Attack of the Mini Reviews

I am determined to NOT start the year off with a backlog of reviews, so in an effort to keep caught up, I'm going to go ahead and give you three mini reviews of three COMPLETELY different types of books here. Because things always make more sense when they make no sense whatsoever.

First read of the year was Thrall by Natasha Trethewey, her newest collection of poetry. And what an absolutely gorgeous collection it was that really showed me why she's our poet laureate. What Ms. Trethewey gives us isn't just poetry, but a piece of history as well. I absolutely loved this collection. She beautifully and painfully delves into the history of mixed race people with this collection and the history of their heritage. I learned so much from reading this. So much history, so much experience, so much empathy. Another beautiful collection by a beautiful poet.

The second book I want to talk about here is Once Upon a Time Machine which is an absolutely AMAZING collection of short graphic stories that retell classic fairy tales in very new ways. This was an impulse buy. I found it while browsing and said "yeah..need to have this." Well I'm glad I did. There are too many stories in here to talk about them as individuals, so I'll just give you the basics. These are tales that are told in completely new ways through sci-fi and fantasy spins on classic tales. And as the "Time Machine" part of the title infers, the stories take place in the future for the most part. Some of the stories are several page spreads and others are just one page drawings that are breath taking. Absolutely loved this collection.

And finally, I bought my first book of the year today and read it!!! AND it was a Neil Gaiman. Yep, it's going to be the year of Neil Gaiman. I bought Gaiman's new children's picture book that was released today, Chu's Day and it is absolutely perfect and absolutely Gaiman. I was expected to be let down...it's a picture book so I didn't expect to fall in love, but honestly, I did. It's sweet and cute and perfectly illustrated. And it starts with the line "When Chu sneezed, bad things happened". Who can't love a book that starts like that. There are several false alarms before Chu sneezes and as we follow Chu, the panda throughout his day, we go through a world filled with wonderfully drawn animals in libraries, diners and circuses. Really loved it :)

So what have you read so far in 2013??