Book Blog: Eona by Alison Goodman

Oh. My. God. I think I'm going to cry. This book was so fantastic.

Over 18 hours later...

Alright, everyone. I can now write a truthful review. I've learned from past experiences not to write a review immediately after finishing a book with an over-the-top ending. What will happen is that I will find all of these flaws only to forget them by the time I finish the book.

As usual, lets start with the cover. It's beautiful, true, but is that suppose to be Eona? She rarely wears her hair down (based on the structure of society in this book), so I don't think that the drawing is particularly accurate.

The content reminded me a lot of Beautiful Darkness. In Beautiful Darkness, Lena was all crazy because she didn't know what the heck she was. And here's Eona who doesn't know what her power is... Let me be frank. She was a mess. I was very, VERY unhappy with the book. But then the ending came along. And then I was the one who was a mess.

Here's the thing; I lie foretelling events in stories. And I was pretty sure I already knew how it was all going to end.  But Goodman just HAD to throw the reader a curve ball.  I loved the ending. Very much. So much, that I decided to give the book five stars instead of three.

But, one thing.

FOR YOUR CONVINENCE

Please highlight the below text (which is in white) to view my rant ^_^

I'm mad that Ido turned out to be the rotten person everyone thought he was in Eon. It just seems like a lousy way to get rid of Eona's other love interest.

But the ending was great. If anything, read it for that.

Rating: Five Stars

Book Blog -MANGA-: i am here!

Here's the thing; I don't usually do book blogs on manga. But I have a lot to say about this one, so I'm making an exception.

So, I came upon this manga by chance. I say the cover, thought it was pretty, and bought it. What I didn't know was that it was a T Ages 13+ manga. I'm used to reading Older Teen manga; it's much more interesting to me. But I already bought this one, so why not read it?

Here's a little background:
A Sunflower in the Shade
Invisible to her classmates, Hikage Sumino is and eighth grader with no selt-esteem. Her only friends are the visitors to her Internet blog. One day, the most popular boy in the grade suddenly talks to her. Encouraged by this twist of fate, Hikqge determines to transform her life.

...I don't think I've read a manga that takes place in middle school. Until now. Not sure how I felt about that, but I read it anyway.

This manga is a stunning piece of work. The drawings (I'm not sure if I'm using the correct terminology here, but you get my meaning) are cute/pretty and BIG! It was easy to determine what was going on, unlike those manga with the epic fight scenes where there's so much ink on the page that I have NO idea what's going on. Visually, this manga is fantastic.

The story line...I'll give it a B. Middle school drama isn't really my thing. It sends a great message, but it almost seems like a fantasy. Not many of the bully situations shown actually turn out the way they did. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish it was more realistic. Not that there's anything THAT realistic about manga in the first place, but still. I would have liked a more complex story line.

There's one more thing I'd like to point out about this manga. The blog. The main character blogs!!! Even though after...three years(?) of blogging with only two followers, she hasn't given up. That's really inspirational. It kinda reminds me of myself. I'm a blogger, but I don't think anyone actually reads what I'm saying. But I'm determined to keep blogging now, especially since Hikage had to blog for a year until she got her first comment. If that's what it takes (or more) then I'll keep writing. (Oh, and I saw the link to the blog several times in the manga and its actually a real blog! I can't read it. Of course, and the last post was made several years ago, but here's the link: http://emaema.sakura.ne.jp/blog/)

Overall, I'd give it an A, especially considering that this was Ema Toyama's first manga. I wish More mangaka could draw like her!

Footnotes: Mangas, Graphic Novels, and Other Pictue Books

I've become an otaku recently, within in last half a year. It started with an anime...

I mean, what's not to love of Kaichou wa Maid-sama!? For those of you who don't know, the picture is of Misaki and Takumi (they're in love!!! Not that you can tell by that picture or anything. And sorry if I just spoiled the story for any of you). After that, I found the manga (online, I could figure out where I could buy a copy in English). And then I branched off to other mangas. I read Soul Eater, Fairy Tail (one of my favorites!), Pandora Hearts (another fav), Black Butler, Special A...I won't list all of them. There should be a widget on the side >.> with a bung of the manga that I like list on it. It's not a complete list; I don't think I included some of the manga I read online for free, but you'll get to see some of the stuff I've read. 

I'm trying to branch out even more; so far, most of the manga I've read have English names (beside Kaichou wa). But I'm afraid to read it when I don't even know what the title means! I guess I'll have to conquer that fear sometime O.o Have you guys ever noticed that I haven't been doing book blogs on any of the manga I've read? There's reasoning behind that, y'know. Manga books are way too short and it's hard for me to pick out stuff that I DON'T like about it. Plus I'm not a good critic for pictures, which is why I tend to stay away from regular, non-manga books. That and the fact that they're meant for kindergarteners. 

What really bugs me are graphic novels that are written/drawn originally in an English-speaking country. Like, I haven't seen too many of those, but I know there's a graphic novel for Maximum Ride and Beautiful Creatures. But then they're listed as a manga (or at least in my local book store)which really, REALLY bugs me. You're suppose to call them graphic novels!!! A manga reads right to left, not this left to right nonsense. I guess some people who don't know the true art of manga would be drawn to it, though. Almost all my friends (or are they O.o)think it's WEIRD to read a book BACKWARDS. C'mon, people! It's completely normal to read boos backwards. Right?... Alright, maybe not normal there life. But it's normal in Japan, so deal with it people-who-think-manga-is-weird.

Well, I'm tired of mini ranting about how manga is t appreciated. I'm done. Bye, and don't hate manga!!!

Book Blog: Alanna: The First Adventure

Yup! I finally got to reading this book. For those of you who don't know, it's by the same author of Beka Cooper. I thought that I'd read the book that started it all. It's funny cause I kept thinking "Hey, that's  like Beka Cooper's story!" Only to realize that it would actually be the other way around. But that's what I get for reading the books out of order.

The cover first, of course. Kinda creepy in my opinion. I don't like her eyes. She's staring at me. Always. Gives me shivers at night.

The book itself is pretty good. I'm keeping this review short since the book is short (lame excuse, I know). But there were only a few things that I DIDN'T like, and I'm a hater. There's barely anything for me to hate one!

One, the evil ghost stuff. They kept mentioning that and I'm all like "AHHHHHHHHHH!" I'm a stickler for that stuff. Gave me shivers. And the demons at the end. They're suppose to be some big and mighty opponent, but they seemed so wimpy! I would have liked the big enemy at the end to have been something more...scary.

This read seemed to be...easier than the Beka Cooper books. Not that I'm complaining or anything; I got through the book faster than Terrier or Bloodhound. But that might have been because it looked less intimidating.

The book's too short. I could have read it in a day. But a good book.

Rating: 4 Stars

Book Blog: Beka Cooper: Terrier

REPOST FROM GOODREADS

The book is very...unique. When I started reading, I was immediately turned off, for a lack of better words. The diary entries weren't exactly the easiest to read, so right away, I was bracing myself for a long, torturous 500 pages. 

It wasn't as bad as I thought. The story itself was pretty good, though hard to units and at times. It's been a while since I've read this style of writing. The main character was one of my favorites; she wasn't outgoing or have an attitude. She was shy, but she didn't let that get in her way of becoming a heroine. 

What made me give this book four star instead of five was the writing style. It just wasnt to my liking. I know that Pierce was just writing like that character(s) should be (and I praise her for that), but it really bored me at times. And the intentional (though I think there was a typo in there somewhere) writing mistakes were driving me nuts!

Book Blog: Grave Mercy

I'm going to keep this review short. Just cause.

Look at this beautiful cover! For once someone got it right. They made the girl wear a RED dress (draws the eye to it, no?)!  And everything else is nice to. It's a very good looking cover, if anyone cares about my opinion.

Now, I picked up this book based on the cover, something that I rarely ever do. But I thought, "A picture says a thousand words, right? So I can probably look at the cover and figure out what the story's about WITHOUT EVEN READ THE BACK!" I thought that this book was about a girl of higher class, maybe a princess or a lady (I did know that this is a historical fiction), and that she was going to be doing some kinda fight (see weapon).

Remind me to never, ever, do that again. I think that not knowing what the book was about resulted in me not liking that book. If I knew it was going to be some romance-y nun novel, I probably would never have picked it up. To cliché for my liking (besides the nun part, of course).

I open the book and read the first chapter. So far so good. She's being forced into a marriage, nothing uncommon about that. But then, all of a sudden, BLAM! Suddenly she's part of some convent that serves Death like he's their God.

And then she's got to meet some super hot guy who he hates, but is so OBVIOUSLY going o fall in love with (which SPOILER ALERT she does). 

That's another thing I don't like about this book, the characters. I felt like there wasn't enough description, especially for our dear protagonist. 99.99% of the time, I couldn't remember her name!

But I'm going to stop ranting now because I really don't want to have to think about it anymore. Don't read it.

Rating: 1.25 Stars

Book Blog: Beka Cooper: Bloodhound

This book review is not going to be as long as I hoped it would. You will read below that I read the book in two parts due to personal reasons. The first part was written on April 5(?) and will be n the first 250 pages or so. The second part is written today (April 16, 2013) and is on the book as a whole, though there probably will be more on the last half than anything else. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm repeating myself!

April 5

So I kinda sped read through the last part of the book (for personal reasons, I couldn't read that particular copy of the book this past weekend). The beginning was much, much better than the first book, but I really don't know what happened at the end. I'll be rereading it after I finish rereading Grave Mercy.

April 16

As I said earlier, this book was much better than the first. What I didn't like, however, was the wide variety of characters. I couldn't remember them all! But thank goodness for the character list in the back; even though it was a pain to keep flipping back and forth, at least it was there. And the...canoodling was a bit of a surprise too. I didn't think it would be that type of book. 

The ending wasn't exactly the super-fantastic fan-grilling ending I was hoping for either. It's one of those endings where the author wants to make sure you know what happens to each single little character. I mean, I don't mind it THAT much, it's just that it got kinda boring near the end. Just saying. And then there was the fight scenes. This isn't just this book; it's any book with a detail scene that has a truckload of details. I get confused really easily with stuff like that, and that's what happened with this book too.

If you've read the first Beka Cooper book, and you thought it was decent enough, then read this one. I'm promise, if you're anything like me, it's a good read.

Rating: 4.5 Stars