Penguin & House

nathandouglasdavis Dec 28, 2022

5

The penguin, Pen, tries feir hardest, but the owner, Hayakawa, rarely actually appreciates Pen's efforts. Each chapter basically consists of Pen doing human activities such as cooking or chores with great skill. And many of Pen's actions are fem trying to do something nice and/or considerate for Hayakawa. And many chapters end with Pen getting feir hopes up (that feir efforts will be appreciated) only to then have those hopes shattered. It's pretty cute. Not amazingly cute and a bit repetitive, but alright enough. There are some interactions with side characters that help keep things a little bit fresh. Some of the chapters also basically consist of how-to instructions on various household chore type things, and honestly those were pretty interesting to read (even if I have no intention of integrating the lessons into my own routine). Chapter 24 might be the first and only instance where Pen struggled with something and wasn't perfectly achieving everything fe set out to do. And chapter 30 has the owner be better than Pen at something (even as Pen is still very good at that thing--making pancakes). Pen doesn't talk, but everyone seems to understand fem effortlessly. This is a bit dumb, if I'm being honest. Also, there are times when the female penguin, Madeleine, isn't understood by the humans (such as ch. 22) and then also times when Madeleine is understood (such as ch. 40), with no explanation for what changed between those situations besides the author just having different narrative needs.