Welcome to Litsy!

Reading manga in bed before sleep

Depression, unrequited love, growing pains- it‘s so easy to devour and I am flying through the series!

A middle-school-aged boy in contemporary Japan negotiates daily life with a violent father and inadequate mother, a boisterous group of friends, and a huge crush on a girl who lives in a religious cult. High realism #manga—for everything except Punpun‘s family: they are ghostly birdlike creatures—plus other surrealism and supernatural touches. An engaging mix of pathos and humour that unfolds over 425 pages. #translation #graphicnovel

Punpun‘s uncle, who lives with them: “So, I‘m thinking of looking for work.”
Punpun‘s mother: “Oh, I‘m so proud of you! You want to help with the rent?”
Punpun‘s uncle: “No… actually… watching you guys makes me want to get my shit together.”

This #manga is weird in a good way. All of the other characters are drawn realistically, except for Punpun and his family, who look like cartoon birds. God is portrayed in the image of the author, Inio Asano,(which makes sense!) except he is always grinning like an idiot, which is really creepy.

Funny how two books I‘m reading at the moment have something to do with porn. This manga, being full of young boys (and a young chicken thing?) is typical I guess - they call themselves the Porn Watchers Club ??. But maybe less typical is Tom Perrotta‘s Mrs Fletcher,a 46yo divorcée whose son has just left for college finds herself going onto porn websites.

I‘m not quite sure what Punpun is. A chicken of sorts? But he goes to school in a Japanese town like all the other kids. His parents fight and his dad is unemployed. He likes the new girl in his class. Other than that, it‘s been Inio Asano whose works I really like.

I don't really know about this one. I've been having such a good streak with Asano's other books, but this one just didn't connect with me. It's a weird and somewhat disjointed coming of age story. I can see why the author made some of the decisions he did in the storytelling and art, but for whatever reason this one just wasn't my cup of tea.

I've gathered my August TBR stack for #TBRTuesday. Not shown are The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner and Jon Maberry's new short story collection Whistling Past the Graveyard (both are on my kindle). I've been nostalgic for my childhood horror reads so I threw in a Goosebumps and the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy. Right now I'm reading Serpent Kings and The Hatching. I think I'll also mix in Maberry's new collection!