Manga Review: Naruto: Chibi Sasuke's Sharingan Legend, Volume 1, by Masashi Kishimoto and Kenji Taira

Rating (Out of 5): ~1.5

Publisher: Shonen Jump (VIZ Media)

Release Date: September 2017

Volumes: 3.

Spoilers?: Light.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. RightStuf.

Volume: 2.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Naruto’s rival, cuter than you’ve ever seen him before!

Uchiha Sasuke, the brooding loner who will do anything to avenge his clan and kill his older brother… Yes, this is his story, but with a hilarious twist! In Naruto: Chibi Sasuke’s Sharingan Legend, the characters and story have been flipped on their heads, all for the sake of comedy! With his Taka teammates Suigetsu, Karin and Jugo, Sasuke travels the land and gets into all kinds of wacky adventures. This is a side of Sasuke you’ve never seen before. One bit of advice: do not mock the Uchiha!

Elite ninja Uchiha Sasuke travels the land with his teammates, searching for his brother Itachi. Pillow fights, video games, Christmas parties… There’s nothing this ninja won’t do to avenge his clan!

Review:

This is a parody of the Naruto verse, featuring Sasuke and his odd gang, and later it even moves into the village with Naruto and the main people.

This volume was rough. I'm sure some people loved it, and I will admit that I didn't read much of the main series. But I just did not find this volume enjoyable.

It's made up of normal-length chapters with short comedic arcs. Sasuke fights a couple people, banters with his friends. He's searching for his brother, and finds him pretty early on. Later, he also goes back to the village and runs into Naruto and the original gang.

This was just not funny. It was more annoying and stupid to me, honestly. I will say that my biggest annoyance was how there was constantly a character pointing out how crazy or dumb something was when it was happening; it just brought me out of the story every time.

This was dumb, honestly. I don't want to read any more of it.

A review copy was provided by the publisher, VIZ Media, for an honest review. Thank you so, so much!

Novel Review: My Life With the Walter Boys by Ali Novak

Rating (Out of 5): ~1

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Release Date: March 2014

Spoilers?: Not really.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

My Life with the Walter Boys centers on the prim, proper, and always perfect Jackie Howard. When her world is turned upside down by tragedy, Jackie must learn to cut loose and be part of a family again.

Jackie does not like surprises. Chaos is the enemy! The best way to get her successful, busy parents to notice her is to be perfect. The perfect look, the perfect grades-the perfect daughter. And then...

Surprise #1: Jackie's family dies in a freak car accident.

Surprise #2: Jackie has to move cross-country to live with the Walters-her new guardians.

Surprise #3: The Walters have twelve sons. (Well, eleven, but Parker acts like a boy anyway)

Now Jackie must trade in her Type A personality and New York City apartment for a Colorado ranch and all the wild Walter boys who come with it. Jackie is surrounded by the enemy-loud, dirty, annoying boys who have no concept of personal space. Okay, several of the oldest guys are flat-out gorgeous. But still annoying. She's not stuck-up or boring-no matter what they say. But proving it is another matter. How can she fit in and move on when she needs to keep her parents' memory alive by living up to the promise of perfect?

The Cover:

I don't mind the cover. I think it looks a little too amateur, or maybe the people a little too average, not as pretty or crisp as it could be. But I think the title and the cover go together well, give the feel that they wanted, and it works.

Review:

I am so overwhelmingly disappointed with this book, I can’t even believe it.

I’ve heard so much love for this book. It won Goodreads awards, it was so loved, it seemed to take off before it was even published. It sounded like a fun read, possibly with a little serious. I did not expect… this.

I don’t even know where to start.

Jackie’s family dies, and she’s forced to move in with a friend of her mothers, whom she’s never met. And she finds out that it’s a family with eleven boys and one girl who acts like a boy (don't even get me started on that "twelve boys" statement). And they are all horrible.

Jackie, having gone to a private girls school, is very uncultured, and prim and proper. And immediately upon arriving, all of the children are terrible to her. The younger kids push her in the pool, the teenage boys harass and hit on her, two of the younger twins decide to video-tape all of her humiliating moments.

The amount of sexual harassment in this book astounds me. The boys are all huge dicks, with no sympathy for thinking that women are objects. They bet on her humiliation, making her leave the bathroom in a shower curtain and recording it. And then blaming it on her, which Jackie’s goes along with.

I tried not to, but I couldn’t understand where the parenting was. I have to be sympathetic that the mother, and the father, were clearly frazzled with so many kids, they could only do so much. But at the same time, it sure felt like the kids never learned how to be decent or courteous or polite.

Then there was the “romance”. At least one other boy likes Jackie, but she quickly falls for Cole. And Cole is not only a douche, but Jackie hates on him, while at the same time admiring his looks and liking his attention. I did not feel any attraction there, and pretty much hated them both the entire time.

Most of the other characters I never really felt anything for. There was only one other boy that stood out to me, and I didn’t really care for Jackie’s new friends. They just kept fanning over the boys and pushing Jackie on Cole.

Jackie’s family died, but I never felt her sorrow, her depression. She would mention and cry about it, but I never felt her feelings for it, it always seemed one-dimensional or pushed to the background. Not to mention that she had a sister, who was only mentioned a few times, like an afterthought.

I expected to enjoy this book, and am so disappointed with how bad it was. I don’t even think I made it halfway through before just skimming the rest of it, and it never got any better. I’m just done.

Novel Review: Never Cry Werewolf by Heather Davis

Rating (Out of 5): ~1-1.5

Genre: YA Romance

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 2009

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Moonlight can totally change your life.

And it all starts so simply.

You. Him.

The moon.

You're toast.

Okay, so maybe Shelby has made a few mistakes with boys lately (how was she supposed to know Wes had "borrowed" that Porsche?). But her stepmother totally overreacts when she catches Shelby in a post-curfew kiss with a hot senior: Suddenly Shelby's summer plans are on the shelf, and she's being packed off to brat camp. It's good-bye, prom dress; hello, hiking boots.

Things start looking up, though, when Shelby meets fellow camper (and son of a rock star) Austin Bridges III. But soon she realizes there's more to Austin than crush material—his family has a dark secret, and he wants Shelby's help guarding it. Shelby knows that she really shouldn't be getting tangled up with another bad boy . . . but who is she to turn her back on a guy in need, especially such a good-looking one? One thing's for sure: That pesky full moon is about to get her into trouble all over again.

The Cover:

The cover is all right. It has a very high school feel to it, which is fitting. But it also looks dark, like she's maybe in danger, which I don't think fits at all and is more misleading. An all right cover, but not for this book.

 Quotes:

• "Lost. Yeah, right. Why do we always say lost when we mean people died on us? Mom was not lost. And I’d spent the last three years trying hard not to lose myself. That’s what really happens when people die—the family left behind loses a part of themselves. A tiny piece. A tiny piece you never get back.” (Paperback, pg. 77)
• "Brave and fearless are totally not the same thing. Brave is like being fearless for an actual reason.” (Pg. 177)

Review:

I did not enjoy this book. I picked it up years ago, back when I would have enjoyed it more. Sadly I didn’t get to it until now, when I have outgrown these types of books.

I didn’t believe the character from the beginning. Shelby isn’t fleshed out. I had a hard time believing both that she was the type to help people, and that she wasn’t the spoiled rich kid everyone else she knew was. Mainly because those characteristics could have easily been swapped for something else and nothing would have changed. All of the characters were one-dimensional and none of them seemed real to me.

Which means that the plot didn’t seem all that believable, either. Shelby helping Austin because she’s nice didn’t work, and Austin telling Shelby his secret so fast didn’t seem realistic at all, especially when he made a big deal about not telling anyone and trusting her. Their attraction didn’t make sense to me, either. They look at each other, like, twice and supposedly feel a connection, when I felt absolutely nothing. And then Shelby was afraid of him being a wolf one second and then fighting her attraction the next.

And then the ending had no resolution. Nothing happened with her parents, Austin’s problem was mostly solved I guess, but mostly it just seemed like they were in the same position as when they started. Supposedly Shelby learned a lot, but I didn’t believe that.

All of the characters, including the camp setting and counselors, was hugely stereotyped, as well. The girls especially, and everyone’s problems, but also the therapy sessions and the fact that the counselors took away makeup and push-up bras. Every bit of it was ridiculous.

It also didn't seem very paranormal to me, the werewolf aspect was so small aside from the supposed fear. And I thought it was supposed to be similar to Little Red Riding Hood, and I didn't see that at all, either.

Nothing in this book worked for me, and I even debated on DNFing three times. I’m glad it’s over. To be fair, though, I probably would have enjoyed this more when I was in middle school.

Novel Review: The View From the Top by Hillary Frank

Rating (Out of 5): ~1

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Dutton (Penguin)

Release Date: 2010

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Eighteen-year-old Anabelle?s last few months in her coastal hometown are bittersweet. Instead of the quiet precollege summer she expects, Anabelle makes some surprising discoveries about herself as she navigates romantic entanglements and changing friendships. Through shifting points of view in seven interconnected stories, we glimpse the limits of how well her friends really know Anabelle . . . and how little she grasps about the way they see her. With wry observations and quirky humor, critically acclaimed novelist Hillary Frank gives voice and depth to six unique characters whose stories intertwine to form a complete picture of one shared summer.

The Cover:

I honestly love this cover. I think it's beautiful, the colors and the image of the Ferris wheel, and it even fits a scene inside the book. I do think it's beauty is misleading, though, because the book was not nearly as good or symbolic as this picture portrays.

Review:

"'That they can stay together. That they can be high school sweethearts and stay together. I just thought, if you’re devoted enough, if you never stop showing each other that you’re totally, completely in love, you can get through anything.’” (Hardback, pg. 121)

I’m honestly just disappointed in this book.

I thought it sounded really good, and I love multiple point of view stories, and the cover is really pretty. I felt like this was going to be a good book. And then it really wasn’t.

It starts out just kind of boring, as we meet the first character, the one who entwines all of the other stories. But then we meet the other characters, and find out that pretty much all of them are in love with her, even the other girl character, and then we get to the end.

I was just expecting so much more, so much more complications and twists and plot. Instead it’s all kind of boring. Nothing big happens. I didn’t understand why all the characters loved this girl, whom I didn’t really care for, and it didn’t even seem like she loved herself. The ending was okay, but nothing really happened. It didn’t feel deserving or satisfactory, and it kind of just ends.

I was just disappointed. I was expecting to like it, and instead I really didn’t.