Graphic Novels

Here's a whole bunch of graphic novels that I've read in the last couple weeks. From right to left, these books are in order from least liked to most loved!

"That Salty Air" was just okay. It was a mildly interesting short story about a fisherman and his wife. The art and story of "Luuna" reminded me slightly (only slightly) of the Bone graphic novels. There were 3 small and round cartoony characters you're supposed to laugh at and a young attractive native girl. I wasn't a fan of the rest of the story, though. I read these 2 books while browsing in the library.

I finished the most recently published Cirque Du Freak graphic novel, "The Vampire Prince," as well. Ha, looks like I forgot to mention when I read #5. Well, suffice it to say I did, and that this series is still pretty good so far. But this book sure has a lot of fighting in it. 0,o

On Graham "Chop" Bradley's recommendation, I read "Sons of Liberty", by the Lagos brothers. Definitely a good read. Thanks, Graham. I'll keep my eyes peeled for the next installment. ^_~

My twin sister, Annette, actually turned me on to the next graphic novel, "Japan Ai." This is the manga journal of a real-life woman who goes sight-seeing in Japan with a couple of friends. Her stories are really funny, not to mention that the artwork portraying her antics are adorable and hilarious! Her description of Japanese culture was extremely thorough and complete, so it was as if I myself had traveled to Japan with her. It sounds like SUCH a different place than America, but it also sounds wonderful!

The best graphic novel I've read in these 2 weeks, however, has to be "Phoenix: A Tale of the Future", by Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy). What an amazing, mind-bending story that was. It takes place waaaay in the future, a few centuries or so from now, and... really, the story is too complicated to relate here, but it's amazing! You must read it!

Alright. I'm done. Now onto the short-stories.

Cirque Du Freak #2 & #3, by Takahiro Arai

When I visited Borders today, I remembered how much I'd enjoyed reading the first Cirque Du Freak manga novel (see link here), so I looked for the next in the series, found it, and settled myself down against the book shelf for another wild adventure with Darren Shan, half-vampire.

No sooner was I done reading book #2 when I got up, found #3 and sat down again, plunging right through the next story and finished that in a wink as well. If my speed in reading these books is any indication of how much I liked them, then I loved them! And I really do. ^_^

By now I believe I've gotten used to the way manga books read from right to left. No matter which direction the reading goes, the stories are super-awesome! After Darren becomes a vampire, he joins the Cirque Du Freak and makes a couple loyal and true friends, like Evra the snake boy, and Sam, a young out-spoken boy who reminds me somewhat of the character Chuck from James Dashner's Maze Runner. Unfortunately, just like Chuck, Sam dies a very noble and sad death. ~,~ (Sorry for that spoiler!)

In the third book, a year passes by before Darren and Evra have their next adventure. The reader learns the difference between vampires and vampaneeze and Darren gets his first romantic interest. A little interesting how that springs about, actually. I don't know how much I liked his girlfriend. But anyway, the book ends very well, and I liked it.

I got to read just a little bit of book #4, like 30 pages, before it was time to leave the book store. From what I read so far, this looks like a great adventure as well. 6 years pass between novels this time (half-vampires age 5 times slower than humans, so he still looks like a teen. Convenient, huh?). For some reason he has to go to this vampire meeting, and I left off of the part where he and his mentor, Crepsley, are up in the mountains and meet up with a vampire General, Gavner Purl. He seems like a good character. He's a friend of Crepsley, anyway.

I can't wait to get back to Borders and read the rest! The sad thing is that I think either this book or the 5th one is the last in the manga series, and in the actual series there's, like, a dozen books. I wonder if, when I finish the manga series, it'll be easy to pick up with the regular books. Well, in any case, I recommend this graphic novel series a lot!

A couple books

Okay, I need to be a LOT better at posting book reviews after I finish them. It would take way too long to write proper reviews for each of these books, so I'm going to do it in one whole shebang. One thing all these books have in common? They receive a hearty thumbs up from me, but for different reasons.
I finished the Michael Jackson biography first, and, since I'm such a huge fan of him, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. ^_^ Funny enough, I got to reading it while I was researching for my Michael Jackson Tribute speech for Toastmasters (see this link). This book had so much! There were chapters about his 2 marriages, a chapter with a list of most of the notable awards he won over the years, even a few chapters that were transcripts of interviews he did, like the one he did in 1993 with Oprah Winfrey. I liked those chapters best. ^_^ I like what people say about him well enough, but anything Michael says just makes me admire him even more. I highly recommend this to MJ fans.

Num8ers was quite a fascinating read too. I found out about it because of a review from the Latiener Gang. They certainly picked a winner, in my opinion. It's about a girl who knows when people are going to die by seeing the numbers of their date when she looks in their eyes. It's a pretty great love story, but (and I'm sorry to spoil it for you) it ends sadly. Like the Latieners say, the ending will really surprise you. I'll warn you though, this book's kind of for mature readers, if you catch my meaning.

Lastly, there's the Elmo book. Now, I'm not a really big fan of Sesame Street, let alone Elmo, but this book was very informative, because it was written by a guy who was right behind the scenes of things. It's mostly a biography of the life of Kevin Clash, the voice and puppeteer of Elmo. His story is pretty sweet, and it made me think about how many people are actually affected by the famous little red muppet monster.

There's actually one more book I wanted to mention. I read it in Borders very quickly the other day. It's a manga graphic novel for Cirque Du Freak. I know a movie of this came out just last year, and I've been slightly curious about the story for a while. I'm not really used to manga, since you have to read from the right end of the book to the left end, but as graphic novels go, I liked it. ^_^ It comes in a whole series, and I look forward to going through all the rest.

And I promise, the next book I finish will get an immediate review. Peace out!