zine review:
Between Homes
Between Homes takes a look at what it really means to pack up your things and move from one place to another. As the author shares her moving experience with us, she shows that a house is never just a house. Like all things in life, one thing is always connected to another, and the author spins a web of emotions that tangles her old blue house with many other things. The blue house was a place of fun and suffering, love and hurtful betrayal. It was a place in suburban Oakville where she was supposed to give living a stable life a test run, but it turned out to be a place of emotional turmoil and unachieved expectations that left her feeling as if she’s been dragged around the entire world twice over.
The author’s narrative voice is consistently filled with emotion that drew me in to her experiences. She never just simply narrates settings or events and she’s more likely to describe her feelings than she is to describe the walls and floors of the house. The illustrations depicting the blue house and the author are messy–more aimless scribbles than solid shapes–but the art is wonderfully fitting. There’s a sad emptiness in how the author fills so little space when contrasted to the house.
Stapled between two pieces of thin cardboard, Between Homes is a moving box carrying thoughts and feelings. The contents of which took something simple and mundane–moving–and turned it into a story that is epic and life changing. (Terry Harjanto)
zine, Jen Pilles, 11 Ascot Court, Welland, ON, L3C 6K7, [email protected], $2 or trade