Back from vacation

I don't think I announced it here, but I went on vacation for a couple weeks. I visited my family and read a lot, although not as much as I did in previous years. If I recorded everything correctly, I managed to finish 37 manga and graphic novel volumes and 1 novel. I also watched three movies (the new Fahrenheit 451, Netflix's Death Note, and Khoobsurat) and way too many episodes of Seasons 1-2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I don't recall disliking Xander when I first watched the series, but I loathed him this time around) and a Chinese drama called Love 020.

The graphic novels and manga I got through included:

• Assassination Classroom (remember all those inspiring teacher/delinquent students movies in the '80s and '90s? this is a bit like that, only the teacher is an alien planning on destroying the Earth in a year and the students are trying to kill him)
• Black Butler (which took a shocking and not altogether welcome turn, although maybe this means the series is finally inching towards its endgame)
• Delicious in Dungeon
• Fence 
• The Girl from the Other Side
• Guardians of the Louvre
• Hikaru no Go (I realized I'd never actually finished the manga, although I've seen the anime and remember matching up the dialogue bubbles in Japanese editions of the manga to terrible fan translations)
• Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun
• Natsume's Book of Friends
• Skip Beat!
• The Tea Dragon Society

I purposely concentrated on things I was pretty sure I'd enjoy, so there wasn't anything I hated, although my least favorite of the volumes I read was probably Guardians of the Louvre. It was very pretty, and there were certain sections I liked more than others, but it wasn't really to my taste. I don't know that I can pick a favorite out of everything I read, but the artwork for The Tea Dragon Society was lovely, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun made me laugh, and I could easily have read 10+ more volumes of Natsume's Book of Friends. Fence was a bit rough around the edges but appealing all the same - although it isn't Japanese manga, it could be a great series for fans of sports manga/anime.

The one novel I read was Christina Dodd's Because I'm Watching, which I didn't realize was the third book in a series. My mom signed both of us up for a reader conference called Book Bonanza, and Christina Dodd is one of the authors who's planning to attend. Over the next few months, I'd like to read more books by other authors going to this event.

You can expect my usual spoiler-filled short takes on everything I read in the coming weeks. I can't spoiler tag things here, but I'll be making use of spoiler tags when I cross-post to Booklikes, LibraryThing, and Goodreads, if you're interested. I'd also like to post a bit about the movies I watched, although those will only be cross-posted to LibraryThing.