Not on the list reading: "Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask" by Jim Munroe

Ok, so imagine yourself at the library in a cramped little aisle on your hands and knees looking on the bottom shelf for a book written in 11th century Japan that you do not actually want to read.  Then imagine that next to that book on the shelf is a book about a guy who can turn into a fly.  What would you be more interested in reading?  I'm going with the one called Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask.


I'm not going to say this is the best book I've ever read, but I am going to say I enjoyed it a lot more than the three chapters I read of The Tale of Genji.  That's not actually giving it enough credit.  This was pretty fun to read.  Flyboy was published in 1995, and it's a total reflection of its time.  It's all riot grrrl, anti-George Bush (the first one), let's dye our hair blue and pretend we're in Green Day.  Oh, and let's have a superpower, too, but not really a useful superpower; let's be able to turn into a fly.  Hmm.


The book follows Ryan, "Flyboy," as he meets Cassandra, who turns out to also have a secret of her own: she has the ability to make things disappear -- including cops' guns, an honorary diploma for George Bush (right on stage!), and even people when she has to -- and I mean disappear permanently, not some magic trick.  Ryan and Cassandra fall in love, of course, and begin a life of world-saving action-heroism that mostly is all Cassandra with her actual superhero talent and then a little bit of the fly.  A fly, really?


So, yeah, it's not the best book ever, but it totally kept me occupied and entertained, which is really what I think books are for.