This week's hen's egg clutch of Online Commentaries and Diversions:
Review: Gast by Carol Swain
"What’s most impressive about Swain’s story is its quiet nature, and its delicate portrayal of darkness. Instead of going for the obvious and imposing gruesome imagery to match the backdrop of macabre, Swain portrays the setting as a far more subtle place to contain unease, at time bucolic even with the fog of despair that sometimes hangs there." – John Seven, Vermicious
Review: How to Be Happy by Eleanor Davis
"That's Davis' sensibility. In her roundabout way, she dramatizes not the prospect of happiness, but the promise of it. Her natural territory is found in all the funny and tragic effects of that promise." – Etelka Lehoczky, NPR
Plug: Look who's sitting pretty at number 10 on the NY Times' Best Sellers List this week!
- Commentary: Buzzfeed listed 23 female cartoonists along with short quotes from each on drawing female-bodied characters. Included in the list are Lucy Knisley, C. Tyler, Jessica Abel, Ellen Forney, Mary Fleener, Megan Kelso, and Roberta Gregory.