saifighter's Reviews (253)

Its books like this that are the reason that I continue to always return to middle grade, even as a 31 year old.

I think a lot of people still see middle grade as children's books that can't approach serious topics. But thats just not true. Max in the House of Spies tackles topics like politics, trauma, racism, and more just head on. The first half of the book is just the reader having to experience Antisemitic racism/bullying along side Max. Max describes Kristallnacht in such horrifying and cruel detail. A dude dies at the end of the book. The book doesn't pull any punches and asks the reader to ask tough questions. 

Lots of adults will be asking themselves if these topics and themes are "age-appropriate." Books like it have been book banned before all with the same cry of not being age-appropriate: Night, The Diary of a Young Girl, Number the Stars, and Maus all come to mind (3 of those books I did have to read for school). But these books aren't just age-appropriate, they hold subjects and themes that are paramount for young readers to explore. Readers are asked questions about Max's feelings, his morals, his ideas about the world, what is good and evil, can we trust our own bias, can we trust everyone, when is it okay to stand up to bullies and why,  if he questions the world around him, faith, family, death, and a ton of other things.  And in turn asks the reader those same things.

These themes and questions are not only enjoyable for younger reads to explore, but adults as well. And along the way, we get to meet incredible characters and experience fun scenes.

Middle grade can truly be enjoyed by everyone. And if you don't believe me, pick up Max in the House of Spies today.

Very excited for the second book!

 Had to read this manga on the most jank website. >_> Please use ad blocker if you can.

I actually really loved this manga! The art is so good. The India chapter was honestly gorgeous. I'm also pretty bias towards manga art that doesn't look like "generic anime".

I do like how we are slowly learning about Asahi and Mitsuki. Although

Asahi being sick

was pretty obvious from the start, I still really like these kind of plot points. I really wanna learn more about them.

Really wish the website I read it on wasn't missing so many chapters. I think I will have to buy this one.

I was definable looking up travel spots of the Republic of Georgia. They used to sell khachapuri at Costco and now I am sad I never bought it ;A; I'm looking up a recipe  

 Okay listen. I felt so guilty about giving this a 2.5.

TLDR: I didn't enjoy how empty the manga felt and the simplified art style that I feel like it used way too often. I found these early chapters REALLY boring, but it seems like it might get better later on. The anime is better, so far.

Concerning the art, at times it was so beautiful. The beautiful dresses and sparkly shojo art style. I really loved it. But I would say that 75% I was not vibing with the art. I think a few things contributed to this. First, I think the combination of so few backgrounds and almost no screen tones made panels just feel so EMPTY. When they do use these elements they come out looking great. Example being when Marie is walking through the gardens: LINK. But it felt so rare that a panel would have either. So much white space. I don't know why it bothered me so much. Second, I just didn't like how much the manga utilized the more simplified style for characters. Some chapters resembled a Popeye comic more than modern manga. I get that these art choices are probably just how manga looked back in the day, but I just did not like it. It was not for me.

The plot. It was so boring for the first 5 chapters. I seriously considered just DNF-ing. But decided since I suggested this manga and that I run this page I should probably read it >_> With how much Oscar is the face of this series I was really surprised that we barely focus on them. I later read that the manga shifts more onto Oscar once her popularity grew with the readers. So maybe it gets better later on, shifting more on to Oscar learning more about how France's government sucks and leading up to the Revolution. But for these early chapters, I just did not care about Antoinette and de Barry weren't talking to each other and how that was scandalous or whatever. I was way more invested in what ever was going on between the two sisters Rosalie and Jeanne.

It was nice to get a peak at the gender of it all in these chapters. Oscar being loved by women and being mistaken/treated as a man was really interesting. More of that please! Here is an example that I really enjoyed: LINK. I know this manga is highly praised for its explored themes of gender, sexuality, and feminism. I just wish we got to see more of that in these early chapters.

The background of this series is so interesting. It revolutionized not just shojo but manga all together (along with the other Year 24 Group members), allowing the medium to finally tell stories with more adult themes. Finding out the author used to be a activist, communist, protester, and how those politics from her college days INSPIRED THE WHOLE HECKING MANGA. The crazy idea that this revolutionary manga was not translated into English until 2015(?!?) and then wasn't published until 2020????? The plot/drama basically relied on whatever the fans wanted in their fan mail. The series just seems so interesting I felt like I had to explore it in other avenue since I didn't really enjoy the first volume of the manga.

I watched the first few episodes of the 1979 anime. The story focuses on Oscar right off the bat. Most of the events in the first 2 episodes aren't in the beginning of the manga. From episode one it is already so much more compelling than the manga. I was instantly hooked. I love Oscar and Andrea's friendship too. It was peak. Also Antoinette is so much more interesting (i mean shes still a brat, but its interesting). 

I watched a little bit of the Takarazuka Revue. Kind of wish there was a way to watch the whole thing outside of just like, buying the DVD. It honestly look like a delight. I couldn't find the 1987 movie and I didn't bother with Lady Oscar 1979 live action movie. 

Overall, I might watch the anime but I don't think the manga is for me.  

Every Tobia's book is a 5

I have mixed feelings on this one. (almost like every 3 star I give lol)

I wanna start off by saying, I don't really read a lot of romance. I think I can count the romance I novels I have actually enjoyed on one hand. Usually the cliques annoy me and the plots are usually incredibly clumsy. But I picked up "One Last Stop" because it was sitting on my wife's bookshelf. 

The writing is VERY millennial. I think Know Your Meme summarizes it perfectly: "Millennial Writing is a slang term that refers to a type of writing that is distinguished by an unnecessary abundance of sarcasm, meme and pop culture references and cliché quips." I think most people are either neutral on it or absolutely hate it. I'm in the neutral category, mostly because I am a millennial and this type of language doesn't really bother me. I'm not a fan of it but the overly earnest, quirky, "lol so random" of it all is just something you get used to. I imagine its a deal breaker for a lot of people and I think in another 10 years this book is going to feel really dated.

"One Last Stop" also has another weird characteristic that I feel is very millennial of it. It takes place in this weird perfect fantasy of what young queer millennials thought perfection was going to be. The main character moves to New York, instantly finds her very cool friendly queer found family roommates, is able to afford to rent a bedroom by working tables at your equally queer/ally found family co-workers, has her perfect fantasy meet-cute with her perfect hot girlfriend, every night is glitter, drag queen, and the world just farts fairy dust everywhere. This book feels like a bi-sexual manic pixie dream girl wet dream. This book feels like it was written in 2015, not 2021. Its taking place in this perfect reality and at times it makes me feel uncomfortable. But at others it makes me feel nostalgic, for a 2015 summer night standing in a DC gay bar sipping vodka cranberries and feeling like I was standing in the reality that this book subscribes to.

These two ingredient (the writing and the books weird reality) are a little bit of a positive and a negative. So with that in mind here are a few other things that I feel like pushed me from thinking "this is cringe and weird" to "this book was fun and actually not that bad."

-The romance is cute and there is actually a REAL REASON besides miscommunications that the couple can't get together.
-The supernatural/sci-fi plot is actually interesting.
-Sometimes the prose are actually fun and nice.
-I ugh actually enjoyed the "spice" scenes. Even if these degenerates fucked on a public train.

Anyway, at the end of the day, this is a light fluffy gay romance novel that takes place in a weird millennial version of reality. Its not a terrible time. A solid 3 stars. 

The art is literally so beautiful even if sometimes its a little hard to understand whats going on because the art is so dark (in the way of color not mood).

In volume one it gives you just enough information to keep you  curious about what exactly is going on. What is the curse? Where is grandma? What is this world all about? 

Will def keep reading

Listen to me.

This book FUCKS.

It is SO GOOD.

It is a certified BANGER.

This book has EVERYTHING that makes a good Animorphs book. Action, emotions, in-depth character exploration, hard moral questions, devastating effects of war. And it comes with this AWESOME character of Elfangor. Love this character so much, almost wish we could have more of him. And also we got HUGE lore in this book. This book is great, I think it seriously might be the best book in the series. 

Hot take but if you are an adult reading Animorphs for the first time, you don't usually read middle grade, you are not quite sure if you will like Animorphs, and you just wanna test out the waters, you should read this book FIRST. This is a way more exciting introduction to Animorphs than the actual first book.

Its seriously gonna be hard to top this one guys. 

This book is so weird and chaotic. I guess if you are reading for the weird shit, this is gonna be a great read for you. But if not than this is a book you can skip.

Well its pretty "action packed." Which is fun. But it doesn't have the character insight that I usually enjoy. The different POVs are nice. As an adult, this book isn't super entertaining but I can see younger me really liking it. Marco driving was a treat though. Worth reading just for those scenes.

Telepathic metal dragon with a rider that has cool art-based magic, and a ton of queer rep with a light enemies to lovers plot? Sign me the fuck up!

There is a lot of LGBT rep here. Non-binary, WLW, and poly. Its all very casual too. Don't expect gender or sex to be big themes though. The rep is just there, but its not a big part of the story, well except that romance I guess.

The magic system is really cool and while the author chose to not really explain it, you understand enough through context how it works. But I really do wish the author had gone more into depth, not just on the paint-magic but on the automatons as well. There was just so many interesting concepts that could have been explained but weren't. I don't think the book is less for it, I just think its something I would have liked to see.

And, the thing that really brought down the rating for me, the main character is a little too apolitical for my taste. They are pretty anti-violence, even though they are thrown into the middle of a revolution. I've seen this book compared to "Iron Widow" which i think is unfair, as the MC in that book definitely has a side that they are taking.

The concepts in this book are fun. Fun enough that I kept reading and finished the book. But the main character's blase attitude towards the resistance or the government really disappointed me. And the ending is just kind of weird. I really felt like this was going in the direction of "Babel" which really would have been awesome and would have had the character finally picking a side and growing. But it ended up being very middle of the road.

As a stand alone, this is a solid 3 stars. I really think it needs a sequel to really shine through.