Mini reviews - Why My Cat Is More Impressive Than Your Baby by Matthew Inman, Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle, Crosstalk by Connie Willis

Time for mini reviews! Most of what I currently have left to review is from my home library, so I'm going to shift to mini reviews to get some of them knocked out. 

Alyce of At Home With Books (a dormant blog since 2016) very kindly sent me a copy of Why My Cat Is More Impressive Than Your Baby (an Oatmeal book) by Matthew Inman and a gift card to buy more books when I was in desperate need of cheering up. I can't even begin to tell you what a huge upper that was. I am still so grateful for the laughs in a week that was mostly about crying and anxiety.

Why My Cat Is More Impressive Than Your Baby is equal parts gross and hilarious. I was familiar with The Oatmeal comics but I guess I'd never really paid much attention to them. The gross ones involve a lot of illustrations of baby vomit and poop; they were not my favorites. But, there were plenty of comics that lacked the yuck factor and made me laugh, especially the ones specifically about cats. I shared my absolute favorites with the Spousal Unit and he enjoyed them, too.

Recommended but may require a strong stomach - I have a pretty strong stomach, I guess. I did have babies, after all, and the gross part goes with the territory. If you love The Oatmeal, you'll love this book.

I used part of the Amazon card Alyce sent me to buy a copy of Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle, a book that's been on my wish list, for a while. I absolutely love Strange Planet comics, little 4-box comics in which aliens make sense of life on Earth.

Deb Nance of Readerbuzz put it this way: "What if we could look at our world through fresh, if alien, eyes?" That's what Nathan Pyle does in Strange Planet. I'll share the comic that first caught my attention, below. I love the way Pyle examines humanity through slightly different viewpoint, the language making a lot of the strangeness of our lives clear. On the lower left cover of the book, an alien proudly shows off his sunburn saying, "It's the star damage." In one comic I read off Pyle's Instagram, a few days ago, the aliens were ordering pizza (I forget their name for pizza) and I laughed at one of them shouting out, "More fungus slices!"

Here's the comic that made me fall in love with Strange Planet:

Highly recommended - Loads of laughs and a huge upper. I will read this many times, in the future, I'm sure. So grateful to have a copy in my home library.

I love Connie Willis but I'd never heard of Crosstalk till recently. It sounded like my kind of book so I bought a copy.

When Briddey Flannigan and her boyfriend, Trent, get a procedure that's supposed to help them connect emotionally, it has a shocking side effect. Briddey (short for Bridget) becomes telepathic. At first, she can only hear one other voice. But, eventually, her telepathy becomes stronger and the thoughts coming from other people's heads overwhelm her. With the help of C.B., the first man she heard upon coming telepathic and a co-worker of hers, she learns to block the chaos. C.B. is weird. He's brilliant but he works in the basement and stays away from people. And, Briddey is in love with Trent. So, why is she finding herself so drawn to C.B.?

When Trent begins to show signs of telepathy and Briddey finds out his real reason for wanting to get the procedure, things go haywire.

Recommended to sci-fi fans - Not Willis's best but a fun read. In comparison to past works by Connie Willis, Crosstalk comes closest to Bellwether. Both are light, funny, romantic, and silly, even a little slapstick. Both have sci-fi attributes but Crosstalk didn't entirely make sense to me. I got the telepathy but not the idea of harnessing it via technology. I just couldn't buy into that concept. And, it was a bit too long, but I enjoyed Crosstalk enough to keep going and I have no regrets.

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

I read Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore while I was on vacation in August, but I'm pretty sure it was the only book I finished that week and I remember it well because I was so immensely entertained. Milo is close to reaching his limit of lifetimes. He's had 9,995 chances to reach perfection and a soul only gets 10,000 tries before being cast into . . . well, nothingness. If you achieve perfection, you get to move on to the Afterlife and become a part of the cosmic soul, but it's not looking good for Milo.

There's a particular obstacle to his success. Milo is in love with death . . . or at least one of the eternal beings who harvest souls. Her name is Suzie and if Milo achieves perfection, he will no longer be able to spend time with her between reincarnations. While Milo does his best to figure out how to achieve perfection without sabotaging himself, you get to experience his attempts and also glimpses into past lifetimes. Meeting the different Milos who live in different times and places (including outer space) makes for a very entertaining read. Each lifetime is an entirely different experience, so it's almost like reading an interconnected series of stories.

As Milo gets closer to his final chance, he and Suzie realize they can't fathom eternity without each other. Because Suzie is already immortal, she will have to break some rules if they're going to be together. But, is it even possible? And, will Milo be able to reach perfection before it's too late?

Highly recommended - An immensely creative read with a lighthearted tone, sometimes funny, often tragic. Milo has to keep dying, of course, so there's plenty of hardship and a number of tragic ends. But, at the same time, the book has this wonderful, playful tone that you can't help but love. Because each of Milo's lifetimes is so very different, I had favorite lives in the book and I would often groan in frustration when one ended. Yet, I was always excited to see what would happen next. Life is clearly rough; Milo goes through some harrowing experiences. But, what a delightful read. Reincarnation Blues is a book that makes me feel warm inside when I think about it. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.