However, these harsh winters bring about some of the most intimate opportunities between a family, friends, or a couple: long days inside baking for the holidays, marshmallows floating in hot chocolate, the ever appealing escape of a movie marathon while being cocooned in a pile of blankets.

“Blankets”, a graphic novel by Craig Thomson, perfectly captures the harsh but surprising compassion present in Midwestern winters. An autobiographical tale interlaced with artistic license, “Blankets” chronicles the author’s life from childhood to young adulthood, with the setting of brutal Wisconsin winters as the backdrop to our narrator’s coming-of-age.

Rife with symbolism, metaphor, and allegory, the graphic novel explores concepts of child abuse, Catholic guilt, the consequences of familial estrangement, ambivalence toward one’s search for meaning in art, and the defining of personal spirituality.

The earlier chapters of “Blankets” can be harrowing and devastating, illustrating the struggles of a young man becoming increasingly unsure in himself, the religion he initially leaned upon, and fitting in at school.

Thompson bookends his graphic novel with an adult version of himself reflecting on those earlier years and ultimately coming to his own conclusions about God and the church (he used the project to come out as a non-Christian to his parents in real life). It’s thoughtful rumination filtered through the perspective of a very talented artist.

Despite the strengths of the introduction and the conclusion of “Blankets,” however, the body of the novel belongs to the relationship that blossoms between Craig and his love interest, Raina. Tender, poignant, and ultimately heart-breaking, Craig and Raina’s courtship is realized beautifully and vividly, capturing the bitterness and the warmth that define so many people’s experiences with Midwestern winters. I don’t want to spoil anything about their lovely tale, so I’ll say this: it reminded me of my own experiences with falling in love for the first time, for better or for worse.

The impact of “Blankets” is largely attributed to its art. While its writing is articulate and deeply felt (the graphic novel isn’t exposition heavy, and easily weaves its characters and overarching themes together), Thompson’s evocative black and white art is simply breathtaking. Surreal scenes involving stars and angels and kaleidoscopic imagery make the emotionally intimate scenes hit even harder than they already do, and his use of negative space is alternatively suffocating and liberating as the pages flew by.

Even twelve years after its release, “Blankets” is required reading for anyone who enjoys a good comic (or are fatigued by the medium being dominated by ass-kicking superheroes), a touching love story, or are looking for a great narrative to curl up with once the snow starts falling outside.

Mix up some hot chocolate, turn on the fireplace, and grab a couple blankets, including this one.

Grade: A

The post Bound and Proud: “Blankets” by Craig Thompson appeared first on KRUI Radio.

For some, that description alone would be enough to have them running to their locally-owned and chain bookstores to purchase this novel, with its girth of nearly 600 pages and its eye-catching cover art. Be still, my AU (alternate universe, a phrase used in fan fiction) heart. However, for the nonbelievers, I’m willing to be a little more persistent and convince you to give this gem a fair shot.

Rainbow Rowell has a been a fixture within the young adult genre for a couple years now, thanks to her breakthrough bestseller Eleanor and Park: a sweet, intelligent, and bitter novel about an overweight outsider and a vaguely popular Korean boy with a love for comics falling into the confusing and enrapturing throngs of first love. Her follow up, Fangirl, while not met with as much commercial success, was still received with critical acclaim. Focusing on a young woman named Cath starting her college career as a creative writing major and facing difficulty moving away from her works of fan fiction to more original material, Fangirl acutely observed the inner anxieties of a talented writer finding her niche in her work and in her life. More importantly, however, the novel introduced two fictional characters that the protagonist wrote about, named Simon and Baz, about whom readers were dying to read more.

However, this demand for more Simon and Baz left the author in an interesting situation. You see, Simon and Baz are characters that existed within a book series within Fangirl: Cath wrote fan fiction about “The World of Mages”, a famous book series that, on the surface, sounds very similar to our own magical boarding school series, Harry Potter. So in Fangirl there were TWO stories involving Simon and Baz: the canon “World of Mages”, and Cath’s fan fiction about them. So, instead of writing either of those stories, Rainbow Rowell decided to write the “World of Mages” as she would have written, arguably writing fan fiction for a series within her own novel where the protagonist writes fan fiction as well. I know, it’s all very meta. And, on paper, it sounds like a complete mess.

So Rainbow Rowell should be commended for how well she’s able to pull it off.

Carry On begins as Simon Snow, our main character and Chosen One, the most powerful Mage in the world, is headed for his final year of training at the Watford School of Magicks. Needless to say, he’s feeling a little anxious about it: he’s going to be stuck with his roommate Baz again for another year (Simon is convinced that Baz is a vampire), there’s a prophecy that the head of the school is pressuring Simon to complete, and there’s a nasty creature that looks like an eleven year old Simon running around and sucking the magic out of areas of Europe, creating pockets of dead air where mages can’t use their abilities. It all sounds like a lot to unpack, as Carry On is kind of an alternate universe to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and at the beginning of the novel it’s a little alienating for the reader. But once Rowell figures out how to unpack all that backstory and is able to introduce the other lead characters, Carry On hits the ground running and keeps its addictive pace going until its rousing conclusion.

Part of the reason Carry On is able to work past its issues and, ultimately, step out of the shadows of its obvious inspiration, is because of how talented of a writer Rainbow Rowell truly is. Although she is frequently compared to John Green, I would argue that she is an infinitely stronger writer: she has an ear for witty, hilarious, and heartfelt dialogue that doesn’t feel staged, she knows exactly when to throw an emotional gut punch or plot twist, and her characters are three dimensional, lovable cast members, even if their archetypes are lifted straight from classic fantasy (i.e., Simon’s best friend, Penny, starts out as a Hermoine Granger stand in, but quickly becomes a feminist witch fighting for equal opportunity for mages of all races, colors, and sexuality who I would actually prefer to have by my side over her counterpart). Rowell is also really fantastic at creating tension in situations, whether they be of the personal or more epic variety.

That’s another reason why Carry On excels and becomes, in my opinion, one of the best things to come out of the young adult fiction genre in a long time. While the novel certainly has its magical plot to resolve, Rowell loves her characters, and they drive the narrative instead of being dragged along by it. Because of this attention to character, to their personal traumas and explorations of identity, she’s created a truly subversive version of the “Chosen One” literary trope: Simon is someone who doesn’t want the power he has and is dealing with his bisexuality; Baz struggles with being a pariah within his own family even though he didn’t being his differences onto himself; Agatha, the seeming damsel in distress, discovers her own agency and is decisive in a way that most other characters, in any fantasy setting, wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to do.

And don’t even get me started on the kissing scenes. I was literally hugging the novel and giggling over it. Don’t underestimate Rowell’s ability to evoke the reader’s own memories of first love.

Despite these strengths, Carry On does sometimes buckle under its own ambitions. The world simply cannot be as fleshed out as other fantasy projects: she didn’t have over fifteen years to develop it, after all. And while its breathtaking pace is mostly a positive, its conclusion does come a little too quickly and tidy. But for a novel that gets almost everything else right and, along the way, changes the game of young adult fiction, I believe those offenses can be forgiven.

A goofy, subversive, and fantastical treat.

Grade: B+

The post Bound and Proud: Book Review- “Carry On” by Rainbow Rowell appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Read the book. (Here’s a link for those who will actually listen to me).

Unlike a lot of book-based films, this one sticks to its roots. Andy Weir slips readers into the diary of Mark Watney, a astronomer/botanist living on Mars. At first that sounds pretty cool, right? A man on Mars! That’s a big damn step for mankind. However, this mission is not nearly as awesome as it appears on paper. First of all, Mark is alone. His crew abandoned him during a massive windstorm, leaving him without a way home. (Don’t blame them though, they had to.)

Now for Mark Watney, the mission NASA intended to be a few weeks, has been extended. By a lot. If you think dorm food is bad, imagine the shit astronauts have to eat. Mark Watney faces living the rest of his life on that crap. And there is not a McDonald’s on Mars that Mark can splurge on. To make matters worse, the storm that forced his crew away also blew out the radio. He can’t contact Earth to plead for a rescue mission. Come on man, even ET got to phone home.

In summary, Mars sucks ass.

It takes a kick-ass writer to make the only living being on a desolate planet an interesting read. Think about it. What conflict could possibly arise when a man lives all alone? All alone means no war, no love, and no drama. It is just Watney and his thoughts. As blissful as the prospect sounds, it does not make prime novelistic matter. For a barren plot like this one, the author has to make the main character’s inner dialogue really absorbing. With Mark Watney, Andy Weir does a bang up job. Even though Watney has serious  justification for depressive episodes and emotional breakdowns, he approaches his situation with sarcasm. I actually laughed out loud.

Watney’s log entries document his misadventures on the planet Mars with an incredibly relatable persona. As a reader, you won’t be able to help rooting for him to get home. Even more impressively, Andy used Watney’s dry humor to make science compelling. While living on Mars, Watney encounters many problems normal mortals could not hope to tackle. Yet Watney attacks issues with a highly-advanced scientific mind. I usually skim science articles and zone my science professors out, but I wanted to read Watney’s scientific analysis. Getting an English major intrigued by science takes some skill. Personally, I think Weir should consider teaching.

A couple of my favorite lines include, “Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped,” and, “As with most of life’s problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation.”

As far as the movie goes, it has been suggested that The Martian could be the most realistic space movie ever produced. A man hired by a national laboratory when he was fifteen years old, Weir created The Martian based on actual science. Frankly, almost everything in The Martian could happen. Sci-Fi films generally rely on distorting reality to make a story interesting. However, in another testament of the awesomeness of Weir, he realizes that he doesn’t have to go that far. The reality that this could happen to a human at some point in the near future is compelling enough. The movie merely transposes the story into a different medium, which only makes the experience even more real.

Though readers will find that a couple of sections got cut from the final film, the movie follows the story almost to a T. I suppose it must be easy when Andy Weir basically provided a ready-to-be-filmed script in his novel. I wonder if Weir might have even written the book with Matt Damon in mind, considering the ease with which Damon fits the part.  Even I have to admit though, watching the action play out on screen added a dimension that words could not. Special effects reveal the depth of Watney’s challenges. Mars is a dangerous, desolate place. However, Damon and Weir breathe life onto the surface of Mars.

Regardless of whether you think you like Sci-Fi or not, read this book and watch the movie. You won’t be disappointed.

Quotes from The Martian, written by Andy Weir.

The post The Martian appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Following a wild applause, Ayana Mathis took the stage and read a short poem by Gwendolyn Brooks entitled “Kitchenette Building.” She then commented on the poem, noting that it questions whether it is possible to feel beauty and hope in the midst of hopelessness and despair. Brooks’s poem is similar to Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.

Ayana Mathis then proceeded to read a short chapter from her novel. The novel itself encompasses the life of Hattie, her husband August, and their twelve children. The selection read by Mathis concerns Hattie’s youngest child, Ella, and Hattie’s sister Pearl. Ms. Mathis never ceased to entertain her audience, providing accents for August, Pearl, and a variety of other characters.

Following her reading, the author answered the audience’s questions. She discussed the relation of the book to the Twelve Tribes of Israel and traveling from a state of bondage to a state of freedom. At 8 PM, the reading concluded with a book signing by Ayana Mathis. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie can be found at any local bookseller.

The post UI Lecture: Ayana Mathis at The Englert Theatre appeared first on KRUI Radio.

By Gabrielle Pawlikowski

How important are the facts? Essayist John D’Agata manipulates them freely and without compunction, and all for the sake of art. His new book Lifespan of a Fact documents a supposed seven-year conversation between D’Agata and Jim Fingal, then an intern for The Believer. The article Fingal was assigned to fact-check centered on a sensitive subject and one that appeared again in D’Agata 2010 book About a Mountain: the suicide of sixteen-year-old Levi Presley. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

D’Agata’s uncooperative tone is humorous despite being pretentious. Fingal comes across as a humble do-gooder whose patience snaps as a result of having to deal with such a jerk. Yet on the other hand, one can’t help but understand D’Agata’s annoyance, as some of Fingal’s inquiries are nitpicky to the point of being ludicrous (at one point, he questions whether the mountains near Las Vegas are black, preferring instead “brownish”). D’Agata acridly defends his right to change the facts for the sake of dramatic effect; although it is likely that when Presley jumped from a skyscraper he fell for eight seconds, D’Agata claims it was nine. Although Tai Kwon Do (a martial art Levi studied) was created in the 1950s, D’Agata claims it was the creation of an ancient Indian Prince. Are such inventions necessary? Should the details matter, or the emotional truth that the writer creates? Should one be sacrificed for the sake of the other? Creative nonfiction writers and their readers have long debated such questions.

D’Agata is an Iowa City resident and teaches nonfiction at The University of Iowa. On February 22, he will be reading from Lifespan of a Fact at Prairie Lights Bookstore, at 7 p.m.

The post KRUI on Writing: John D’Agata appeared first on KRUI Radio.