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Book Logging
Alichino 2 - It's been a year since I read v.1. I don't remember who any of these characters are or how they relate to each other. I seem to remember being confused when I read the first book because I couldn't tell the characters apart-- They've all got similar hair-- no-- similar Hair. It deserves capitalization.
There's angst and a whole lot of predator/prey dynamics. I think the characters aren't exactly vampires, but they're kind of close. This isn't one to read for the story, at least not for *me* to read for the story. I'm getting it from the library, so I'll go on, but I don't really expect to figure out what's going on beyond vague 'there's angst, and they all look pretty, sort of.'
Alichino 3 - I read this yesterday, and I have no clue at all what happened. My impressions amount to 'Pretty hair. Pretty clothes. Massive angst about *something*.' Okay, it's not quite that bad, but I'm really tempted to search for a website that summarizes the plot and has a full cast listing just so that I can understand what I read. The art's still pretty.
Andrews, Donna. Cockatiels At Seven - I was expecting silliness, and I got it. This is the latest Meg Lanslow mystery. A friend she hasn't seen in a while leaves a toddler with her. I enjoyed the family members running around, but the mystery was rather thin. I also kept thinking that Meg was insufficiently worried about the several days of work she lost. At the start of the book, she was worried about an important up-coming craft show and the fact that she had very little ready to sell. Then she spent several days chasing a toddler and trying to locate his mother.
Still lots of fun.
Andromeda Stories 3 - Wow. An actual rocks-fall-and-they-all-die ending. Okay, they don't all die immediately. Some get off the planet and *then* die. Then there's the twincest, completely canonical, and the start of life on Earth, and... Yeah. Not a satisfying ending.
This series lacked the things I tend to look for. None of the characters got any depth. None of them went anywhere interesting. The various revelations about what was going on didn't really matter to me as I read. Once I realized that the story was heading for annihilation, I wanted it to get there as fast as possible so that it would be over.
Oh, and there was a whole prophecy, chosen one (two) thing that didn't go anywhere. I'm not sure what that was for. Maybe the story was supposed to go somewhere else? Maybe it was meant to show people clinging to false hope? Damned if I know.
Only recommended if sweeping disaster stories that end in destruction are your thing. They're not mine.
Backstage Prince 2 - ::blinks:: That's it? The romance is kind of sweet, but the characters are thin. The story's even thinner. I was hoping for more about Kabuki, but I suppose the intended audience either wouldn't be interested or wouldn't need the detail I was craving. I think I was looking at this as a theater story more than as a teen romance, and well, the theater stuff is just the set for the story. Something else could easily have been substituted for Kabuki without changing the shape of the story much.
Beauty Pop 1 - This manga amused me. It didn't make me laugh out loud, but I definitely smiled. I think the conceit would wear thin after a few volumes, but I'm willing to go along to find out. The notion of competitive haircuts/makeovers is sufficiently weird by my standards to qualify as fantasy.
While I quite like the female lead, all of the male characters so far show signs that they could really get on my nerves if they don't develop as the series goes on. I suppose I'll find out.
Beauty Pop 2 - The wedding was sweet. The new character with his baby talk (which I assume represents poor Japanese) is hugely annoying. He seems to be meant to be, so that's okay, sort of. At least, I don't feel like I'm meant to like him and so am less annoyed with the writer for including him in small doses. The female lead's mother is also likely to drive me crazy if she's around a lot. I'll hope that neither of them end up with too much story time.
So, is there a rule that says that boys with dark hair and glasses are supposed to be calculating manipulators? It seems to be something I've seen several times.
Les Bijoux 1 - ::blinks:: Well, this tells me that I should judge too much by cover art. I was thinking vampires base on that. Instead, this story has Destiny. The hero is also the heroine. Every so often, the character simply changes form. So far as I could tell, zie can't predict when it will happen and can't cause it to happen. The character thinks of himself as male when male and female when female and doesn't seem bothered by that. I'm rather hoping that that will get some exploration, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
So there's an oppressive society with a small upper class that treats everyone else as property at best. The hero was born to a couple who were outcast from even the lower class. He (and she) looked strange, with darker skin and hair than was common.
Then his parents get killed. He acquires a spirit guide or two. The members of the elite are scheming to fight with each other. I suppose I'll see what happens if I ever find a copy of v.2. I won't be looking dreadfully hard, but I will be looking.
Cantarella 4 - I don't remember details beyond angst-pretty-angst. Everybody's doomed, doomed, doomed, aren't they? I'm trying to figure out if there's anybody who's made an appearance who's going to benefit from the inevitable.
Cantarella 5 - Sancia appears to have no common sense at all, just ego and malice. Of course, that means I could follow her intentions without getting confused. That's not true of most of the characters. Well, I could also track Juan's intentions pretty well. I have no sympathy for either of them.
The whole Chiaro in captivity thing was very pretty. Pain and pretty angst enough to bury mountain ranges.
I'm somehow not taking this series very seriously.
Chicago 1 - Conspiracy plots can be fun. I'm hoping that this one will be as I got the first two volumes. This volume is promising. The main characters are both officially dead. The rest of their team was deliberately killed when they stumbled upon corpses in earthquake destroyed buildings, corpses with bullet wounds. The heroine managed to hide herself and her partner. Some time later, they're approached with an offer of employment. They do one job, retrieving the victim of a kidnapping, in this volume.
There are hints that there's a major conspiracy going on. The characters have no idea what the mysterious killers want but are sure that the kidnapping relates to the killings that almost got them killed. There's some classical music involved, too.
There's a bit of a love triangle involved. I'm hoping it won't last, though. The heroine is very attracted to her partner who has his own lover and never sees the heroine that way at all. This volume introduced a mysterious guy who the heroine finds fascinating, and I think there may be a romance there eventually. I suppose I'll find out.
Culdcept 1 - Fairly unoriginal concept, mildly amusing execution. The series gets a few points for having a female main character. It loses points for focusing on combat using magical cards. The villains are utterly gross and seem relatively uncomplicated. I'll read more if I happen upon it, but I won't look very hard.
D. Gray-man 2 - I know I read this. I know there was heartbreak over the doll and the human it cared for. There was fighting, too. I'm not sure I remember anything else. I'd like to because I remember having fun.
D. Gray-man 3 - I expect that it says something about me that I now want to abandon the characters I've met so far to get the further adventures of the woman with the clock. I'm pretty sure she's not going to be a major player (though I think she'll turn up again).
Okay, I'm also interested in the apocalyptic plot arc. None of the characters are yet grabbing my attention and making me desperate to know what happens to them. I also find myself a little bewildered by the occasional wacky, comic relief stuff. It jolts me.
Dragon Knights 2 - I liked this volume better than the first and regret that I don't have the third volume available (I have 4-6 waiting). The first part of the volume didn't work so well because I'd forgotten parts of v.1 and had never learned to tell the characters apart anyway. The volume took off for me when it started doing episodic flashbacks to show who the characters are and how they came to be together. I don't usually like that sort of thing, but these worked for me. I understand why they didn't come first, but I think that I'd have been better off.
Eden 3 - This volume has exceeded my threshold for gore and violence. I couldn't finish this volume as too many people were getting gradually blown to bits. I'm putting the series aside for now. ::pokes at Wikipedia:: I very much doubt it's going to get less violent or less gory. Maybe I'll go back to it when desperate. I'm vaguely curious about how the story comes out. I just don't want to suffer through the details.
A fairly large portion of my aversion to seeing characters blown apart is that I'm fairly kinesthetic in how I read. When I read things I connect with what they *feel* like, physically. I can turn that off when what's happening isn't possible or feels impossible (hence my ability to read Arm of Kannon with detachment). In this case, I can't. I don't know what having body parts blown off feels like, but it's possible enough that my brain tries to take my body there.
Eternal Sabbath 3 - I waited too long to log this, but I suspect that it says something that, although my library has this, it's still on my BookMooch wishlist. Nobody's motivations are simple here, and telepathy isn't all problem or all solution. I actually find myself feeling sorry for the young telepath. He's a monster, but the reasons why he is are quite understandable. That doesn't mean that he's not wrong to kill people, just... It's not simple, and that makes for better story.
Gadget 1 - Um... I've forgotten most of this. There's a kid who repairs electronics and starts finding odd things. I think. There may be aliens. I'm pretty sure there were cute little girls with secrets, but I wouldn't swear to it. I think I got bogged down in relationship angst that the characters seemed far too young for.
Get Backers 1 - I'd been warned that the manga version of this was full of panty shots and boobs, and indeed, it is. I mainly picked up the first volume because, hey, BookMooch equals almost free, right? I also picked it up because the part of the anime that I watched left me with a lot of unanswered questions that weren't answered by checking the Wikipedia article (sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't).
This volume left me feeling that Ban and Ginji rather deserved to have life stomp on them a lot. That's an impression that I didn't so much get from the anime (the anime has the problem that the first 2-3 episodes suck and should be skipped when trying to hook someone on the series). In this manga, I wanted to smack them multiple times. I didn't hate the characters. I just found them less than appealing. That might change if I read more, but I'll only read more if I find it on BookMooch or if the library suddenly acquires it.
Gin Tama 3 - I waited too long to log this, I think. I'm starting to track the characters, sort of. I'm kind of hoping for story arc that will let me get a better feel for things. Then again, it might be the sort of thing that I'm never going to quite get. It's still at the library, so I'll keep trying.
There's angst and a whole lot of predator/prey dynamics. I think the characters aren't exactly vampires, but they're kind of close. This isn't one to read for the story, at least not for *me* to read for the story. I'm getting it from the library, so I'll go on, but I don't really expect to figure out what's going on beyond vague 'there's angst, and they all look pretty, sort of.'
Alichino 3 - I read this yesterday, and I have no clue at all what happened. My impressions amount to 'Pretty hair. Pretty clothes. Massive angst about *something*.' Okay, it's not quite that bad, but I'm really tempted to search for a website that summarizes the plot and has a full cast listing just so that I can understand what I read. The art's still pretty.
Andrews, Donna. Cockatiels At Seven - I was expecting silliness, and I got it. This is the latest Meg Lanslow mystery. A friend she hasn't seen in a while leaves a toddler with her. I enjoyed the family members running around, but the mystery was rather thin. I also kept thinking that Meg was insufficiently worried about the several days of work she lost. At the start of the book, she was worried about an important up-coming craft show and the fact that she had very little ready to sell. Then she spent several days chasing a toddler and trying to locate his mother.
Still lots of fun.
Andromeda Stories 3 - Wow. An actual rocks-fall-and-they-all-die ending. Okay, they don't all die immediately. Some get off the planet and *then* die. Then there's the twincest, completely canonical, and the start of life on Earth, and... Yeah. Not a satisfying ending.
This series lacked the things I tend to look for. None of the characters got any depth. None of them went anywhere interesting. The various revelations about what was going on didn't really matter to me as I read. Once I realized that the story was heading for annihilation, I wanted it to get there as fast as possible so that it would be over.
Oh, and there was a whole prophecy, chosen one (two) thing that didn't go anywhere. I'm not sure what that was for. Maybe the story was supposed to go somewhere else? Maybe it was meant to show people clinging to false hope? Damned if I know.
Only recommended if sweeping disaster stories that end in destruction are your thing. They're not mine.
Backstage Prince 2 - ::blinks:: That's it? The romance is kind of sweet, but the characters are thin. The story's even thinner. I was hoping for more about Kabuki, but I suppose the intended audience either wouldn't be interested or wouldn't need the detail I was craving. I think I was looking at this as a theater story more than as a teen romance, and well, the theater stuff is just the set for the story. Something else could easily have been substituted for Kabuki without changing the shape of the story much.
Beauty Pop 1 - This manga amused me. It didn't make me laugh out loud, but I definitely smiled. I think the conceit would wear thin after a few volumes, but I'm willing to go along to find out. The notion of competitive haircuts/makeovers is sufficiently weird by my standards to qualify as fantasy.
While I quite like the female lead, all of the male characters so far show signs that they could really get on my nerves if they don't develop as the series goes on. I suppose I'll find out.
Beauty Pop 2 - The wedding was sweet. The new character with his baby talk (which I assume represents poor Japanese) is hugely annoying. He seems to be meant to be, so that's okay, sort of. At least, I don't feel like I'm meant to like him and so am less annoyed with the writer for including him in small doses. The female lead's mother is also likely to drive me crazy if she's around a lot. I'll hope that neither of them end up with too much story time.
So, is there a rule that says that boys with dark hair and glasses are supposed to be calculating manipulators? It seems to be something I've seen several times.
Les Bijoux 1 - ::blinks:: Well, this tells me that I should judge too much by cover art. I was thinking vampires base on that. Instead, this story has Destiny. The hero is also the heroine. Every so often, the character simply changes form. So far as I could tell, zie can't predict when it will happen and can't cause it to happen. The character thinks of himself as male when male and female when female and doesn't seem bothered by that. I'm rather hoping that that will get some exploration, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
So there's an oppressive society with a small upper class that treats everyone else as property at best. The hero was born to a couple who were outcast from even the lower class. He (and she) looked strange, with darker skin and hair than was common.
Then his parents get killed. He acquires a spirit guide or two. The members of the elite are scheming to fight with each other. I suppose I'll see what happens if I ever find a copy of v.2. I won't be looking dreadfully hard, but I will be looking.
Cantarella 4 - I don't remember details beyond angst-pretty-angst. Everybody's doomed, doomed, doomed, aren't they? I'm trying to figure out if there's anybody who's made an appearance who's going to benefit from the inevitable.
Cantarella 5 - Sancia appears to have no common sense at all, just ego and malice. Of course, that means I could follow her intentions without getting confused. That's not true of most of the characters. Well, I could also track Juan's intentions pretty well. I have no sympathy for either of them.
The whole Chiaro in captivity thing was very pretty. Pain and pretty angst enough to bury mountain ranges.
I'm somehow not taking this series very seriously.
Chicago 1 - Conspiracy plots can be fun. I'm hoping that this one will be as I got the first two volumes. This volume is promising. The main characters are both officially dead. The rest of their team was deliberately killed when they stumbled upon corpses in earthquake destroyed buildings, corpses with bullet wounds. The heroine managed to hide herself and her partner. Some time later, they're approached with an offer of employment. They do one job, retrieving the victim of a kidnapping, in this volume.
There are hints that there's a major conspiracy going on. The characters have no idea what the mysterious killers want but are sure that the kidnapping relates to the killings that almost got them killed. There's some classical music involved, too.
There's a bit of a love triangle involved. I'm hoping it won't last, though. The heroine is very attracted to her partner who has his own lover and never sees the heroine that way at all. This volume introduced a mysterious guy who the heroine finds fascinating, and I think there may be a romance there eventually. I suppose I'll find out.
Culdcept 1 - Fairly unoriginal concept, mildly amusing execution. The series gets a few points for having a female main character. It loses points for focusing on combat using magical cards. The villains are utterly gross and seem relatively uncomplicated. I'll read more if I happen upon it, but I won't look very hard.
D. Gray-man 2 - I know I read this. I know there was heartbreak over the doll and the human it cared for. There was fighting, too. I'm not sure I remember anything else. I'd like to because I remember having fun.
D. Gray-man 3 - I expect that it says something about me that I now want to abandon the characters I've met so far to get the further adventures of the woman with the clock. I'm pretty sure she's not going to be a major player (though I think she'll turn up again).
Okay, I'm also interested in the apocalyptic plot arc. None of the characters are yet grabbing my attention and making me desperate to know what happens to them. I also find myself a little bewildered by the occasional wacky, comic relief stuff. It jolts me.
Dragon Knights 2 - I liked this volume better than the first and regret that I don't have the third volume available (I have 4-6 waiting). The first part of the volume didn't work so well because I'd forgotten parts of v.1 and had never learned to tell the characters apart anyway. The volume took off for me when it started doing episodic flashbacks to show who the characters are and how they came to be together. I don't usually like that sort of thing, but these worked for me. I understand why they didn't come first, but I think that I'd have been better off.
Eden 3 - This volume has exceeded my threshold for gore and violence. I couldn't finish this volume as too many people were getting gradually blown to bits. I'm putting the series aside for now. ::pokes at Wikipedia:: I very much doubt it's going to get less violent or less gory. Maybe I'll go back to it when desperate. I'm vaguely curious about how the story comes out. I just don't want to suffer through the details.
A fairly large portion of my aversion to seeing characters blown apart is that I'm fairly kinesthetic in how I read. When I read things I connect with what they *feel* like, physically. I can turn that off when what's happening isn't possible or feels impossible (hence my ability to read Arm of Kannon with detachment). In this case, I can't. I don't know what having body parts blown off feels like, but it's possible enough that my brain tries to take my body there.
Eternal Sabbath 3 - I waited too long to log this, but I suspect that it says something that, although my library has this, it's still on my BookMooch wishlist. Nobody's motivations are simple here, and telepathy isn't all problem or all solution. I actually find myself feeling sorry for the young telepath. He's a monster, but the reasons why he is are quite understandable. That doesn't mean that he's not wrong to kill people, just... It's not simple, and that makes for better story.
Gadget 1 - Um... I've forgotten most of this. There's a kid who repairs electronics and starts finding odd things. I think. There may be aliens. I'm pretty sure there were cute little girls with secrets, but I wouldn't swear to it. I think I got bogged down in relationship angst that the characters seemed far too young for.
Get Backers 1 - I'd been warned that the manga version of this was full of panty shots and boobs, and indeed, it is. I mainly picked up the first volume because, hey, BookMooch equals almost free, right? I also picked it up because the part of the anime that I watched left me with a lot of unanswered questions that weren't answered by checking the Wikipedia article (sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't).
This volume left me feeling that Ban and Ginji rather deserved to have life stomp on them a lot. That's an impression that I didn't so much get from the anime (the anime has the problem that the first 2-3 episodes suck and should be skipped when trying to hook someone on the series). In this manga, I wanted to smack them multiple times. I didn't hate the characters. I just found them less than appealing. That might change if I read more, but I'll only read more if I find it on BookMooch or if the library suddenly acquires it.
Gin Tama 3 - I waited too long to log this, I think. I'm starting to track the characters, sort of. I'm kind of hoping for story arc that will let me get a better feel for things. Then again, it might be the sort of thing that I'm never going to quite get. It's still at the library, so I'll keep trying.
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Cantarella: I gave up on taking it seriously long ago, and just enjoy it.
D.Gray-Man: Miranda actually does become a fairly major character, though it takes a bit.
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With regard to Cantarella, I think I'm going to have to give up on comprehension, too. Figuring out the long term arc just isn't working. Of course, it bothers me a bit to read something just for pretty angst. It feels utterly self-indulgent, even once I remind myself that I'm reading for pleasure.
In Les Bijoux, I wasn't clear about it-- Are there separate personalities for each shape? I got the impression that there might be but wasn't sure I was reading it right. I'd rather have them have the same personality, but that's me.
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I thought I remembered
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I don't enjoy the fanservice. I'm trying to decide whether or not it annoys me enough to keep me from continuing to read. I'm not sure yet.