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...I went to the other house again last weekend and I did so much reading. I read like three novels---trashy ones, all of them. That makes 21 novels I've read in Japanese, and 13 waiting for me in my house. I need MOAR. Or I need to start playing La Pucelle, but I think I'd rather keep reading because I have books that have been waiting for me for a year and a half and I'd like to get to them. I have to...I have to make up for the fact that I paid money for pretty covers on several of them @_@
Souen no Rondo is the continuation of the story of Maya and her evil twin sister Martha. This time Martha tries to revive the mother she killed, and Maya tries to stop her. Helping Maya are Maya's cute and smart buddy from school, Minato, Maya's dead uncle, Isan, and Maya's sexy but mean bodyguard from the underworld, Raven. Maya herself has a gimmick, too: she can take a deep red thorned whip out of a rose scar on her wrist amidst a storm of rose petals made of blood. (Yup, trashy novel.) Since nobody's going to read this book, here's how it ends: just as the sisters are about to hit each other, the mother jumps in and stops them with her own body, and she dies instead. This book was just as dark and bloody and gothic as Kuro no Kishi, but it was lightened a little bit by the scenes (my favorite) where Raven appears and hits on poor unsuspecting human women to get what Maya wants. (He's really hot, doncha know. Robin would fall for him, too.) Overall, it had a lot of action in it, but it felt rushed. I think it could have wandered a little more, or talked about Martha's apparently hideous past. Maybe they're saving that for another book.
Unmei ha Ginkyuu no You ni stars what even the book describes as an overly perky reincarnation of a god beast that once protected the kingdom of Zirbelbos, Stella. (I'm not calling her Ster.) At first Stella is a little happy to be banished from the Tower of the Helige, but even on the outside, she fails at being useful and is sure nobody cares for her. Eventually she saves the queen that once banished her, and unrealistically insists on following around the thief Wolhearts no matter what, making him fall in love with her. They run away together to wherever the wind may take them, and the book is, of course, a happy ending. I like happy endings, but I've had just about enough of genki, stupid, virgin heroines like Stella, and I unfortunately spent this book wishing that Stella was someone else. As for the whole book, its originally serialized origins were obvious, as well as the author's inexperience (this was only their second book). The resolutions felt forced or rough around the edges, especially Wolhearts and Stella's romance. Then there was the problem of cliches---frankly, the whole book was a cliche, but that's what I was shopping for, so we'll forgive that. I liked it, because it was just what I was looking for, if not a bit helter-skelter.
Besides reading, I spent the weekend at the new house trying to sleep on an air mattress on the heated floor, and failing because it was too damn hot. Well, I now have a real mattress, new and much softer than the one I have here, and blinds on the windows facing the road in my room. So my room has become more homelike very suddenly. This all happened on Sunday, so right after that I had to leave, but I'm going back to the house sometime in the middle of this week. I'll probably read my way through my time there, but this time in my wonderful room on my nice cool mattress.
Souen no Rondo is the continuation of the story of Maya and her evil twin sister Martha. This time Martha tries to revive the mother she killed, and Maya tries to stop her. Helping Maya are Maya's cute and smart buddy from school, Minato, Maya's dead uncle, Isan, and Maya's sexy but mean bodyguard from the underworld, Raven. Maya herself has a gimmick, too: she can take a deep red thorned whip out of a rose scar on her wrist amidst a storm of rose petals made of blood. (Yup, trashy novel.) Since nobody's going to read this book, here's how it ends: just as the sisters are about to hit each other, the mother jumps in and stops them with her own body, and she dies instead. This book was just as dark and bloody and gothic as Kuro no Kishi, but it was lightened a little bit by the scenes (my favorite) where Raven appears and hits on poor unsuspecting human women to get what Maya wants. (He's really hot, doncha know. Robin would fall for him, too.) Overall, it had a lot of action in it, but it felt rushed. I think it could have wandered a little more, or talked about Martha's apparently hideous past. Maybe they're saving that for another book.
Unmei ha Ginkyuu no You ni stars what even the book describes as an overly perky reincarnation of a god beast that once protected the kingdom of Zirbelbos, Stella. (I'm not calling her Ster.) At first Stella is a little happy to be banished from the Tower of the Helige, but even on the outside, she fails at being useful and is sure nobody cares for her. Eventually she saves the queen that once banished her, and unrealistically insists on following around the thief Wolhearts no matter what, making him fall in love with her. They run away together to wherever the wind may take them, and the book is, of course, a happy ending. I like happy endings, but I've had just about enough of genki, stupid, virgin heroines like Stella, and I unfortunately spent this book wishing that Stella was someone else. As for the whole book, its originally serialized origins were obvious, as well as the author's inexperience (this was only their second book). The resolutions felt forced or rough around the edges, especially Wolhearts and Stella's romance. Then there was the problem of cliches---frankly, the whole book was a cliche, but that's what I was shopping for, so we'll forgive that. I liked it, because it was just what I was looking for, if not a bit helter-skelter.
Besides reading, I spent the weekend at the new house trying to sleep on an air mattress on the heated floor, and failing because it was too damn hot. Well, I now have a real mattress, new and much softer than the one I have here, and blinds on the windows facing the road in my room. So my room has become more homelike very suddenly. This all happened on Sunday, so right after that I had to leave, but I'm going back to the house sometime in the middle of this week. I'll probably read my way through my time there, but this time in my wonderful room on my nice cool mattress.