Currently reading
Steal the Sky: The Scorched Continent Book One
Horizon (Bone Universe)
Anger Is a Gift
Danganronpa -The Animation- Volume 1
A decent summary of the game, with a little bit of original content. I highly advise playing the game first, though, because this will take all the fun of solving the mysteries right out it.
NG Life, Volume 9
Overall, I really enjoyed this earlier work from the author of [b:Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 1|27406734|Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 1|Mizuho Kusanagi|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469276222s/27406734.jpg|13363389], which is one of my current favorite manga series. This work is more of a romantic comedy at first, but later on it becomes more serious. The main character is Keidai, a teenage boy who has the memories of his past life as Sirix, a warrior of Pompeii. The only problem is that no one else seems to remember their past lives. His male best friend from Pompeii is now his female best friend, Mii, and his beloved wife from Pompeii, Serena, is now the boy next door, Yuuma. Romantic comedy hijinx ensue as Keidai tries to sort out his own vs. Sirix's feelings. It's kind of a silly concept, but I still got attached to the characters and loved how the author fleshed out the story of the characters in both the past and present.
SPOILER ALERT!
Dengeki Daisy , Vol. 16
This was a really cute series overall. I enjoyed it as fluffy fun. Extra star for the flashback stories about her brother, and the future stories showing Akira becoming a regular part of their group.
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life
WOW.Maybe it came to me at the right point in my life. I don't know. But this book touched me really deeply, and I found myself in tears at several points.
The writing is lyrical and the chapters are short, so the story feels like a series of vignettes, small peeks into the lives of the characters. There's not really a cohesive plot beyond the main character and his best friends growing up and dealing with life. But the way it all comes together is beautiful. This is the story of three friends coming of age, finding love and family, dealing with tragedy, and hope. Whistling in the dark, to keep the darkness at bay.
Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: Wild Card
It's the Dresden Files, so of course it's great seeing the characters I love from the novels. The story was good, the characters felt true to their novel versions, and it kept my interest. I would have rated this 4 stars for the original story, but I have to subtract a star for some of the art. The character designs look fine, but there were a few 'anatomy fails' in the artwork, including some poses that looked back-breaking and painful. The ending felt a bit rushed and somewhat anti-climatic considering the build up to that point. But still, I overall enjoyed the comic as a side story in the Dresden universe.Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Zodiac Starforce #1
In this Western magical girl comic, best described as Sailor Moon meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we skip all the origin story stuff, and are instead presented with a team of four magical girls -- Emma, Kim, Savanna, and Molly -- who have already saved the day. They previously fought and sealed away the great evil they were meant to defeat, and the four girls are now retired from the fighting evil game, and have disbanded to live out their normal high school lives. Of course, a new wave of strange monsters and a dire message for the team's leader Emma brings the band back together. Recommended.
Snow Crash
I can see why people love this book and why it's a genre classic, because it had some truly interesting ideas about culture, language, science, and religion, but ultimately the execution failed to compel me. I was frequently bored by the many infodumps and flat, dull characters. It also didn't age very well, and feels dated now in the age of smartphones and tablet computers with its clunky 'future' technology references. Y.T. and Fido were the only things I really cared about by the end.
A Day of Fire: a novel of Pompeii
Mostly the stories kept me engaged despite the impending doom. Well-drawn characters, and the interconnection of the stories was very well done, with the characters moving in and out of each others' stories naturally. As the stories progress, the time moves forward as well. As such, the first couple of stories, The Son and The Heiress, take place mostly before the eruption even begins, and are only tangentially connected to the eruption. The latter stories have their action more and more taking place during the eruption, and, well... it's kind of like watching the film Titanic; you know there is no way in which this can end well for all the parties involved, especially for those who chose to try and hide in the city rather than flee. My favorite stories were the Senator, because I loved the back and forth between the two main characters, and the Heiress, because I liked Aemilia's voice, and her slow revelation about Sabinus being actually being a good guy who she might love; my least favorite story was the Soldier, just because I wasn't terribly engaged by the characters.
Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy
Very typical Lackey, fluffy and easy to read. Incites all sorts of childhood nostalgia from when I basically lived and breathed this series.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
I had to read this book in high school. It was an arduous slog, since philosophy has never really been a great interest of mine. To this day, I don't know why we read it for English class, or what I was supposed to get out of it. All I remember about it was the shock therapy.
Eleanor & Park
My heart hurts. That's the only coherent thing I could think after closing this book for the final time. I loved this story about two teens falling in love in the year 1986, but the open ending left me broken-hearted, because I desperately wanted a happily-ever-after for these characters. Still, I guess that's what my imagination is for!
A Monster Calls
Ouch. Ouch in a good way, that meant I read this in a little under an hour on the bus ride home, and fought to keep from crying. Sad, painful, and very real. It reminded me a lot of the comic [b:I Kill Giants|6435893|I Kill Giants|Joe Kelly|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1356121155s/6435893.jpg|6625451] in how it deals with a difficult and painful subject.
