#weejly update

[kero-reviews]

Happy Wednesday!!

This week I’m reading:

Tokyo Ghoul: Re Volume 5 by Sui Ishida

Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

and The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo

I got to finish:

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

Go For It Nakamura! by Syundei

Otome Mania!! Volumes 1 & 2 by Tsukigase Yurino

Bloom Into You Volume 1 by Nakatani Nio

Yona of the Dawn Volume 18 by Mizuho Kusanagi

and Claudine by Riyoko Ikeda

A long upate! Thank you for waiting while I was on a small hiatus! I’m back now! Because I was so busy in May I feel behind on my reading list, so to make up for that I’ve upped my weekly goal to 5 books. So cheer me on that I can make that goal!! I will also be straying from my “this week I’m reading:” list a bit. I bought some thrift store books and had some great finds on Rightstufanime.com’s Pride sale at the beginning of the month, so I’m trying to get some of those read before I go back to my main focuses. I’m still including my main focus books though, because they’re what I want to be reading and actively working towards, even if progress is slow because I’m reading other wonderful things. Which I’m trying to get to as soon as possible.

That being said, I haven’t made much progress in Tokyo Ghoul: Re, Sherlock Holmes, or Gemina.

Language of Thorns is so much fun!!! It’s a collection of fairy tale-like stories from the different countries in the GrishaVerse. I’m only 2/6 stories through, but I’m enjoying it, and I’ve caught wind that there’s a Darkling cameo in it? I’m excited to find it if I heard right!! This is the newest installment in my book club with @books-take-flight and our final read with Leigh Bardugo works until the next one is released.

King of Scars was absolutely fantastic. I admit I had a hard time getting into the first half, but the second half reeled me in, in a way that no one but Leigh Bardugo could do. I was absolutely enthused to have more Nikolai and Nina. And having Zoya (a wonderfully developed, strong female character) take center stage was something I never knew I needed so badly. I loved it and I can’t wait until the next installment. I’ll be doing a mini highlight of this book when I get a chance in honor of PRIDE MONTH!

Go For It Nakamura was a thrift store find, that I was very wary towards... its cover- not so pretty. But it was very cheap, and I figured it would be a nice way to read a new LGBT series (especially one I’ve never even heard of before!) and would flip in a garage sale later on. HOWEVER! I won’t be doing that. I loved it. Yes, it’s very cheesy and not exactly a rot-your-teeth-sweet love story. But it’s a very nice slice of life. Each chapter is only a couple pages, and we get not only a romantic/coming of age story in the shorts, we also get a comedy. Because the chapters are so short, there’s not a lot of commitment needed on the readers end, but it’s definitely worth a read. I like having more relaxing, low-plot books to have on hand, because I feel like we could all use a story like this on our bad days. It’s a bit unfulfilling in the romance department, but we cheee for Nakamura anyway! I’ll also be doing a highlight of Go For it Nakamura in honor of Pride Month later on.

Otome Mania I got from the same thrift store as Nakamura, and had a similar attitude towards it going in. But I was pleasantly surprised by this duology too! I love how the story is about the Otome (dating sim) industry and reads like one! I only wish it were longer. We could have had a better developed plot, and better characters . It’s a duology manga, so all the conflicts are resolved unsatisfactorily quickly, and, like in an Otome game, our characters are introduced one at a time with that chapter being the chapter with their most screen time. While that works in a game, where you have the option of exploring that character again, in a manga it feels as though there’s too many characters to get attached to in such a short time. Regardless, I enjoyed it, and was surprised to see how few Goodreads users have read it (less than a 100! Only 55 for the second book!), i hadn’t heard of it before, but I still rarely see books on Goodreads have so few reads.

Bloom Into You! I’ve been wanting to read this book! I always get excited when I hear of a new LGBT book, and this one got a very popular anime as well! So I was sooooo ready to dive right in! Going in, I had high expectations, and it took a bit to get me invested. The characters are wonderful (they give me very Liz and the Blue Birds vibes), but not quite what I expected, which was my own fault. Once I got acquainted with who these two girls actually were, I started loving it. I can’t wait to read the next one, which I thought I ordered, but I was wrong so I have to wait. I’m cheering for their romance, but also their friendship as these two girls learn about themselves and each other in this sweet High School Romance. I will also give this book a highlight as soon as I can.

Yona of the Dawn! An absolute favorite series of mine that I can’t thank @books-take-flight more for. This book we get the Yellow Dragons past, and while I knew what was going to happen, Kusanagi writes the story so well and uniquely that it still broke my heart anyway. I’m waiting very eagerly for the next book and I hope this series continues and gets to live out the authors intent for as long as possible.

Claudine, another thrift store find. I almost didn’t buy this one, because I wasn’t a fan of the art ( I came around). However, we have a trans male protagonist and I couldn’t give that up. I went into it wary, because I had been under the impression that the series was about a trans FEMALE ( I was wrong) which meant that the title of this book was a dead name. So I was cautious going into this, and didn’t come around until I read some of the Goodreads reviews, and got to about the halfway point in the book where I became more interested in our hero’s story. The Goodreads reviews helped bring the zeitgeist into perspective for me. Particularly, that this story was written in the 70s. I don’t feel confident enough in my knowledge of the subject to use that to defend this work, but please look at Goodreads if you’re curious. Overall I was pleased by the story. The art felt very fitting after a while, and I was not prepared for how self contained and tragic this one shot is. I’ve felt dissatisfied with one shots before, but this book is so complete and planned that while I would LOVE to get more of Claude’s story, having what I do I can appreciate his story all the more. It reads almost like an old epic poem, where we go through the origin and then trials of Claude’s life. And it’s through his gender and identity that we see him learn how his true relationships differ from more shallow or lust-filled ones. I loved this book, even if it was heartbreaking. I’ll be doing a highlight on this book as well.

Thank you for bearing with a long update, and I hope you look forward to my highlights for Pride Month.

H❤️A🧡P💛P💚Y💙R💜E💖A❤️D🧡I💛N💚G💙!💜

🏳️‍🌈Kero-chan🏳️‍🌈