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!

Moonwalk, by Michael Jackson

Do I really have to say anything about this book? It was written by Michael Jackson. I loved it. 'Nuff said. But this blog isn't just a record for me of what books I've read. When I write reviews, I want to think that I'm convincing someone who has similar reading tastes as mine that they should read the books that I have. So...

Trust me, even if you have only the faintest inkling of who Michael Jackson is, you should read this book. You don't have to like him or his music to enjoy his writing style (though I'm positive it will help a lot if you're a fan ^_^). He covers almost everything. All stages of his life, chronological stories leading right up to when he was almost 30 years old. Hey, it was published in 1988.

The stories, the memories that this superstar has of when he was younger are just so cool. It reminds me that even though he had a lot of talent, he was still only a kid, and nothing he did was ever easy. He had to work very hard with his brothers and family to get so famous. I'm so glad he used lots of details to describe his life. It's just what I was looking forward to when I reserved Michael Jackson's own biography. I gobbled the whole thing up in just a couple days, even though I tried my best to savor his every word.

It's probably plain to see that, personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, so I won't say any more. But please, if my review has managed to spark your interest in this awesome star's life story, write me a comment and let me know.

Twilight: The Graphic Novel, by Young Kim

I went to the library today and I happened to find this in the graphic novel section. How can one possibly resist? ^_^ I read the entire thing in one sitting. In one word, it's... incredible. I know the story pretty much inside and out, having read the book and seen the movie a couple times, but reading the graphic novel seemed to give me a whole different experience. I liked it. I really, really liked it.

The artwork is fantastic. The characters are drawn very well, a mix between what they look like in the movie and how I imagine them when I read about them, and the background was very realistic, almost like a photograph sometimes. The style just really appealed to me, and that's good, because when I pick up a graphic novel, if I don't like the way the art looks and the story doesn't hold my interest, I won't read it. But this was amazing.

Really, this book almost made me feel the same things as I did when I read Twilight itself. I was pretty disappointed when I found out it ended smack in the middle. I hope the next volume comes out soon...

Also while I was at the library, I picked up a very special book that I'd reserved not too long ago. Moonwalk, by Michael Jackson himself! I can't wait to read this and share my thoughts about it with everyone! ^_^ This will undoubtedly be a review you won't want to miss.

This is the super-awesome drawing that Michael actually drew at the front of his book. His self-portrait. ^_^ What an artist!

Pages!

I've recently discovered a new function in Blogger! Pages that are separate from the blog! This is really a space-saver, and really neat. I have all the link stuff and a whole wall of the books I read in 2009, plus I'm building a wall for books I've read so far in 2010 that I will keep adding to. You have to check them out! And try to use them in your own blog, because this is a handy feature. You can find the button for creating pages when you're editing your posts. ^_~

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!

Serafina67 *urgently requires life*, by Susie Day

OMG, this book was really cute and funny. I found it in the library on the Treasure Trove shelf (where else?) and started looking through it. Basically, it read like the blog of a 15-year-old girl who lives in England and has a lot to talk about. There were much misspellings and internet shorthand, or "IM-speak", but for a person who has been blogging for well over a year, it was easy for me to read.

I actually took quite a long time to read this, because I wasn't sure if I really wanted to check it out, with all the typical teenager drama there might be in it, so I only read it in installments whenever we came to the library. Eventually though, I felt it was okay for me to take it back home and finish it up (it only took one sitting 0,o).

So here's the story. Serafina67, a newbie blogger on ULife, decides she wants to have a few resolutions for the new year: Be completely honest and post almost every day, become skinnier (she has a slight weight problem), make her parents happier (they're divorced and Dad has a new girlfriend who he'll marry soon), make blog friends, and get a boyfriend. All these things she must accomplish before April 22nd, her magic Happiness Deadline date. It's not her birthday, but it's special to Serafina for another reason.

It's a little episodic, but only in the way that an actual blog in real life is episodic, so it was fine with me. The posts were even followed by comments, when there were any, so it felt like I was actually keeping up with an actual person. I loved that! The blog author herself, Serafina, is funny and intellectual, a little wild and self-deprecating at times, but really a character you could pretty much relate to. I enjoyed the fact that she wanted to write stories, or VTNs (Very Thrilling Novels). I don't know if she wanted to really go anywhere with them, because she kept dropping her stories, but still.

In addition to Serafina, there is a great cast of other funny voices in her blog: her faithful commenters. There's Patchworkboy (who actually ends up being her boyfriend! ^_^) and Daisy13 and Frantastica and a whole range of others. It makes the blog-format of the story so much more complete and real with comments. It's a wild ride with many twists and surprises (but of course, what is life but a wild and unpredictable ride?), and at the end there's an especially shocking revelation that you would never have guessed at if you were following the story. The end is definitely my favorite part.

If you like reading blogs, then I do believe you will enjoy reading this thoroughly entertaining blog in physical book form. (It makes me wish that I could turn my own blog into an actual book. If anyone comments, would you know if this is possible?)

Reinventing yourself, by Steve Chandler

This was a very inspirational book. Usually I'm a bit skeptical about these kind of books, but I really liked the writing style of this one. It made a lot of neat references to famous people that I recognize, like Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jordan and others, and the chapters were very short and easy, so it made for an extremely fast read.

The main point of the book is to make a distinction between people who are victims and people who are owners. Victims are people who feel sorry for themselves, complain and blame other people/ external circumstances for the way their state of affairs is. Owners are people who believe in themselves, take responsibility for their attitude, get out of their comfort zone, and can easily make changes in their lives.

I loved the anecdotes that were in this book. Some of them came from the author's own experience. A story in the first chapter (if not one of the first chapters, I forget now) about his daughters being nervous about singing almost made me cry. Since reading this book, I've also listened to an audio disc about sales with the author, Steve Chandler, narrating, and I really liked his voice. He sounds like a great and funny guy.