Just a good classic, what can I say. It helps that I‘ve been rewatching the movies for years, imagining the settings was easy. It was interesting to see the divergences the movie made to the book and how much it left out. I would say the book was better but I liked the movie showing President Snow and the game masters more as it set up his formidable role as the antagonist of the series better.

3.5
One of the good Junji Ito stories which is great because all the other stories from him I read this year were just 'okay'.

I think the biggest reason why I enjoyed this more is it wasn't just a collection of short one-chapter stories but it followed an overarching plotline. And whilst it did have a formulaic feel to it, what with the siblings moving to a new town every chapter, it did have a conclusion to their arc and we got to see recurring characters like Keiko and how coming across Yuuma and Chizumi left her.
My only wish is that we got to see rather than be told the background of the sibling's family life before and during the summoning the demonic ritual.

My favourite of the two extra short stories had to be Children of the earth, it was short but the art of the children rooted into the earth was enough to convey the horror. It was so creative but also eerie.
"Human beings were born from the earth, the children simply returned there' says it all.

I wish it was longer and that we got more of an ending than just the narrator’s personal theory on what the library entailed and its structure. I was intrigued with the different sects and philosophies on what purpose or what powers could be obtained in the library (the theory that no two books were the same, that the library had books on all of the past, present and future, yet everyone had their own personal book of vindications and people killed each other to find it and the librarian that read the book that was the compendium of all the books in the library was akin to god for example)

I’ll need to read up on Greek mythology and then re-read this to fully understand it, even though I do know of the Minotaur.

I think I wanted this to be even longer if possible and I rarely say that about books. The descent of our main character was hinted at and set up with her sensitive personality and interactions with others but the last 10-20% of the book felt like we had skipped some time. I wanted to see the deterioration of her mental state whilst the others kept her at arms distance for longer.

This took my 3 weeks via audio to finish since there were just so many stories.
My favourites were

Quantum
Snakes are born in the dark
Heart shaped clock
The prepper
Collections

1.75-2 stars

This was like the bachelor meets the hunger games meets moviestarplanet meets total drama island. Except literally nothing happened other than America's boy drama with Aspen and Maxon. She was meant to be Maxon's friend and help him find his match but she didn't do any matchmaking, she just got herself into a situation-ship with him (I screamed) and told us about characters like Tallaluh got eliminated like we were meant to care when we had never even heard those characters speak.

There wasn't enough drama going on, although the secret her best friend in the selection is keeping intrigues me. I thought this was going to be trashy fun but it was trashy boring and I thought if there isn't going to be drama give me some political intrigue but I guess because the main characters know shit-all about the political state of their world, we as readers are naturally left in the dark as to what is going on. But I would have liked there to be little hints or something more.

I think I'll give book 2 a chance because I think as we uncover more about the world maybe there can be more plot twists and drama hopefully but if book 2 isn't doing it for me I don't think I'll continue with this iconic series.

Oh I just found this book after searching and searching for it on the internet... I remember starting the from book 2 or something yeaaaars ago but I had the time of my life and yet I never finished or continued the series. It's time for me to get back into this.

3.5

I loved learning about the family dynamics, the main couples’ reasons for why they do what they do, and the precarious relationship dynamic they have with one another. Even though most of the plot twists were predictable, especially the gone girl-esque revenge twist, I enjoyed how it was handled. My only issue is that the ending and the final confrontation felt a bit too rushed. I would have liked it to be longer, so we could really feel the gravity of how messed up the situation was and the impact it would have on the other family members.

But overall this was quite a good read, and I think this would make for a great movie.

3 stars

I got a Netgalley arc of this story so thank you to Netgalley and Plough publishing.
I picked this up because the Protestant reformation is one of my favourite historical periods to read about. However, all the previous media I'd consumed about it had been more focused on England so reading about it in Northern Italy, Austria and Czech republic was refreshing. I also learned about the Anabaptists for the first time.

When the story focused on Jakob Hutter it was much stronger, as I found that the addition of the fictional character Peter (inspired by a real life spy) quite weak. Jakob was meant to be his friend yet Peter didn't hesitate ratting him out if it meant getting a chance with Katharina who was so obviously not a match for him, if he would only take into consideration other things like her values and life goals instead of just 'her beauty and sincerity'.

The art style was lovely, it was sort of smudgy and simple and paired well with reading about peasant's revolting and forming their own religious sects. The plot was the strongest part of this story and I guess that is because it is rooted in real life historical happenings, and whilst I understand the recounting of these events to the reader seems to be the biggest purpose of this graphic novel, I wish there was better characterization. For example, rather than following the pov of Peter, I would have preferred Katherina's pov, with a focus on what her life was like before being exposed to anabaptism and what made her so inclined to believe in its teachings. It would have also elevated her romantic arc with Jakob. I would have also liked to see more of Jakob x Peter before being exposed to Anabaptism and their previous failed attempt at Protestant reformation.

Overall this was fun to read, quick to get through, educational and the art style was cute. Since this graphic novel is part of a series about radical reformation I will definitely be checking out the other books to get educated in a fun way.