Review: My Girlfriend's a Geek (Novel, V1.0) by Pentabu

Rating (Out of 5): ~4 (Maybe ~4.5)

Publisher: Yen Press

Spoilers?: No. (There really isn't much to spoil, actually.)

Goodreads Synopsis:

This blog is a record of battle as dictated by a man with a fujoshi girlfriend.
Okay, that was a lie. I'm not fighting at all.
The war is purely one-sided. Each day I am dragged further and further into the world of otaku.
I cannot be held responsible for any damages incurred by reading this blog
and falling into the same predicament.
There is much otaku talk contained within, so please follow your directions carefully, and do not exceed your recommended dosage.

Review:

I finally got around to reading this. I think it took me so long because of the journal style, which I do enjoy, but seems to slow me down for some reason. But I only had a few books with me in Japan, and this was one, and I got through it pretty fast.

It is different from the manga, which isn’t much of a surprise. The story is the same, but this time is strictly in his head, and showing how he took everything that happened between him and Y-ko. There’s more to the story, too. Pretty much all of the book focuses on their relationship and her crazy antics, which are entertaining. But there was also a lot more romance, and cute scenes between them, which I enjoyed. There wasn’t… heavy romance or anything, just hints as to what was going to happen, but I liked it nonetheless.

There was also more… chemistry shown. More cute moments and closeness between them than was given in the manga. And it showed more of them at the beginning, how their relationship grew before they actually became a couple. It was nice to see all of that, which I hadn’t noticed too much lack of in the manga, but now that I kind of do. They were cuter and sweeter in the novel, much more than I was expecting.

I still like their characters. He is sweet and caring, and takes all of Y-ko’s antics. She’s enjoys bothering him and making him do things for her, which he complains a bit about, but overall enjoys doing for her. They work together well. He’s happy with her, very content to stay with her, which is obvious, and she’s happy as well.

(I think that, seeing all of the happy couples around me, including the family I stayed with, and then reading this book and seeing how well they work together, just… made me happy. A bit envious, to be sure. It just… fills me with happy feelings, I guess?)

The writing is a bit exaggerated, which at first annoyed me, but grew on me about half-way through. I don’t think it was all that more exaggerated than the manga, just that seeing it only written and not in manga-form wasn’t as good, and I didn’t like it much at first. (I don’t know if it got better, or I got used to it. Maybe a little of both. Either way, I enjoyed it.) I was glad, though, that it grew on me, because I wanted to like it.

This was just… really good. Better than I was expecting, and even than was hinted it would be at the beginning. I was pleasantly surprised. If you liked the manga (or didn’t read it, whatever;) then you should really pick this up. And I’m pretty sure there is another book to go with it, which I am definitely planning to pick up the first chance I get.


Happy Reading and Happy Birthday (to me and anyone else)!

Review: Crescendo (Hush, Hush, #2) by Becca Fitzpatrick

Rating (Out of 5): ~2

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Spoilers?: Vague.

Goodreads Synopsis:

 Nora Grey's life is still far from perfect. Surviving an attempt on her life wasn't pleasant, but at least she got a guardian angel out of it: a mysterious, magnetic, gorgeous guardian angel. But, despite his role in her life, Patch has been acting anything but angelic. He's more elusive than ever and even worse, he's started spending time with Nora's arch-enemy, Marcie Millar.

Nora would have hardly noticed Scott Parnell, an old family friend who has moved back to town, if Patch hadnt been acting so distant. Even with Scott's totally infuriating attitude Nora finds herself drawn to him - despite her lingering feeling that he's hiding something.

Haunted by images of her murdered father, and questioning whether her nephilim bloodline has anything to do with his death, Nora puts herself increasingly in dangerous situations as she desperately searches for answers. But maybe some things are better left buried, because the truth could destroy everything - and everyone - she trusts.

Review: 

I hate Nora. Hate her, hate her, hate her.

That’s, um, pretty much the biggest emotional feeling I have toward this book. Because I hate Nora, you guys. She’s just so stupid and irrational and practically emotionally unstable and immature and lets everyone get inside her head and keeps denying things even though they are staring her in the face. And she pretended that she was a nice person and stayed to do meaningless conversation with two different people that she was fighting with, for no reason other than they were in her path. What is up with that? It’s okay to just pass people, without saying something to them, okay? And she really needs to learn to trust people, Patch in particular, and especially when they have given no reason for you not to. And she’s way too caught in the fact that Patch can’t feel physical touch; he can still feel emotions! Get over it already. I hate how conflicting she was, too. How she would pull away from him and then want to be with him, want him to leave her alone, want to hate him, and then want him to tell her he loves her. And that no matter how much she would try to hate him and be away from him, at the first sight of him, she would stare and kiss him given the slightest chance. I just… I just want to punch her in the face or something, okay?

Anyway, this was the second book in the Hush, Hush series, and I had much higher hopes for it than what it gave me. First of all, I was hoping to see more of Patch and Nora being together and actually falling in love and all of that. What I got, was the two getting into a fight almost immediately into the book, and then Nora making dumb decisions and being angsty about it the rest of the book. And I mean the rest of the book. That was practically the whole plot to this over-four-hundred-page-book: Nora being upset about her decisions about Patch. She told him she loved him at the beginning of the book, after, like, two weeks (maybe it was two months? Not that much longer, really, and not showing any of their closeness to the reader at all) of being together and with showing no reason to why she is in love with him, and then they got in a fight. And he tried to make things better, did nothing wrong, but she continued to push him away and want him to make things better and come apologize (when he did very little wrong) while making it near impossible for him, because she kept refusing everything he was saying. It was beyond frustrating. And it was painful to read.

It really bothers me that they showed barely any chemistry or actual attraction, or genuine emotional feelings, toward one another. In the last book, there was the lust and temptation, and that’s pretty much it, and then in this book, there’s she loves him and fighting, no getting to know each other, no meaningless or meaningful conversations, nothing. Nothing at all.

I still like Patch. He wasn’t irrational or stubborn or trying to ruin their relationship. He was actually trying to help her and make things better, no matter how many times she ruined it for him. The one thing that bothers me about him is that he keeps trying to help her and actually likes her. Why? I don’t like her. He deserves much better than her.

There was a little bit of plot, aside from the relationship angst. (A little bit.) There was some drama with Scott, an old childhood friend of Nora’s, who is mixed up with the archangels and all of that business (also, Scott is described as boyish a few times, despite everything else about him and described about him that points to the opposite. This just confused me) (oh, and she called what her mother set up between her and Scott a ‘meet cute’. What does that mean? I mean, I got the gist of it because of context, but I’d never heard the phrase before. Do people actually say that?). There are some complications with Patch’s being Nora’s guardian angel. Some stuff happens with Marcie Millar (which, honestly, seems a little ridiculous to me. And much too dramatic. A little childish, even.) Again, within the last thirty, fifty, or whatever, pages, someone tried to kill Nora. (Someone who upset me, because I actually liked him a bit, even though I suspected as much.)

A lot of drama was brought up with Nora’s father. Which was kind of stupid, in my opinion. There was a bit of a surprising twist near the end of the book, which she totally overreacted to, but other than that, it just seemed dumb. Mostly because Nora never really thought much of her father, or felt any sorrow for him, until it was convenient for someone to mess with her mind about him, or because it gave a reason for her to do something about his death. None of it seemed like sincere sorrow to me.

Also, it still bothers me that she’s so easy. She has almost no willpower. She fights but gives into Patch much too easily, and then just about anyone can get into her mind. She needs to get a bit stronger, but I see very little chance of that happening.

The ending was a bit lame, too. Just like in the first book, not a lot of actual plot movement happened until the last fifty-ish pages, when someone tries to kill Nora and so she has to run and be saved and all that. It actually kind of annoys me.

So, yea, I really didn’t enjoy this book. I like Patch, and the whole archangel-angel thing interests me, but there just isn’t enough focus on it. I have the next one already, and so I will try to read it, but I don’t know how that will work out. I can really only hope that it doesn’t suck. And that I can get through it quickly, and not spend as much time on it as this one took. (But, really, it’s about the same size. Doubtful that I will get through the book quickly.)


Happy Reading, and Happy Birthday (to me and anyone else!)!