Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Digger by Ursula Vernon

A wombat. A dead god. A most peculiar epic.

Digger is a wombat. She gets lost tunneling through a patch of bad earth and ends up coming out through the floor of a temple to Ganesh. Things just get weird from there.

I found out about this graphic novel from this post detailing the Hugo award winners. Since Wombat Literature is a woefully underrepresented genre I had to check it out. The whole story is available for free online at DiggerComic.com. I loved it. I spent most of the week reading it. It totally defies description but includes gods both living and dead, hyena mythology, a feral demon child (my favorite), and lots of geology. I’ve never been a big graphic novel fan but this was great.

American Gypsy: A Memoir by Oksana Marafioti

Oksana, her sister, her mother, and father emigrated from the USSR to the USA when she was a teenager. Her parents were part of a Gypsy musical family. Once in the U.S. Oksana tries to adapt to fit in but her Romany family is fighting to hold on to the old ways.

This is a memoir of immigrants who do not want to lose their culture. Oksana is a talented musician but her gifts are ignored by her father because she is a girl. Her family falls apart after the move so she is trying to find her way. Her stepmother pushes her towards arranged marriages and learning occult practices so she will live like a traditional Rom girl. This book was an interesting and funny look at a culture that not many people are familiar with in the United States.