Welcome to the New Year of 2008! Or maybe it is 2006! I get confused on this. Sometimes Linda tells me these numbers, and I say, “So then the Mars Mission has left?” and she says no. Or I just burst out laughing because according to her we are living in the future. Between laughter I ask her where the flying cars are and how the moon base is doing. Luckily, whatever fantastical future year this is, books are still around (as is manga!).
So, whatever year it is for you, Happy NEW YEAR.
Cheryl brought over a book I bought myself, Nemi (Volume 1) (v. 1)
.
I do not remember how I know of this book, or why I bought it, as it is a hardcover book of a Swedish comic which has been translated into English but the book is in FULL colour. This is the joy of memory damage, every purchase is a surprise gift. Nice purple cover too!
The book Nemi (Volume 1) (v. 1) makes me laugh out loud, and often (to enlarge strips just click on them, then hit back arrow of browser to return).
Linda says she likes it because she hasn’t heard me laugh so much in years. Nemi is a goth in her 20’s who has poor impulse control and an usual mind. She, along with her friend (with dyed blue hair) experience life, guys, sex, drink, and whatever Nemi thinks up to say.
What is strange is that I have said some of those things (like telling children that grade school grades don’t count so just have fun, and eat lots of sugar before the teeth fall out!), and thought other of Nemi lines, so it is like a snapshot of my early 20’s. The author is a hot goth (picture in foreword) and the translation from Swedish to English seems great. There are two other Nemi books (now added to my Amazon Wishlist
, hint!), but if you want a goth gal with a whack on the side of the head view of life (like when she gambles on arm wrestling and wins going, “The Weaker Sex my ASS!”),
I recommend this. I also recommend using the link in the post because Amazon search dropped this book off the search engine...but I found it and ordered it...for some reason (if you know, tell me?). Amazon has Nemi (Volume 1) (v. 1) for about $10. Nemi 2 and Nemi 3 go for the same amount.
If you don't want the book for the burst out laughing, at least you now know a great gift for the goth girl you know (and are likely infatuated with! Um...unless it is your daughter, cousin, partner of friend: those gals, um, get the book for them, but love them, like a FRIEND)
I have made a few changes to the blog, including adding a page link at the top of the blog for people who want to know about my disease. It took six hours on Friday and some more today learning about adding ‘pages’ as a feature (Blogger is ‘so simple’, my ASS…er, I mean ‘Like not!’, see: Nemi and I are bonding into one! ). I have tried to keep it simple, you just click on the ‘About me and my disease’ button at the top of the page, and then ‘home’ to return to the main page.
And a reivew about more than just what it appears: the book called Generation Dead
.
It is considered a Young Adult book and one of the ‘supernatural’ series that is flooding the Young Adult market, but this book is different (though stand alone, a ‘series’ of books around it has been published at high speed and bad writing: accept no imitation, but only the original). The basic story is that odd USA marketed teen world, where things only happen in the US, everyone is white, no one is gay, no one, particularly no GIRLS have sex, and no one is disabled. In Generation Dead, a small percentage of teens in the US, for no known reason have been returning to life. While some theorize that it has to do with first person shooters, other ‘researchers’ think a combo of junk food and vitamins. But when the teens return, many have a hard time moving, and talking while others are a bit faster. Phoebe, the main character, goes to Oakvale High (like Berkley) which is a school friendly to the ‘living impaired’. Several new ‘living impaired’ have started this year including Tommy, a more active post-dead teen who tries out for the football team. This opens up the prejudice against ‘zombies’ as the coach tries to get players to cripple or stop the boy from joining. Phoebe, who is friends with Adam, her neighbor and a football player who used to be a bully but got centered through martial arts into not bullying, watches the practices and writes an evocative poem about Tommy which she gives to him. She isn’t in love, but she is...interested in him. And that interest grows.
The flip side is that Phoebe and her best friend Margi have to see in the halls their ex-friend Collette, who drowned, and yet is there, always 16, never getting older, and who has yet to speak to them. Through their reluctance to speak to Collette, and Margi’s hatred of the ‘living impaired’ there is a hidden story waiting to come out. Also, as others notice Pheobe, who is a goth, making moves to talk to Tommy, even sit with him on the bus, the idea that a LIVING, a hot goth living girl could be into…well, THEM brings out even more prejudice.
However, with Phoebe’s point of view, we find ourselves going from our own assumptions about the ‘living impaired’ to finding out they are individuals with a shared experience, but individuals but who have created a shared culture, humor and language. It took me a while but I started to recognize this as the experience of second generation immigrants, of LGBT kids who are open enough to have a group, to those who know they have an experience or viewpoint which alienates them from the majority. And it is a majority which makes assumptions and looks down on them. But also, because of that, it has forced them together, creating a unique culture of language, humor, and activities. The more Phoebe becomes part of their group, the more we wonder if the ‘living impaired’ talk so slow to the other students on purpose, to keep them away, and to keep themselves safe.
In Tommy and football, I could see myself and the frustrations I have had with the Y, where even AFTER I played volleyball, they are telling me that it is not possible, or not safe for me to play volleyball. The whole friendliness of the school and principal becomes suspect when the ‘living impaired’ start to want the same things as the rest of the students. Much like when the Y decided I needed to tell them, in advance, any activity I was going to do there….so they could ‘help me’. It is a book I think anyone who has, through religion, ethnicity, or other difference, experienced school in a way where keeping safe and not draw attention to yourself mixed with the need to speak, to have humor in life and life beyond the invisible limits imposed. Like disability, the question of ‘high functioning’ comes up along with ‘passing’, a term originated from when mixed black Americans of light skin would live as white, used now more for LGBT in schools or life, or Trans who live as their gender, which may not be the assigned one.
Much like any of these groups, there are those who are ‘living impaired’ and friends who want to educate, or help others understand them, or that they can do things like football. But there are also those of the ‘living impaired’ who want to separate, who say that the living will never understand, really. And that the majority is the group who is hurting them, who limits their rights and actions and so why spend time educating the people when your rights are unequal. While others want conflict in order to bring issues into the open and want to use people like Tommy and football to do it. These are some of the very attitudes I have read in various blog circles on the internet of those with shared experiences, including disability. As Phoebe drifts closer and closer to Tommy, and those who are friendly to the idea of hanging with the living, the tension from both those at school and the ‘living impaired’ increase. This book, Generation Dead by Daniel Waters is more than just a ‘zombie’ book but one in which I could see myself. Not just my disabled identity now but even my high school days. I went to a repressive high school, and created codes of language and facial expressions so I and others could say how we felt about things without drawing attention to ourselves from the authorities or those who sided with them.
The hardcover book Generation Dead is on sale at Amazon for $5 for the hardcover, and though I found it and read it at the library, I bought a first edition hardcover as part of Amazon’s clearance (or pay $9 for the paperback). Sometimes, like the book Stoner and Spaz, there are books which seem to speak to those who need to hear a voice saying, “You are not alone” the most.
This book transcends the whole supernatural element and brings to you the experience of getting to know the individuals of a different culture in a setting where it is dangerous to do so. You would think ‘wanting to know more’ or ‘getting to know someone’ couldn’t be dangerous, but we all know better.
Generation Dead reminds the reader how many silent lines there are in our lives where those who are entitled and in control punish those who cross that line (like the extreme and viscous actions principals or School districts take over cross dressing or a gay date at the prom). My prom for example was divided by race, for example and there was a great deal of discussions and whether I would be expelled or not because I asked a black guy to dance, and did for one song. They decided that as I was graduating in three days, they would not expel me, but they did take away my ‘honors’ I was graduating with. Yeah, repressive school.
I bought two copies of Generation Dead, one for me, and one to give away, because the voice and story are so compelling and because I know others who can identify about being the ‘other’ or being the person who crossed the line in befriending the ‘other’. It may not win literary awards due to 'teen' status and the 'zombie' sublabel, but it is a well written and complex book. It was always interesting, unveiling my own assumptions while changing my viewpoint with a slight tongue in cheek (like the Z line, getting acceptance for the ‘living impaired’ through marketing of cool t-shirts, and body colognes – marketing exploitation is our friend?). As having a goth girl the main character in a school with a high population of kids who used to be dead is itself a tad tongue in cheek.
So a goth girl blog, and that, beyond drinking champagne (whee! look at all the colours!)
that is what I did on my winter vacation!
Bye Bye to Halloween,
though there is still Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night left on the 4th.
I used up too much energy lately which has reduced me, constant shaking and yesterday carried to bed. It just is one of those things.
It is frustrating to lose time, to lose energy to an invisible condition which seems to have no rules that bind it. But that is just how it is.
I have read some manga lately like Cross Game, which comes in a huge 540+ page starting volume 1, with the second volume to come out the start of January at 300+ pages. The author Mitsuru Adachi is famous for making manga interesting to both males and females, and multi-layered plots. In Cross Game, Adachi’s sports romance holds more than a sports story but about growing up, melancholy, lost love, and what is being true to love of sport.
It also examines the way coaches can abuse the power they have over the young players they have entrusted to them. When one coach who cares about his winning career burns out two baseball pitches, one a girl borrowed from the girls team just in order to give his star player enough practice, it is all too recognizable.
The boy Ko, whose father has a sporting good shop lives near a family of four girls who run a batting cage entertainment facility. He hits balls there every day since the age of three as he and Wakaba, the second oldest daughter hang together. He sells the kids on creating a baseball team to increase sales for his father but doesn’t play. And Aoba, this third oldest daughter and his age doesn’t like him, envies the time and attention her sister gives him. And she has vowed she will never marry anyone unless they throw a 100 mph pitch (she is in 6th grade!).
Through an accident, Wakaba, the most popular and beautiful girl in the neighborhood can’t play with Ko anymore. And over years, the male enemies of Ko become friends of him, united by the memories of Wakaba loving the game. Ko will play with them but never on the official team. While Aoba seems to need to prove something, driving herself farther and farther into pitching as she is the pitcher of the boys junior high team.
When high school starts, two coaches and two teams occur as the principal recruits players and a coach to win and go the championship, and all others are shunted to a small half field as the ‘Farm Team’ – where any player who is injured or deemed unfit is sent. The coach of the varsity and the farm team have very different philosophies. Ko has been practicing pitching with the neighborhood lads and when the coach pulls Aoba from her team and uses her as fodder for his varsity hitters until she collapses, it sets something off in Ko (though they both protest how much Aoba and Ko dislike each other – protest too much). Can these two families, united in baseball do anything to drive out this new coach?
This manga is good value but also asks questions about choices, because results, intended or otherwise occur. Has Ko been preparing to stand up for Wakaba and Aoba, or just playing baseball? And if he does step up will it matter?
This manga has been not just a good read but a mirror to me, to reflect some questions I have faced recently both awake and asleep,
the questions which ask, “What if you could have done this differently or that?” My dreams are often nightmares, or people from my past, family or friends acting as they do and did and I realize how different I am, how different this disease has made me as I drag myself with my arms in my dreams down the steps of the school while a teach orders me to ‘hurry’ as if as hard as I struggle, dragging myself, I have already failed to meet some class, test, course, event, expectation I don't even remember.
Winter is here and already several people have died, positions in various facilities are opening up. This is death’s hunting ground and I told Linda I can’t die in winter. And I won’t die in summer, because ‘I’m not suffering the pain of surviving all those heat days just to die on one of them.”
She laughed and said, “So, that leaves about two weeks in the spring.”
Me: No, I’m going to Sakura-con.
When people die, when people I know die the question comes again, “What if this had never happened to me?” And I realize, as bad as it has been for Linda, myself and others, I would have taken the ticket anyway. Of course, I never would have known what it meant, but that is part of the education and reason I would have chosen this if I had a choice. I went to university to learn things that were new, were unknown to me and to try and put them in ways that were useful to others.
And to me, whether or not I could have done a better job, I did just that, made a job of trying to create a compact yet accessible text about a complicated and socially avoided topic. I tried to narrate original experiences, and some might have been TOO close, where I could not look objectively at what was occurring, but then, when you live in the pit, you tend not to write about the mountain tops.
Whatever happens, I still have choices to make, and I want to blog at least 15 times this month. But I want be at peace with where I am, that no, I haven’t had a great experience of the medical community, but then, that is not unique, but as I learned, common. It is what I have learned that is important, and what Linda has learned, who wants to do a masters in some aspect of disability and business or rights. Because once the eyes are opened you can either go back to eating flowers and calling them cake 
or realize that something is seriously wrong, and let the knowledge change you.
I read the romance Seven Days: Monday-Thursday (book 2 of Friday to Sunday to come). It has a boy, Seryou, who was hurt in love by a woman named Shino and so every Monday whom ever asks him first he ‘dates’ for a week before saying that ‘what he hoped wasn’t there’ – he is searching for the feeling of love.
Meanwhile Shino (a male in the grade above) who is also in the archery club has great looks but an unusual temperament, saying what he thinks but also full of fantasy and imagination. So girls want to date him based on looks and then dump him as he doesn’t live up to what they dream. Shino orders pizza and waits for it to arrive at lunch, when Seryou is dropped off late to school this Monday. Shino asks if the rumor of him dating the first person to ask is true. And Seryou says it is. They talk about how others project onto them all sorts of expectations and if love or even a relationship can occur with all of that? Then Shino asks, “So would you go out with me?” But before Seryou can answer the pizza comes. When school ends Seryou is waiting for Shino, with an umbrella, asking to walk him home. Shino reminds him that they should both be at archery practice. And it goes on, with Shino never quite sure if Seryou is joking or if they really are dating. And how far is Seryou going to take this joke (he asks a girl who went out for a week and finds out that Seryou never likes touching or allows kissing, a whew). Except that when asked who the girlfriend of the week is, Shino says, “I am” to a “Ewww” and “What a waste!” from the girls. And Seryou pays for the food and drink, and they find they get on well. Shino, by Wednesday wants to know what happens after being dumped because it would be a shame if they couldn’t be friends. A delicate story of romance where each participant thinks the other is joking…maybe, and thus pushes things further, the way that happens when it isn’t ‘serious’, right until it becomes serious. Though in the new small size from DMP, I recommend this non-explicit light romance, where boys act like lonely guys who are perhaps a bit too sensitive, too many walls but wanting to be cared about. The author takes 200 pages to develop just the first half of the week and the time spent with each other at lunch, at archery, and after school.
For me, the book says that it is better to take risks, even risks that maybe society or some people don’t like, than close the self off to feeling at all. Being open to hurt means that hurt will occur, but so can hope, and joy. Sometime recently someone said to me, “Look a rainbow” and there was one. I had not chased everyone away who could reach my heart. Blogging, comments, being public in what happens to me has a lot of painful experiences with it, still lots of negative comments, and the blogs about the most sensitive or painful subjects always get a ‘funny’ click right away. Someone watching me struggle to write about pain or dementia and marking it as funny is like an invisible arrow hitting the chest. But then, without risk, there would be uplift; if I shut myself off due to emotional hurt, believing that people can only be cruel then I miss the times where they surpass their own expectations into magnificence.
I am lonely because the more I try, the more mistakes I make, the more I seem to live a life solitary in experience. But Seryou risked a relationship every week, trying as hard as possible, to see if there could be more. That is what I get from manga,
that collection of friends and experiences, fictional or otherwise to imbue me with the courage to keep trying.
I don’t know what is ahead. I expect that the future will hold emotional and physical loss and sorrow. But I got a package of a little trick or treat bag, as someone thought about me, and knew that I wouldn’t be able to go out – but also somehow knew that I would want to. I got a package that showed me pictures and a letter, of a place and a time unimagined, and jam from places far away.
So while I expect that this will be a stormy time ahead, that there will be parts and pockets of joy.
We all know that Elizabeth and Manga are like peanut butter and bananas, you can’t separate them in a sandwich no matter how hard you try (did you have those as a kid in your lunch? I also had peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches – try trading that!). Manga is both Cheryl and Beth’s pain control, allowing them to take a mental break from the constant pain.
They also are a good media form for depression because while they have multi-layers (sometimes), they are fairly easy to read. So when you have a chronic illness which REQUIRES constantly monitoring of yourself for oxygen, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, liquid intake, excretion, food intake, core heat, extremity heat and frostbite, and mental functions, it is hard to be allowed to express being depressed. One cannot ‘shut off everything’ because the consequences are too high, but manga allows that indulgence and escape which the mind needs for its’ good health.
Thank you to every single person who has helped me by getting a manga, or a gift card (from Amazon). Cheryl or Linda puts post it notes on the manga so every time it is read or re-read, even if that is 4 a.m. with pain or in the bathroom with G.I. problems, I can be thankful to you. And I am. It is like having a room of friends as I see the names on the front of the covers. Friends here to help me though the dark times.
But, for those who would like to start into manga, I am not going to go on about how it is an important and growing form of book, or how it can accommodate those who have problems reading close text (like me now), I am going to give four reviews. Last time I reviewed some of the manga for the serious or literary minded. This time I want to review four books for ‘light’ reading. Almost a guarantee that there will be no life changing reading going on here, unless you have never tried ‘escapism’.
Tsubasa: Those with Wings – this is by the Creator of Fruit Basket and is a hefty 400 pages of short manga stories all tied together around the Kotobuki, a female short nimble thief and Raimon a military commander who has a mysterious past (and present). This is your basic fun fantasy, which like Nephilim involves plucky determined girls and teasing yet oddly super-capable guys. For instance in Nephalim, she lives in the jungle and is seen naked by him. According to village law he must die by her hand.
So for the rest of the book, while he is going to rescue a princess (she assumes for money) she tries to kill him with her knife by dropping out of trees, throwing daggers, etc. He on the other hand always seems to know and for example blocks the daggers with a book he is reading and says, “Hey, I wasn’t finished with that!” or “I thought I told you, no killing during meal time!” In Tsubasa, Raimon is ‘supposed’ to catch Kotobuki but he prefers to watch her antics as she leaps and bounces avoiding the other military. When she decides to quit the thief life and work a job, he quits the militiary and gets a job near her. “Why?!” she demands.
“You are fun to be around.” He says while she fumes and stomps her foot.
Each manga story in this volume is about 40-60 pages long, some shorter. And as they travel through a post-apocalypse world the stories loosely revolve around Tsubasa, a legendary device that grants any wish, and everyone from the military to greedy rich people want it.
Meanwhile, Raimon and Kotobuki go from place to place, some towns, some houses, to help people, create justice or just survive themselves, all the time bickering with Kotobuki both angry at the way Raimon doesn’t take her seriously enough and lonely when he isn’t teasing her. I am not sure why I am attracted to stories of nimble 5 foot 2 inch girls who do backflips and all sorts of leaping about with knives. Or why I like the romance of her hanging around a 6 foot guy who holds her up off the ground while scolding her for scaring him by almost getting killed. Maybe it is because the six foot woman are usually some sort of villian who bash things. Not to mention there is no being swept up into anyone’s arms, not when EMT’s discuss how many people have to carry you (“She a big one!”). So this is TOTAL fantasy for me and the stories were drawn before Fruit Basket in volume 1, a bargain for $10 at Amazon, light action stories with a tingle of romance. Raimon is of course a leech who never touches her but is always suggesting things or who will only save her if she kisses him (he works out this theory that if she can learn to kiss him once a day, they might finally sleep together). Good for 15 year old and up. The second book, also $10 at amazon and 400 pages is out in a week and I think is drawn after Fruit Basket. I am curious to see how the whimsical fantasy of a 20 something manga artist changes after the experience of several major series. I hope the light humor leech of Raimon and the ‘I don’t need anyone’ attitude that is being worn down by Raimon still exists in Kotobuki.
You will fall in Love is Boy Love Boy love are two adult males who are in love and means that there is a kiss, or maybe some implied activity but nothing is graphically shown (is is often called Yaoi). A lot of females find that romance is romance and nice looking guys falling in love romantically is still romance. And so do Cheryl and I, two lesbians, enjoy this award winning book. So this a good introduction to this particular artist, whose art and style is highly regarded.
The story is both fluff and universally complex: a love triangle over time. Haru is a teacher who ends up back at the school where he did Jyudo, or Japanese Archery as a high school student. This is painful for him as he was a brilliant archer who competed nationally with a beautiful style of archery but left archery suddenly. The reason was never told, and it was because he had fallen in love with Reiichiro, his competitor at school. He felt that his love was shameful, never told anyone and that it was destroying the purity of archery. He returns only to find that the younger brother of Reiichiro, named Tsukasa, is not only leading the archery club at school but has been carrying a crush for him, Haru all this time. Tsukasa knows why Haru left archery as he could see the love in the face of Haru but declares his own love. Though the book, Haru struggles with his feelings of shame and Tsukasa with is insecurity that he will always be second place to absent older brother Reiichiro. The students meanwhile are trying to get Haru to be the club advisor and get him back into archery.
Finally Tsukasa confronts Haru and demands to know if he cares for him. Haru won't answer and says that he will not destroy Tsukasa’s chance to go to the nationals by responding. Tsukasa says that love is love but Haru believes that his archery became erratic due to this ‘forbidden love.’ So Tsukasa tells him that he will prove him wrong, that he loves him and he will win the next tournament, DUE to thinking of his love of Haru, and if he wins, then Haru should kiss him. Haru (the uke, though older) sort of is pushed into agreeing. But during the tournament, who shows up but the lost love and older absent brother Reiichiro, and Tsukasa looks over to see them close together in coversation during his shooting. Can he still win or will he be distracted, and if he does, will it only be to find that Haru loves Reiichiro? It is a highly entertaining book with great art and a good depiction of the sport of Jyudo including a scene where he goes home to find his brother practicing in their own archery range with the lights off (the idea that the zen of pure form means the target is hit whether you see it or not), much like I asked at Sakura-con. Oh dear, does that make me a raving fan-girl? I honestly like the sport of Jyudo and want to try it, just as a sport.
For those who enjoy this book there is a follow up, You will Drown in Love.
Here the loser in love in the previous book takes over as manager of the family kimono cloth business (and is horrid at it to start), but finds that the person who he annoys the most is maybe interested in him. Is there love for both brothers? A highly enjoyable series and a good introduction to the non-comedy style of romantic boy love/yaoi books.
If any action readers have made it past all the romance, the next manga is the manga adaptation of Vampire Hunter D. I have Volume one while Volume two and three are on my wish list, going for $9-$10. Each book is the DMP oversized volumes (higher and longer) and 200-250 pages, so a good value of reading. The artist Saiko Takaki has done a great job of making a stand alone series where no previous knowledge of the anime or books are needed.
In a different post-apocalypse world with radiation mutations teamed up in the wild lands and vampires are now the nobles of the civilized land, and keepers of the technology. Humans live simple lives and are like serfs to the vampire nobles, who occasionally require an offering. A select few who are well trained take up the job of Vampire Hunter, those who will eliminate those who are wild vampires preying on a town to the nobles themselves. We follow the adventures of Vampire Hunter D who is a Damphir,. A damphir is a long living offspring of a vampire and human, an outsider despised by both. Some vampires have lived 1 year, some 100, and some over 1,000 or 3,000 years in this long period, being the only people left to remember the ‘pre’ earth of today. In Volume 1, D agrees to help a woman freshly bitten by the noble who vows to make her his bride. She is a beautiful woman and the son of the town’s bully sheriff is determined to force her to marry him. D has to play both diplomat and warrior as he is between the townspeople who want to use the woman to appease the noble; the sheriff and son, and the vampire lord and his daughter. Towards the end of the book, we finally get a clue as to what D might stand for, or who D’s vampire father really was. An exciting action book and I am looking forward to the next two in the series.
The final book is another yaoi, but this is not only a romantic comedy but also one for animal lovers, or furries called Part Time Pets. It is by Deux books and a collection of short stories. Deux have book that look like they have more explicit sex but often just imply it and have great romantic stories. For example Ruff Love, by the same company is just as fun.
While Idol Pleasures by Deux is another comedy romance about an idol who doesn’t smile and a stuffy man out of work who is made his manager by his sister (he finds out later to make him an eligible catch for dating and marriage). To give you the idea, the serious faced Idol has a room full of teddy bears but the manager doesn’t make him feel bad about it (while all others did), so the next day, all but one teddy bear is gone and when the manager questions why the idol says with a very serious face, “I have you” and then leans on his shoulder. This seems to be the manager’s job and meanwhile the photographers are going, “Did he almost smile? He’s never done that before, on or off camera.” You can see where this is going.
Back to Part Time Pets which is not only a funny take on temp agencies but a wonderful romance of seme’s and uke’s (uke’s are the more compliant ones, who are openly affectionate). The people with cat, dog, or rabbit ears are pet/human hybrids and the book starts out with the advertising pamphlet given to offices which advertise how they can be very efficient in the workplace but also need to be taken care of as a pet.
The ‘sales pitch’ has full picture accompaniment of the pro and cons including the humorous warning, “Some of our pets are not fully office trained” picture.
After the intro there are three stories (a bunny, a cat and a dog) about the part time pets. Each is endearing, particularly Tama, the ‘wild cat’ who never keeps jobs, but ends up working with an author who is stern and a good match for Tama’s wild ways. The middle of the book has a two part story about Koimoko: the Love Shrine. Our hero Enishi is the Koimoki, an inherited god-gift from the temple keepers. Anyone who touches the Koimoki increases beauty, anyone who kisses the Koimoki gains success in love and if you have sex with the Koimoki then you WILL be with your true love. It is sort of implied this used to be a job of a female miko (shrine maiden) but Enishi got the gift and hates having it. He hates love and he hates how love makes people crazy, always trying to touch or kiss him, or have sex with him. The story quickly become much more complicated and multi-layered as Enishi himself finally feels the yearning and pain of one sided love (he goes to the doctor to have his heart checked from this pain). However, Enishi’s gift has a dangerous side, which Enishi ignores because he believes that the Koimoki, (he) is only able to bring love to others……never to themselves. Can the Koimoki find love?
We end with a bonus part time pet story of Tama again (the ‘wild cat’) which is the favorite of the author and most readers. Then there is a section from the author about how the book came to be. It was a fun read from beginning to end, and my only wish was it was twice as thick or had a sequel already out. I really can’t emphasis enough how enjoyable this book is (Cheryl liked it too!). If you read Yaoi and want it hot and heavy then maybe this will seem tame, but if you want relationships with humor, love, romance, and some of the cutest Uke’s around, I heavily recommend this book. Mature teens and above though.
So there are the reviews of four of the manga which were bought for me (well I bought Vampire Hunter D 1 but I live in hope for 2 and 3!!!). I hope you find something there that will interest you. I do recommend that only who likes a good summer read or light romance to give one of the yaoi books mentioned here a try as 70% of romances sold in Asia to women are yaoi. Now from teenage girls (and boys) to adults more and more North Americans are buying yaoi or boy love – it has been added to most libraries and is on every major publisher’s lists. The guys are nice to look at, the romance is tense and gives a bit of a thrill, or funny and gives a laugh. Perfect escapism.
I hope you have a good weekend, I am off to a medical appointment so ug, but once that is over it is postcard creation time!
So, whatever year it is for you, Happy NEW YEAR.
I do not remember how I know of this book, or why I bought it, as it is a hardcover book of a Swedish comic which has been translated into English but the book is in FULL colour. This is the joy of memory damage, every purchase is a surprise gift. Nice purple cover too!
Linda says she likes it because she hasn’t heard me laugh so much in years. Nemi is a goth in her 20’s who has poor impulse control and an usual mind. She, along with her friend (with dyed blue hair) experience life, guys, sex, drink, and whatever Nemi thinks up to say.
What is strange is that I have said some of those things (like telling children that grade school grades don’t count so just have fun, and eat lots of sugar before the teeth fall out!), and thought other of Nemi lines, so it is like a snapshot of my early 20’s. The author is a hot goth (picture in foreword) and the translation from Swedish to English seems great. There are two other Nemi books (now added to my Amazon Wishlist
I recommend this. I also recommend using the link in the post because Amazon search dropped this book off the search engine...but I found it and ordered it...for some reason (if you know, tell me?). Amazon has Nemi (Volume 1) (v. 1)
It is considered a Young Adult book and one of the ‘supernatural’ series that is flooding the Young Adult market, but this book is different (though stand alone, a ‘series’ of books around it has been published at high speed and bad writing: accept no imitation, but only the original). The basic story is that odd USA marketed teen world, where things only happen in the US, everyone is white, no one is gay, no one, particularly no GIRLS have sex, and no one is disabled. In Generation Dead, a small percentage of teens in the US, for no known reason have been returning to life. While some theorize that it has to do with first person shooters, other ‘researchers’ think a combo of junk food and vitamins. But when the teens return, many have a hard time moving, and talking while others are a bit faster. Phoebe, the main character, goes to Oakvale High (like Berkley) which is a school friendly to the ‘living impaired’. Several new ‘living impaired’ have started this year including Tommy, a more active post-dead teen who tries out for the football team. This opens up the prejudice against ‘zombies’ as the coach tries to get players to cripple or stop the boy from joining. Phoebe, who is friends with Adam, her neighbor and a football player who used to be a bully but got centered through martial arts into not bullying, watches the practices and writes an evocative poem about Tommy which she gives to him. She isn’t in love, but she is...interested in him. And that interest grows.
Generation Dead reminds the reader how many silent lines there are in our lives where those who are entitled and in control punish those who cross that line (like the extreme and viscous actions principals or School districts take over cross dressing or a gay date at the prom). My prom for example was divided by race, for example and there was a great deal of discussions and whether I would be expelled or not because I asked a black guy to dance, and did for one song. They decided that as I was graduating in three days, they would not expel me, but they did take away my ‘honors’ I was graduating with. Yeah, repressive school.
that is what I did on my winter vacation!
