May was restless and temperamental. It was a struggle to juggle work and play and emotions and life, which explains the crickets and lack of updates, but I think I did a pretty decent job in terms of squeezing in a bit of reading time.
I went to Manila on the first weekend of the month to visit my best friends, eat good food, fangirl over Marvel’s Daredevil and The Avengers: Age of Ultron, raid Kubi’s bookshelves, and inhale comic books on Free Comic Book Day.
FCBD haul: Trese by Budjette Tan & Kajo Baldisimo, and Saga by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples (photographs courtesy of the sister)
While I was there, I found The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman and Chris Rydell on Kubi’s bookshelf and devoured it in one sitting. I also read Lem’s copy of Comic Books 101: The History, Methods and Madness by Chris Ryall and Scott Tipton, as well as Kubi’s Mythspace, Vol. 1 by Paolo Chikiamco.
As for this month’s YA fix, Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun was a heartbreakingly beautiful read, while Sarah Dessen’s Saint Anything surprisingly had more depth and less of the romance that has become a staple in her novels.
Among the books I borrowed from Kubi is a slim novel called Light Boxes by Shane Jones, which kept me company on an uneventful summer afternoon. I’ve also been on a Harry Potter fix lately – a direct result of a spontaneous movie marathon of all eight films. I’ve been re-reading the novels as well, and I’ve just finished Prisoner of Azkaban, which still managed to make me burst into quiet sobs.
Anyhoo, the latest issue of Lumberjanes (#14) was still a riot, while Saga #28 could only be described as holy fuck.
My Civil War reading mission is still going swimmingly, thank you very much, although I read most of them on the last day of May because I wanted to take my mind off the harrowing Outlander season finale. I’ve also crossed out a few more items from my Eclectic Reader’s Challenge reading list, such as Jim Butcher’s Storm Front and Matthew Quick’s Boy21.
But my favorite May read is Emily St. John Mandel’s spectacular Station Eleven, which was dark and wonderful and eerie and touching. It also made me miss my Shakespeare class and being involved in theater productions. I wish I could articulate my feelings about this book, but I can’t at the moment. It’s frustrating, but I’m in the middle of attempting to finish my writing projects and that takes up most of my time these days.
That’s it for now, duckies. Happy reading!
The Exchange 