robertrivasplata's reviews
603 reviews

It Won't Always Be Like This by Malaka Gharib

emotional funny reflective fast-paced

4.0

Book about family, belonging, & growing up. Follows Gharib's summers in Egypt with her dad as she grows from a kid, to an angsty grumpy teen, to a grown-ass adult. Retells a lot of cultural misunderstandings. While Hala gives no credit to tiny Malaka for being into the Avalanches circa 2003, I will acknowlege that her musical taste marks her as a way cooler middle schooler than I was. Gharib's eventual feeling of never belonging in the place which she found family and her identity reminds me of The Beginning Place. Title can read both sadly and happily. 

Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey

dark emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A creepy meet-the-evil-parents story. With capitalism and its sidekick the cost of healthcare as the main villains. The art style is very "comic books" & reminds me a lot of Paper Girls. A little disappointed that the term "long pig" never appears. Makes want to read the Trashman comics again. 

The Cursed Hermit by Kris Bertin

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

Another Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Scooby Gang style mystery, except that the supernatural stuff is real. Imagine the Gang tears the monster mask off the villain (spoiler alert) to reveal a monster even more, hideous, evil, & undying. The cursed town reminds me a lot of Stephen King's Derry. The creepy school reminds me a lot of the old abandoned hotel in Lucerne CA, which was briefly used as a satellite campus for some SoCal university (yours now for the low low price of $3M!). This sequel focuses more on the uncanny Canuck Pauline, & her uncanny perceptions, with Brennan as sidekick. Sam & Denny act as occasional Deus ex Machinae, & Dana sets up some interpersonal drama for the next book, which I can't wait to read. Has helpful asterisks to indicate when they're talking about something from the first book. 

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

adventurous challenging emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Story of how the hopeful moment of the late 60s turned into the austere/greedy 80s, mostly told through flashbacks and recollections of hippies, former radicals, snitches, DEA agents, & ghosts, among others. Begins and ends set in the fictional Northern California county/community of Vineland, which is basically a fantasy version of Humboldt/Eureka, located slightly to the south of the real Humboldt County. Has lots of digressions, including musical numbers, and weird sexual urges being major drivers of the plot, so sort of like Gravity's Rainbow. Also like Gravity's Rainbow, some parts are easier to get into than others, although unlike Gravity's Rainbow there isn't really any part of Vineland that I really disliked. While I like the parts with Vineland the best, I'm not sure why Pynchon had to invent a new weird county in that part of CA, when Humboldt County is already right there. Overall, Vineland is pretty good, but I'm still not buying Pynchon as one of the greatest American authors. 

Inland by Téa Obreht

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Somewhat historical & slightly supernatural western. Follows the life of a camel-riding drifter and a day in the life of a plucky homesteader attempting to unravel a mystery. Envisions the American west as a place full of ghosts. Practically every conversation Nora has reveals that she is consistently the last one to know about anything. Back in 1893, without the benefit of TV westerns, I'm not sure what I would make of the sudden appearance of black-hatted strangers in my town. It's probably an example of mystery protagonist syndrome. Lurie/Misafir is a little harder to judge, because his story is mostly a chronicle of his adventures and misadventures, pursued by the law and haunted/goaded by ghosts. I see that Obreht noted all of her Balkan countrymen to be found in the American West. I like how she showed how the ideas around nationality was different back in the 1850s, both because of the nature of the polities of the time but also because the ideas of nationalism were still forming. The characters, the places, the landscapes could all be from Land of Little Rain. Mary Austin would have loved to have written about the camel man, and Lurie would have appreciated the opportunity to share. The little town of Amargo reminds me of the the little town from Bless Me Ultima, only drier and sadder. Maybe one of Tony's friends would take him there to see its ghosts. Makes me want to look up the history of the real life U.S. Army Camel Corps, and also the history of Camels in Australia. 

Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection by Zach Weinersmith

dark funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Collection of Zach Weinersmith comics from back when he was just Zach Weiner. Most of the cartoons feature what I think of as “Cards Against Humanity” humor, but they're mostly pretty funny (and Cards Against Humanity is still fun). Weinersmith's work has evolved quite a bit since these comics. By far the funniest ones are the one that riffs on the Pina Colada Song concept, and the Don Quixote one. The little choose your own adventure at the top and bottom of each page is really fun too. 

Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag: A Memoir by Michael Anthony

emotional funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

4.5

Memoir of the author's attempt to get his girlfriend to go back to eating meat, by becoming a vegetarian with her. Had Anthony read Mother Night, it might have occurred to him that by successfully pretending to go vegan, he would go vegan. I found the author's to be very annoying throughout most of the book, but I guess that's kind of the point. He paints Coconut as kind of a saint, but I guess she'd kind of have to be to put up with any amount of his basic-ass arguments against going veg, 2010s era male contrarianism, & Cards Against Humanity style edgy nihilism. Showed a glimpse of the world of ex-military vegans. So this is also a memoir of growing up. I'm surprised that in all of the vegetarian/vegan literature cited, there's never anything about the harms the meat industry inflicts on its workers, especially with the stories in the news from 2020 about the meat packing plants practically competing to see how many of their workers would get covid and die. I'll definitely want to see any other graphic novels that the artist Simone comes out with. 

The Illiterate by Gabriel Josipovici, Nina Bogin, Ágota Kristóf

informative mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

My favorite Hungarian author's very short memoir about how she became a writer in French. She writes of how she told stories as a kid, fled her native Hungary as a young mother, and finally lived forever after with a French dictionary at her side, meanwhile writing plays and then novels in her foreign French. Kristof fits a surprising amount in this tiny memoir. I didn't know anything about her ambivalence about having left Hungary, or about the French language, and her life as a refugee and Swiss watch factory worker. I feel a little weird knowing now that the Notebook trilogy was in part autobiographical (there's some really messed up stuff in there!), but I still want to re-read it. The intros and translators notes have some interesting information and background, but are not strictly necessary to understand the work, at least for someone familiar with Kristof. It makes it feel more fitting that I first read The Proof in Spanish, with a Spanish-English dictionary open, for a Spanish class that I got a D+ in. 

In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.25

Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider's memoir in the form of an essay collection. Tells about her upbringing, transition, interests, and so forth in 22 essays. Some are silly, some are heavy, some are in between. Many are kind of off the wall, such as the one devoted to Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. The Tarot chapter is interesting to me mostly because before I read it, I didn't really know anything at all about the Tarot cards. Paints growing up in Ohio as very bleak, which tracks with other firsthand & literary accounts I've heard. Disappointed that there are not any pictures of Amy's cats Rue & Meep, or even an “About the Author's cats” section at the back. When she says they're cute, I expect evidence! 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Novella about working and being normal as a woman in Japan. Also a love letter to the institution of the Konbini. Having read Earthlings, the main character of Earthlings is kind of what the titular Convenience Store Woman would be like if she didn't have the support of the Convenience Store or a minimally nurturing family. This makes Convenience Store Woman a much less harrowing read than Earthlings. Still, the vision of society depicted is still bleak & mechanistic. A major message I get is that there is no one who is as full of shit as a man who tells you he is a misfit. Really makes me want to visit Japan if only to hit up a Kombini & see about those daily sales.