Tales From the Inner City.

Can you believe it?  I got this book last year as an Early Reviewers book ( I bet you thought I was going to say... "Can you believe it? She's writing!"). 
Yeah... I know.  It has been too long since last I wrote.  But really, I was just so engrossed in my new projects, and in my new library.  It was overwhelming!   I mention all of this because 2019 (Happy New Year!)  is a new start for me.  I have been ultra-focused on reading a lot without putting too much thought into the process, and I have now applied the brakes.  It isn't easy to stop.  I have this compulsive and passionate drive to just read, read, read!  But after I opened this book to it's first story, I realized I couldn't just consume this book. 
 I am no stranger to Shaun Tan.  I have loved his books for years, so getting this one to review was a tremendous gift and an extraordinary privilege.  I paused after every story, even deciding to go back and re-read  Tales From the Outer Suburbs just because I thought it was a set.   Which it is as far as Tales go.  It was like a warm up I suppose for the main event.   Inner City is so much more.   I think that this is the kind of book that you can go back to and get more from than you got the first time around. 
These stories can be put up there with the greatest... Ray Bradbury.  The words paint such intense and abstract pictures in your mind, and, even knowing his art, I was often surprised by his own artistic interpretation of what his words have wrought.  I admit I don't know enough about his process.  Does he paint the pictures first and then write the story or is it the other way around? 
However it is done, I recommend that you do what I did, and resist looking through the book first.  Just take it one story and one picture at a time for a sublimely surreal experience.