Mori Kaoru - Emma, vol. 06-07 (Eng. trans.)

( Spoilers )

Overall, the series makes a slight dip into melodrama midway through, but Mori handles it so well and so delicately that I don't mind. She even makes me not mind the love triangle! And I just love her focus on detail and intimate character moments, along with the time she spends on all the side characters. This series is a wonderfully solid, quiet romance.

Thankfully, CMX has licensed Shirley, which I like, and I hope they end up publishing the Victorian guide from Mori as well, which seems to be fairly well researched and full of neat illustrations.

De la Cruz, Melissa - Masquerade

This is book two in the Blue Bloods trilogy (apparently it will be a trilogy of trilogies).

I am not quite sure why I read this, as the first book was fairly mediocre, as was this. But I did, and I will probably pick up the others as well, unless something is sporkworthily bad.

I lie; I do know why. It has reincarnation and fallen angels and childhood unrequited love! Definitely not the best versions of those tropes, but hi, my buttons, let me show you them!

Anyway, in this installment, Schuyler and company further confront the threat that manifests in book one, and we get more vampire mythology. I am still bored by the Schuyler-Jack possible romance, I still root for Oliver (that would be the aforementioned childhood unrequited love button), and I am still oddly rooting for Mimi.

Mimi is shallow and bitchy and portrayed as all-around horrible, but because I know I'm not supposed to like her and supposed to like Schuyler and Bliss instead, I find myself cheering for her in all her awfulness. Though, in de la Cruz's defense, Mimi isn't completely demonized, and I am strangely drawn to her vulnerability in her somewhat incestuous (reincarnation makes all things complicated!) relationship with her twin.

I still dislike the brand-name-dropping, though I suspect that's why a lot of teenage girls read de la Cruz, and I particularly dislike the emphasis on the pale pale pale, stick thin beauty of Mimi, Schuyler and Bliss. And I dislike the classism with regard to Bliss' stepmother BobiAnn, who is portrayed as the crassest sort of nouveau-riche, as contrasted with the now-impoverished but formerly aristocratic Shuyler. And I roll my eyes at the Blue Bloods being at the root of most of humanity's great accomplishments.

But I will probably get the next book from the library anyway, because I want to know what happens to Mimi and Jack and Oliver and Bliss.

(no subject)

It's very odd googling for manga character names because you forgot them and finding that your own post turns up as #2. It's even odder when two people you read turn up as #1 and #3!

I mean, I don't mind, given that I purposefully set it so search engines could spider my LJ, but it was somewhat disconcerting all the same.

That said, I have decided I need an LJ name that sounds better than "Oyce's LJ."

Fear not! I am not changing user names; just the page title that appears in the browser window title and apparently in search engines...

[Poll #1161143]

... great. I have sat here for half an hour and still only have those three options. Help!

Feel free to write in suggestions for subtitles as well.