Manga Review: Real Account, Volume 1, by Okushou and Shizumu Watanabe

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

Release Date: March 2016

Volumes: 13+

Spoilers?: No.

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

Volume: 2.

Goodreads Synopsis:

UNFOLLOW OR DIE

Like many of his peers, Ataru Kashiwagi has found himself addicted to the newest social networking service, Real Account. But one day, Ataru and almost 10,000 other people, get sucked into the Real Account Zone, where they have become players in a series of deadly games. The basic rules of these games are simple—if you lose all your followers, you die in real life, and if you die, all of your followers die with you. As these depraved games decimate the players around him, Ataru must use quick thinking and his knowledge of Real Account to win each round and return to the real world. But when true friendship determines whether he lives or dies, can Ataru really survive when the only people he can count on are his Internet friends?

Review:

I’ve heard surprisingly good things about this series, but it still didn’t really stand out to me. But a friend told me to read, so I’m giving it a try.

Ataru was living in a perfectly normal world, even though a certain social media website/app was taking over everyone's attention. It wasn’t a big deal, up until him and so many others got pulled in to the virtual world and the leader—a giant-happy-faced fellow—started killing everyone and their followers off. And now he’s in a world where you have to survive and choose the right answers in order not to be killed along with the few followers you still have.

It’s a world where having real people in your lives is important, as well as how smart you are to work around the system. Ataru is doing his best, and he’s doing well so far.

I will admit that the happy-faced person can get quite creepy at times. And the games and deaths are rather horrible. But some of the emotions, or something behind it all, fell a little flat for me. The artwork is just okay.

I’m not hooked yet, but I’m going to give it another try.

Manga Review: Alice in Murderland, Volume 1, by Kaori Yuki

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Publisher: Yen Press

Release Date: June 23, 2015

Volumes: 3+

Spoilers?: No.

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

Volume: 2.

Wishlist Thursday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Now! Let the "Mad Tea Party" begin!

The Kuonji clan, owner of one of the world's top conglomerates, has a tradition: Once a month, family members attend a "Mad Tea Party." But at the latest gathering, the nine Kuonji siblings in attendance are shocked to hear a pronouncement issue from the lips of their mother, Olga-

"I'd like you children to now fight one another to the death!"

As chaos erupts, Stella, the fourth daughter, loses all reason, and suddenly a whole new Stella, complete with blonde hair and blue dress, comes out to play-!!

Review:

The Kuonji family is wealthy and held high in society.  They’re a big family, the parents whom have adopted a lot of kids after a tragedy.  And they have a tea part every month, which every member has to attend.  But at the newest gathering, the parents announce that the kids are going to have to participate in a battle to the death, until only the rightful heir remains.  Because they’re some kind of vampire creatures, and this is tradition.

I really, really wanted to love this volume.  I mean, Alice in Wonderland and Kaori Yuki?  How could this not be amazing?  How can I not love this completely?  And yet… 

I do like the premise, and the way it starts is interesting.  None of the kids are really family, and they’ve all got this hidden persona or power inside them.  I like the way that Stella, the main character, transforms into Alice, and she does not give a shit at that point.  There’s violence and murder and death and consequences, as there should be.  It’s Kaori Yuki, of course.

But then there’s the fact that the battle is being dragged out for a year.  Only one person has to die in each battle, and that seems unnecessary.  Especially since they’re all living together, and yet none of the kids are really showing animosity for their parents.  I mean, the parents are making them do this, and yet the kids don’t do anything?  They could kill their parents and not each other, right?

I also don’t really get Stella’s infatuation with her brother.  I understand their connection, but after he changes, it’s kind of ruined.  I see why she would try to hold onto it, but not why she does.

I have some problems with this, but I really want to like it.  I’m going to pick up the next one, surely, but I’m iffy about it.

Manga Review: Tokyo Ghoul, Volume 1, by Sui Ishida

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Publisher: VIZ Signature (VIZ Media)

Release Date: June 16, 2015

Volumes: 14.

Spoilers?: Not really.

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

Volume: 2.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Shy Ken Kaneki is thrilled to go on a date with the beautiful Rize. But it turns out that she’s only interested in his body—eating it, that is. When a morally questionable rescue transforms him into the first half-human half-Ghoul hybrid, Ken is drawn into the dark and violent world of Ghouls, which exists alongside our own.

Review:

Ken lives in a world with ghouls, things like zombies that eat humans, only the people aren't fully sure what they look like. Research for them is taking off, but Ken and his friends aren’t really nervous about it.

And then Ken goes on a date and is attacked by one.

I was surprised by his transformation, and his finding out what he is now. He’s human, until he’s not really either, but also both. Because ghoul’s aren’t made, they’re born. And his transformation is slow, as he heals from the attack and then starts craving human flesh instead of normal food.

His struggle with this is real, and perfectly understandable. And violent. That would be a hard thing to have to learn, along with the powers he’s developing. But while finding out about the ghoul world, he’s also trying very hard to stay in the human one, with his friends.

I was impressed with this volume. The way he’s changing surprised me, and I really liked it. The characters have me really intrigued—not only Ken, but also Touka, the girl he meets, and his best friend, Hide, who I believe knows more than he lets on or at least will soon.

I was impressed with this volume, and it has me interested to read the next one.

A review copy was provided by the publisher, VIZ Media, and Erik Jansen from MediaLab PR. Thank you so, so much!

Manga Review: Deadman Wonderland, Volume 6, by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5-4

Publisher: VIZ Media

Release Date: December 9, 2014

Volumes: 13

Spoilers?: No.

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

Volume: 1. 5. 7.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Framed for the brutal murders of his classmates by the mysterious Red Man, middle school student Ganta Igarashi finds himself sentenced to death and sent to the bizarre and fatal theme park/prison that has risen from the ruins of the Great Tokyo Earthquake—a hell on earth known as “Deadman Wonderland.”

Despite the loss of their leader, Scar Chain manages to defeat the Undertakers and escape, but Ganta and Shiro stay to fight on. Tamaki, the insane mastermind of Deadman Wonderland, initiates his next plan—the development and deployment of the Ninben, artificially created Deadmen, and Ganta’s friend Azami is one of his first test subjects!

Review:

So apparently they’re all still inside the prison, for some reason? I’m not really sure why? Because I thought they were getting out? What's wrong with them?

And then the prison spins the truth around to make the deadmen look horrible (of course, though not actually hard to do), and then makes the fights even more horrible and publicized.

Everything’s just horrible in this series. It's just terrible. I've resigned myself to it.

It’s revealed that Ganta is even more powerful than everyone realized, of course. And then he’s a huge jerk to Shiro for no reason, isolating himself even more, and now I really hate him. Ganta’s just undeserving of Shiro’s affection.

Everything is just going bad now, for everyone. (Was it ever going good?) All the deadmen are screwed. Ganta is a jerk and I’m not surprised that everyone turned on him, but I have no idea what he’s going to do next. I feel bad for Shiro, but don’t know how her revealing is going to go. 

The next one should be horrible in a good-ish way, I’m sure, like always.

Novel Review: The Snowball Effect by Holly Nicole Hoxter

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Genre: YA Contemporary

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 2010

Spoilers?: Not really.

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

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Lainey Pike can tell you everything you need to know about the people in her family just by letting you know how they died. Her reckless stepfather drove his motorcycle off the highway and caused the biggest traffic jam in years. Her long-suffering grandmother lived through cancer and a heart attack before finally succumbing to a stroke. And Lainey's mother; well, Lainey's mother hanged herself in the basement just days after Lainey's high school graduation. Now Lainey's five-year-old brother is an orphan and her estranged older sister is moving back home to be his guardian. Meanwhile, Lainey's boyfriend is thinking about having a family of their own, and her best friends are always asking the wrong sorts of questions and giving advice Lainey doesn't want to hear. As she tries to pull away from everything familiar, Lainey meets an intriguing new guy who, through a series of Slurpees, burgers, and snowballs, helps her to make peace with a parent she never understood.

The Cover:

This cove is all right. The image isn't too bad, I actually kind of like it--the colors work, and the image of the cups stacked and falling is nice--but I'm just not too sure how well the whole picture (or the title) represents the book. It also looks a little unfinished to me, a little not-as-professionally, including the font and placement of the title and author's name.

Quotes:

• "When someone wants to talk to you in person instead of over the phone, your mind immediately goes to the worst possible scenario. I guess it’s some sort of coping mechanism—if you’re expecting the worst possible thing, then whatever it really is won’t seem that bad.” (ARC, pg. 2)
• "Some people expected an infinite number of chances to disappoint you, and it just wasn’t fair.” (Pg. 61)
• "And in that moment I realized that nothing that mattered to me meant anything to either of them.” (Pg. 109)
• "'If everything turns out right in the end, then everything that happened until then was leading up to that point in time. Therefore everything that happened had to happen.’” (Pg. 228)
• "But how was I supposed to know what I really felt about something, when my feelings changed every time I thought about it?” […] “My feelings didn’t change on a day-to-day basis. They changed hourly. They changed every minute.” (Pg. 229)

Review:

I was warned when I started this that it was heavy on the grief. And honestly, I didn’t quite feel that.

Grief, and dealing with it, was definitely a main focus in the book. But it wasn’t really that Lainey was depressed, or even that she felt numb. I mean, I think she felt a little numb, but she mostly seemed to focus that into anger. And, honestly, I wasn’t convinced that she didn’t act like that on a normal basis, although maybe it was worse with grief.

Lainey was very bitchy. She bitches about everything, she bitches to her boyfriend, she doesn’t want to have to take care of her little brother. She just doesn’t want to do anything, at this point. Her life is messed up now that her mother killed herself, and now she doesn’t want to do anything.

I enjoyed this book, don’t get me wrong. The humor was dark, but pretty good. I found the story, and even the characters, pretty interesting. But at the end of the book, I wasn’t really satisfied.

I thought that by the end of the book, Lainey would have picked herself up from what had happened, of the way she’d been acting, and finally make a choice about what she wanted to do. But it felt like, instead, she just went back with Riley because she thought that she should. It didn’t really feel like she felt any differently about anything. And while I do think that Riley is the way she should have chosen, I’m not convinced that she felt that way.

The book left me feeling like she was in pretty much the same position as at the beginning of the book, and like she never really chose that because she wanted it or felt that it was right. She just did it.

I enjoyed this book, but it’s left me a little unsatisfied.