#canlit

This is where Cannon starts, as Cannon tries to resolve all these bad situations, each of which is only worsening. Trish disapproves of Cannon's sexual affair with the new front-of-house woman at the restaurant – even as Trish begins a friends-with-benefits arrangement with a guy from her fitness club who clearly wants more than the odd tumble. Guy the restaurateur positions Cannon as his hatchet-woman and confidante, driving conflict in the kitchen that she is meant to hold the bag for. Her grandfather enters a terminal decline, and still her mother won't answer her calls and texts about it. And then, Cannon discovers that Trish has violated her in a way that is intimate and appalling.

These may sound like the beats that you'd find in a melodramatic soap opera, but Cannon's affect is so stoic, and her interiority is so beautifully and inventively depicted – Lai deploying the unique strengths of the graphic novel form here with total virtuosity – that the vibe is more David Lynch than Dallas.

The result is something that's beautiful, sharp, critical and lingering. Long after I closed the cover, I found myself mulling over the delicate ways that Lai raised the contradictions, sorrows and beauty of queer love, racial identity, camaraderie, self-control, and self-indulgence. Lai's characters have no answers, only questions that can never be fully resolved. Instead, these questions are the defining puzzles, defeats and triumphs of their lives.

It's a magnificent, sensitive and innovative work of storytelling.

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Beasts of Burden: Neighborhood Watch // Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men

Wildly varied quality. I quite liked the first volume of this series, as it introduced a world were average, every-day pets acted as the neighbourhood guardians against supernatural horrors. It was a fun twist on the monster-of-the-week genre, and introduced fun characters and laid out a story that seemed to be gradually building on itself. That all feel apart in volume 2 which was a collection of middling episodic nonsense. It felt like any bigger picture had disintegrated, characterization began to flatten, the art fluctuate in quality a lot, and there were suddenly more humans involved in this world that had so tightly revolved around the animals. The sheep story was really he only worthwhile one of the lot — and hey, why was Hellboy there??? Book 3 follows a different group of dogs but was much better than 2. The story felt more put together again, and the art was beautiful the whole way through. Still lost some of the magic that the first book had though.

Boyfriends

Some day I’ll learn to stop trying to read books published by Webtoons

The Convenience Store by the Sea

A nifty little book. It’s doing something similar to The Kamogawa Food Detectives, in that it creates a cosy, low-stakes story that revolves around different people who pass through the Tenderness Convenience Store. It’s not quite as successful as Kamogawa in my opinion — some stories were better than others, and it took a while for me to really figure out what was happening with the pacing but it was interesting enough. I appreciate some of the heavier topics it tackled and how compassionate it was too such a wide range of characters.

Girl Giant and the Monkey King

A middle-grade novel I bought secondhand on impulse — it had Sun Wukong on the cover, I was intrigued! Unfortunately what I had hoped would be a fun romp (Monkey King teaming up with a teenaged girl??? Sign me up, there are gonna be hijinks!) was instead mostly just middle school girl drama. The pacing was slow and repetitive, there was really no adventure, and it circled the same few issues in a heavy-handed way. I ended up not finishing it.

Haikyu!! v7-18

I continue my Haikyu!! Reread and continue to love it. Some books are slower than others, but that’s honestly just the natural flow of a series this long — there needs to be some breathing room so that you’re ready when the narrative kicks back into high gear. I love the summer training arc that you get around book 10, I love the characters that are introduced and I love seeing the growth in those chapters!

Hockey Rants & Raves

This book was recommended after I finished reading Alan Doyle’s books, and I totally get why, it’s the same sort of exuberant, sincere comedy that you can’t help but get sucked into. I can’t say I honestly know all that much about hockey — beyond being Canadian and absorbing a certain amount through general osmosis — but the author is both a very funny speaker and has a very honest, approachable love for the sport. This man is the opposite of a gatekeeper. He explains what he’s talking about, and is clearly welcoming everyone to come and enjoy this thing he loves so much. It’s just fun, like listening to a friend gush about their favourite thing.

Paddington: Here and Now

I needed something chill to listen to while I was falling asleep so I decided on another Paddington book. It delivered exactly what I wanted. It didn’t stand out in any particular way, but it was charming and cosy in the way of most Paddington stories.

The Role I Played

A second hockey book. After Hockey Rants & Raves I realised I was curious about learning a bit more about the sport beyond the surface level knowledge I’ve scraped up passively over the years. This is a memoir written by Sami Jo Small, an accomplished goalie who played in a number of games and leagues over the years. The most interesting thing about the story is her time participating in the Olympics — specifically the fact that she was generally a third-line goalie, meaning she was almost exclusively a backup and didn’t actually see much if any ice time. It’s such a strange situation that I had never considered before… one of the three women considered good enough out of the entire country to participate on the Canadian Olympic hockey team, but not good enough to win the ice time she so desperately wanted. Unfortunately while the topic is interesting, and I enjoy the stories about her teammates and training camps, the writing itself is pretty tedious. Small is not the most compelling writer out there.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

Absolutely bizarre little book. It’s like a modern day Aesop’s Fables for adults… each short story is uniquely strange. It made me feel some sort of emotions. Couldn’t tell you which.

The Smiling Land

The second Alan Doyle book I read after All Together Now from last month. I do think I liked All Together Now more, since it was such a fun collection of vignettes, but The Smiling Land was a charming book in its own right and I definitely enjoyed my time reading it. In this one, Alan Doyle travels around his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador and shares all sorts of descriptions and stories about the places he stops and the people he meets. It’s warm and welcoming and fun; it makes you want to go on a trip there immediately.

The Sunshine Court // The Golden Raven