I have deliberately, almost fanatically, avoided stories about COVID. The COVID era, I guess we can call it now, the stuff that happened, what people went through, during the early days of the pandemic, with lockdowns and social isolation and all that stuff. I was pretty traumatized by all of it, and it took me a long time to start feeling "normal" again, healthy in my mind and spirit, I guess. Just like psychological thrillers and stories about senseless hate, I just couldn't take it. This book began, I understand, as a serialized comic on Instagram in 2020, but I never saw it back then -- I'm not a big Instagram user. I can't remember how I ran across it, probably in the course of my job at the library. But it takes place in Seattle, where I live -- in Capitol Hill in fact, my neighbourhood. The story involves Rosie, Gussy, and Hissy, three characters who are living the reality of Seattle during the pandemic -- all real stuff that happened, though embellished somewhat (I hope). Police brutality, struggling small business, navigating relationships -- I never had to deal with any of that personally, but I guess I knew it was going on. This comic really illustrates those situations viscerally. The characters are mostly depicted as animals, or at least, human figures with animal faces. I'm sure that's some kind of metaphor or device but I'm not sure of the significance. I actually found it a little hard to keep the characters straight, maybe because of that but I'm not sure. Anyway Rosie is Gussy's employee and Hissy's roommate, and she becomes the fulcrum of a triangle that evolves over the course of several days. There are panels that are almost pornographic in their depiction of sex between the characters, but it is totally within the tone of the narrative to have those depictions. The internal monologues of each of the characters, as they work through all their struggles, are so real, it reminded me of how much that period was a time of self-reflection and reckoning. This book was painful to read at times, but I sort of gobbled it up -- it was really riveting. Maybe my fear of pandemic narratives is dissipating. ( )

Angus "Gussy" Ginzburg is the owner of Dog Biscuits, a small pet food bakery in Seattle, and he has a crush on Rosie Fields, his employee who is half his age. Their relationship and their relationships with friends and Rosie's roommates play out in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests and police brutality surrounding the CHOP Zone.

I'm not usually a fan of age-gap romances, but since the two are so messed up, this one develops with some pretty messy verisimilitude. And with all the chaos ripping through the book with the other characters and events, it's more a through-thread than the center of the book. There are plenty of moments of biting commentary and wicked satire, as well as some sex scenes sure to offend somebody or other. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Grimace, Timothée Chalamet, and other celebrities get weird and amusing cameos.

It took me several days to get through it, but I was always ready to return to it when I had the chance, and I look forward to seeing what the creator does next.

p.s., I could have done without the overwritten and defensive afterword by some friend of the author that whined about negative online comments the material garnered when it was initially published digitally. ( )