Just a short little November Favorites before the big end-of-the-year blog in *checks calendar* four weeks!?
MOVIES
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is the classic story of Pinocchio mixed with the director’s very particular style, meaning you’ve got a puppet boy going on adventures, but in this case the adventures involve standing up to abusers and fascists, learning the futility of war, living with grief, and accepting the inevitability of death and mortality. Light stuff. This has been a passion project for GDT for many years and I’m happy he was finally able to make this movie. The stop-motion animation and character designs are beautiful and add a lot to the story. I really liked it.
BOOKS
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and colorist Phoebe Kobabe
A graphic novel memoir examining author Maia Kobabe’s childhood and young adulthood trying to figure out and accept eir non-binary gender identity. It’s an incredibly personal story and the whole time reading it I kept thinking about a young person reading this and feeling less alone in the world. It’s really depressing that this book has become a lightning rod for people banning LGBTQA+ books at schools (there are a couple of small scenes involving Maia’s experiences with sex and sexuality), because knowing other people have gone through something you are struggling with can genuinely save kids lives. (MEMOIR / GRAPHIC NOVEL)
The Reanimator's Heart by Kara Jorgensen
A fun take on period paranormal romance, Reanimator’s Heart sets the action of the story after one of the protagonists has already died. Felipe is an investigator for the Paranormal Society (basically the magic police) who has supernatural healing which helps when he’s constantly getting shot and endangered while solving cases. Oliver is the Society’s mortician who is autistic and has the power to raise the dead. When Oliver finally works up the courage to ask Felipe on a date, he finds the man has been murdered and accidentally resurrects his crush. The two then try to solve the mystery of Felipe’s murder before he starts to decompose. Overall I quite liked this book, but I think it does have a couple of too-convenient plot points and lacks some world building that would have been helpful (the book description says it is set in 1890 but I genuinely could not figure out the time period). This is the start of a series though, and also part of a larger universe of Paranormal Society books, so it’s possible I came in late to an already established setting or that it will be fleshed out more in future installments (which I would definitely read). (PARANORMAL ROMANCE)
GAMES
Vampire Survivors
I really didn’t expect to get so engrossed in this retro rogue-like + bullet-hell game. In Vampire Survivors there is only one control: moving your character. You don’t control when you attack, you can’t defend or even interact with things. All you do is gradually improve your skills as you travel around the map using automatic attacks to take out the steadily increasing swarms of enemies. Like, literal swarms. The goal is to survive as long as possible and gain enough coins to go into the next game a bit stronger. My go-to character is an elderly gentleman who has an aura of deadly garlic fumes - which is surprisingly deadly to bats and skeletons. It’s the perfect brain-off entertainment when you just want to play something fun for 30 minutes and hits all the joy centers of “one more game” and “oooo loot”.
ART
Here are a couple new bird friends I finished up in November, plus info about an upcoming Holiday Market where I will be selling my wares.
“Greater Yellow-Headed Vulture”
“Dracula Parrot”
I will have a booth at the Love, The Locals Holiday Market this weekend at The Bay in Lincoln and will be bringing plenty of prints, cards, stickers, some original collages, and hopefully some little desk calendars that I am trying out this year (if I get them all assembled).