it means very little apart from noting the years that passed in my life.
“WISH THERE WAS SOMETHING REAL! IN THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU! THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU!THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU!” [DISHWASHER SOUNDS]
FIXED is a remix EP. A very long remix EP, comparatively given the length of some of the remixes, but a remix EP nonetheless. It is longer than BROKEN, the EP it is remixing.
“AHHHHH HA HA HA!”
This EP is 100% chaotic staccato mind-bending propulsion. It is unrelenting, especially the efforts from COIL (R.I.P.) and J.G. Thirwell. It’s 40 minutes of wall-to-wall noise and aural abuse and I can’t get enough of it. It’s my absolute favorite of the Halos, and I do not care who knows it, and I’m saddened that it’s one of the most over-looked of his oeuvre. (Thirwell’s WISH is a very particularly protracted and exceptional work.)
“I am so dirty …on the inside. (I want you to throw me away.)”
Also, come on, Thirwell — almost certainly drunkenly — renamed one of the songs ‘Fist Fuck’. That’s one hell of a swing. (How many other Academy Award winners would even admit to a song labeled that?)
[An endless array of percussion, then…] “I’m drowning! Let me out of here!”
I know I’m flying my full teen goth flags here, but fuck it. This album holds up; it’s far more experimental now than then, which is a strange remark, but electro music has sadly become relatively regressive since then.
If you haven’t heard it before — of if you haven’t heard it in over twenty years — and you like really fucking noisy eccentric over-emotional works, you owe it to yourself to queue it up however way you can.
Yeah, it’s a masterpiece of a clusterfuck. Despite edging very close to MERZBOW levels of noise, it still manages to be hooky and emotional and goddamn fun while also encapsulating the perverse nature that is NINE INCH NAILS. In other words: the perfect remix EP which apparently is a lost art nowadays.
That said, there’s so much Quinn content that I have no idea where I even am in her storyline now.
Apparently she’s hooking up with Ivy now, which yes — her one true love! — and that’s great! But somehow I missed that along the way of oh, say, the number of collections I’ve already read (except for NO GOOD DEED, which takes place far later and I still have no idea what happened there). I recently was under the impression that apart from the animated series (and the animated series comics) that they were never formally partners. Nonetheless, no complaints here!
I realize I brought this upon myself by willfully ignoring the numbers on the spines of the collections, but it used to be that comics followed a pretty straight-forward numbering system: #1, then increment that number until you’re cancelled. It’s how DETECTIVE COMICS (you know: exactly what DC’s acronym stands for?) has over 700 issues.
Nowadays, it’s reboot upon reboot and apart from creative teams and endlessly trawling comic book websites — which I do not have the time for — it’s very difficult to figure out exactly how to follow along with these storylines unless you’re buying them each-and-every-month.
(Also something I don’t have the patience or attention span for.)
Regardless, a book that features Harley Quinn doesn’t quite care about continuity. It’s reckless, prior actions are hand-waved away, and it’s simply chaotic fun. That said: while I’ve been digging into just how many Quinn collection I have left to read, it is daunting and confusing in a way that could be made far more simpler. I love comics, and every time I dive back into them I wonder why I ever stopped, but geez, I’m well-versed in this publishing world and if I’m confused, just wonder about those who are newbies.
With that rant out of the way, this is yet another banger from Conner & Palmiotti and artist John Timms. There are mobsters, corrupt mayors, surprisingly uncorrupt cops, a lot of a violence and dismemberment, and all of the puns and verbosity from Harley you’d expect. However, it also features an entire issue that — unless I’m wrong — owes a significant debt to the very memorable anime series MAZINGER G, even down to uh, bombs and missiles being launched from body parts you ordinarily wouldn’t expect to serve up loaded vehicles of gunpowder.
As always, it’s a joyful thrill ride, and exactly why I always look for Conner & Palmiotti’s names when trawling through my local comic book shop’s back-catalog.
MY FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE is and it isn’t exactly what it says on the front cover. Yes, it’s a collection of 48 essays — some shorter than others — helmed by Christian Ackerman about memorable horror films from the eyes of those who are horror industry insiders.
That said: every. single. one. of these films are films they watched as youths.
These are all tales of pre-teen or teen experience, and there’s a surprising number of overlap. While HALLOWEEN, THE EXORCIST, Romero’s original DEAD trilogy, and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE are all represented multiple times, there are a handful of lesser-known films in there, such as the MST3k-featured classic DEVIL DOLL and THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. Also, JAWS — not necessarily a film one thinks of as a horror classic but more of a thriller — repeatedly pops up.
These are all films that spurred an infatuation with horror in their pre-teen brains, films that would lead them towards a career in what is arguably one of the most unfairly least-respected genres.
Some essays are more astute and passionate than others, especially a paean to THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, while others feel almost perfunctory and penned out of obligation. There’s one essay that I will not name that is very obviously the author trolling the audience in a very distasteful way.
While reading this, I was wondering what my favorite horror film would be. Unlike everyone else in this collection, I didn’t latch onto modern horror until my mid/late teens, and even then they were not exactly the films you’d expect: GOTHIC, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, GINGER SNAPS, WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE, etc. That said, I was and still am a devoted Universal horror fan, especially of James Whale’s work.
However, while I have a handful of rotating favorite dramatic films ever which include Kieslowski’s BLUE and Peter Greenaway’s THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER (arguably a horror film), I simply can’t choose a favorite horror film. Perhaps THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Maybe TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Possibly GREMLINS 2, or another sequel: FINAL DESTINATION 2. Tempted to note NIGHT OF THE COMET. However, none of these films — apart from perhaps FIRE WALK WITH ME — had the seismic impact that these essayists felt when watching their favorite horror movie.
Consequently, I feel like I’m missing out a bit. Even though I am a hardcore horror fan, I came about the genre late-in-life. Also? For many personal reasons, I am not a fan of slashers, which consist of most of the creatives’ selections. And that’s fine! Horror is a surprisingly personal genre — hence this collection — and the fear these works instill hit different people in different ways. (For example: see MEN, WOMEN AND CHAINSAWS as well as the collection of essays in LAURA’S GHOST.)
I will note that one major recurring theme throughout these essays is how much these horror creatives and fans appreciate humor in their works. From THE EVIL DEAD to CREEPSHOW to PUPPET MASTER, folks love laughs with their thrills. Why shouldn’t they? Every great work — horror or otherwise — leans on humor and jokes to take a bit of the sting out of all of the shit that is going on around them. It may consist of slapstick, absurd situations, or barbed quips, but every piece should make you laugh at least once.
Yes, this is a qualified recommendation. The insiders are pretty tightly-knit — there are a lot of folks who have been involved with FANGORIA and you see a lot of the same production credits as you go through the work — but almost everyone’s heart here is in the right place, and their effusive love for their favorite films is absolutely infectious. I’ll never tire of hearing people pontificate about what they love and why they love it, and MY FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE certainly exemplifies that sort of glee.
MY FAVORITE HORROR MOVIE Vol. 1 is available here, and there are two more volumes, of which I’m sure I’ll get to sooner rather than later.
As I’ve stated before: I will never, ever shut up about Harley Fuckin’ Quinn. Also, I’m reading all of the Harley Quinn works out-of-order. At first it wasn’t intentional, but now I’m reveling in it! It’s a weird sort of fun, this sort of fractured storytelling.
Frankly, I expected RED MEAT to be mostly filler material. Between reading the first and then fourth volume, I could see the progression of Harley and crew, but didn’t quite see how it could those volumes could fill six-to-twelve issues.
Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti proved me wrong. This is a fucking wild ride. While it doesn’t quite concentrate on Harley’s progression from villain to anti-hero or whatever you want to label her, it does surround her with a number of absolutely brazen, bat-shit-crazy circumstances that endlessly entertain.
For one: there’s the mayor and his assistant employing cannibals to eat the homeless. Then there’s also a Terminator-esque antagonist, sent back in time to kill Harley because, apparently she killed Batman in the future.
Yes. Killed Batman. In the future.
Also? This terminator? She wasn’t the first one sent back to kill Harley.
And that plotline is dropped like a fucking anvil and is never spoken of again, at least to my knowledge. (I’ll note once again: I have not read all of the oeuvre that consists of Harley Quinn, so I am probably wrong about this, but I really hope I am not.)
[UPDATE: I’m currently replaying the Arkham Trilogy and apparently that’s semi-canon, but not really? Either way, the fact that folks accept that Harley could kill Bats is pretty awesome, especially considering later storylines.]
Comics! God bless ‘em. There’s no other form that audiences accept this sort of lunacy from, and I fucking revel in it.
Traditionally for my birthday I go to a local bookstore and buy myself a mess of books. I didn’t do so this year because of reasons but last year I was floating down the very stacked aisles of Ravenswood Used Books and Elizabeth Strout’s AMY AND ISABELLE caught my eye.
Given that I loved OLIVE KITTERIDGE and THE BURGESS BOYS, I nabbed it, and it sat on my ‘to read’ shelf for about a year. I didn’t realize that it was Strout’s debut novel. All that mattered was it was penned by her, and she has a certain sensitivity and New England sensibility that is catnip to me.
I usually prefer to go into books blind, especially from authors that have penned works I appreciate but, for whatever reason, this time I read the back cover copy. I won’t quote it, but it gave the impression of a late 1960’s staid mother (Isabelle) pushing against a burgeoning teen daughter (Amy) leaning into a queer life.
I was gravely wrong. This is a work about how men abuse anyone they can.
AMY AND ISABELLE is a slice of life about living in a turning point of America, of women being in the workfield, of being mothers to daughters, of daughters taxing their mothers, and simply just trying to endure their hardships, to live the life they’re handed, the life handed down to them. I know that description sounds too vague, too nebulous, but I can’t describe it any other way.
Thirty pages in, I could already see Amy’s trajectory. Fifty pages in, I was telling myself: “You really should not be reading this. You know this hits too close to home for you.” One hundred pages in, I asked myself: “Why the fuck do you persist in reading this?” It came to a head around page 118. I was reading this one chapter on a bus after returning from a rather stressful cross-state trip. I read the words, read Strout detailing how the daughter Amy was taken advantage of, and my fingers curled, gnarled around the cover and pages. I tried to keep reading, but instead thrust it into my bag. If I were at home, reading it while rocking in my chair on the porch, I would have thrown it to the ground; not out of disgust, but because it cut too close to the quick.
It’s the mark of a great author that can recreate traumatic scenarios that, to others, may seem endearing, but also to those who have lived through these experiences, rather harrowing. That’s what Strout manages here, in a way I’ve never read before.
That said, I fucking hated it. I hated reliving it through her words.
With texts, you can sit with words. You can put the forward momentum on pause. If it’s a positive piece of prose, you can revel in it. If it’s a negative piece of prose, you can either beat yourself up about it, or curse the creator.
When you’re dealing with something that you wish you’d never read? You do not want to read further, but you can’t put the full piece on pause; the unwanted part resonates in your mind.
I kept going, just like I keep living.
Amy and Isabelle endure, just like the luckiest of us, but both are left haunted. This is a brutal gut-punch of a novel, something I was not expecting, something I didn’t want, but it resonates so loudly.
I write far too much about how artistic works emotionally impact me, I know, but I will never, ever apologize for it. That’s what works like AMY AND ISABELLE do; they affect those who feel seen, but also impart a worldview to those who haven’t lived those experiences, and to help placate those who have, even if they can’t forget.
