Books – TERSE. Journal

JE NE SAIS QUOI: A REVIEW BY T.S. MCNEIL

Few are the creators who can truly balance skills. There are few places where this is clearer than in sequential art, also known as “comics.” Often as collaborative as film, creative teams of up to four skilled professionals are routinely used on a project. Fortunately, this is only one aspect of the industry as a…
THE OOKY SPOOKY WORLD OF AURELIO VOLTAIRE BY T.S. MCNEIL

The world can be a scary place. What better way to deal with this fact than to laugh and enjoy the time we have? So often things come down to a matter of laugh, cry, or die. One person who had definitely taken the first option is the multifaceted creator Aurelio Voltaire Hernandez. Known to…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 220 by Annie Walton Doyle

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin “All I’m saying is that trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card. It also doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom, or the right to pontificate”… The world of Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss is nothing if not unusual. Living in a bug-infested farmhouse, Greta both makes her money and gets her kicks…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 196 by Annie Walton Doyle

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate “As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love.” Written in the aftermath of her marriage’s breakdown and under the shadow of Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential win, Jenny Slate’s Little Weirds is…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 182 by Annie Walton Doyle

Milk Teeth by Jessica Andrews “I want to grow bigger than my shame, to have mass and identity, to leave marks and indentations, to prove my own existence.” Hunger is so prominent in Jessica Andrews’ Milk Teeth that it becomes bigger than just a theme and more of an all-pervasive, visceral feeling. It’s a hunger…
Family Abolition Communizing of Care: A Review by Renya

“Family abolition.” It’s a phrase that, for many people, likely conjures up images of forceful separations of family members, legal penalties for certain relationships, or other authoritarian measures designed to tear us from our loved ones. In Family Abolition: The Communizing of Care (Pluto Press, 2023), this isn’t what author M.E. O’Brien is desiring at…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 188 by Annie Walton Doyle

Brutes by Dizz Tate “We felt foul and fatherly and frightened of ourselves. We tried to make ourselves small. We were coiled up but we were not broken. And we knew our mothers’ idea of goodness was not measured by morals but by how much noise we made. And quickly we grew tired of trying…
Witches in Fiction: The Good and the Bad By Dawn Colclasure

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” A good majority of people the world over will recognize this line from the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz, but for many writers of fiction, this question hits different if they have a witch in their story. Not only do these writers need to ensure…
When We Lost Our Heads: A Review By T.S. McNeil

There is a strong social push toward order. At least in terms of western democracies, including those that also have queens, whether they want to or not. Even so, chaos, or at least a need for freedom, can be found in almost every human heart. Canada is a country with order baked into its DNA. The…
365 Books in 365 Days – Episode 178 by Annie Walton Doyle

Pew by Catherine Lacey “Can only other people tell you what your body is, or is there a way that you can know something truer about it from the inside, something that cannot be seen or explained?” Pew by Catherine Lacey hinges on a unique and bizarre conceit. The novel opens with our main character,…