Stack Overflow: A Little Unsettling
GeekDad | Jonathan H. Liu | January 30, 2023
GeekDad reviews Why Don’t You Love Me?
We read for a lot of different reasons: to learn something new, to immerse ourselves in new worlds, to escape for a bit from a troubling reality. As I understand it, some people like to read to scare themselves, to make themselves squirm a little. I don’t generally read much that would be considered horror (though I do like a good thriller or some exciting action scenes), and I don’t always have a high tolerance for books that just make me uncomfortable without some expectation of some positive outcome. These past few weeks, though, I’ve read a number of books that were just a bit unsettling in one way or another, though in many cases I’m still glad I read them.
Why Don't You Love Me? by Paul B. Rainey
This is a sci-fi graphic novel disguised as a comic strip collection. Each page looks like a Sunday-edition comic strip, with that oversized first panel with the logotype “Why Don’t You Love Me?” below the artist’s name, followed by three rows of panels depicting a miserable family. The mom is disheveled, wearing a bathrobe and smoking, while the dad attempts to take care of the kids even though he can’t remember the boy’s name. The strips aren’t really funny, either: some of them kind of have a punchline, like when the dad finally gets the kids to school but realizes it’s Saturday, but in most cases there’s no laugh at the end, not even a mean, cynical one. So what’s the deal? Is this one of those strips like Andy Capp or The Lockhorns where it’s just about a couple that hates each other and we’re supposed to be entertained by that?
As you continue reading, you get the sense that things are definitely a bit off with Mark and Claire. Claire questions reality and Mark just seems to be playing a role where he doesn’t know all the lines. At the beginning you see that Mark sleeps downstairs on the couch and Claire is verbally threatening to him; things continue to deteriorate to the point where she’s having an affair with another parent she meets at the school. And then, about halfway through the book … there’s this big shift. Various allusions that Mark and Claire have made about their lives take on new meanings; the two of them—as well as the reader—are challenged to figure out what the heck is going on.
I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll say that once I hit that second half I got hooked (and stayed up too late to finish it). The reveal of what’s behind their strange behavior was both gradual and unexpected, and I found myself caring more for Mark and Claire (though there were still some things about them that bothered me). What I’m not entirely sure of, though, is whether the payoff of the ending is worth the painful trauma that happens in the first half—I think some readers may give up before then, particularly if the toxic relationships depicted there bring up painful memories of your own. Mark and Claire’s resolution isn’t one that you would be able to mirror or seek in your own life, so it makes for a good story but could be unsatisfying for somebody wanting more practical answers. Still, if you can stomach it, there’s a fascinating story here about the nature of identity and the role that chance plays in our relationships.
Read the rest of the list here!
Why Don't You Love Me? by Paul B. Rainey
This is a sci-fi graphic novel disguised as a comic strip collection. Each page looks like a Sunday-edition comic strip, with that oversized first panel with the logotype “Why Don’t You Love Me?” below the artist’s name, followed by three rows of panels depicting a miserable family. The mom is disheveled, wearing a bathrobe and smoking, while the dad attempts to take care of the kids even though he can’t remember the boy’s name. The strips aren’t really funny, either: some of them kind of have a punchline, like when the dad finally gets the kids to school but realizes it’s Saturday, but in most cases there’s no laugh at the end, not even a mean, cynical one. So what’s the deal? Is this one of those strips like Andy Capp or The Lockhorns where it’s just about a couple that hates each other and we’re supposed to be entertained by that?
As you continue reading, you get the sense that things are definitely a bit off with Mark and Claire. Claire questions reality and Mark just seems to be playing a role where he doesn’t know all the lines. At the beginning you see that Mark sleeps downstairs on the couch and Claire is verbally threatening to him; things continue to deteriorate to the point where she’s having an affair with another parent she meets at the school. And then, about halfway through the book … there’s this big shift. Various allusions that Mark and Claire have made about their lives take on new meanings; the two of them—as well as the reader—are challenged to figure out what the heck is going on.
I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll say that once I hit that second half I got hooked (and stayed up too late to finish it). The reveal of what’s behind their strange behavior was both gradual and unexpected, and I found myself caring more for Mark and Claire (though there were still some things about them that bothered me). What I’m not entirely sure of, though, is whether the payoff of the ending is worth the painful trauma that happens in the first half—I think some readers may give up before then, particularly if the toxic relationships depicted there bring up painful memories of your own. Mark and Claire’s resolution isn’t one that you would be able to mirror or seek in your own life, so it makes for a good story but could be unsatisfying for somebody wanting more practical answers. Still, if you can stomach it, there’s a fascinating story here about the nature of identity and the role that chance plays in our relationships.
Read the rest of the list here!