Books like Shitty Horoscopes

A short review for a short book: Shitty Horoscopes is a collection of illustrator Amrit Brar's arch takes on newspaper horoscopes. And while there's a bit of a story can be gleaned through the chapter headings - running October to September seems to be a tale of love and loss - I can't help but feel the contents would be better ingested piecemeal rather than one after the other. That's not to say the pieces aren't worthwhile - they are, and the illustrations accompanying each dark rendering of the future are suitably grim - but they do run together after a point. Regardless of whether one believes in horoscopes or not, I imagine it's impossible to read the book without placing your own star-sign as the ringleader. In that way it's kind of clever - your interpretation will change based on whether you view the Pisces or the Sagittarius or the ? as the focus or not - but I must admit my reading sped up as the end approached because it seemed to be more of the same, only different. The end of the book contains a telling phrase, also the title of the blog where these pieces first appeared: the stars are in no one's favour. I suspect it's a better title - more truthful to the spirit of the text - than Shitty Horoscopes. I certainly viewed the writing as more arch when filtered through the phrase. Again, I really like the intent of the work, and appreciated the artwork. It's just that this is the sort of thing that hits hardest when discovered in surprising isolation, like a broadcast of the Shipping News. When gathered so closely, the impact diminishes.