Manga Review: Goodnight Punpun, Volume 7, by Inio Asano

Rating (Out of 5): ~1.5

Publisher: VIZ Signature (VIZ Media)

Release Date: 2017

Volumes: 7.

Spoilers?: No.

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

Volume: 1. 5.

Goodreads Synopsis:

A dark coming-of-age tale where slice-of-life slices back.

This is Punpun Onodera s coming-of-age story. His parents marriage is falling apart. His dad goes to jail and his mom goes to the hospital. He has to live with his loser uncle. He has a crush on a girl who lives in a weird cult. Punpun tries talking with God about his problems, but God is a jerk. Punpun keeps hoping things will get better, but they really, really don't.

This is the end, Punpun.

Review:

I missed the previous volume, and I could tell as I started this one, that I had missed some important scenes. We find Punpun in a very different place as this volume starts, and it only goes downhill from there.

Punpun seems to be struggling with his identity, with what his purpose is and what has been happening in his life. The story follows him and Aiko for a while, but then it also skips over to his old friends and what they're doing.

During all of this, we're also getting snippet of information regarding the politics happening and whether the world is ending and there are stars falling at one point.

This series definitely feels like a book I'd be given in college to analyze to death. I'm sure there's a lot of deeper meaning to everything that's happening in this series. (I'm sure not reading the whole series doesn't help, either.) There's definitely a lot of underlying messages, psychological reasons for why we're seeing Punpun in the image he is, how he talks differing from how other people talk, and everything to do with that ending and what led up to the conclusion of Punpun and Aiko's relationship.

There's a lot here, but honestly I think I just hated all of it. It's all deeply disturbing and depressing, and there aren't any even slightly good endings here. It's also kind of a mess to follow, and I don't know what's supposed to be real or metaphorical or what any more.

While I have found some of Asano's manga interesting, this was not one that I enjoyed in any way. It was not for me, at the least.

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

Novel Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Genre: Adult/Literature Fiction, Realistic

Publisher: Back Bay Books (Little, Brown and Hachette Book Group)

Release Date: 2010

Spoilers?: No.

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

Goodreads Synopsis:

 
To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world....

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

The Cover:

I really like the cover above, which is the one on my copy. I think it makes the emphasis on the title nice and clear, and shows the childishness of Jack, while all of the white gives an eerie or ominous feeling. There are a few other covers, as well, and I think most of them give a similarly good impression of the book. It's mostly the movie-version cover that I don't care too much for.

Review:

I've been wanting to read this book ever since it came out. I'm glad I finally got around to it.

Jack's mom was kidnapped by this guy seven years ago, but Jack is only five and he only knows this tiny room he's never left. He doesn't know what's beyond Door, and he doesn't know that he's missing anything. Anything he sees on TV, he knows is fictional.

Despite the very serious matter of this book, Jack is the one telling it, and he's a rather optimistic, cute kid. He's very smart for his age, but he also only knows the contents of Room. Everything else is fiction as far as he knows. Up until he leaves Room, at least.

I wouldn't say that Jack makes this book light-hearted, per se, but it does help. While he doesn't directly mention some of the things that happens, and a lot of things are merely said around him when they leave, it's always apparent that he's aware. He has an idea of things being wrong, even if he doesn't quite acknowledge them, or know what they are.

I really liked this book. Seeing Jack discover things is nice, even if some of those things are bad or have consequences. The ending was really well done, too. I wasn't sure where it was going to end, but the significance of that ending and where they are now, was really well done.

This is definitely a book worth reading. It was enjoyable to read, even if it was very sad at times.

Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Rating (Out of 5): ~2.5

Publisher: Random House (Vintage Books)

Spoilers?: No. (Or, very minor.)

Goodreads Synopsis:

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Review:

I found this at a local used bookstore, and thought that it sounded interesting. It sounded like something I would like, and after some debating (and a few trips), I got it, although I figured it would take me a while to finish it. Just because it’s not a quick, easy read that would capture my attention like some others. I took it with me to Japan, and it was the first book I finished. And I was expecting to like it more than I did. Which is a bit disappointing, honestly.

The book is about a boy who has a hard time dealing with people and understanding them. I want to say he’s autistic, but I’m not sure if that’s the correct term, the right… disorder or whatever. And I don’t want to be insensitive, or anything of the like, about it. Aside from that, some stuff happens with his parents and neighbors, which he wasn’t expecting, and didn’t react very well to. I’m not going to spoil anything beyond that, though.

At first I enjoyed the book. It was interesting and I liked the boy, found how he handled the world, or tried to handle it, really interesting, and I liked it. But then it got closer to the end of the book, and I wasn’t enjoying him so much anymore. He started showing that, whatever it was that he had, autism or not, he had a more severe case than I’d thought. (And I am going to assume that he has a more severe case, instead of my first take on it, that it was badly written and exaggerated, because I don’t know anyone with a severe case in which they can’t interact socially very well at all, but have only heard about it. And it might very well be like this.) I didn’t like his choices and how he reacted to things with his father and mother, and I was upset about them. But I am going to accept that he reacted that way because of how he is, how his brain works differently than most. I don’t like it, but I’m going to accept it and move on.

I did like how it was written. I see why it might bother someone, with so much repetitive starting and and’s, but I enjoyed it, and thought that it made sense, what with being in the main characters head. It added to the voice, which I did like. And while I didn’t like the character after a while, I did enjoy some of his smaller, clever little characteristics throughout the book, and the drawings in the book.

I don’t really have much else to talk about, I don’t think. That was the biggest thing that I had a reaction to. The ending brought my rating way down, and I am a bit upset about it still. Ah well.