REVIEW: The Heiress and the Chauffeur (manga, vol. 2) by Keiko Ishihara, translated by pinkie-chan

The Heiress and the Chauffeur is a historical romance manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Sayaka's father arranges a marriage meeting for her with Akihiko Tachibana, the coldly business-minded third son of Earl Tachibana. In the process of turning him down, Sayaka accidentally causes him to fall for her. This could turn into a complicated love triangle, but since this is the final volume of the series and it's time it's time for Sayaka to start catching on to her own and others' feelings, things get resolved more quickly than that. Somehow, the author still manages to fit in a few surprises, though.

REVIEW: The Heiress and the Chauffeur (manga, vol. 1) by Keiko Ishihara, translated by pinkie-chan

The Heiress and the Chauffeur is a historical romance manga. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

This is set during the Taisho era. When Sayaka was little, her mother was killed in a construction accident and Sayaka's foot was injured badly enough that she could no longer walk. In an effort to earn her father's praise and make him spend more time with her, she trained herself to walk again, and to be elegant enough to be called the "crimson lily" of her finishing school. Although Sayaka's father continues to spend most of his time away from her, Sayaka instead grows very close to her chauffeur, Shinobu Narutaki, seeing him as something like an older brother. What she doesn't realize is that Narutaki has fallen in love with her. His overly familiar behavior with her often gets them in trouble, but he's happy to take whatever punishment he's given as long as he can stay by her side.

Still, the difference in their social classes is an issue. In this volume, a jealous girl tries to get Narutaki dismissed, and Narutaki worries that Sayaka will fall in love with someone at a soiree she's invited to.

REVIEW: Alice Love Fables: Toy Box (manga) story by QuinRose, art by Mamenosuke Fujimaru, translated by Angela Liu

Alice Love Fables: Toy Box is an anthology of very short stories linked to various QuinRose visual novel series. I bought my copy of this volume used.

Review:

I wish I'd paid a little more attention to the text on the cover before jumping into this, because I expected its stories to be focused solely on the various Alice in the Country of series, and instead there were stories set in a variety of QuinRose visual novel worlds, including one I had zero familiarity with.

Anyway, a quick list of the characters the stories center on:

- Arabians Lost: The Engagement On Desert: Roberto, Curtis, Stuart

- Alice in the Country of Hearts: Wonderful Wonder World: The Bloody Twins, Julius, Elliot

- Alice in the Country of Clover: Wonderful Wonder World: Gray, Peter, Blood

- Crimson Empire: Circumstances to Serve a Noble: Edvard, Justin, Michael

REVIEW: The Bride Was a Boy (manga memoir) story & art by Chii, translated by Beni Axia Conrad

The Bride Was a Boy is a manga memoir. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This manga memoir focuses on transgender author Chii's experiences with dating, transitioning, legally changing her gender, and getting married. Not everyone in her life knew she was transgender, but her family did and were very supportive, and Husband-kun (the way she refers to her husband throughout) just wanted to be with her however he could. 

REVIEW: The Earl & the Fairy (manga, vol. 4) story & art by Ayuko, original concept by Mizue Tani, translated by John Werry

The Earl & the Fairy is a fantasy romance series based on a Japanese light novel series. I bought my copy of this volume used.

Review:

This is the final volume of the manga adaptation of this series. The mystery of Doris Walpole's disappearance is solved, but not before Lydia ends up in danger on multiple levels.

Okay, Edgar is cute. Just the right amount of flirty, and yet still too shy to say "don't leave me" to Lydia, so he just arranges for her to be too busy to leave.

Although this is the end of the manga adaptation, I think the light novel series goes further and maybe even wraps up the series' romantic aspects more satisfactorily. I might read the books eventually, in order to get the series' true ending. Or not, seeing as how my TBR pile is enormous and ever growing. The light novels are only available electronically, I think, and I really need to concentrate on physical items instead.

Extras:

A "story thus far" section with character profiles, three humorous four-panel comics, and a short note from the author.

REVIEW: The Earl & the Fairy (manga, vol. 3) story & art by Ayuko, original concept by Mizue Tani, translated by John Werry

The Earl & the Fairy is a fantasy romance series based on a Japanese light novel series. I bought my copy of this volume used.

Review:

Lydia is now officially Edgar's fairy doctor. Lydia and Edgar's help is enlisted to find a missing aristocratic girl, Doris Walpole. Her disappearance seems to be linked to her cousin, Rosalie, and something called a "fairy egg." Also, the girls and the egg are somehow connected to Edgar being kidnapped and sold into slavery when he was a child.

The mystery was relatively interesting, and I enjoyed Edgar's flirtiness (he keeps wanting Lydia to be jealous of the time he spends with other girls). Also, Nico was great as usual.

This is still only so-so for me - not bad, but not particularly memorable. 

Extras:

A brief "story thus far" section with character profiles, three humorous four-panel comics, and a short note from the author.

REVIEW: Service Model (book) by Adrian Tschaikovsky

Service Model is science fiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Charles (soon to be renamed Uncharles) is a robot valet in a decaying manor, in a decaying world. For reasons unknown, he slits his master's throat one day while shaving him and is forced to go out into the world to find Diagnostics, get fixed, and hopefully find new employment. Along the way, he meets another defective "robot," The Wonk, who tells him he's been infected with the Protagonist Virus, something that supposedly lets robots behave outside of the ways they were programmed. 

REVIEW: Shaken or Stirred (book) by Georgia Beers

Shaken or Stirred is a lesbian contemporary romance. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Julia Martini is the new owner of her family's struggling bar, and she's determined to make it a success - not just because she's sunk a lot of her money into the place, but also because she wants her father to finally approve of her. He loves her, she knows that, but it feels like he's held her at arm's length ever since she came out as a lesbian.

Savannah McNally is a home health care worker who's basically been a caretaker in one way or another since her mother died. She's used to people needing her, which is part of why it stings a little that her dad and younger siblings seem to be turning to her dad's new girlfriend, Dina, more and more. Still, Dina seems to be good for her dad, so she tries to adjust. She feels vaguely guilty when she and her friend agree to meet at Martini's, a bar owned by a family that, for some reason, her dad hates - and then she meets Julia and is completely charmed by her.

REVIEW: The Periodic Table: A Visual Guide to the Elements (nonfiction book) by Paul Parsons and Gail Dixon

The Periodic Table: A Visual Guide to the Elements is nonfiction. I bought my copy used.

Review:

I realized as I was putting together some book lists for my various liaison departments at work that chemistry is one of my weak areas. This was originally published in 2013, so there are almost certainly details that are out-of-date, but I was drawn to the "visual guide" aspect in the title (pictures make the nonfiction go down easier) so I decided to give this a shot.

This book covers each of the 118 known elements, including a page or two for almost all of them. Each element gets a picture or two (either of the element in its pure form, when possible, or of something related to the element), basic information about it (melting point, boiling point, crystal structure, color, phase, etc.), and a text section detailing how/when the element was discovered, what its properties are, what its commercial and medical uses are (if any), how common it is, etc. 

REVIEW: The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath: Falling in Love with the Bookish Princess of the Rat Clan (manga, vol. 3) story by Aki Shikimi, art by Akiko Kawano, translated by Minna Lin

The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath is a fantasy romance manga series. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

It's the final volume of this series. The Bird Clan kidnappers decide to kill Ruiying because they think the Rabbit Princess is the only one who matters, but thankfully Ruiying is saved by an older Bird man. As all of this is going on, King Yawen's wrath is rapidly growing stronger. If something isn't done soon, he may completely lose control to the point that even his closest friends won't be safe.

REVIEW: Button Pusher (graphic novel memoir) by Tyler Page

Button Pusher is Tyler Page's graphic novel memoir of growing up with ADHD. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Tyler Page was an intelligent boy, but he was often hyperactive in class and had a tendency to do things without considering the consequences. His mom initially made a doctor's appointment for him because of some headaches he'd been having, but issues at school turned it into a broader evaluation of Tyler's behavior and family situation. His mom confessed that there were some problems at home - Tyler's father was prone to sudden bouts of anger - so family therapy was proposed. As Tyler's parents tried to talk about and work through their issues, Tyler went to group therapy with other children and was eventually diagnosed with ADD (now referred to as ADHD). He was put on Ritalin and showed some improvement, but his medication still needed occasional adjustment and it was never a miracle cure.

In between scenes from Tyler's childhood, there are brief informational pages about ADHD, what we know about it, some of the benefits and drawbacks of labels, misconceptions about ADHD, and more. The author also briefly touches on ADHD in adults and women and how the way it presents can be very different from the way it presented in him as he was growing up. 

REVIEW: The Earl & the Fairy (manga, vol. 2) story & art by Ayuko, original concept by Mizue Tani, translated by John Werry

The Earl & the Fairy is a fantasy romance series based on a Japanese light novel series. I bought my copy of this volume used.

Review:

Lydia travels with Edgar to his holdings near Ireland in order to find the sword and Merrow Star he's been seeking. However, Lydia still doesn't know if she can trust Edgar and now, via Huxley, her father is also in danger.

It's been ages since I last saw it, but I think the events of this volume are where the anime ended.

Meh, this was okay. Nothing about this particular volume really stood out to me. I did kind of like Nico - grumpy, put-upon, and trying to keep Lydia alive.

REVIEW: Spider-Man: Fake Red (manga) story and art by Yusuke Osawa, translated by Caleb Cook

Spider-Man: Fake Red is part of Marvel's efforts to dip into the world of manga. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Yu is an average teen who's failing his classes, has no friends, and skips school to work out on a climbing wall. One day, he happens to find an abandoned and surprisingly well-made Spider-Man suit - and when he discovers that it includes web-slinging tech, he comes to the conclusion that it might actually belong to the real Spider-Man. When he gets spotted trying the suit on, he feels obligated to uphold Spider-Man's honor and fight nearby crime. However, he really is just an ordinary teen. Can he keep this up without getting himself killed? And what happened to the real Spider-Man?

REVIEW: Dead Eleven (book) by Jimmy Juliano

Dead Eleven is a blend of horror and mystery. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book is structured as a reconstruction of the events leading up to sports writer Harper's sister's disappearance. Harper's sister, Willow, was grieving after the death of her young son when she discovered the words "Clifford Island" written in his room. Wanting desperately to know what sort of connection Clifford Island had to her son, Willow takes a job as the island's new youth ministries director and starts to dig into the island's mysteries. It's a strange place: it has hardly any internet presence, so it's difficult to find out anything about it. The whole island seems to be stuck in the mid-to-early '90s - teens wear slap bracelets, no one has a cell phone, no one has newer cars, etc. People even seem to be weirdly fixated on the OJ Simpson car chase, watching it every day as though it were breaking news.

The story alternates between scenes leading up to Willow's disappearance, as she investigates what makes this island tick and at the same time finds herself strangely at home in this bizarre place, and scenes in which Harper talks to folks on the island in an effort to figure out what happened to his sister. Both Willow and Harper find an ally in Lily, a Clifford Island teenager who's frustrated with the island's rules and doesn't believe in the reasons behind them. 

REVIEW: The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath: Falling in Love with the Bookish Princess of the Rat Clan (manga, vol. 2) story by Aki Shikimi, art by Akiko Kawano, translated by Minna Lin

The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath is a fantasy romance manga series. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

Ruiying learns more about the Dragon Clan and starts to become closer to King Yawen, although she's relieved to hear that he isn't ignoring the other princesses. She meets and befriends the Rabbit Princess, who wanted to become a bride candidate so that she'd have the opportunity to study medicine - although the Rabbit Clan is known for its medical knowledge, women in the clan are expected to be beautiful and submissive dolls.

REVIEW: The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath: Falling in Love with the Bookish Princess of the Rat Clan (manga, vol. 1) story by Aki Shikimi, art by Akiko Kawano, translated by Minna Lin

The Dragon King's Imperial Wrath is a fantasy romance manga series. I bought my copy of this volume new.

Review:

In the world of this series, thirteen clans rule the land (think animals of the Chinese Zodiac). The Rat Clan is the weakest, while the Dragon Clan is the strongest. The Dragon Clan has summoned a princess from each of the other clans in order to find the Dragon King a bride.

Ruiying isn't interested in becoming the Dragon King's bride - she just wants access to the Dragon Clan's incredible library. However, when the Dragon King, Yawen, encounters her, he instantly declares her his fated mate.

REVIEW: Matchmaking a Player (novella) by Angela Casella

Matchmaking a Player is a contemporary romance novella, part of the author's Highland Hills series. I got my copy free.

Review:

I could have sworn I'd kept at least a few notes about this, but apparently not. I'll have to work from memory. Unfortunately, I honestly don't remember much about this other than that it was just okay.

The main character, Brittany, works at a bar and has a serious crush on her boss's brother, Logan. If I remember right, Logan was interested in her when they first met, but she was married, so he didn't say anything. Now that she's divorced, there's nothing standing in their way except their own issues. 

The romance itself didn't make much of an impression on me - it probably didn't help that I haven't read any of the other works in this series (this novella was a freebie I acquired at the last Book Bonanza). The most memorable bits, for me, were the matchmaking romance author who literally wrote the main characters of this novella into her latest book (I'd think that would feel super weird in real life, but what do I know?), and the fact that Brittany and Logan got caught having sex behind the bar by Logan's brother, Brittany's boss, and this was treated as more mildly amusing than anything.

Anyway, this wasn't bad, I guess, but it didn't prompt me to look up any of the author's other works.

REVIEW: Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle (nonfiction book) by Thor Hanson

Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

I'm trying to make myself read more nonfiction. Thor Hanson seemed to be a well-recommended science writer, and biology- and evolution-related topics interest me, so I decided to give this a try.

Near the end of the book is this quote:

"'Feathers are already incredible in every way!' [Dr. Kimberly Bostwick] exclaimed at one point. 'We just need to be able to see it.'" (260)

I felt like it summed up the primary appeal of this book for me. Looking at what we know about the evolution of feathers, the way they function, their use in flight and mating displays, and more, Hanson highlighted all sorts of ways feathers are amazing. If I'd ever been inclined to think they were ordinary and boring, this book would have convinced me otherwise. As it was, I hadn't realized how many aspects of feathers I'd never thought much about.

If I could have changed one thing about this book, it was the black-and-white illustrations. It's not possible for books like this to include illustrations featuring everything interesting in them, for sure, but the pictures in the chapter on feather coloration were so disappointing as to feel like a waste of space. If you're going to include pictures specifically designed to highlight the colors in an artist's reconstruction of a feathered dinosaur or the color of tevau (feather money coils), those pictures really need to be in color themselves.

All in all, this was a fascinating read, and I plan on trying more of Hanson's books.

REVIEW: Uzumaki (manga) by Junji Ito, translation by Yuji Oniki

Uzumaki is a horror manga. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Kirie, a high school girl, is the primary narrator of Uzumaki. Through a variety of connected stories, she describes how her hometown of Kurouzu-cho gradually becomes completely contaminated by spirals. It all starts with her boyfriend Shuichi's father, whose obsession with spirals begins to twist his body and mind. Then Shuichi's mother is affected, then one of Kirie's classmates, and then her own father. It gradually spreads to more and more people, and affects more and more aspects of their lives. 

The premise doesn't really sound like much, but Ito's artwork elevates it to something truly horrific. Aside from a few instances here and there that I, for some reason, found more amusing than horrific (the spiraled hair incident, for example), Ito somehow manages to transform something simple and ordinary into an infinitely deep well of dread.

REVIEW: Aftershocks: A Memoir (memoir) by Nadia Owusu

Aftershocks is a memoir. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Nadia Owusu is the daughter of a Ghanaian father and an Armenian American mother. When she was two, her mother abandoned her family and only occasionally reappeared. Nadia's father, a United Nations official, remarried. In addition to the two daughters he had with his first wife, he had a son with his second wife. When Nadia was 13, her father died of cancer. Nadia and her siblings opted to stay with Anabel, Nadia's stepmother, although Nadia and her younger sister Yasmeen's relationship with Anabel was complicated, to say the least. 

Years later, during an argument, Anabel told Nadia that her father hadn't died of cancer, but rather of AIDS. Nadia was left feeling like the foundations of her life, already filled with cracks, were dashed to pieces. Her father, who she'd always felt closest to and who she'd put on a pedestal, had potentially had secrets she didn't know about. Throughout the book, Nadia examines her relationship with her father, the things he told her, and the various other "aftershocks" of her life. 

REVIEW: Almost Surely Dead (book) by Amina Akhtar

Almost Surely Dead is a blend of thriller and supernatural horror. I got my copy of this book for free.

Review:

This is one of the freebies I got at the last Book Bonanza. (This is another one I finished a while back and should have reviewed sooner, or at least taken more notes on. My memories of it are a bit fuzzy.)

This alternates between true crime podcast snippets about Dunia Ahmed, a pharmacist in New York who went missing a year ago, flashbacks to Dunia's life not long before she disappeared, and flashbacks to Dunia when she was 5 years old. Part of what makes Dunia's disappearance so intriguing to the podcast's audience is that there were several unexplained attempts on her life just before she disappeared. For no apparent reason whatsoever, total strangers suddenly tried to kill Dunia and then committed suicide when they failed. Previously, the only thing causing Dunia problems was her ex, who kept sending her threatening messages, but the people who tried to kill her didn't seem to have any connection to Dunia's ex, or any other part of her life. Meanwhile, in the flashbacks to Dunia's childhood, we learn that she was prone to sleepwalking and that her mother once had an exorcism performed on her.  

What was going on with Dunia, and where is she now?

REVIEW: The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century (book) by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken

The Employees is what I'd call literary sci-fi. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This book is set up as though it were a series of statements taken from a group of employees working with and around a variety of artifacts and occasionally visiting a nearby planet. (I think - it's been a while since I read this, and my memories are fuzzy.) The statements were taken over a period of 18 months, after which the committee assigned to evaluate the employees came to a decision about their overall fate. Some of the employees were human, while others were humanoid (human, but created artificially?).

REVIEW: Spider-Man/Deadpool: Isn't It Bromantic? (graphic novel) written by Joe Kelly, Scott Aukerman, Gerry Dugan, Penn Jillette, Nick Giovannetti & Paul Scheer, Joshua Corin

Spider-Man/Deadpool: Isn't It Bromantic? is a Marvel comics collection devoted to modern (2016-2017) Spider-Man and Deadpool team-ups. I bought my copy of this collection new.

Review:

This starts with a multi-issue story in which Deadpool has been hired to kill Peter Parker, CEO of Parker Industries. Deadpool is trying to emulate his hero, Spider-Man, and not kill people...or at least stick to only killing bad people...so he tries to confirm that Parker (who he doesn't know is Spider-Man) is really the evil guy he's been told he is. Part of his plan is to hang out with Spider-Man and see if he can get some inside info. Unfortunately, Deadpool's efforts leave Spider-Man seriously out of sorts and questioning his way of doing things.

The story's flow was a bit jumpy, and I'm out of the Marvel loop enough not know pretty much any of the background details like how Deadpool got married to Shiklah, who Shiklah is, and how Peter Parker became a CEO. Still, I had fun with the first half and Deadpool's efforts to convince Spider-Man that he'd turned over a new leaf. The way the storyline wrapped up seemed a bit too simple, considering how thoroughly emotionally rocked Peter was, though.

Then Deadpool and Spider-Man spend some time on the set of the Deadpool movie (starring handsome Hollywood movie star Donald Dryans), which was mildly amusing.

After that was a faux-1968 issue of Amazing Spider-Man in which Deadpool was working for some rich guys trying to rig an election in an overly complicated way. Then there was an issue in which Deadpool and Teller (of Penn & Teller) had to switch places for a while. After that was a holiday special in which the god Saturn slaughtered people celebrating Christmas because they were ruining his own holiday, Saturnalia. The volume wrapped up with an issue in which a bunch of girls at a boarding school used Deadpool to perform a ritual designed to summon Deadpool's heartmate and resurrect their evil headmistress in the person's body. Deadpool's heartmate turns out to canonically be Spider-Man.

The last bunch of issues varied in overall enjoyability. My favorite of the bunch was probably the last one, with the schoolgirls. 

I bought this collection because I heard it had good Spidey-Pool content, and for the most part it delivered. Story-wise, it was occasionally a bit confusing and got darker than I expected. Overall, I enjoyed this, although it reminded me why I've mostly left Marvel and DC comics behind. I don't know that I'd have liked this as much if I weren't already primed to enjoy Deadpool.

REVIEW: The Scourge Between Stars (novella) by Ness Brown

The Scourge Between Stars is sci-fi horror. I bought my copy new.

Review:

A couple hundred or so years ago, desperate colony ships left Earth in search of a new home. The place they found, Proxima b, turned out to be to dangerous to settle, so their descendants are heading back to Earth. Things don't look good. They can't go back to Proxima b, they likely don't have enough food, oxygen, and fuel to make it back to Earth (which may not even be habitable, anyway), and they keep getting caught in the crossfire of what seems to be some kind of enormous alien war.

Jacklyn Albright is the acting captain of the Calypso, barely holding herself together, much less the ship. Her mother committed suicide, her sister is dead, and her father, the ship's captain, hasn't left his quarters or spoken to anyone in over a week. Then things go from bad to worse. There are glitches in the ship's systems, something keeps making banging noises inside the ship's walls, and a crew member is found horribly mutilated.