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Cutie Honey has always been one of those series that's been on my peripheral. I know she's important to the magical girl genre and has one of the best anime theme songs ever. However, I had never read the original manga until now!

I was pretty shocked reading the first few pages and had to double check what I was reading. Ha ha ha. I did not know the original Cutie Honey was erotica, so I was a little off put, but I eventually read the entire thing--Cutie Honey is such an impactful work that I had to see what was what. It blends eroticism and violence into a manga depicting Honey's struggles with loss and revenge.

The story at its core is great and I can see why Honey is so beloved years later, but I also felt the fast changing tones of the story was a bit much for me. It swapped between pure erotic jokes, serious death, slapstick, humor featuring bodily functions, and back to seriousness so fast I'm impressed Go Nagai got it all into two volumes.

While reading, I felt many of the jokes did not age well (particularly the ones about the "ugly" girls), and I wish I'd known the genre of this book before I started reading (that's on me for not looking up the history lol), but I can see why this book is such an important work, for both erotica and the magical girl genre.

I really enjoyed the two interviews in the back of the book, one discussing Honey's creation and the second talking about the importance of erotica as a genre. They were a nice touch at the end of the book.

Whatever her start, Cutie Honey is an iconic character and I'm glad to have read the original.

After a long break, I finally sat down and binged through the rest of Flowers in the Attic. Hard to believe I started this in 2018, but I am happy to say I didn't need to reread anything. I remembered everything that had happened when I read it prior which is always a sign of a good book.

Now that I've finished it, I have to say I sort of wish I had been able to experience this book without knowing the general story, or all the spoilers, or what made it so infamous. For example, I already knew the donuts were poisoned. It had the benefit of allowing me to notice all the foreshadowing in the book, but I'll never know if I would have picked up on what was coming if I hadn't already known.

Either way, I loved the writing style and the characters. It was a compelling read and I'm always up for a little bit of dark fiction. Heck, it probably says something about my previous reading choices that I found this story pretty tame despite its reputation.

Either way, I can see myself picking up one of the sequels in the future. :D

I saw the words "dress-up" on the spine and read the back. I saw "Doll making" and "cosplay" and went "Yeah, this is for me."

And it was!

This humorous story about the nervous and anxious Wakana (who can get serious when it matters) and the cool and bold Marin (who gets flustered when her feelings are real) is delightful and adorable. Both characters are relatable in their own ways (Wakana who is ashamed of his doll making career/hobby and Marin who's just so happy to have someone genuinely share in her interests) and their struggles and finding relief in each other is heartwarming. You story emphasizes how these two relate to each other with the experiences they've both had with their "odd" hobbies and it builds their chemistry.

I suppose if I had any critique, I think the "Wakana takes measurements" scenes went on a little too long. I understand part of the comic is the erotic aspects, but it felt a little repetitive as they went over the same "Wakana is turned on, embarrassed, and forces himself to keep going." While the end had a nice pay off (When he forces himself to consider her feelings for her cosplay hobby and gets serious), they probably could have cut out a step or two in between.

But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to Volume 2!

Sometimes I need to remind myself that "Not every book is for every person and that's okay."

I made it about 60 pages into this book when I decided it wasn't for me. The premise caught my attention (I do love a Feral Boy in fiction), but the more I read, the more I realized this was essentially a Zombie Post-Apocalypse story--which is not my genre.

And I know this is possibly my misunderstanding. From the back of the book summary, it listed that men where "inhumanly strong and filled with rage" which did not translate in my mind as also being Mindless. While these "feral" aren't entirely as mindless as your typical zombie (they do have animal-like qualities like forming packs, etc), for all intents and purposes, they are more or less Zombies.

At the very least, the narrative is very typical of a Zombie story & Allie reads like the protagonist of an action video game (to clarify: that is not a negative).

So if that's your genre--you go for it! The writing is well done, the opening that depicts the world slowly falling into the feral's hands is great, and it's told from a variety of POV and perspectives that make for interesting reading.

But for someone like myself who can only list one Zombie Narrative I've enjoyed (The Left 4 Dead series by Valve, if you're curious), I think I'll give this one a pass.

Jaws has been one of my long time favorite films, so when I saw the book on a shelf at the library, I had to pick it up.

The book lived up to expectations! The writing style was wonderful and all of the characters felt like people on the page with their thoughts, fears, and feelings.

Though there were times where I was like "I see why they didn't include any of this in the movie." Specifically the very long subplot involving Ellen cheating on Brody with Hooper during an insecure time in her life. It wasn't a bad subplot, but it did take me out of the story. The relationship drama felt unrelated to the hunt for the shark and slowed down the story, but it wasn't bad and it was nice to get to know Ellen more as a character.

It might have been better if it'd been weaved in more naturally, like the subplot concerning why Vaughan was so against closing the beach, which was built over over the narrative with his increasing desperation to convince Brody not to scare away the tourists until the reveal. It was a great addition to the main plot and gave more depth to Vaughan's character. It made me feel for him more than the film did.

Overall it was a great read and reminded me how much I missed reading an omnipresent narrator. I'm really glad I got a chance to read it.

(Though I never did get used to them all referring to the shark as a "fish.")