What are you reading in 2022?

[Gord]

Time for that weekly wrap up and my reading amount has returned to normal this week now that I am back to work.

-4 Stars
This was a challenge book for a couple of challenges hanging around that need an anthology book. I'm not really an anthology guy so I went asking for some recommendations and this one stuck out to me. This was a collection of 15 stories from different authors exploring Asian mythology. These stories ranged from ones set in ancient times, some in modern times, and even a couple set in the future. Like many anthology books this book had some great stories, some good stories, and some not good stories. I don't want to call them bad, I just wasn't clicking with some of the stories in this novel. Each story came with a little blurb at the end explaining where the story originated from and what it was based upon. There were stories from places like Vietnam, Philippines, China, India, Korea, and of course Japan. Overall I really enjoyed this book and exploring mythologies from other places.

The other thing I wanted to touch on was the narration. I was reading this while at the anime convention so I figured an audiobook would be a better option. There were a couple of stories that had a male lead so a male narrator was brought in. That wasn't the bulk of the book so I don't have a lot to say regarding this narrator. For the bulk of the book though there was a female narrator and her voice was this soothing and calm voice. It really helped add this layer of something special to some of the stories. It was also the kind of voice I could easily listen to. There was one little problem though. For those not so good stories her voice was so soothing and calm that I found it lulling me to sleep.

-5 Stars
The third book in the Immortal series and a great read/listen. I really like Daine as a MC and I liked the switch of location so we got to see some more places outside of Tortall.

-3 Stars
You can't see my face, obviously, but I am wearing my disappointed face just thinking of this book. Full disclosure this book is sitting at a 2.5 but I rounded up just because I didn't full on hate the book. This book is about a group of teens attending on a house party on a remote island. A storm comes up isolating them on the island when it is revealed that one of them is a killer... dun dun dun. I love thrillers/mysteries of this nature and if done well they can be very entertaining. This book wasn't so well done, in my opinion, and I was incredibly frustrated by the end. In the beginning I was enjoying myself and after the first couple of kills I was actively trying to figure out what was going on. Then something shifted and I just kind of clocked out through the middle section of the book. I think part of it was because of the first person narrative. I had quickly split the teens into two groups. Those associated with the MC and the "homecoming incident" and those the I dubbed "fodder". It was easy to tell who the final few survivors would be and who was there to simply add to the body count. The middle part of the book was basically the killer working his way through the fodder group to get to the climax. Then we get to the end of the book and things get stupid. For me the tipping point was when the remaining survivors decided to search the house to see if there was anyone else there with them. It was the statement "if there is no one else in the house then one of us is the killer". That is an excellent statement if the events set this up as a true isolation. The problem is none of that was set up. The author has taken us to various places on the island, has set up that there are multiple points of entry to the house, that the killer has been to multiple place besides the house. That statement is the most flawed logic considering there could be a killer hiding anywhere on the island at this point in time. This book also suffered from a lot of convenience. For instance there is one death where a teen dies trying to exit the house through a door. That door was trapped and they died. On the surface it works but then you realize the house had multiple entry points. The killer just so happened to booby trap the one door that the victim conveniently decided to run through.

More teens are killed and we get the big reveal of who the killer is. Now I didn't figure this before hand but I had clocked out a while back and was there for the ride now. Needless to say it wasn't that shocking. The killer then started to monologue and reveal why/how he did all the things. Big fight at the end and then the MC gets a happy ending with pretty much everything they wanted. Just bleh. I was so disappointed in this ending. The killer had to be able to guess what each teen was going to do so they could be at the perfect point to implement their themed murder. The survivors did some pretty stupid things as well.

-3 Stars
More from this series. It's not that bad and I can see how others might enjoy this series. The ending of six signals a shift in the story though and I'm curious to see where things are going next.

Up next:
On audiobook all the series I wanted to read have a wait list. This is inconvenient as I have to do a lot of walking next week. I decided to work on some challenge books to move some challenges along. Up first will be and then

For physical books I plan to read and . I'm particularly excited for Scum Villain as this will be my first foray into Chinese fantasy.

[Kayleigh {K-Books}, YA Fantasy Fan]

Haven't posted here for a while but anyone who read and liked House in the Cerulean Sea, I highly recommend it is such a beautiful uplifting book. I absolutely loved it.

[Elena]

@Kay thank you! I'm definitely going to check it out. The description is so good!

[Elena]

Recently I've been into almost everything :D manga, romance, fantasy...

- finished this manga and my feelings are a bit controversial. It started very good, the story was great, all the angels and new kids, the romantic line too, everything was great until it was not. I kinda lost myself somewhere close to the end and it became crazy.
- a great sequel and definitely a 5-star. But the first book was much better.
- enjoyed the book, the story and setting especially. I don't read books with some kind of war setting but this one was mostly centred around library, archives, politics, so I didn't mind.
- yep, still reading cozy mysteries and not tired of them :D Though this one is just avarage.
- a nice, sweet, cozy romantic story, ideal for a summer read.

[Kayleigh {K-Books}, YA Fantasy Fan]

Elena wrote: "@Kay thank you! I'm definitely going to check it out. The description is so good!"

It's so good. Probably my fave read of the year so far.

[Gord]

This will be a bit of a smaller update this week. I was doing a lot of walking this week so I didn't have a lot of time for reading at home.

-2 Stars
This was a challenge book to finish up an old outstanding challenge and oh lord do I regret reading this. Basically this is spun as a mystery that is solved with the help of ghosts which is kind of what we got. There are a lot of problems with this book and not a lot of good. That summary is about the only good part of the book and more often than not that plot line felt like the B plot. This book is split into two parts called "The Depot" and "The Library". From my understanding this was a short story and then the main novel that just got merged into one book at some point. The Depot was the short story and was told first. We follow the MC who is a cop investigating the death of a young man at a bar called The Depot. Problems started very early in this. The main suspect in this case is a young female bartender and this book does something I really don't like. The main male cop decides to investigate her in his off time to get a bead on her. In less than 12 hours they are all over each other and instantly in love with each other. First, I loathe the instalove trope. Second, I hate the cop falling for the suspect trope especially when done like this. The cop hadn't even cleared her as murder suspect and is already trying to get in her pants. Just how stupid of a cop are you? If she is guilty your case is now going to get tossed out in a second. It's just so stupid and I really hate this trope.

Then we get into The Library. This is set six months after The Depot, the bartender and the cop are now an item, the bartender has been cleared of all charges, and the cop has proposed to her. The mystery here is about a senior homeless man who was shot in the library. This case involves three generations of family and involves all these families in it. By itself it could have been interesting but it felt like this backdrop for the two MC's to talk about their relationship. By talk I mean complain, whine, and just generally waste my time as the reader. There was so much time of this book spent just talking about their relationship instead of the actual mystery. No joke, there were numerous times I groaned out loud on my walk because these two idiots just would not shut up. Most of the characters I could not really care about. The main male MC felt like the author realized she had written a perfect male MC and tried to shoehorn in some flaws which just made his character insufferable. There was a slight twist in this section of the story that I saw coming from a mile away. As a story it was just not a great experience but wait, there is more.

I listened to this as an audiobook which leads me to the other insufferable aspect of this book, the narrator. I really try not to judge a book by its narrator but this book was made so much worse by the narration in my opinion. Long story short the narrator for this book was flat, monotone, and lifeless. I'm not sure if the narration made the bad book worse or if the bad book made the narration worse. It's so hard to get into this passionate scene where the MC's are confessing their feelings for each other and the narrator sounds like he is reading a training manual on how to clean lint from a dryer trap. Just.... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

-4 Stars
This was the other book that I read this week. This was a me book and I had to get it read so I could get it back to the library in time. This is a book inside of a book in some ways. Our MC is a fan of this long running webnovel series. After the conclusion of the story he ends up dying and waking up as the villain of the webnovel series. In some ways this book was what I was expecting and in so many other ways it was not. In the early 2000's I was a massive fan of movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, and others of that nature. Heading into this I was expecting something like that but in a Japanese light novel format. What I found was a massive learning curve that I still haven't fully learned. Those movies are more of a style called Wuxia and this novel is more of a style called Xianxia. There is overlap but there are also a lot of differences and please don't ask me to explain. In this book the characters are all cultivators which is a martial arts style where one gains enlightenment through meditation and cultivation of qi. The more enlightenment you gain the more power you have including immortality. This book doesn't really explain any of this though and treats you like you already have a very in depth understanding of what cultivation is. It makes sense though in a grand scheme of things why they don't do a detailed breakdown of it. Then there is the language barrier. This book was translated from Mandarin to English but all of the names in the book are of course still in Mandarin. There is a hand dandy pronunciation guide in the back of the book which is helpful. The problem that I was struggling with is that Mandarin is just so different from English and trying to learn proper pronunciation while bouncing back and forth from one language to the other was short circuiting my brain. Eventually I settled into this flow where some things got pronounced "properly" and other things got butchered. This isn't even touching on all the honorifics, and titles that are included in this novel either.

As for the book itself I rather enjoyed it. Seeing the MC try to change the outcome of this book while operating within a strict set of rules imposed by "The System" which is this AI voice in his head. There is an obvious budding romance that the MC is oblivious to. There are elements of comedy and action sprinkled throughout. Then there is the final chapter. Leading up to this point things were more or less going as I expected. Now there were teases at a twist and I was trying to piece together exactly what was happening and what that twist was going to be. I was not prepared for the bombshell that was dropped in the final chapter and this twist came right out of left field. I finished this book a couple of hours ago and I'm still sorting through what it all means and asking questions. I'm definitely planning to read more not only in this trilogy but from this author and this genre.

Currently I'm listening to which has been a riveting read so far and I might have this done tomorrow. I've only got a couple hours left on it currently. After that is some challenge books I need to get finished up. I'm going to be listening to and

For normal books I have to tackle and several manga.

[Gord]

Maybe I should have waited until this morning to do my weekly update. I had no plans to finish this book this morning, it just kind of happened. I figured I'd do an update post now instead of waiting a week to talk about this book.

-4 Stars
This was a recommendation to me to help fill my week of walking. This book is about some people trying to get home for Christmas. They get to the Newark airport and essentially end up stranded as all flights are cancelled due a massive blizzard rolling in. Five people end up getting a SUV so they can drive and make it home for the holidays. Part of the way into the trip the MC realizes that the other four are not actually friends and that all five of them are strangers. This set up for a book really intrigued me as it's essentially a moving locked room mystery. This book had some good points, some nitpicks, and then there is the ending. I'm not going to say the end fell on it's face but it definitely stumbled in my opinion but more on that later. I really enjoyed all the setup for this book. For me there was no obvious person sitting in the corner twirling their mustache cackling to themselves. I can understand why tempers flared and snippy comments were made. It's a stressful situation for these five characters who don't know each other and that isn't factoring in the meddling of the bad person. That is also not factoring in the fact that these five people are strangers who essentially just met.

Then we have the nitpicks. The author did a great job casting everyone in a suspicious light and they even added in some potential external threats from outside the vehicle. These were also interesting but they also kind of fell on some tired tropes/stereotypes. These threats came from the scary back woods redneck and working man characters. As some one who has encountered people like this in his life I understand the trope but I still feel it's abused. The other big nitpick I have is the blizzard itself. Yes, I'm pulling out the stereotypical Canadian card here. I grew up in Northern BC and live in the middle of Alberta. I haven't seen the absolute worst of winters but I've seen some stuff in my life. Seeing characters freaking out about an inch of snow on the ground just cracks me up. "Oh no an inch of snow. How can we ever get anywhere or do anything?" Yes, I understand that different parts of the continent get different types of weather and everyone is used to different kinds of extremes but come on it's an inch of snow.

Now for the ending. Don't worry I'm going to put this behind a spoiler wall for those who might want to read this. As I mentioned above the ending wasn't "bad" per say but I felt that there was a lot of things let unanswered. Don't read the spoiler if you don't want to know the ending or you don't want to see someone vent a bit. Overall I liked the book even if the ending stumbled a "bit".

(view spoiler)[
Did the author forget to end this book? There are just so many unanswered questions and plot lines at the end of this book. It feels like the author essentially got the MC where she needed to be and just dropped everything else. What happened to Kayla? What happened to the other two characters? What was up with yellow hat hitchhiker guy? What happened to Chris and his father? What was Josh's plan? Did he have a plan? Why did the MC's parents divorce? What about Zari? How the heck did yellow hitchhiker guy show up exactly where they were? Why was Kayla in the SUV? Was anyone charged after the events of the book? There are just so many unanswered questions.

This is a book that could have used an epilogue so bad. It could be a month later, Harper and Mira could meet up at the airport going back to Cali and Harper could narrate what happened after the end of the book. It sounded like there was something between her and Brendan. Maybe they hooked up in the time since. The reader could then find out what happened. Maybe they found Kayla frozen in a snow drift a mile up the road. Brendan is facing charges of some kind, Harper's dad is doing time for embezzlement, what ever. Just go through and wrap up all those hanging thread points.
(view spoiler)[

Now I have some more reading to get to. (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Brittany]

Love hearing that you enjoyed Lauren Graham's book Jo. The Librarian Spy is another one I want to read so looking forward to your thoughts

[Brittany]

Gord for your updates, too bad about Ten. So much potential, so little follow through. The Asian Myth anthology book sounds fun, I'm not usually a huge anthology lover either though.
Hate when you get a bad narrator for audiobooks. Can make a book so much worse. Or the other way around, when there's an excellent one can make a book that much better. Sounds like The Library was terrible though.
I am intrigued by your comments on The Scum Villain. I can see how the Mandarin names and all those honorifics would be confusing. But it sounds interesting.
Too bad about the ending for Five Total Strangers, lack of wrap up isn't ideal. Sounds like a well set up book though and glad you mostly enjoyed it.

[Brittany]

Elena nice update! I keep meaning to read Ink and Bone but I never get around to it. Good to know you enjoyed it!

[Brittany]

As for me I recently finished enjoyed it a lot. Still think the first book in the trilogy was the best. This though was a satisfying conclusion to the series. I am hoping for a spin off.

Just started barely into it yet so very unsure what to think.
On audio I am listening to and its alright. Not loving it as much as I hoped so far but only 1/4 or so of the way done.

[Jo]

Brittany wrote: "Love hearing that you enjoyed Lauren Graham's book Jo. The Librarian Spy is another one I want to read so looking forward to your thoughts"

It's one of my most anticipated books of the year, so I'm hoping I enjoy it!

[Kayleigh {K-Books}, YA Fantasy Fan]

I really liked Empire of the Vampire Britt. It is very slow going but I really really enjoyed it.

[Kayleigh {K-Books}, YA Fantasy Fan]

I just read in one day. My copy came early and I absolutely devoured it. So good. I loved it more than The Love Hypothesis

[Liliana, YA Paranormal Lover]

I read this one a week or two ago and I really enjoyed it. This takes place in the same world as Space Janitor, but follows different characters and it has spies, so that was fun.

Another spy book, this one by Jennifer Estep and I loved it! It takes place mostly in one evening, which I really enjoyed. It makes for an action-packed book. But Jennifer always delivers on the fun action. Lol.

And a couple days ago I finished this one, which I also really enjoyed! Another nonfiction book about horror movies. Lol. It was really interesting and included some movies I didn't even realize were inspired by true events.

[Brittany]

Kayleigh {K-Books} wrote: "I really liked Empire of the Vampire Britt. It is very slow going but I really really enjoyed it."

Both you and Laura liking it so much means I should too. So I am hopeful for it

[Brittany]

Which movies interested you the most in that book Lili? Which were surprises about being inspired by real events?

[Kayleigh {K-Books}, YA Fantasy Fan]

Brittany wrote: "Kayleigh {K-Books} wrote: "I really liked Empire of the Vampire Britt. It is very slow going but I really really enjoyed it."

Both you and Laura liking it so much means I should too. So I am hopef..."

How are you reading it? I read it part physical, part audiobook. The audiobook is fantastic.

[Liliana, YA Paranormal Lover]

Brittany wrote: "Which movies interested you the most in that book Lili? Which were surprises about being inspired by real events?"

There are a couple older movies that I added to my to watch list that I hadn't heard before, they're both slashers: M - A City looks for a Murderer, and Rope.

I found them all pretty interesting. Psycho, Texas Chainsaw, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Silence of the Lambs... I knew these were inspired by true events, but it was very cool to dive into the stories in detail. I especially enjoyed reading about Silence of the Lambs because that one is inspired by many different serial killers. It was interesting!

The Exorcist, Jaws, Poltergeist, and Scream are ones I wasn't expecting to be based on true events, but it was a nice surprise.

I love horror, but this book was actually hard to read in some places, mostly when it was talking about slashers, just because I was so acutely aware that these awful things happened to real people.

[Gord]

Normally I would wait until the end of the week to do my updates but I just need to purge my memory banks of this horrid book.

-1 Stars (it got demoted while writing this)
This book was just bad. It being short and free aren't even positive points for this book. The only good thing I will say about this book is that it's over. The summary of this book is that a women gets a stalker, everyone has secrets, everyone lies, blah, blah, blah. Lets start with the first sin. This book opens with a prologue that is literally the climax of the book. It literally spoils the entire book before it even gets started. Then it has the audacity to repeat the prologue when you actually get to the climax and then repeat it again but from a different POV. Where to start ranting next? Characters? Boring and shallow, didn't care for any of them. Bad Guy? Off page for over 90% of the book. Twist? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha, what twist? No joke, there was no twist. Plot? Boring, shallow, and again couldn't care about most of it. Sorry, trying to "review" this book is just making me angry. I want to yell at the narrator as well but at this point I think they are just innocent bystanders in this situation.

The one little thing that I can appreciate is the message about the dangers of stalkers and how there is little help from police in most cases. It's not a bad topic but everything surrounding this idea is just bad.

After this book I'm taking break from thrillers for a while. If it's something I know and enjoy reading(In Death for example) I might tackle but everything else is a hard pass for now.

[Brittany]

Kay I am reading it as an ebook. I do think the audio would be a better choice though! But I have too many excellent listens planned for the next bit.

Speaking of I finished and did love it. The annoying amnesia trope didn't last too long and the overall plot is just so good!
Started since my hold finally came in! Means I have to put off for a little bit but that's okay.

[Brittany]

Liliana wrote: "Brittany wrote: "Which movies interested you the most in that book Lili? Which were surprises about being inspired by real events?"

There are a couple older movies that I added to my to watch list..."

Very cool Lili! Yeah the realization that it actually happened to people does make it harder to read for sure

[Brittany]

Ooof. Gord that sounds terrible. You definitely need a thriller break

[Jo]

Brittany wrote: "Kay I am reading it as an ebook. I do think the audio would be a better choice though! But I have too many excellent listens planned for the next bit.

Speaking of I finished [bookcover:Storm Echo|..."

Can't wait to hear what you think of The Diamond Eye Brittany!

[Brittany]

Im in chapter 14 about 38% done so far of Diamond Eye. Enjoying it but not my favourite of hers so far. Was a bit repetitive feeling at the start. Still an interesting view into Lady Death.

[Jo]

The opening is a little bit slow, once you get deeper into her war years, things definitely pick up, and you don't get as much back and forth between the front and DC.

[Elena]

This week was full of interesting books, managed to finish some of them.

- a nice start to yet another cozy mystery series. This time it has food, alchemy and some romance.
- oh that one was so good. I've read it very fast and want to try some other books by the author.
- that was a re-read, I alway love reading favourite books.
- started a new fantasy series, not the best but good and I loved the narration.
- I loved the third book more than the first two. Here the MC are different and more interesting.

[Brittany]

Elena good updated as always! Food alchemy and romance makes a good mystery set up. I felt the same about the Bridge Kingdom series.

[Gord]

Time for that weekly update and I think I should start with an apology. I've had a couple random drops this week just to purge things from my memory. With the streak of frustrating books I took a week to retreat into some "me" reads. Combine that with a slow week at work and I have a lot to talk about today.

-5 Stars
Originally I only planned to read Devoted this week. I had been waiting a while for this one and my hold was finally available to read. Later in the week I was wondering what to read next and saw that Brotherhood was already available so I just snagged that. These books are great recovery/rebound books for me as I know I'm going to enjoy them. I love the characters and the mysteries that they are involved with. Devoted was the high stakes active killer with a hostage kind of mystery and it was a real page turner. Then there was Brotherhood. This is an example of a book that I love/hate. I love the book, the characters, the plot, etc but there are certain characters in this book that can go die in a fire and that is probably to merciful for them. The ending of this book was so emotional and I just couldn't stop reading until it was all done.

-3 Stars
This book is from the same author who wrote Didn't I Say To Make My Abilities Average In The Next Life?! Light Novel Vol. 1. Potions was their debut work when it was originally a webnovel. Abilities was their first physical print of a novel. This is a standard isekai kind of novel. Our MC dies due to an accident caused by God, God gives them a gift, and then resurrects them in a fantasy world. Our MC asks for an unlimited item box that only they can use and the ability to create a potion that will do anything she wants. This novel was definitely a bit rough in places but there were some interesting ideas here. I liked that our MC didn't rely on god like strength or earth shattering magics to solve their problems. Our MC uses their brain and is quite devious. It made for some interesting solutions to the problems that they were faced with. The other thing I noticed is the skeletons in this book that became elements in Abilities. I was reading through this and found myself thinking "Hmmmmm, this sounds really familiar". For now I plan to continue to reading this series.

-4 Stars
I've been working my way through this series and it was alright. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination but it wasn't blowing me away either. Something shifted in these two volumes though and I suddenly found myself engaged in the story and caring more about what was going on. I can't tell you exactly what changed but I just found myself more invested in the events of the story. I'm not sure if that will continue or not but we will see.

-3 Stars
Volume zero was available as a Hoopla Bonus Borrow so I decided to give it a try. I was intrigued by the story enough that I continued with the next volume of the world. For the most part these two volumes didn't really suffer from the usual Marvel problem where parts of the story happen in other books. There were elements of that but it didn't feel like it overly effected the story. This is an alternative universe Spiderman where Gwen Stacey is bitten by the spider and gets all the powers while Peter remains a normal boy. There are other changes with other characters as well. I was going to continue reading but the reading order got rather confusing. Volume 1 was 1-6, volume 2 was 9-13, there was a stand alone that was 9-15, volume 3 was 14/15, volume 4 was 19-23. Where are the missing chapters?

-5 Stars
For long time readers of my reviews you would know that I have a bit of a history with the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series. I've dabbled in books from the different generations and have a lot of nostalgia tied up in them. I loved them as a child and appreciate them as an adult. As an adult they are just a bit to juvenile for my taste. I can still read them and appreciate them but after reading more mature mysteries they just don't hit as hard as I'd like. I stumbled across this comic while browsing through the Hoopla Bonus Borrows and figured I'd give it a shot. This comic was something in the vein of all those Archie comics where it took a childhood series and made it more mature. For this series they took it down a Noir route and this was the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys I've been wanting for a long time. It still had that YA feel to but with a grittier edge and I really loved it for that. Fenton Hardy was murdered under a cloud of suspicion of corruption. His two boys are blamed for the murder and are being investigated for it. It's now up to Nancy Drew and the two boys to clear their name and find the real killer. This story just clicked on all levels for me. I also loved all the references to the original series. References that don't break the immersion of the story if you don't get them but if you do it's a nice little touch. My only bone of contention is that the series was never continued. It ends with the three of them solving the case but revealing a larger shadowy organization behind it all. The comic then hints at some of the members to then end with "The End. For Now..." I would love to read more stories in this world with these characters.

-4 Stars
I am still loving this series and all the wackiness that it brings to the table. The friends are still crazy, the romance is still sweet, and there has been some more backstory revealed. I am on now on the dreaded wait list for the "on order" volume 6. Maybe it will be here soon, maybe it will be a year and a half from now.

-4 Stars
This is a series that has been on my radar now for some time but I've just never got around to it. I recently discovered that it was on Libby and devoured the first four volumes in one day. This series, so far, is hilarious and I'm loving the sheer absurdity of it all. If you haven't heard of One Punch Man it's a riff on superhero comics. Our MC, Saitama, is essentially the strongest being in existence and he got there by doing 100 pushups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and running 10 km everyday for three years. As a result of this strength he can defeat all enemies with one punch. He joins the hero association and is placed at the bottom of the ranking because he failed the written exam but passed the physical part. I love the setup for this series and I'm at the point where I feel like we are starting to get a lot of world building and larger story arcs. I'm definitely reading more in this series.

-4 Stars
Another series I've been meaning to read for a while and I rather enjoyed this one. The title is essentially what you get. It's a slice of life comedy revolving around Komi. Komi is revered by her classmates as a goddess. She is beautiful, intelligent, athletic, and is also terrified to talk to anyone. Her goal is to make one hundred friends and high school and this is her journey. The friend personalities are of course all jacked to 11 to be as wacky as possible which makes for some hit and miss characters. Characters like Najima and Tadano are fun and interesting but then you have characters like Agari which has a masochist personality which is hit or miss depending on the scen. My least favorite though was Yamai who is this crazy stalker like character. I'm really not a fan of at all.

-3 Stars
A battle shonen series that is going to help with getting some vowels for challenges. This series is about people with special talents that allow them to negate certain things. For instance one of our MC's, Andy, can negate death meaning no matter how hard he tries he can't die. Our other MC is Fuuko Izumo who has the ability to negate luck. Meaning anyone that touches her usually dies a horrible and unlucky death. I love this idea of playing around with bad luck and how that can manifest. This series isn't the most ground breaking in my opinion but there is enough here to keep me coming back for more. That and all those U's that I need for spelling challenges.

-4 Stars
Yet another manga I have been meaning to read for some time. This became popular around the same time as Pokemon and stuff like that which means I skipped or it initially. I was at the right age where stuff like Pokemon was kiddie stuff and I was to cool to play around with kiddie stuff (aka end of high school). Over the years though I've been hearing about the differences between the NA release of the anime, the original Japanese anime, and the manga source material. For the time frame I wasn't really surprised that the NA release we a lesser quality version of the story. Anime that was officially translated in the 90's had a reputation for butchering the source material through censoring and localization. For instance in Sailor Moon there were two lesbian characters that were changed to cousins in the NA release (because incest is better than homosexuality??????). For Yu-Gi-Oh many of the characters were all given western names so that it was easier to understand. Reading the manga though highlights even more of the differences. For me I associated Yu-Gi-Oh with the card game that everyone played. That card game was only mentioned for two chapters in this volume. It might come back more later but it has barely played a role so far. What we have though are some crazy games instead. For instance a game being played on a hot skillet with a puck of ice holding a capsule of nitroglycerin. You lose if you cause the nitro to explode. No one really dies from the games that are being played but there are some seriously injured and disfigured people as a result of losing the game. I'm interested to see where this goes so I'll keep reading on.

Again, apologies for the long post folks. I just read a lot this week and had a lot to talk about.

As for what is next I'm not really sure. I know on audiobook I'm listening to . Outside of that I have some stuff library stuff I need to deal with that I was supposed to be working on this week.

[Liliana, YA Paranormal Lover]

Glad to hear you're enjoying One Punch Man, Gord! I watched the anime a while back and it was just silly and fun and I really liked it!

[Liliana, YA Paranormal Lover]

As for me, I don't read nearly as much as you guys in a week, but here's a little bit of an update anyway lol

For a while now I've been watning to re-read this series, and I finally made it happen! I devoured the first two books earlier this week, and yesterday I started Venom and thoroughly enjoying it too. Lol. I might finish that one today and start on book 4.

I also started this one and only made it two chapters in before Gin Blanco took over my life 😆 I'll get back to it one of these days lol

[Brittany]

Gord no need to apologize! We enjoy your updates!
Yay for more In Death. The Potions one sounds interesting, I too like the idea of using brains instead of god-like power. Super weird about the chapters for Spider-Gwen. The Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys comic sounds fun! I may have to look for that one myself. I had never had interest in reading the Yu-Gi-Oh manga but you just peaked my interest with how different it is. I also didnt watch a ton of it but saw a bit here and there.

[Brittany]

Lili awesome! Enjoy your reread. I swear one day I will actually read book 1 in that series...

[Gord]

Brittany wrote: "Gord no need to apologize! We enjoy your updates!
Yay for more In Death. The Potions one sounds interesting, I too like the idea of using brains instead of god-like power. Super weird about the cha..."

That was easily one of the longest updates I think I've ever posted outside of challenge stuff. I nearly used up all the characters allowed for a post. For the Potions one it is interesting but it's rough. It falls into the mid to low tier light novels that are every where. It's not horrible but it's far from great. Funa in general isn't a strong author and that is coming from someone who enjoys the Abilities series.

If you are a fan of Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys then I would highly recommend checking out that comic.

As for Yu-Gi-Oh I can relate to the never having interest in it. It was only when I started hearing about the darker story elements in the manga that I started getting interested. Even though I enjoy the manga I have no plans to check out any of the other media like anime or what not. If I like the rest of the series I might check out some of the spin off manga but that is a ways off at this point.

[Brittany]

Totally fair, Ill probably never get to reading the Potions one. But I do like the concept.

I enjoyed Nancy Drew as a kid.

Yeah I wouldnt bother watching the anime, especially if you want the darker elements. Ill see how you like it after more volumes and decide from there if its worth me pursuing the manga

[Elena]

@Gord I like your updates and there is always something to add to the TBR after :D

@Lili that Steampunk series sounds nice, hope you can get back to the book soon.

[Brittany]

I finished while not my favourite of hers I still quite enjoyed it.

Going to start !!

[Jo]

Brittany wrote: "I finished while not my favourite of hers I still quite enjoyed it.

Going to start !!"

Out of interest Brittany which one is your favourite of Kate Quinn's? Mine is The Rose Code so far, though I still haven't read The Huntress or any of her Rome books.

[Brittany]

Ive read all of her books but one, The Lion and the Rose, which I still just need to go get a copy of.
But my favourite is The Rose Code. I did love her Rome books also and The Alice Network. I still think The Huntress is her weakest book

[EdenB15]

I’m reading truth by told by sue divin. She lives like 2hrs away from me so thats p cool

[Jo]

Brittany wrote: "Ive read all of her books but one, The Lion and the Rose, which I still just need to go get a copy of.
But my favourite is The Rose Code. I did love her Rome books also and The Alice Network. I sti..."

I will keep my expectations low for The Huntress then!

[Brittany]

I would. Some people have loved it but I wasn't one of them.

[Jo]

Brittany wrote: "I would. Some people have loved it but I wasn't one of them."

I'm looking forward to her next one, The Phoenix Crown with Janie Chang, everything I've read from her so far has been WWII era so it will be interesting to see how she does with a different time period.

[Brittany]

Oooo I hadn't even looked to see what her next one was yet. Thats exciting.
I am always a little worried when authors write together though. Sometimes its amazing, other times disjointed. Hope they can blend their writing together! I havent read any of Chang's works yet

[Jo]

I just happened to see the announcement about a month or so ago. I've not read a huge number of co-written books, so I'm intrigued to see how it works!

[Kayleigh {K-Books}, YA Fantasy Fan]

I got over my slump FINALLY in August.

Throughout the month I read:


My favourites were definitely Love on the Brain and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

[Jo]

Yay for getting over your reading slump Kay!

[Liliana, YA Paranormal Lover]

I'm so glad you got over your slump! They're the worst! I've been hearing nothing but good things about Ali Hazelwood's books, so I'm glad to hear you loved this one! Maybe one day when the rare mood to read a contemporary strikes, I'll pick up one of these. Lol.

[Brittany]

Finished and loved it. Such a good conclusion to Catalina's books. Hope we one day get more in this world!

Started on audio for something completely different. Enjoying it so far although I don't think I remember any names.

[Gord]

Let me know how the audio is for The First Step. I was eyeballing it a while ago before I started listening to audiobooks but passed over it because I could only get it in audio format. Now that I am listening to audiobooks it could be potential new series me in the future.